Thread: Proposal for building knowledgebase website.
Dear Sirs, I have started experimenting with a website regarding technical documenting for helping pg developers. I have posted several mailing in the generals and hackers list about the idea to have a knowledgebase website. My idea is to build a knowledge base like the msdn. I have also experimented with a good dynamic loading treeview and framebased look and feel site. The experimenting site can be found at http://www.truesoftware.net/pgdn/ I believe many of PostgreSQL developers would benefit from a knowledge base and perhaps in time the techdocs can be upgraded and migrated to a more structured postgresql developer network. Regarding this mater I have also communicated with Robert Treat. My proposal is to begin with a Q&A section in the beginning. If this is accepted by the community then perhaps we would add more content and groups in the tree and depending on success the techdocs can be migrated to a more structured hierarchical website. Regarding the site programming: It is possible for me to develop the site both in PHP5 or ASP.NET(mono). At this moment I also have the means to host the proposed website. It would be create to have a pgdn.postgresql.org. Kind regards, Gevik Babakhani
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gevik babakhani > Sent: 07 June 2005 21:40 > To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Regarding the site programming: It is possible for me to > develop the site > both in PHP5 or ASP.NET(mono). At this moment I also have the > means to host > the proposed website. It would be create to have a > pgdn.postgresql.org. Hi, If you want to eventually replace techdocs (which is something that needs to be done at some point), then you should use PHP as that is what we use on the PostgreSQL webservers (currently PHP4 though). ASP.NET is not really an option, not only because it's a whole new environment to install and maintain, but also because I wouldn't be surprised if the only people in this group that are experienced in C# (which I assume you would use) or .NET are Magnus and myself (and presumably you). Regards, Dave
Hi,
Building the site in PHP is also okay. Do you know when this is going to de
discussed in the pg team regarding the future of my proposal?
Regards,
Gevik.
-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org]
On Behalf Of Dave Page
Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 9:20 AM
To: Gevik babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org
Cc: Robert Treat
Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gevik babakhani
> Sent: 07 June 2005 21:40
> To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Cc: 'Robert Treat'
> Subject: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website.
>
> Regarding the site programming: It is possible for me to
> develop the site
> both in PHP5 or ASP.NET(mono). At this moment I also have the
> means to host
> the proposed website. It would be create to have a
> pgdn.postgresql.org.
Hi,
If you want to eventually replace techdocs (which is something that
needs to be done at some point), then you should use PHP as that is what
we use on the PostgreSQL webservers (currently PHP4 though). ASP.NET is
not really an option, not only because it's a whole new environment to
install and maintain, but also because I wouldn't be surprised if the
only people in this group that are experienced in C# (which I assume you
would use) or .NET are Magnus and myself (and presumably you).
Regards, Dave
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
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> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 08:53 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > Building the site in PHP is also okay. Do you know when this > is going to de > discussed in the pg team regarding the future of my proposal? It is being discussed (by us, now :-) ) - all discussion is open and on-list (well, excect your original message to webmaster which only a couple of us will have seen). I agree with others by the way - a PGDN concentrating on the server internals itself would be of limited interest, and probably wouldn't be used that much and therefore quickly fall into disuse. I think a more useful task would be to redevelop techdocs - using your MSDN-like interface you could easily accommodate both tasks I believe, and the techdocs stuff definitely *will* get used. If you're willing to go in this direction, then we can look at providing resourses to host the new site provided everyone is happy with protoypes etc. Regards, Dave.
Hi, > I agree with others by the way - a PGDN concentrating on the server > internals itself would be of limited interest, and probably wouldn't be > used that much and therefore quickly fall into disuse. I think a more > useful task would be to redevelop techdocs - using your MSDN-like > interface you could easily accommodate both tasks I believe, and the > techdocs stuff definitely *will* get used. Of course, the interface could easily accommodate both tasks, it could also be searchable and we could add different points of interest in categories inside the tree. So this I think indeed would work. :) > If you're willing to go in this direction, then we can look at providing > resourses to host the new site provided everyone is happy with protoypes > etc. I would very much like to do that. I think this would be of a great benefit to all of us. Please let me know how to go further from here. Regards, Gevik -----Original Message----- From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Dave Page Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 10:16 AM To: Gevik Babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org Cc: Robert Treat Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 08:53 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > Building the site in PHP is also okay. Do you know when this > is going to de > discussed in the pg team regarding the future of my proposal? It is being discussed (by us, now :-) ) - all discussion is open and on-list (well, excect your original message to webmaster which only a couple of us will have seen). I agree with others by the way - a PGDN concentrating on the server internals itself would be of limited interest, and probably wouldn't be used that much and therefore quickly fall into disuse. I think a more useful task would be to redevelop techdocs - using your MSDN-like interface you could easily accommodate both tasks I believe, and the techdocs stuff definitely *will* get used. If you're willing to go in this direction, then we can look at providing resourses to host the new site provided everyone is happy with protoypes etc. Regards, Dave. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 09:41 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > I would very much like to do that. I think this would be of a > great benefit > to all of us. Please let me know how to go further from here. You should probably start by making suitable introductory pages for the site, and adding some sample content from techdocs to demonstrate what the first tiem user will see, and how easily they can access the site. From our point of view, we will also be interested in maintenance of the site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we add/remove other docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. A couple of other things to note - first, all code should be BSD licenced and when at an acceptable state, moved into our web CVS. Secondly all layout and styles etc. should be easily changeable - ie. not contained within any of the content. Oh, and please try to avoid using any unusual PHP/Apache configurations! I look forward to seeing a demo :-) Regards, Dave
Hi, What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should we go on with "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? Could you also provide information about the database version that is preferred (hopefully 8.++) and the PHP modules that is available at this moment. I would like to make my development environment same as the current configurations of postgres.org. For php, a <? phpinfo(); ?> should be more than enough. > From our point of view, we will also be interested in maintenance of the > site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we add/remove other > docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. This is an important point of attention. If we want to put the content "outside" the database then we would have to index the content somehow for searching. To that, if the content is decided to be saved "inside" the database then we have to discuss the how the resources used in the content would we accessed. For example: Let's say we have some html content saved inside the database, and this page has a coupe of images. Where would these images be saved? And how would these be accessed again? Regards, Gevik.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 10:50 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should > we go on with > "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? Personally I quite like PostgreSQL Developer Network, but that one is definitely for discussion. > Could you also provide information about the database version that is > preferred (hopefully 8.++) and the PHP modules that is > available at this > moment. I would like to make my development environment same > as the current > configurations of postgres.org. For php, a <? phpinfo(); ?> > should be more > than enough. The box I'm thinking of doesn't have PostgreSQL or PHP installed atm - well, there is a default PHP, but it should be upgraded - currently it is: dpage@postgres:~> php -v PHP 4.3.8 (cli) (built: Oct 6 2004 13:04:29) Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies dpage@postgres:~> php -m [PHP Modules] openssl overload pcre posix standard tokenizer xml [Zend Modules] It's not currently used however, so can be changed as required. My main concern is that there aren't heaps of dependencies, so building replacement machines is easy if required. > > From our point of view, we will also be interested in > maintenance of the > > site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we > add/remove other > > docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. > > This is an important point of attention. If we want to put > the content > "outside" the database then we would have to index the > content somehow for > searching. To that, if the content is decided to be saved "inside" the > database then we have to discuss the how the resources used > in the content > would we accessed. > > For example: Let's say we have some html content saved inside > the database, > and this page has a coupe of images. Where would these images > be saved? And > how would these be accessed again? In the main site (and the CMS I'm writing ATM at work), files as you describe are stored outside the database under /files or a similar static location. As for indexing for searching, I would suggest not worrying about it - the existing search engine (http://search.postgresql.org) will cover that with suitable templates. Regards, Dave.
