Skin issues (was: Re: Need todo list for Cocoon transition)

[Diana Shannon <sh...@apache.org>]

Please, let's continue:

<diana>
1. Skin has to be decided by cocoon-dev, right? If so, shouldn't we get 
this process started on cocoon-dev?
</diana>

<steven>
yep (and please refrain from building your own skin ;-)
IMO, the 'bert' skin is the obvious choice right now
</steven>

<david>
Why do you say that? I imagine that many projects will not
want the default Forrest skin and will want to use their own.
I do understand that for this stage of Forrest it would be
far easier to just stick with the default.

Has Forrest yet decided how broad is the scope of its skin?
I am confused as to the intention. Is the skin just for
Forrest home and community docs, or does it apply to all
projects?
</david>

<steven>
Both easiness and consistency, IMO. One of the goals of Forrest is to 
have a uniform xml.apache.org website. The skinning system is mainly 
targeted towards projects externally to xml.apache.org.
</steven>

<konstantin>
I like the 'bert' skin and I think that there will be no problems in
cocoon-dev if we use it for Cocoon site & docs.
</konstantin>

Maybe it's a goal of Forrest to have a uniform xml.apache.org web 
site -- but -- have you actually checked with other xml.apache.org 
projects? Do they consider it a goal? Are all of them represented here? 
Have all of them been participating in the skin development process?

It's seems to me, no. Am I wrong, lurkers?

Strategically speaking, as a friend of Forrest, you need to:
1. Update the Forrest site to show the Bert skin
2. Contact all xml.apache.org projects and ask them to comment on the 
skin. In other words, allow them to influence the design so that they 
"invest" and "own" the final result. Otherwise, I fear it will be 
perceived as a top-down approach which will have limited success.
3. Give cocoon-dev the option to vote on the following:
   a. using Forrest skin on the condition that it can be improved over 
time with their feedback
   b. allow Cocoon to continue using an "updated" (based on new dtds, 
etc.) old skin, with the plan to change the new Forrest skin, once it 
has been enhanced. Yes, I realize this is going to take some work, and 
will delay our efforts, but it can be done.

Maybe Konstantin's right, that Cocoon will adopt the Bert skin with "no 
problems". Still, I'd rather confirm this with a vote (preceeded, of 
course, by a strong and convincing proposal about the "best" approach, 
i.e. option (a) above.)

Above all, let's *not* let skin issues hold up our being able to use all 
the other great stuff Forrest has to offer!

Diana

Re: Skin issues (was: Re: Need todo list for Cocoon transition)

[David Crossley <cr...@indexgeo.com.au>]

Steven Noels wrote:
> Diana Shannon wrote:
> 
> <snip/>
> 
> > Maybe it's a goal of Forrest to have a uniform xml.apache.org web site 
> > -- but -- have you actually checked with other xml.apache.org projects? 
> > Do they consider it a goal? Are all of them represented here? Have all 
> > of them been participating in the skin development process?
> > 
> > It's seems to me, no. Am I wrong, lurkers?
> 
> The bert skin is based on the original proposal of Stefano which has 
> been discussed into much length on general@xml.apache.org during the 
> last months of 2001, IIRC. We know it will be a long time before 
> actually showing something based on the discussions held in that time, 
> but there was a consensus, then:
> 
> * we need a common design
> * of course, it should be optional, you always have projects who like to 
> go their own way (I'm not too keen on this, because it breaks the 
> consistency of the xml.apache.org website, but that's life)
> * the design Stefano proposed that time seemed the way to go forward
> 
> > Strategically speaking, as a friend of Forrest, you need to:
> > 1. Update the Forrest site to show the Bert skin
> 
> I could be doing this next week, although I prefer to wait until Forrest 
> is ready to easily support remote doco building.
> 
> Aside: anyone strong feelings against including Forrest on the 
> xml.apache.org main site?

