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Conceptual Models

Monday, January 28 2002 @ 10:55 pm EST
Contributed by: MLimburg
Views: 8,546

Time to think carefully people. For us to build the new GL, we need to establish a conceptual model of what we want. This model will try to cover all the bases on the type of site people want to provide, and the services used to build that site.

To help this, I've put together a quick questionaire for you to think about and fill out.

In less than ten words, how would you define your site?
What are the five main features that GL provides for your site?
What are the five main problems you have with GL running your site?
What are the five must-have features to bring your site 'to the next level'?

Think carefully before answering.

Comments

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The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Human-Experiment.com

Authored by: Tane on Tuesday, January 29 2002 @ 01:18 am EST

1) A lot of crap with some E/N rants on it :)
2) News Posting, Comments, User base, template design, blocks of information
3) Complex theme creation, no open submission queue, no official manual plugin install, poor developer documentaion
4) Closer integration with a forum (e.g. phpBB), \"drop-in\" themes, image upload with stories, yahoo-like link system

My Vision

Authored by: MLimburg on Tuesday, January 29 2002 @ 01:20 am EST

My main concept is that of a linked and informed community.

Best:
#1 Web Administration
#2 The Core Features (Stories, Calendar, Polls)
#3 User/Group Security
#4 Well Thought Out Security
#5 Accessories (What\'s new, Links)

WORST:
#1 Cookie Sessions (have non cookie users)
#2 Links (limited in scope)
#3 Code Becoming Too Intricate
#4 \'Too\' Dynamic (too much work on database)
#5 Not a Total Web Admin Environment

KILLER APP:
#1 Object Based Code (core & module) + APT-GET functionality
#2 100% Web Administration
#3 Real Content Management (articles, multimedia, and more)
#4 Combination of database cache and static page creation
#5 More simple and total use of theme/template system

I think these features will make GL shine like no other webapp out there. Seriously, I\'m even thinking of suggesting a changing of the name of the project! This is far more than a blog.

I own webtopia.seourceforge.net ...? Webtopia was the pet name I had for a project I was going to start before I got involved with GL.

-----
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

---
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.

The

Authored by: jcz on Tuesday, January 29 2002 @ 09:39 pm EST

1.) A place to distribute information to and about a diverse non-profit organization.

2.)Archivability, ease of install, flexibility in information presentation, Freeness

3.) I’m worried about when I have to move the site from my own server to a real hosting facility and what I’ve been reading about in terms of directory issues. I found the documentation to be in need of: more content, better organization, centralization, more robustness in general. For instance, I know sourceforge is cool and all. But, lists and forums on source forge, help sections on the geeklog site, random sorta broken files in /docs (watch the case of the file names in /docs). How about an HTML manual with comments like MySQL’s site? More tutorial articles like manually adding the superuser (very handy for me). Hell, make a \'Support\' plugin out of it.

4.) More plugins, blocks, themes, all content-enhancers in general. With better documentation (which I’m willing to help with if someone tells me how) I’d be willing to start building this stuff. For example, phpwebsite has a tutorial on how to write themes. An admin section for controlling the little aspects of the site. Change the color of the section header cells, add links to the middle of the page like on the geeklog homepage, change the logo at the top. Just more control by the admin. I’m going to hand this site off to people who can barely send email and they’ll need to be able to do pretty much everyting with the browser.

Two points ...

Authored by: Dirk on Wednesday, January 30 2002 @ 11:14 am EST

Two things I haven't seen mentioned before, but where I think Geeklog could need some improvement:

1) Localization

The usage of a language file is a good start, but it doesn't cover everything. For example, themes need to be localised separately. Also, there are some problems when you try to make a site where the user can choose the language s/he prefers, e.g. the display of the date and time. A user can choose a language file, but can not select a locale.

2) Valid HTML

Head over to the W3C validator to get an idea of what I am talking about. The HTML that Geeklog produces has a lot of errors in it.

However, most of them are trivial (missing alt attributes for images, using li without the enclosing ul, etc.). So I think this should be fixed since it would increase the chances that Geeklog is being displayed correctly, even on the more exotic browsers. It also helps with CSS in certain browsers (notably Netscape 4).

Just my two Euro cents ...

bye, Dirk

Geeklog rules! But....