Hi, I like the name "PostgreSQL Developer Network" because is more general, so let's. If it's okay I would like to use this name for the time being. Do you know who we can address regarding installations and upgrading the current software and possible account creations for the future? If possible, could you please provide some information about who is who? (I read the "who is who" on the main site but I am a bit lost regarding the pg organizational tree) Ps, Sorry to ask so many questions. I only am exploring the path I walk regarding this. Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Page [mailto:dpage@vale-housing.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 12:02 PM > To: Gevik Babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > > Sent: 08 June 2005 10:50 > > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > Hi, > > > > What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should > > we go on with > > "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? > > Personally I quite like PostgreSQL Developer Network, but that one is > definitely for discussion. > > > Could you also provide information about the database version that is > > preferred (hopefully 8.++) and the PHP modules that is > > available at this > > moment. I would like to make my development environment same > > as the current > > configurations of postgres.org. For php, a <? phpinfo(); ?> > > should be more > > than enough. > > The box I'm thinking of doesn't have PostgreSQL or PHP installed atm - > well, there is a default PHP, but it should be upgraded - currently it > is: > > dpage@postgres:~> php -v > PHP 4.3.8 (cli) (built: Oct 6 2004 13:04:29) > Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group > Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies > dpage@postgres:~> php -m > [PHP Modules] > openssl > overload > pcre > posix > standard > tokenizer > xml > > [Zend Modules] > > It's not currently used however, so can be changed as required. My main > concern is that there aren't heaps of dependencies, so building > replacement machines is easy if required. > > > > From our point of view, we will also be interested in > > maintenance of the > > > site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we > > add/remove other > > > docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. > > > > This is an important point of attention. If we want to put > > the content > > "outside" the database then we would have to index the > > content somehow for > > searching. To that, if the content is decided to be saved "inside" the > > database then we have to discuss the how the resources used > > in the content > > would we accessed. > > > > For example: Let's say we have some html content saved inside > > the database, > > and this page has a coupe of images. Where would these images > > be saved? And > > how would these be accessed again? > > In the main site (and the CMS I'm writing ATM at work), files as you > describe are stored outside the database under /files or a similar > static location. As for indexing for searching, I would suggest not > worrying about it - the existing search engine > (http://search.postgresql.org) will cover that with suitable templates. > > Regards, Dave.
Hi, On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: >> What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should >> we go on with >> "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? > > Personally I quite like PostgreSQL Developer Network, but that one is > definitely for discussion. What about "PostgreSQL Global Developer Network" , which sounds like PGDG :) -- Devrim GUNDUZ devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr http://www.tdmsoft.com.tr http://www.gunduz.org
I for one would like to see something that plugs into the current framework. That way it can use the already existing network of mirrors to get both redundancy and performance. If possible also fit in the graphical framework to maintain the "one site identity". IMHO, of course. //mha > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gevik Babakhani > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 9:53 AM > To: 'Dave Page'; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > Building the site in PHP is also okay. Do you know when this > is going to de discussed in the pg team regarding the future > of my proposal? > > Regards, > Gevik. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] > On Behalf Of Dave Page > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 9:20 AM > To: Gevik babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gevik babakhani > > Sent: 07 June 2005 21:40 > > To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > > Subject: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > Regarding the site programming: It is possible for me to > develop the > > site both in PHP5 or ASP.NET(mono). At this moment I also have the > > means to host the proposed website. It would be create to have a > > pgdn.postgresql.org. > > Hi, > > If you want to eventually replace techdocs (which is something that > needs to be done at some point), then you should use PHP as > that is what > we use on the PostgreSQL webservers (currently PHP4 though). > ASP.NET is > not really an option, not only because it's a whole new environment to > install and maintain, but also because I wouldn't be surprised if the > only people in this group that are experienced in C# (which I > assume you > would use) or .NET are Magnus and myself (and presumably you). > > Regards, Dave > > ---------------------------(end of > broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq > > > > ---------------------------(end of > broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to > majordomo@postgresql.org >
> Hi, > > What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should > we go on with "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? To go with my other post, I would much rather see "community" as a subsection (while large) on the main site. //Magnus
Hi Magnus, If I understand correctly, you meant to put the "community" as a subsection on the "new tree". Otherwise, please explain. Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: Magnus Hagander [mailto:mha@sollentuna.net] > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 12:22 PM > To: Gevik Babakhani; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > Hi, > > > > What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should > > we go on with "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? > > To go with my other post, I would much rather see "community" as a > subsection (while large) on the main site. > > > //Magnus
Hi, The "PostgreSQL Global Developer Network" sounds also nice Let's keep this also in mind. :) Reagrds, Gevik > -----Original Message----- > From: Devrim GUNDUZ [mailto:devrim@gunduz.org] > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 12:19 PM > To: Dave Page > Cc: Gevik Babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org; Robert Treat > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > Hi, > > On Wed, 8 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > > >> What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should > >> we go on with > >> "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"? > > > > Personally I quite like PostgreSQL Developer Network, but that one is > > definitely for discussion. > > What about "PostgreSQL Global Developer Network" , which sounds like PGDG > :) > > -- > Devrim GUNDUZ > devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr > http://www.tdmsoft.com.tr http://www.gunduz.org
Hi, I agree with the consistency. Who can help me with some technical information the current framework. Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www- > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Magnus Hagander > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 12:20 PM > To: Gevik Babakhani; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > I for one would like to see something that plugs into the current > framework. That way it can use the already existing network of mirrors > to get both redundancy and performance. > If possible also fit in the graphical framework to maintain the "one > site identity". > > IMHO, of course. >
> Hi Magnus, > If I understand correctly, you meant to put the "community" as a subsection on the "new tree". Otherwise, > please explain. No, I mean (as below) to integerate it fully in the main site instead of keeping a separate site. IMHO, PostgreSQL has for a long time lacked a lot in end-user-friendlyness by having a ton of different sites for different things, making it very unclear where to find thigns. Several of these were folderi nto the main site with the change to the latest design, which was great. I think the long-term goal should be to fold more in there rather than to go back in the other direction with more different sites. > I agree with the consistency. Who can help me with some > technical information the current framework. Get the cvs code from the gborg cvs and poke around in it. For further things, ask on the list. Not sure if there are any "experts" still around, but there are a bunch of people who know pretty much how it works ;-) //Magnus
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 11:17 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > I like the name "PostgreSQL Developer Network" because is > more general, so > let's. If it's okay I would like to use this name for the time being. > > Do you know who we can address regarding installations and > upgrading the > current software and possible account creations for the future? That would be me, Magnus Hagander and Marc Fournier as a general rule. > If possible, could you please provide some information about > who is who? (I > read the "who is who" on the main site but I am a bit lost > regarding the pg > organizational tree) It's all a bit ad-hoc really. The 'webmasters' are basically myself and Robert Treat, whilst the main sysadmins are myself, Magnus and Marc. There are also various other (invaluable) people who help out on particular projects (eg. John Hansen hosts and runs search.postgresql.org), or in general (such as Devrim Gunduz who helps out on various projects). > Sorry to ask so many questions. I only am exploring the path I walk > regarding this. No problem. Regards, Dave
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Magnus Hagander [mailto:mha@sollentuna.net]
> Sent: 08 June 2005 11:22
> To: Gevik Babakhani; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org
> Cc: Robert Treat
> Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website.
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > What do you think about the naming of the "new" site. Should
> > we go on with "techdocs" or "postgres developer network (pgdn)"?
>
> To go with my other post, I would much rather see "community" as a
> subsection (while large) on the main site.
Why the heck didn't that cross my mind? Yes, I think that would be
preferable.
On the master webserver we are currently running PostgreSQL 7.4.6, and
php looks like:
> php -v
PHP 4.3.9 (cli) (built: Nov 4 2004 02:06:15)
Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v1.3.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2004 Zend Technologies
with Turck MMCache v2.4.6, Copyright (c) 2002-2003 TurckSoft, St.
Petersburg, by Dmitry Stogov
> php -m
[PHP Modules]
bz2
ctype
exif
ftp
gd
gettext
iconv
mbstring
mcal
mcrypt
mhash
overload
pcre
pgsql
posix
pspell
session
sockets
standard
tokenizer
Turck MMCache
xml
xmlrpc
zlib
[Zend Modules]
Turck MMCache
Regards, Dave.
