Development of new LibreOffice Extensions and Templates Website - Current Status

Hello,

for those who are interested in the current status of the new
LibreOffice extensions and templates website:

The current extensions and templates website is running on Plone 4.3
with some add-ons. I contributed to two of this add-ons in the past.

Due to some issues with the usability of the current website I decided
to work on two new add-ons for the website to solve this issues a time
ago. I worked on that add-ons a lot in my spare time and finished a
version for Plone 4.3 around the LibreOffice conference in Aarhus. This
add-on versions used five.grok. But this add-on package will not be
actively supported with the current version of Plone, Plone 5.0. Thus I
decided to review my add-ons and drop the five.grok dependency. This
made it necessary to create a lot of changes to the add-ons and nearly
start from scratch. I got a new beta-version of them out now (after some
weeks of work during my spare time).

I created a new test website, that runs on a new shiny Plone 5.0:
http://vm141.documentfoundation.org:9103/loexttem5/en/extensions

There is not much content yet and it is work in progress. The theming is
the Plone default. It's planned to work on this theming next time.
Currently the structure and the desired fields (of the content objects)
are in the focus.

If you want to give feedback on that, I'm happy to hear your ideas and
proposals.

Kind regards,
Andreas

Hi Cor,

Hi Andreas,

Due to some issues with the usability of the current website I decided
to work on two new add-ons for the website to solve this issues a time
ago. I worked on that add-ons a lot in my spare time and finished a
version for Plone 4.3 around the LibreOffice conference in Aarhus. This
add-on versions used five.grok. But this add-on package will not be
actively supported with the current version of Plone, Plone 5.0. Thus I
decided to review my add-ons and drop the five.grok dependency. This
made it necessary to create a lot of changes to the add-ons and nearly
start from scratch. I got a new beta-version of them out now (after some
weeks of work during my spare time).

Looking at these issues, and the fact that you repeatedly emphasize that
you do the work in your free time, I would suggest you to ask the board
to support the work, so that the most can be done in a project by
someone having normal time to do it. And that your, of course fully
understandable limited availability, is no longer a bottle neck. The
site is important enough for such a move, IMO.

the development of the add-ons for the new site (in the revision) is
nearly finished. I had to fix some smaller issues.

But there are some further steps, that had to be done by payed developer:

-- design of the new site
-- content transfer from the current site to the new one
-- adaption of one or two important external add-ons for Plone 5

I created a new test website, that runs on a new shiny Plone 5.0:
http://vm141.documentfoundation.org:9103/loexttem5/en/extensions

Thanks for that, of course :slight_smile:
Few remarks:
1) I was thinking about advantage when the split
    Home | Extensions | Templates
is removed. Extensions are the landing page, for what the very vast
majority comes to the site.
A clear Instructions somewhere will be OK for people.

I have not created a default view (page) for the home of the new site.
If we want to go with a website with translated content, I fear that the
home had to stay (with a default page [translated] with some information
for users).

2) The search top-right is fine, but it is not clear that that is the
way to search for an extension.

This Plone live search will be disabled in the productive state. I have
not done this in the test site yet.

Every part of the site (extensions and templates) will have a search
form for products: extensions or templates. That is already implemented.
You will see the form once you click on one of the entries in by category.

3) Nearly two years ago we made a functional design for some pages.
Can you give an update (wiki?) on the status of the current work in
relation to that design?

Could you provide a link to that page. Maybe I lost track.

Regards,
Andreas

Hi,

Hi Cor,

the development of the add-ons for the new site (in the revision) is
nearly finished. I had to fix some smaller issues.

But there are some further steps, that had to be done by payed developer:

-- design of the new site
-- content transfer from the current site to the new one
-- adaption of one or two important external add-ons for Plone 5

Will be great if there is progress on that part too!
It's already budgetted for?

we could tender that after we got some volunteer testers of the current
status. The tester need only to work with the forms.

It's always possible to change the view of the content objects (center,
project, release, linked release). We could discuss this display/view in
parallel.

Few remarks:

Thanks for the explanation!

Could you provide a link to that page. Maybe I lost track.

I'm not sure if there ever was a wiki, but I found what we worked on here:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:ExtensionsSite_IdeasOnContent_CorNouws_20140210.ods

The elements of your draft are all there (the ordering is a bit
different, but it's possible to rearrange them easily). The views are
created with TAL (Template Attribution Language), which is a bit
different from plain HTML.
(you could find the page templates in the github repository, e.g for the
center.:
https://github.com/tdf/tdf.extensionuploadcenter/blob/master/tdf/extensionuploadcenter/eupcenter_templates/view.pt

I got some hints for the current arrangement of the elements from the
de-Community-Meeting last year. But I'm open for other proposals.

Regards,
Andreas

Hello Andreas, Cor,

Andreas Mantke <maand@gmx.de> @ 2016-01-10 20:03 CET:

Hi,

Hi Cor,

the development of the add-ons for the new site (in the revision) is
nearly finished. I had to fix some smaller issues.

But there are some further steps, that had to be done by payed developer:

-- design of the new site
-- content transfer from the current site to the new one
-- adaption of one or two important external add-ons for Plone 5

Will be great if there is progress on that part too!
It's already budgetted for?

we could tender that after we got some volunteer testers of the current
status. The tester need only to work with the forms.