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Wednesday, January 30 2002 @ 03:48 pm EST

1.
Live local streaming audio news archives events and more

2.
Open source
Dynamic content
The ability for non unix savy people to contribute
Database frontend
User Feedback

3.
No downloads area
Lacking downloads area ;)
Lots of little bugs
Plugin support/documentation
Not totaly web based

4.
Downloads Downloads Downloads
Bug free (more or less)
Better/broader plugin support. Would be cool to see lots of plugins
Better content management (Ability to move posts around etc.)
More robust link/download system (Comments, ratings, etc)

radical reworking

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Thursday, January 31 2002 @ 07:23 pm EST

at it\'s core do mainly user management (sessions/permissions/groups/etc) possibly article posting and make everything else a plugin apt-getable and you\'ll have more rabid geeklog users than you know what to do with.

How do I define my site?

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Monday, March 25 2002 @ 11:07 am EST

(Q)In less than ten words, how would you define your site?
(A) Site #1 : Gathering place for family members
(A) SIte #2 : instructional website on how to brew beer

(Q)What are the five main features that GL provides for your site?
(A) Site #1 : your AWESOME security model, with groups!
that\'s also 2,3,4,and 5!!! But if forced, I\'d say
the news topics were important, too, and the plugin API
(A) Site #2 : (1) static pages (or as I call it, \"freesytle
content\").
(2) security model
(3) very nice look and feel (Yahoo template)
(4) polls
(5) Your plugin API

(Q) What are the five main problems you have with GL running your site?
(A) Site #1 : (1) Gallery integration (haven\'t tried the hack yet). Other than that, not much, this is a great tool
(A) Site #2: (1) none, really

(Q) What are the five must-have features to bring your site \'to the next level\'?
(A) (both sites combined) (1) better integration of user groups into everything (which groups can see what content)
(2) Easier admin-defined blocks with links (OK, I haven\'t gone through the docs yet, I admit)
(3) email client that does not require a UNIX login (fully DB driven)
(4) FAQ
(5) there is no five

How do I define my site?

Authored by: Anonymous (Anonymous User) on Monday, March 25 2002 @ 01:12 pm EST

p.s. (I know it\'s bad style to follow up your own post)

One thing I think would be useful for submission review is the ability to define editors, and have the review process go through X editors, and at each step retaining the original and the edited version. Perhaps you can add this to your submission engine.

e.g. When I used to work for our university newspaper, everything had to pass 2 different edits, each one done by different people. It would be useful if Geeklog could allow you to do this. Again, at each step it should retain the original submission so that the current editor will be able to read the original intent. But editor X should also be able to read the edited text submitted by editor X-1.

http://portal.langfamily.ca

Authored by: efarmboy on Monday, March 25 2002 @ 07:53 pm EST

1) Site Desc: Family members to share photos, discussions, family calendar and general source for news

2) Five main features: Open Framework, Security model, Collaboration tools and Calendar

3) Five main problems: Little bugs, Template model, More flexible mgmt of Links, No control over new users signing up, no localization

3) Five would likes:

Full HTML editor for articles, staticpages etc

Document upload with version tracking

Easier customization of templates without having to repeat changes after updates

Document upload with version tracking and control

Ability to define other layouts such as 2 col on left, only 1 col

Blaine

Re: Localisation

Authored by: Dirk on Tuesday, March 26 2002 @ 12:57 am EST

Blaine,

could you be more specific about what you mean by "no localisation"? Going through the hassles of trying to build a localised German site myself, I am aware of a couple of stumbling blocks, but the ability to create a localised site is certainly there.

As for the templates: You shouldn't have to redo your custom templates after an upgrade. It's true that when adding new features (such as the ability to post stories to be displayed at a future date, added in 1.3.3) you have to had a couple of lines of code, but these kinds of changes are rare. In general, you should be able to use your "old" theme with a new Geeklog version without any changes.

bye, Dirk

Re: Localisation

Authored by: efarmboy on Tuesday, March 26 2002 @ 04:10 pm EST

Dirk,

I was getting picky because the exercise was to find five for each question. I\'m certainly a big fan of GL and most impressed with it\'s out-of-the-box functionality and effort to get it installed. Having said that, this was my reasoning:

Templates: I have modified (not my first choice and possibly not required) lib-common.php to change the default header labels and insert link with title and image to gallery. I tried setting the default layout in the config.php but found it still was not enough. I like the use of the languages files and have modified constants there as well - as in the primary calendar name to \"Family Calendar\".

Localization: I could have been more specific here. I was actually refering to using univeral time (UTC) and having all time based output adjusted based on local timezone.

Cheers,
Blaine

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