Hi, If it is okay with you, I would like to start developing on my server. If possible it would be nice to link pgdn.postgresql.org to a separate acceptance environment on my server. The development site would be pgdn.truesoftware.net. Ps, Are there any plans to upgrade the main server to version 8? Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Page [mailto:dpage@vale-housing.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 1:57 PM > To: Gevik Babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > > Sent: 08 June 2005 11:17 > > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > Hi, > > > > I like the name "PostgreSQL Developer Network" because is > > more general, so > > let's. If it's okay I would like to use this name for the time being. > > > > Do you know who we can address regarding installations and > > upgrading the > > current software and possible account creations for the future? > > That would be me, Magnus Hagander and Marc Fournier as a general rule. > > > If possible, could you please provide some information about > > who is who? (I > > read the "who is who" on the main site but I am a bit lost > > regarding the pg > > organizational tree) > > It's all a bit ad-hoc really. The 'webmasters' are basically myself and > Robert Treat, whilst the main sysadmins are myself, Magnus and Marc. > There are also various other (invaluable) people who help out on > particular projects (eg. John Hansen hosts and runs > search.postgresql.org), or in general (such as Devrim Gunduz who helps > out on various projects). > > > > Sorry to ask so many questions. I only am exploring the path I walk > > regarding this. > > No problem. > > Regards, Dave
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 13:28 > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hi, > > If it is okay with you, I would like to start developing on > my server. > If possible it would be nice to link pgdn.postgresql.org to a separate > acceptance environment on my server. The development site would be > pgdn.truesoftware.net. Let's see if what you propose gets accepted by the pgsql-www group before we start adding DNS records etc. > Ps, > Are there any plans to upgrade the main server to version 8? None at the moment, but that's mainly because we don't need any 8.0 features and we have more urgent things to do. Do you need any 8.0 features in particular? Regards, Dave.
Hi, Regarding the pg version 8: I was thinking until the time this is developed and accepted the version on the main server hopefully will be upgraded. About the acceptance: I will be waiting for the final answer. Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: Dave Page [mailto:dpage@vale-housing.co.uk] > Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2005 2:52 PM > To: Gevik Babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Robert Treat > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > > Sent: 08 June 2005 13:28 > > To: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Cc: 'Robert Treat' > > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > Hi, > > > > If it is okay with you, I would like to start developing on > > my server. > > If possible it would be nice to link pgdn.postgresql.org to a separate > > acceptance environment on my server. The development site would be > > pgdn.truesoftware.net. > > Let's see if what you propose gets accepted by the pgsql-www group > before we start adding DNS records etc. > > > Ps, > > Are there any plans to upgrade the main server to version 8? > > None at the moment, but that's mainly because we don't need any 8.0 > features and we have more urgent things to do. Do you need any 8.0 > features in particular? > > Regards, Dave.
> > Hi, > > > > If it is okay with you, I would like to start developing on > my server. > > If possible it would be nice to link pgdn.postgresql.org to > a separate > > acceptance environment on my server. The development site would be > > pgdn.truesoftware.net. > > Let's see if what you propose gets accepted by the pgsql-www > group before we start adding DNS records etc. If you manage to get it into the framework, you'd get www.postgresql.org. And if that's the eventual goal, just using your dev address should work fine until then, no? //Magnus
Gevik, > From our point of view, we will also be interested in maintenance of the > site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we add/remove other > docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. From my perspective, the important thing is to make it easy for people to contribute *without* coding any HTML or other markup. There are quite a number of tools that allow people to use WYSWYG editors in content management, WebDAV using OpenOffice.org, etc. If you require formatted HTML and CVS uploads, you won't get any contributions. To that end, there are a number of existing content management engines you could start with. For one, Gavin Roy of our WWW team is building Framewerk, a PHP+Postgres easy CMS. I think it would be a *lot* easier for you to add search functions to his code than to do your own from scratch. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
Gevik, > Ps, > Are there any plans to upgrade the main server to version 8? When you have something done, I can provide your site a place to live. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> > From our point of view, we will also be interested in > maintenance of > > the site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we > add/remove > > other docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. > > From my perspective, the important thing is to make it easy > for people to > contribute *without* coding any HTML or other markup. There > are quite a > number of tools that allow people to use WYSWYG editors in content > management, WebDAV using OpenOffice.org, etc. If you > require formatted HTML > and CVS uploads, you won't get any contributions. Definitly. Though it should be some tool that generates reasonably clean HTML. > To that end, there are a number of existing content > management engines you > could start with. For one, Gavin Roy of our WWW team is > building Framewerk, > a PHP+Postgres easy CMS. I think it would be a *lot* easier > for you to add > search functions to his code than to do your own from scratch. I will scream this until my throat is sore - if at all possible, can we please at least try to keep things on the same site, and not create yet another one? Please? This can all be done that way. I'm unsure wether you can just plug in an existing CMS, but you can certainly steal code from it and push it into the framework we have. //Magnus
Magnus Hagander wrote: >Definitly. Though it should be some tool that generates reasonably clean >HTML. > > tidy is amazing for doing this. Gavin
Magnus,
> I will scream this until my throat is sore - if at all possible, can
> we
> please at least try to keep things on the same site, and not create
> yet
> another one? Please?
Oh, just a *little* web site? Please? ;-)
> This can all be done that way. I'm unsure wether you can just plug in
> an
> existing CMS, but you can certainly steal code from it and push it
> into
> the framework we have.
Actually, I believe that Gavin make Framewerk compatible with
Postgresql.org XML-CSS. So it ought to be integratable. Any
searchable knowledgebase will have to be "seperate" on the backend
though so that it can be dynamically searchable.
BTW, the other thing that this KB will need to incorporate is the
existing FAQs. Which means that it also needs to be fully
multi-lingual.
--Josh
______AGLIO DATABASE SOLUTIONS___________________________
Josh Berkus
Complete information technology josh@agliodbs.com
and data management solutions (415) 752-2500
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Josh Berkus wrote: >Actually, I believe that Gavin make Framewerk compatible with >Postgresql.org XML-CSS. So it ought to be integratable. Any >searchable knowledgebase will have to be "seperate" on the backend >though so that it can be dynamically searchable. > > You mean I could I think ;-). That's definately an option if you would like a CMS backend to integrade the techdocs and this pgdn idea in the main site. One thing I don't like about the pgdn is the tree view only approach. It should have good navigation sans JavaScript. I could also probably just make a Framewerk "Light" that generates the XML-CSS needed. I've not done any work against the current site software. Gavin
> > I will scream this until my throat is sore - if at all > possible, can > > we please at least try to keep things on the same site, and > not create > > yet another one? Please? > > Oh, just a *little* web site? Please? ;-) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo oooooooooooooooo......... *silence* *echo* *silence* > > This can all be done that way. I'm unsure wether you can > just plug in > > an existing CMS, but you can certainly steal code from it > and push it > > into the framework we have. > > Actually, I believe that Gavin make Framewerk compatible with > Postgresql.org XML-CSS. So it ought to be integratable. Any > searchable knowledgebase will have to be "seperate" on the > backend though so that it can be dynamically searchable. Any real reason it needs to be searchable more than the rest of the site? > BTW, the other thing that this KB will need to incorporate is the > existing FAQs. Which means that it also needs to be fully > multi-lingual. Partially. The website itself supports language negotiation. This is *not* used for the FAQs today. They are pulled from the main CVS, and just linked separately each file. This is partially because since they are pulled from CVS it's the only way, partially because the FAQs are almost always in different stages of updating so ppl who want to read a non-english FAQ probablyi want the english FAQ *as well*. //Magnus
Magnus, > Any real reason it needs to be searchable more than the rest of the > site? Yeah, so that people can type things like: "audit triggers" or "SSL connection" or "pg_restore bug" and get relevant KB items. The current FAQ pretty much requires you to read the whole darned thing to find the info you want. > Partially. > The website itself supports language negotiation. This is *not* used for > the FAQs today. They are pulled from the main CVS, and just linked > separately each file. This is partially because since they are pulled > from CVS it's the only way, partially because the FAQs are almost always > in different stages of updating so ppl who want to read a non-english > FAQ probablyi want the english FAQ *as well*. Hmmmm. Makes sense. So each KB item should display in its orginal language as well as the current translation? --Josh -- __Aglio Database Solutions_______________ Josh Berkus Consultant josh@agliodbs.com www.agliodbs.com Ph: 415-752-2500 Fax: 415-752-2387 2166 Hayes Suite 200 San Francisco, CA
> > Any real reason it needs to be searchable more than the rest of the > > site? > > Yeah, so that people can type things like: > "audit triggers" or "SSL connection" or "pg_restore bug" and > get relevant > KB items. The current FAQ pretty much requires you to read > the whole > darned thing to find the info you want. Well, I can type "audit triggers" into the website search. Gives me hits in the docs. The point is - one search engine only please ;-) > > Partially. > > The website itself supports language negotiation. This is > *not* used > > for the FAQs today. They are pulled from the main CVS, and > just linked > > separately each file. This is partially because since they > are pulled > > from CVS it's the only way, partially because the FAQs are almost > > always in different stages of updating so ppl who want to read a > > non-english FAQ probablyi want the english FAQ *as well*. > > Hmmmm. Makes sense. So each KB item should display in its orginal > language as well as the current translation? That seems like a good way to do it - if we even get translations. A lot of work was put into putting a translation infrastructure for the webpage in place, but AFAIK not a single page (except the FAQs which aren't in the actual website) has been translated. //MAgnus
Magnus, > That seems like a good way to do it - if we even get translations. A lot > of work was put into putting a translation infrastructure for the > webpage in place, but AFAIK not a single page (except the FAQs which > aren't in the actual website) has been translated. Well, there's a couple reasons for that: 1) there's no documentation that I know of which explains how to translate the site. Nor has any attempt been make to recruit translators. 2) the translation infrastructure is very much organized around generating all new content in English and then pushing it off to the other languages to translate, not letting them generate their own content. This means that, for example, postgresql.org.br would need to translate our site *and* maintain their own. Which they're unlikely to do. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 14:29, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Magnus,
>
> > That seems like a good way to do it - if we even get translations. A lot
> > of work was put into putting a translation infrastructure for the
> > webpage in place, but AFAIK not a single page (except the FAQs which
> > aren't in the actual website) has been translated.
