[ZWeb] Zope.org and New zope.org status

Paul Everitt paul@eurozope.org
Sun, 12 Jan 2003 22:20:09 +0100


Jeffrey P Shell wrote:
> I agree.  I think that the content structure should be simplified.  The 
> basic content structure that's on Zope.org isn't necessarily bad, it's 
> the proliferation of content (how-to's, tips, etc) in member folders 
> that needs evaluating; especially out of date documents - do we keep 
> these?  We should ensure that the "modified date" metadata element 
> doesn't change between CZO and NZO.

FWIW, the items in the current Plone-derived NZO skin reflect the work 
done back in May.  We had a few IRC chats and plenty of email 
discussions about the "information architecture" (every time I say that 
I feel pompous.)

That effort and that skin are getting a bit old, so I don't know if the 
conclusions hold up.

[snip]

> I do think that some of Plone's features (automatic ID generation - with 
> the ability to disable ID entry!) are nice for community sites.  I'm 
> sure many on the Zope.org Reviewers list have seen plenty of strange Ids 
> come through (including ones that end up with trailing spaces, etc).  
> ZopeZen works this way, and it's nice - add a news item and just enter 
> the title.  It actually is kindof sucky to have to think of an id for a 
> news item.

Yeh, it seems to have been more frequent lately.

> So Plone does add some nice features, regardless of what one thinks of 
> the UI (I do think that <http://zope.ch/> is much nicer to look at than 
> most Plone sites (especially in Apple's new Safari browser, which 
> doesn't render Plone's tabs well).  Fortunately, UI is replacable.

Particularly in Plone.  There are many examples of Plone sites, such as 
ZopeZen, that don't look like Plone.org.  But they still leverage a lot 
of the wealth of x-browser knowledge accumulated in Plone.

> Another thing I'd recommend (in case this hasn't already been done) - 
> NZO should stick with released software wherever possible, and avoid 
> running on betas or even release candidates (and Plone is still at RC1 
> status) and should definitely avoid running on CVS checkouts.  Meaning - 
> if Plone is wanted, we should make sure that we test heavily against 
> what's there and try to help them get to a bug-free 1.0 release (RC1 has 
> a couple of bugs that are easily fixable (and are fixed in CVS)).

Right, though Plone will likely be released before nzo reaches a2.  Of 
course, both the Plone release and the nzo a2 release are equally out 
there. :^)

As long as that rule is applied consistently, it's a reasonable rule.

> There also seems to be some decent update/customization tools for 
> Plone.  The other thing that the NZO software should take into 
> consideration is upgradability so that it doesn't get stuck on a heavily 
> modified version of Zope 2.6.1 for years :).  Again, I'm sure this 
> thought has crossed everyone's mind.  Plone and ZopeZen seem to have 
> made some progress in this area offering Tools to aid in executing 
> update / configuration scripts.

This is indeed a lesson that, as painful as it has been for current 
zope.org, it would be fruitful to learn going forward.  CZO is really 
brittle.  Why, and are we sufficiently convinced that NZO has addressed 
this?

I know it will feel really good to get away from the CZO monster.  Going 
to Control Panel -> Products is like traveling back in time. 
PortalBase, ZDBase, ZDConfera -- what is this, Neolithic Man?

> *Whew*.  It's now an hour and a half later, and I still haven't eaten.  
> But the zope.org/Documentation page is looking a little bit better!

Yeh well, happy birthday all the same, hope your head feels better. :^)

--Paul