For the design of the new site, I would strongly suggest to rely on the
designer of the main web site, so that we remain coherent and consistent with
the same design (small variations are of course possible).

When could we start the tendering process (knowing there are two items here,
one being related to design, the other one to the platform development and
migration)?

Best,

Hi Andreas,

Due to some issues with the usability of the current website I decided
to work on two new add-ons for the website to solve this issues a time
ago. I worked on that add-ons a lot in my spare time and finished a
version for Plone 4.3 around the LibreOffice conference in Aarhus. This
add-on versions used five.grok. But this add-on package will not be
actively supported with the current version of Plone, Plone 5.0. Thus I
decided to review my add-ons and drop the five.grok dependency. This
made it necessary to create a lot of changes to the add-ons and nearly
start from scratch. I got a new beta-version of them out now (after some
weeks of work during my spare time).

Looking at these issues, and the fact that you repeatedly emphasize that
you do the work in your free time, I would suggest you to ask the board
to support the work, so that the most can be done in a project by
someone having normal time to do it. And that your, of course fully
understandable limited availability, is no longer a bottle neck. The
site is important enough for such a move, IMO.

I created a new test website, that runs on a new shiny Plone 5.0:
http://vm141.documentfoundation.org:9103/loexttem5/en/extensions

Thanks for that, of course :slight_smile:
Few remarks:
1) I was thinking about advantage when the split
    Home | Extensions | Templates
is removed. Extensions are the landing page, for what the very vast
majority comes to the site.
A clear Instructions somewhere will be OK for people.

2) The search top-right is fine, but it is not clear that that is the
way to search for an extension..

3) Nearly two years ago we made a functional design for some pages.
Can you give an update (wiki?) on the status of the current work in
relation to that design?

Thanks a lot,
Cor

Hello,

Hello Andreas, Cor,

Andreas Mantke <maand@gmx.de> @ 2016-01-10 20:03 CET:

Hi,

Hi Cor,
the development of the add-ons for the new site (in the revision) is
nearly finished. I had to fix some smaller issues.

But there are some further steps, that had to be done by payed developer:

-- design of the new site
-- content transfer from the current site to the new one
-- adaption of one or two important external add-ons for Plone 5

Will be great if there is progress on that part too!
It's already budgetted for?

we could tender that after we got some volunteer testers of the current
status. The tester need only to work with the forms.

For the design of the new site, I would strongly suggest to rely on the
designer of the main web site, so that we remain coherent and consistent with
the same design (small variations are of course possible).

When could we start the tendering process (knowing there are two items here,
one being related to design, the other one to the platform development and
migration)?

I'm afraid we could only start with further steps once we got enough
volunteers to test the current development status.

There is self-registration opened since some weeks. It's also possible
to create and play with content on the test website, but nobody has
given the new site a try up to now.

Regards,
Andreas

Hello Andreas,

Andreas Mantke <maand@gmx.de> @ 2016-01-23 11:05 CET:

Hello,

Hello Andreas, Cor,

Andreas Mantke <maand@gmx.de> @ 2016-01-10 20:03 CET:

Hi,

Hi Cor,
the development of the add-ons for the new site (in the revision) is
nearly finished. I had to fix some smaller issues.

But there are some further steps, that had to be done by payed developer:

-- design of the new site
-- content transfer from the current site to the new one
-- adaption of one or two important external add-ons for Plone 5

Will be great if there is progress on that part too!
It's already budgetted for?

we could tender that after we got some volunteer testers of the current
status. The tester need only to work with the forms.

For the design of the new site, I would strongly suggest to rely on the
designer of the main web site, so that we remain coherent and consistent with
the same design (small variations are of course possible).

When could we start the tendering process (knowing there are two items here,
one being related to design, the other one to the platform development and
migration)?

I'm afraid we could only start with further steps once we got enough
volunteers to test the current development status.

There is self-registration opened since some weeks. It's also possible
to create and play with content on the test website, but nobody has
given the new site a try up to now.

We cannot force people to test the platform :slight_smile: So we may want to go ahead
with the tendering process and make sure tests are included in the migration
tender. Does it make sense?

Best,

Charles.

Hello Charles,

Hello Andreas,

Andreas Mantke <maand@gmx.de> @ 2016-01-23 11:05 CET:

Hello,

(....)
I'm afraid we could only start with further steps once we got enough
volunteers to test the current development status.

There is self-registration opened since some weeks. It's also possible
to create and play with content on the test website, but nobody has
given the new site a try up to now.

We cannot force people to test the platform :slight_smile: So we may want to go ahead
with the tendering process and make sure tests are included in the migration
tender. Does it make sense?

although we cannot force people to test, we need some tests from
possible contributors and not from migration professionals first. We
need to know, if there is nothing wrong in the work flow from a users
perspective and if there are no (minor) bugs.
It's important to have a qa of the current forms and work flow before we
go ahead. If there is no interest to work on such tests I have some
issues with the conclusion of a huge demand in website improvements.

Once we made the necessary tests we could tender the migration, because
we know the connection of the old and the new content objects (and their
fields) then. The tests shouldn't take too much time. If we have a few
volunteers we could manage this maybe in a week or so. It's not a huge
effort. It's not like testing an office application :wink:

Regards,
Andreas