>
> Well, there's a couple reasons for that:
> 1) there's no documentation that I know of which explains how to translate
> the site. Nor has any attempt been make to recruit translators.
>
IMHO this is a red herring, since there is documentation that gets you
80% of the way there. Thing is that 80% is such a huge task it's
overwhelming for most folks.
> 2) the translation infrastructure is very much organized around generating
> all new content in English and then pushing it off to the other languages
> to translate, not letting them generate their own content. This means
> that, for example, postgresql.org.br would need to translate our site
> *and* maintain their own. Which they're unlikely to do.
>
I'm pretty sure you can create pages in other languages that do not
exist in the english language, but yes, the general idea is that of
making the main site multi-lingual, not for letting everyone do their
own thing... and people like to do their own thing.
Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
Okay I guess the discussion has taken life. This means that the whole idea of a good kb is important for all of us. In reply to the last couple of postings: - keeping the kb up to date and adding content would never work without the contribution of many who are worked hard to keep this great software as it is today. So I think a kb should be easy to use and administer yet manageable to the needs of the developers. I think having the WYSIWSG style editing component would benefit the most. I would like to see the kb in a way which any one who considers contributing would able to concentrate on contributing itself and not worrying about HTML and tags and other "unimportant" things. To that any contribution and writing should be review and validated before it can reach to the "public" - Regarding keeping everything in the same site: The way I imagine, I must agree with Magnus. Creating yet another sites means having more administrative responsibilities, this would result fragmenting the current consistency and make updates and upgrades more of pain than fun. Using the current framework and "borrowing" idea's from other sites is the way to go these days. You would agree with me to say that our future KB must be invented somewhere else on this planet. There is suggestions to use "tidy". I am going to check it also. - About the treeview. I have made some experiments with the treeview. After trying many of these components, I have been pointed to one called xtree. This is the best so far. It is dynamically loading and expanding. You do not need to generate all the tree-nodes at ones. After expanding some parent node the child nodes get dynamically downloaded and created. I have tested the tree with the current source files. As you might now, the current source tree is made of many files and sub directories. The xtree did not have any problem creating and loading of the nodes both in IE and FireFox. Netscape has to be tested yet. - About the multilingual: I must agree with Josh. This is rather a sensitive point. I personally think you won't be able to translate all the kb content to different languages. Most of the time there would be no need yet translating everything would be overkill in functionality. We could make a survey to see how many people really have the NEED to read the kb in languages other than English. - The searching: a kb would be no kb if there isn't a dependable search facility. In the past mailing that I have communicated with Dave, I understood that there is a good search system "search.postgresql.org" that we can use. Regards, Gevik.
> > That seems like a good way to do it - if we even get translations. A lot > of work was put into putting a translation infrastructure for the > webpage in place, but AFAIK not a single page (except the FAQs which > aren't in the actual website) has been translated. Hello all, Actually, I have begun translating the static pages into Romanian. Most of them are done but they are a little outdated because I wrote them starting from the English version a couple of months ago. I haven't translated the weekly news yet and I suspect that some modifications have been made to the English pages in the meantime. So I'll need to review the modified pages . When I'll have the static pages and the .po file finished, I'll post a mail about it on the list. Cheers, Adrian Maier
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Robert Treat > Sent: 08 June 2005 20:30 > To: josh@agliodbs.com > Cc: Magnus Hagander; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 14:29, Josh Berkus wrote: > > Magnus, > > > > > That seems like a good way to do it - if we even get > translations. A lot > > > of work was put into putting a translation infrastructure for the > > > webpage in place, but AFAIK not a single page (except the > FAQs which > > > aren't in the actual website) has been translated. > > > > Well, there's a couple reasons for that: > > 1) there's no documentation that I know of which explains > how to translate > > the site. Nor has any attempt been make to recruit translators. > > > > IMHO this is a red herring, since there is documentation that gets you > 80% of the way there. Thing is that 80% is such a huge task it's > overwhelming for most folks. Documentation is at http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/cvs/co.php/portal/README, plus I've posted more detailed instructions to the list on at least one occasion. > > 2) the translation infrastructure is very much organized > around generating > > all new content in English and then pushing it off to the > other languages > > to translate, not letting them generate their own content. > This means > > that, for example, postgresql.org.br would need to > translate our site > > *and* maintain their own. Which they're unlikely to do. > > > > I'm pretty sure you can create pages in other languages that do not > exist in the english language, but yes, the general idea is that of > making the main site multi-lingual, not for letting everyone do their > own thing... and people like to do their own thing. You can. Each language is totally independent of the others. The only cross-over occurs when you have files of the same name in different languages, in which case you will be dispatched the version in the highest priority language that your browser will accept. If one language put all it's text under, say, /foo/, then it would be completely independent of the rest of the site. Regards, Dave
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > Sent: 08 June 2005 16:52 > To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Cc: Gevik Babakhani > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Gevik, > > > From our point of view, we will also be interested in > maintenance of the > > site - how do we add/remove/edit HTML docs, how do we > add/remove other > > docs (PDFs etc) and that sort of thing. > > From my perspective, the important thing is to make it easy > for people to > contribute *without* coding any HTML or other markup. All the work is currently being done by people that know HTML so initially that is all the support that is required, however in the longterm this will definitely be useful. > There > are quite a > number of tools that allow people to use WYSWYG editors in content > management, WebDAV using OpenOffice.org, etc. If you > require formatted HTML > and CVS uploads, you won't get any contributions. We don't want end users directly adding content anyway. At the moment they simply mail it to us and one of us (invariably Robert) adds it to techdocs. Aside from the editorial issues of allowing users to submit stuff directly (which could be handled as we do the doc comments I guess), we also need to ensure that whatever is added is compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict. That might be difficult if we allow any old webdav tool to connect and edit data. > To that end, there are a number of existing content > management engines you > could start with. For one, Gavin Roy of our WWW team is > building Framewerk, > a PHP+Postgres easy CMS. I think it would be a *lot* easier > for you to add > search functions to his code than to do your own from scratch. We have a search engine. No need to reinvent that. /D
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 08 June 2005 21:16 > To: 'Magnus Hagander'; 'Josh Berkus'; > pgsql-www@postgresql.org; Dave Page; > xzilla@users.sourceforge.net; gmr@ehpg.net; devrim@gunduz.