[Zope-PTK] Some designs/models to emulate? beta.pyra.com, discuss.pyra.com

[Dr. Ross Lazarus]

Anyone seen http://beta.pyra.com ? Registration and use is free. 

Well worth an hour or two - it's big and complex so I'd suggest setting
aside some time to explore and test it.

It's the "manage a project" site version of blogger (If you haven't yet
found http://blogger.com , it's a kind of web app for making web logs
which you can optionally host on your own server - uploads stuff via ftp
- very very clever).

Looks to me like it's (ahem) IIS and ASP code. Lot's of clever use of
javascript for help and neat drop down useful windows. Some xml built in
(does rss eg) and uses an xmlish scripting language in the templates.

The forum component ( http://discuss.pyra.com ) is one of the best
layouts I've seen - for example, the top frame shows content and what
you can do to it (eg reply), the bottom frame shows the local geography
(threads or other arrangement of content), while the left frame controls
the choice of forum - neat navigation and control metaphor in my view;
clicking on an author brings up the public profile. 

Also all presumably (coff, coff) IIS and ASP

My 2cents worth - they're developing a set of very very slick web apps
which (in my view) might offer some very interesting design lessons for
the zope ptk vision. 

If they're using ASP and IIS, then they're doing it with horrible tools. 

But it looks great and just seems to work - signs of a powerful and
elegant design I think......even if built with woeful closed source
technologies....