We should have it there ASAP, after bert skin is happening.
I still think that we are not yet ready with content (e.g the
dreams document is very vague). Anyway, that can improve later.
Let us get it out there, so that we can foster some ownership.

> > 2. Contact all xml.apache.org projects and ask them to comment on the 
> > skin. In other words, allow them to influence the design so that they 
> > "invest" and "own" the final result. Otherwise, I fear it will be 
> > perceived as a top-down approach which will have limited success.
> 
> see above
> 
> It's not that I don't want to go into that discussion anymore, but as 
> Stefano stated some time ago, we should move away from the skins 
> discussion and focus on core issues:
> 
> * remote doco building
> * DTD documentation
> * graphs
> * PDF generation
> * cross-project information (i.e. the main xml.apache.org site)
> 
> I want to tackle some of those so that others hopefully pick them up and 
> enhance them - most of this stuff isn't too hard to implement but we 
> seem to prefer talking about it on this list instead of getting things done.

The reason that there has been a lot of talking, is that
many of us were (and still are) confused as to the role and
the scope of Forrest. It seems that the original discussion
must have happened off-list or still be in the founders' heads.

> <snip/>
> 
> > Above all, let's *not* let skin issues hold up our being able to use all 
> > the other great stuff Forrest has to offer!
> 
> Yep. Do not understand me wrong: I love talking about these issues, but 
> the better model currently seems to me to actually put something into 
> CVS and discuss/change that afterwards.

Yes, this is the best way. Some concrete stuff will help us
to shape and evolve Forrest ... and hopefully encourage more
contributers and thence new committers. There are too few
active troops at the moment.
--David

Re: Skin issues (was: Re: Need todo list for Cocoon transition)

[Steven Noels <st...@outerthought.org>]

Diana Shannon wrote:

<snip/>

> Maybe it's a goal of Forrest to have a uniform xml.apache.org web site 
> -- but -- have you actually checked with other xml.apache.org projects? 
> Do they consider it a goal? Are all of them represented here? Have all 
> of them been participating in the skin development process?
> 
> It's seems to me, no. Am I wrong, lurkers?

The bert skin is based on the original proposal of Stefano which has 
been discussed into much length on general@xml.apache.org during the 
last months of 2001, IIRC. We know it will be a long time before 
actually showing something based on the discussions held in that time, 
but there was a consensus, then:

* we need a common design
* of course, it should be optional, you always have projects who like to 
go their own way (I'm not too keen on this, because it breaks the 
consistency of the xml.apache.org website, but that's life)
* the design Stefano proposed that time seemed the way to go forward

> Strategically speaking, as a friend of Forrest, you need to:
> 1. Update the Forrest site to show the Bert skin

I could be doing this next week, although I prefer to wait until Forrest 
is ready to easily support remote doco building.

Aside: anyone strong feelings against including Forrest on the 
xml.apache.org main site?

> 2. Contact all xml.apache.org projects and ask them to comment on the 
> skin. In other words, allow them to influence the design so that they 
> "invest" and "own" the final result. Otherwise, I fear it will be 
> perceived as a top-down approach which will have limited success.

see above

It's not that I don't want to go into that discussion anymore, but as 
Stefano stated some time ago, we should move away from the skins 
discussion and focus on core issues:

* remote doco building
* DTD documentation
* graphs
* PDF generation
* cross-project information (i.e. the main xml.apache.org site)

I want to tackle some of those so that others hopefully pick them up and 
enhance them - most of this stuff isn't too hard to implement but we 
seem to prefer talking about it on this list instead of getting things done.

<snip/>

> Above all, let's *not* let skin issues hold up our being able to use all 
> the other great stuff Forrest has to offer!

Yep. Do not understand me wrong: I love talking about these issues, but 
the better model currently seems to me to actually put something into 
CVS and discuss/change that afterwards.

Cheers,

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
stevenn@outerthought.org                      stevenn@apache.org