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Okay I guess the discussion has taken life. This means that > the whole idea > of a good kb is important for all of us. > > In reply to the last couple of postings: > > - keeping the kb up to date and adding content would never > work without the > contribution of many who are worked hard to keep this great > software as it > is today. So I think a kb should be easy to use and administer yet > manageable to the needs of the developers. I think having the > WYSIWSG style > editing component would benefit the most. I would like to see > the kb in a > way which any one who considers contributing would able to > concentrate on > contributing itself and not worrying about HTML and tags and other > "unimportant" things. To that any contribution and writing > should be review > and validated before it can reach to the "public" As I replied to Josh though, this is a secondary issue. Let's get techdocs replaced first with a system *we* can use. We can bolt in some sort of WYSIWYG editor/simple markup syntax later. In reality, it will almost certainly be mainly us the maintains this - the majority of submissions I see from people are from people we don't already know, and not from people who are likely to have any access to add their own content. > - Regarding keeping everything in the same site: > The way I imagine, I must agree with Magnus. Creating yet > another sites > means having more administrative responsibilities, this would result > fragmenting the current consistency and make updates and > upgrades more of > pain than fun. Using the current framework and "borrowing" > idea's from other > sites is the way to go these days. You would agree with me to > say that our > future KB must be invented somewhere else on this planet. Agreed, this is the way forward. The current framework is pretty complex when you don't know the code though - when you're ready, start a new thread and I'm sure Magnus and I can help you understand it. > There is suggestions to use "tidy". I am going to check it also. > > - About the treeview. I have made some experiments with the > treeview. After > trying many of these components, I have been pointed to one > called xtree. > This is the best so far. It is dynamically loading and > expanding. You do not > need to generate all the tree-nodes at ones. After expanding > some parent > node the child nodes get dynamically downloaded and created. > I have tested > the tree with the current source files. As you might now, the > current source > tree is made of many files and sub directories. The xtree did > not have any > problem creating and loading of the nodes both in IE and > FireFox. Netscape > has to be tested yet. Personally I have no problem with the treeview, however, in the UK we have to ensure that site are accessible to everyone - we should ensure that is the case for the KB as well imho. See http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ for details - we always go for Double A or higher rating. > - About the multilingual: I must agree with Josh. This is > rather a sensitive > point. I personally think you won't be able to translate all > the kb content > to different languages. Most of the time there would be no need yet > translating everything would be overkill in functionality. We > could make a > survey to see how many people really have the NEED to read the kb in > languages other than English. We may not translate it all, however the existing site *can* be translated, so the KB should be translatable as well. Shouldn't be too hard - all the language negotiation code is already there - you'll just need to be able to select pages based on a language ID as well as filename. Regards, Dave.
> > There > > are quite a > > number of tools that allow people to use WYSWYG editors in content > > management, WebDAV using OpenOffice.org, etc. If you > > require formatted HTML > > and CVS uploads, you won't get any contributions. > > We don't want end users directly adding content anyway. At > the moment they simply mail it to us and one of us > (invariably Robert) adds it to techdocs. > > Aside from the editorial issues of allowing users to submit > stuff directly (which could be handled as we do the doc > comments I guess), we also need to ensure that whatever is > added is compliant XHTML 1.0 Strict. That might be difficult > if we allow any old webdav tool to connect and edit data. I for one would like to see anybody being able to add content, but then have it approved before it goes on the site. Same way we handle news/events/services/doc-comments today. The bar for the contributor has to be lowered as absolutely far as possible. But I agree not to allow "any webdav tool" to do it. We should provide something like HTMLArea (anything like it will do, just an example!) for the people who contribute. (Or they can still mail, of course) (BTW, XHTML 1.0 Strict is pretty easy to validate. It's a hell of a lot easier to validate than non-X-versions of HTML. It's like 6-7 lines of code in C# [yeah, yeah, we do PHP, but C# is where I've implemented such validation before]. There should be tools around for PHP to that as well, can't imagine there aren't) //Magnus
Dear People, Based on the mailing we have exchanged during past days, can I conclude that the proposal for building a new knowledgebase site is accepted by the PostgreSQL team and the community? If So I please confirm it. The next step for me would be to write a general functional requirements plan that is going to be a summary of all the points we have discussed during past days. Regrads, Gevik.
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gevik Babakhani > Sent: 09 June 2005 11:24 > To: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dear People, > > Based on the mailing we have exchanged during past days, can > I conclude that > the proposal for building a new knowledgebase site is accepted by the > PostgreSQL team and the community? If So I please confirm it. Yes, if KB site == techdocs + enhancements, then it has been a todo item for some time. We've just been waiting for someone with your enthusiasm to step up to the task :-) > The next step for me would be to write a general functional > requirements > plan that is going to be a summary of all the points we have discussed > during past days. OK, sounds good. Regards, Dave.
Dave, > All the work is currently being done by people that know HTML so > initially that is all the support that is required, however in the > longterm this will definitely be useful. Well, that's certainly self-fulfilling. The reason why the number of PostgreSQL websites keeps expanding is partly because the main site is pretty useless to the majority of the community for sharing information. I know that I specifically stopped submitting stuff to Techdocs because I spend more time doing HTML markup than I did writing articles ... and that it was impossible to keeps stuff up to date because it's so hard to edit. And the Brazillian community members I talked to aren't interested in creating or utilizing a Brazillian version of the main site because it doesn't allow them to share information the way their wiki does. If you and Robert are happy being the sole content providers for PostgreSQL.org in perpetuity, then by all means don't use a CMS. But maybe you should recognize what you're doing. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > The reason why the number of PostgreSQL websites keeps expanding is > partly because the main site is pretty useless to the majority of the > community for sharing information. 'k, I'm not disagreeing with your overall posting, but the above doesn't quite make sense: "we dont' want to markup our articles in HTML, so we're going to start a new site that we'll have to mark up in HTML anyway"?? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Mark, > 'k, I'm not disagreeing with your overall posting, but the above doesn't > quite make sense: "we dont' want to markup our articles in HTML, so > we're going to start a new site that we'll have to mark up in HTML > anyway"?? Powerpostgresql.com requires no HTML to add content. Postgresql.org.br requires no HTML to add content. PlanetPostgresql.org doesn't require HTML to add content. etc. It's called a "Content Management System". -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
Josh Berkus wrote: > Mark, > > >>'k, I'm not disagreeing with your overall posting, but the above doesn't >>quite make sense: "we dont' want to markup our articles in HTML, so >>we're going to start a new site that we'll have to mark up in HTML >>anyway"?? > > > Powerpostgresql.com requires no HTML to add content. Postgresql.org.br > requires no HTML to add content. PlanetPostgresql.org doesn't require > HTML to add content. etc. > > It's called a "Content Management System". Just to throw a little more information into this. A CMS typically takes care of the HTML content on its own. Thus if you use HTML within your content it will correctly render. On the flip side if you don't it will parse it against its own styles. A lot of times they use their own markup language like a Wiki does. This is one of the things that people like about them. Personally I have never seen the need for yet another markup language (no pun intended to YAML) and HTML works just fine for me. I type fast enough to where it isn't and issue and after writing a book in DocBook, HTML is childs play. My vote is that if we are going to use a CMS it should be a CMS that is mature. Bricolage for example, however as we are PHP people we probably would have to go with Framewerk. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240 PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
Hi! What about a ready solution such as apache cocoon or lenya? I think it has quite a lot of advantages. Josh Berkus wrote: >Dave, > > > >>All the work is currently being done by people that know HTML so >>initially that is all the support that is required, however in the >>longterm this will definitely be useful. >> >> > >Well, that's certainly self-fulfilling. > >The reason why the number of PostgreSQL websites keeps expanding is partly >because the main site is pretty useless to the majority of the community >for sharing information. I know that I specifically stopped submitting >stuff to Techdocs because I spend more time doing HTML markup than I did >writing articles ... and that it was impossible to keeps stuff up to date >because it's so hard to edit. And the Brazillian community members I >talked to aren't interested in creating or utilizing a Brazillian version >of the main site because it doesn't allow them to share information the >way their wiki does. > >If you and Robert are happy being the sole content providers for >PostgreSQL.org in perpetuity, then by all means don't use a CMS. But >maybe you should recognize what you're doing. > > > -- Regards, László Hornyák
This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. --0-1381676294-1118343373=:34152 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Laszlo Hornyak wrote: > Hi! > > What about a ready solution such as apache cocoon or lenya? I think it has > quite a lot of advantages. 'k, not having done much with cocoon except set it up ... how does it handle mirror sites? I believe with bricolage, the 'content add' is seperate from the 'display' (you still publish the pages to a central size, which end-users then make use of) ... > > > Josh Berkus wrote: > >> Dave, >> >> >>> All the work is currently being done by people that know HTML so >>> initially that is all the support that is required, however in the >>> longterm this will definitely be useful. >>> >> >> Well, that's certainly self-fulfilling. >> The reason why the number of PostgreSQL websites keeps expanding is partly >> because the main site is pretty useless to the majority of the community >> for sharing information. I know that I specifically stopped submitting >> stuff to Techdocs because I spend more time doing HTML markup than I did >> writing articles ... and that it was impossible to keeps stuff up to date >> because it's so hard to edit. And the Brazillian community members I >> talked to aren't interested in creating or utilizing a Brazillian version >> of the main site because it doesn't allow them to share information the way >> their wiki does. >> >> If you and Robert are happy being the sole content providers for >> PostgreSQL.org in perpetuity, then by all means don't use a CMS. But >> maybe you should recognize what you're doing. >> >> > > > -- > > Regards, > László Hornyák > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command > (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@postgresql.org) > ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 --0-1381676294-1118343373=:34152--
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 17:34 > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dave, > > > All the work is currently being done by people that know HTML so > > initially that is all the support that is required, however in the > > longterm this will definitely be useful. > > Well, that's certainly self-fulfilling. > > The reason why the number of PostgreSQL websites keeps > expanding is partly > because the main site is pretty useless to the majority of > the community > for sharing information. I know that I specifically stopped > submitting > stuff to Techdocs because I spend more time doing HTML markup > than I did > writing articles ... and that it was impossible to keeps > stuff up to date > because it's so hard to edit. And the Brazillian community members I > talked to aren't interested in creating or utilizing a > Brazillian version > of the main site because it doesn't allow them to share > information the > way their wiki does. > > If you and Robert are happy being the sole content providers for > PostgreSQL.org in perpetuity, then by all means don't use a > CMS. But > maybe you should recognize what you're doing. Josh, I've gotta assume you're either sleeping from the travelling you've been doing, or didn't read what I wrote. I said we don't need anything but HTML initially. *We* will be porting data from techdocs for some time into any new system long before we will be ready to even let end users see it. There is no need to build a complex interface to begin with for that purpose. Regards, Dave
Dave, > I've gotta assume you're either sleeping from the travelling you've been > doing, or didn't read what I wrote. I said we don't need anything but > HTML initially. *We* will be porting data from techdocs for some time > into any new system long before we will be ready to even let end users > see it. There is no need to build a complex interface to begin with for > that purpose. Hmm, no, I think I understood you. Particularly since you said as well: "We don't want end users directly adding content anyway." If the new Techdocs is and easy-to-use WYSWYG CMS, then *other people* can help port the existing Techdocs content. If it's another raw-HTML site, then you and Robert are stuck doing it all. You and Robert do a spectacular job, but if I were in your shoes I'd be looking for ways to broaden the maintenance/content generation effort. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 21:14 > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hmm, no, I think I understood you. Particularly since you > said as well: > "We don't want end users directly adding content anyway." > > If the new Techdocs is and easy-to-use WYSWYG CMS, then > *other people* can > help port the existing Techdocs content. If it's another > raw-HTML site, > then you and Robert are stuck doing it all. You and Robert do a > spectacular job, but if I were in your shoes I'd be looking > for ways to > broaden the maintenance/content generation effort. The major problem that I've learnt over the last few years of running the pgAdmin project, and to a lesser extent working on the pgweb stuff is that asking for a full featured solution from people from the outset normally ends up putting them off unless they are *really* enthusiastic. Now I'm not saying that Gevik isn't enthusiatic but I can only think of 4 people I'd put in that category in the 8+ years I've been around here. I've found that people are *much* more likely to work on a smaller project that grows over time - the major milestones and fruits of their efforts are visible far more quickly and they can jump from feature to feature getting a little self-satisfaction with each, as opposed to looking at a huge todo list, thinking 'damn, this will take forever', and finding something different to work on instead. So please don't misunderstand me - we do want more people involved in time, it's just that my major concern at the moment is not overwhelming Gevik before he's even begun! Regards, Dave.
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > The major problem that I've learnt over the last few years of running > the pgAdmin project, and to a lesser extent working on the pgweb stuff > is that asking for a full featured solution from people from the outset > normally ends up putting them off unless they are *really* enthusiastic. > Now I'm not saying that Gevik isn't enthusiatic but I can only think of > 4 people I'd put in that category in the 8+ years I've been around here. Is there any reason why one of the existing CMSs can't be setup for techdocs? Someone mentioned Bricolage, someone else Framewerk(sp?) ... I think what Josh is getting at here is that we are looking at the end goal, but not looking at the solution to get us there ... right now, what I'm seeing (and I think Josh is too) is "let's build from scratch, we'll do the mark up ourselves, and then later, let's add in the functionality so that others can do it" ... If we *started* with a proper CMS for this, instead of trying to arrive at it in the end, migrating techdocs will be *alot* easier, and faster, since we could very easily get 'non-programmers' involved ... From what I undetand, based on requirements (namely, mirrors), I think Bricolage offers everything that we require, and I believe that David Wheeler has offered, in the past, to help get things up ... again, this is based on just what I've read/heard, but I *believe* Bricolage provides the admin front end, and the actually 'live content' gets physically dump'd to files on the front end server ... Zope doesn't do this, as far as I'm aware, Framewerk might ... ? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> I think what Josh is getting at here is that we are looking at the end > goal, but not looking at the solution to get us there ... right now, > what I'm seeing (and I think Josh is too) is "let's build from scratch, > we'll do the mark up ourselves, and then later, let's add in the > functionality so that others can do it" ... I would think this is a good idea as well. Framewerk or Bricolage seemed to be a good idea. I would lean toward Bricolage just because of maturity but it is perl based. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > Bricolage offers everything that we require, and I believe that David > Wheeler has offered, in the past, to help get things up ... again, this > is based on just what I've read/heard, but I *believe* Bricolage > provides the admin front end, and the actually 'live content' gets > physically dump'd to files on the front end server ... Zope doesn't do > this, as far as I'm aware, Framewerk might ... ? > > > > > ---- > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) > Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command > (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@postgresql.org) -- Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240 PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 09 June 2005 21:55 > To: Dave Page > Cc: josh@agliodbs.com; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > Is there any reason why one of the existing CMSs can't be setup for > techdocs? Someone mentioned Bricolage, someone else > Framewerk(sp?) ... Because the aim is to integrate it with the existing main website to take advantage of the resilient architecture we've been building over the last 6 months, as well as to fold another sub-site in the main site for design/organisation. Using an existing CMS (which, every time anyone investigated them in the past we found were not suitable for one reason or another) we will have to start all this over again, and still have a separate site and associated servers for us to maintain and to confuse users with. Besides, the guts of a CMS are not that difficult to build - we don't need any of the complex features most offer, except a simple markup language. I can say that with confidence having written most of a simple custom CMS at work over the last 2 weeks. Regards, Dave.
Framewerk currently doesnt generate static HTML files. It's not *just* a CMS, there's wiki like behavior requiring review and approval for CMS data, and a whole host of other functions. It is also PHP5 only. I don't mind helping setting it up and cranking out some custom apps for it if needed, but understand the desire to go with something stable, and Bricolage has been a long time example of a great PostgreSQL based web app. (Framewerk hasn't hit 1.0 yet). Gavin On Jun 9, 2005, at 1:59 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >> I think what Josh is getting at here is that we are looking at the >> end goal, but not looking at the solution to get us there ... >> right now, what I'm seeing (and I think Josh is too) is "let's >> build from scratch, we'll do the mark up ourselves, and then >> later, let's add in the functionality so that others can do it" ... >> > > I would think this is a good idea as well. Framewerk or Bricolage > seemed to be a good idea. I would lean toward Bricolage just > because of maturity but it is perl based. > > Sincerely, > > Joshua D. Drake > > > >> Bricolage offers everything that we require, and I believe that >> David Wheeler has offered, in the past, to help get things up ... >> again, this is based on just what I've read/heard, but I *believe* >> Bricolage provides the admin front end, and the actually 'live >> content' gets physically dump'd to files on the front end >> server ... Zope doesn't do this, as far as I'm aware, Framewerk >> might ... ? >> ---- >> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http:// >> www.hub.org) >> Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy >> ICQ: 7615664 >> ---------------------------(end of >> broadcast)--------------------------- >> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command >> (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to >> majordomo@postgresql.org) >> > > > -- > Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. > 1.800.492.2240 > PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support > Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting > Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/ > > ---------------------------(end of > broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan > if your > joining column's datatypes do not match > Gavin M. Roy 800 Pound Gorilla gmr@ehpg.net
Dave, > Using an existing CMS (which, every time anyone > investigated them in the past we found were not suitable for one reason > or another) You, Robert and Alexey found them deficient. I'm not sure everyone else agreed. Further, this is TechDocs we're talking about ... and we'd *always* talked about using a CMS for it. Lack of accessability is what has killed the old TechDocs. How many submissions have there been to TechDocs in the last year? Maybe 4? > Besides, the guts of a CMS are not that difficult to build - we don't > need any of the complex features most offer, except a simple markup > language. I can say that with confidence having written most of a simple > custom CMS at work over the last 2 weeks. Well, count me out then. Maybe I'll open up powerpostgresql.com so that others can have an *easy-to-use* place to contribute articles ... -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> Well, count me out then. Maybe I'll open up powerpostgresql.com so that > others can have an *easy-to-use* place to contribute articles ... Command Prompt owns pgdeveloper specifically for this purpose. We just haven't put it into play yet. I would be interested in hearing ideas about what we could do with it. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > -- Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240 PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 22:21 > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dave, > > > Using an existing CMS (which, every time anyone > > investigated them in the past we found were not suitable > for one reason > > or another) > > You, Robert and Alexey found them deficient. I'm not sure > everyone else > agreed. Various people have looked at different options in the past and no-one has yet to find one that was suitable. > Further, this is TechDocs we're talking about ... > and we'd *always* > talked about using a CMS for it. Lack of accessability is > what has killed > the old TechDocs. How many submissions have there been to > TechDocs in the > last year? Maybe 4? You really think that's because people would rather markup their text in a language that they may not already know and hit Submit themselves rather than just email it to us? It's not lack of accessability that killed the old techdocs anyway imho - it's lack of a maintainer with enough time and interest to put the work in since Justin left. That's exactly what may happen again if yet-another-different-site is produced. If it's all in one place, you have the advantage of an existing infrastructure, and multiple maintainers who know the system well. Besides, I'm not advocating an inaccessible replacement - I'm advocating one that fits in with all the rest of the work that's been done over the last year+. > > Besides, the guts of a CMS are not that difficult to build > - we don't > > need any of the complex features most offer, except a simple markup > > language. I can say that with confidence having written > most of a simple > > custom CMS at work over the last 2 weeks. > > Well, count me out then. Maybe I'll open up > powerpostgresql.com so that > others can have an *easy-to-use* place to contribute articles ... Count you out why? Is it the fact that I'm advocating keeping everything in one site, or that I'm suggesting we don't need advanced features like customisable workflows or other whizz-bang features? What exactly do you want that you don't think you will get from what I'm suggesting? Regards, Dave.
>>Well, count me out then. Maybe I'll open up >>powerpostgresql.com so that >>others can have an *easy-to-use* place to contribute articles ... > > > Count you out why? Is it the fact that I'm advocating keeping everything > in one site, or that I'm suggesting we don't need advanced features like > customisable workflows or other whizz-bang features? What exactly do you > want that you don't think you will get from what I'm suggesting? Dave I think the source of contention is that I as an advid postgresql community member can not submit to techdocs easily. Although I recognize what you are trying to do, I believe that many community members are looking for something that is a .postgresql.org site that they can contribute to. We don't have that right now. I can't just log in, and start contributing. People can with other sites (such as planetpostgresql). There are a lot of people out there who would submit sample queries, functions, small articles etc... if there was a central, easy to use, easy to submit place. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake > > Regards, Dave. > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings -- Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240 PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
Dave, > Count you out why? Is it the fact that I'm advocating keeping everything > in one site, or that I'm suggesting we don't need advanced features like > customisable workflows or other whizz-bang features? What exactly do you > want that you don't think you will get from what I'm suggesting? In a nutshell? A place where someone who wants to submit and article can do so in < 10 minutes (*including* any markup time). A place where someone wanting to translate an article can do it in point-and-click-and-translate time. A place where someone can easily locate the article which covers their problem if it exists. Barring that, I'm waiting for at least an acknowledgement from you that there's a direct relationship between easy-to-use and number-of-contributors. If you're convinced that there's no relationship at all, then I don't think we can communicate. I'm not looking for whizz-bang; in fact, my idea for TechDocs had been to wait for Gavin to go 1.0 on Framewerk and use that. It's about as stripped down as you get on CMS. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd@commandprompt.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 22:46 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Josh Berkus; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dave I think the source of contention is that I as an advid > postgresql > community member can not submit to techdocs easily. Although > I recognize > what you are trying to do, I believe that many community members are > looking for something that is a .postgresql.org site that they can > contribute to. > > We don't have that right now. I can't just log in, and start > contributing. People can with other sites (such as planetpostgresql). > > There are a lot of people out there who would submit sample queries, > functions, small articles etc... if there was a central, easy to use, > easy to submit place. This is /all/ exactly what I want as well - all I'm saying is that we should build on our existing infrastructure and hard work and include it as part of the community section of the main website. I've made a point of saying that I agree with having an easy to use interface for users to submit text with the caveats that a) it's validated, b) it's moderated and c) our first priority should be getting techdocs replaced, and *then* adding the end user features. I feel like I'm speaking Klingon tonight :-) Q'pla, Dave.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 22:52 > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dave, > > > Count you out why? Is it the fact that I'm advocating > keeping everything > > in one site, or that I'm suggesting we don't need advanced > features like > > customisable workflows or other whizz-bang features? What > exactly do you > > want that you don't think you will get from what I'm suggesting? > > In a nutshell? A place where someone who wants to submit and > article can > do so in < 10 minutes (*including* any markup time). A place where > someone wanting to translate an article can do it in > point-and-click-and-translate time. A place where someone can easily > locate the article which covers their problem if it exists. Yes, all of which is important, and none of which I don't believe can be achieved in the way I've suggested. > Barring that, I'm waiting for at least an acknowledgement > from you that > there's a direct relationship between easy-to-use and > number-of-contributors. If you're convinced that there's no > relationship > at all, then I don't think we can communicate. I never argued that there wasn't a relationship - in fact, I explicitly agreed that we do need more people to be involved! What I said was, that from a development point of view, getting an easy to use joe-public interface should be secondary to getting the basic system up and running. Kinda like not waiting for pgAdmin to be released before releasing PostgreSQL. Regards, Dave
Dave, > I never argued that there wasn't a relationship - in fact, I explicitly > agreed that we do need more people to be involved! What I said was, that > from a development point of view, getting an easy to use joe-public > interface should be secondary to getting the basic system up and > running. Kinda like not waiting for pgAdmin to be released before > releasing PostgreSQL. Aha, I see the communications difficulty. I see the easy-to-contribute interface as the *primary* purpose of a TechDocs without which it's not worth bothering. And I have the fear, based on precedent, that the the easy-to-use interface will never actually get built. Which is why I want to adapt an existing CMS instead of starting from scratch. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > Because the aim is to integrate it with the existing main website to > take advantage of the resilient architecture we've been building over > the last 6 months, as well as to fold another sub-site in the main site > for design/organisation. Using an existing CMS (which, every time anyone > investigated them in the past we found were not suitable for one reason > or another) we will have to start all this over again, and still have a > separate site and associated servers for us to maintain and to confuse > users with. Again, not if we go with Bricolage ... the big 'issue' with Bricolage, if I recall the last time we looked at it, was that there was a slight learning curve for the original templates ... but, if Gevik is as enthuiastic about it, its something that he culd learn how to do the initial setup and then 'pass on the knowledge' to others over time ... As for 'seperate site and servers' ... not required, since Bricolage will 'publish' static HTML pages to the existing web site, which also means that it will be able to make use of the existing infrastructure .. ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 23:07 > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Aha, I see the communications difficulty. I see the > easy-to-contribute > interface as the *primary* purpose of a TechDocs without > which it's not > worth bothering. And I have the fear, based on precedent, > that the the > easy-to-use interface will never actually get built. Which > is why I want > to adapt an existing CMS instead of starting from scratch. And my fear (also based on precendent) is that yet-another-site will fall into disrepair as people lose interest in maintaining it (I'm unlikely to get too involved in a different site/architecture for example, and I imagine the same might apply to others such as Magnus - I just don't have the time to commit). My belief is that the easy-to-use interface is far less of a risk given that it's not that complex provided you don't want intricate workflow etc. I'll even go as far as committing myself to writing that /if necessary/, provided we're talking a relatively simple submission/editting form type interface (I don't see much need to register users etc if we're going to moderate everything anyway). I have stated the other benefits of integration with the main site enough times now so I won't repeat them! Anyway, I'm glad we're finally understanding each other, even if we don't necessarily agree on the best solution yet! /D
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 09 June 2005 23:16 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Marc G. Fournier; josh@agliodbs.com; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > As for 'seperate site and servers' ... not required, since > Bricolage will > 'publish' static HTML pages to the existing web site, which > also means > that it will be able to make use of the existing infrastructure .. If that is the case, then if it is flexible to publish them in 'pgweb template format' (eg. http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/cvs/annotate.php/portal/templa te/en/about.html?rev=1.8) that might well be the ideal solution. /D
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > You really think that's because people would rather markup their text in > a language that they may not already know and hit Submit themselves > rather than just email it to us? The thing is, we need a solution taht doesn't involve having to 'email it to us', since 'us' isn't always going to be available ... just look at Bruce, and how hard he tries to keep up on the Patches that get submitted ... a CMS for techdocs is a requirement, period, since we're looking for dynamic content to be added, nd preferrably by many ppl ... > It's not lack of accessability that killed the old techdocs anyway imho > - it's lack of a maintainer with enough time and interest to put the > work in since Justin left. That's exactly what may happen again if > yet-another-different-site is produced. Josh, I do agree with Dave here ... techdocs died because the only one that knew anything about it got busy with other stuff ... but it is just this argument that further goes towards using a CMS that will have everything pretty much 'done for you' ... the initial setup will be a bit of work, but long term, the idea is that we won't be beholden to any single person ... > If it's all in one place, you > have the advantage of an existing infrastructure, and multiple > maintainers who know the system well. Besides, I'm not advocating an > inaccessible replacement - I'm advocating one that fits in with all the > rest of the work that's been done over the last year+. Bricolage can do this ... at least the last bit of research I did on it ... > Count you out why? Is it the fact that I'm advocating keeping everything > in one site, or that I'm suggesting we don't need advanced features like > customisable workflows or other whizz-bang features? What exactly do you > want that you don't think you will get from what I'm suggesting? A ready made, easy to use, interface that allows arbitrary ppl to submit articles and such without a third person having to edit that content to fit the existing structure ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > I'm not looking for whizz-bang; in fact, my idea for TechDocs had been > to wait for Gavin to go 1.0 on Framewerk and use that. It's about as > stripped down as you get on CMS. Without the ability to publish static HTML files (which Gavin states Framewerk can't do), I don't think that it will be the right direction for this ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Dave, > > As for 'seperate site and servers' ... not required, since > > Bricolage will > > 'publish' static HTML pages to the existing web site, which > > also means > > that it will be able to make use of the existing infrastructure .. > > If that is the case, then if it is flexible to publish them in 'pgweb > template format' (eg. > http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/cvs/annotate.php/portal/templa > te/en/about.html?rev=1.8) that might well be the ideal solution. Yes. In fact, I think that Emily and Omar may even have a partially complete Bricolage template for PG. BTW, one of the nice things about a *mature* CMS is that it doesn't require web people to maintain it. You can delegate stuff to folks who just have to do text editing and hit "approve". -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > This is /all/ exactly what I want as well - all I'm saying is that we > should build on our existing infrastructure and hard work and include it > as part of the community section of the main website. I've made a point > of saying that I agree with having an easy to use interface for users to > submit text with the caveats that a) it's validated, b) it's moderated > and c) our first priority should be getting techdocs replaced, and > *then* adding the end user features. Its this last point that I believe most of us don't agree with ... the first priority is to get something in place that allows the rest of us to help migrarte techdocs over ... an existing CMS would provide that out of the box ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Marc, > Without the ability to publish static HTML files (which Gavin states > Framewerk can't do), I don't think that it will be the right direction > for this ... Static HTML is only an issue if we expect it to need mirroring. Which the old Techdocs never did. I'm not saying that Bricolage isn't better for other reasons, I'm just saying that our criteria should match our actual needs. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] >> Sent: 09 June 2005 23:16 >> To: Dave Page >> Cc: Marc G. Fournier; josh@agliodbs.com; pgsql-www@postgresql.org >> Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. >> >> As for 'seperate site and servers' ... not required, since >> Bricolage will >> 'publish' static HTML pages to the existing web site, which >> also means >> that it will be able to make use of the existing infrastructure .. > > If that is the case, then if it is flexible to publish them in 'pgweb > template format' (eg. > http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgweb/cvs/annotate.php/portal/templa > te/en/about.html?rev=1.8) that might well be the ideal solution. I believe that that is where the bricolage templates would come in ... but, for the person doing the initial site, this would be what they would need to figure out ... Gevik ... would you be willing to be the lead on that? I can provide you with a running instance of Bricolage in a few hours, if you feel up to the task ... and, if Gevik *isn't* up to it, is anyone else interested in learning/getting up to speed on it? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 09 June 2005 23:27 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Marc G. Fournier; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Yes. In fact, I think that Emily and Omar may even have a partially > complete Bricolage template for PG. We won't need one - if it can output in the raw template format which is *really* basic HTML. The existing framework would take care of the rest of the formatting. > BTW, one of the nice things about a *mature* CMS is that it > doesn't require > web people to maintain it. You can delegate stuff to folks > who just have > to do text editing and hit "approve". Agreed. Believe me, if Bricolage can fit in with the existing framework, then it's got my vote. It'll still need dispatch and navigation code for the framework from Gevik of course, but the CMS side will be sorted. Regards, Dave
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > Marc, > >> Without the ability to publish static HTML files (which Gavin states >> Framewerk can't do), I don't think that it will be the right direction >> for this ... > > Static HTML is only an issue if we expect it to need mirroring. Which the > old Techdocs never did. Actually, the old techdocs was mirrored, it was just the new 'Zope based' stuff that Justin was working on that we never had mirrored ... for the same reason that the main web site is mirrored, techdocs itself should be mirrored as well ... redundancy and load ... both of which should always be a criteria where it can be met ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> > Without the ability to publish static HTML files (which Gavin > states Framewerk can't do), I don't think that it will be the right > direction for this ... > That being said the only reason it doesnt is I've not actually needed it to do so. If that's the only thing that would keep people from wanting to use it, I'd be able to add it without much issue. Gavin M. Roy 800 Pound Gorilla gmr@ehpg.net
Dave, > We won't need one - if it can output in the raw template format which is > *really* basic HTML. The existing framework would take care of the rest > of the formatting. That's a very good point. I'd imagine that any Mason beginner could set up the templates we need. Is there a Mason beginner on this list? David Wheeler is at WWDC right now, so I can't reach him .... --Josh -- __Aglio Database Solutions_______________ Josh Berkus Consultant josh@agliodbs.com www.agliodbs.com Ph: 415-752-2500 Fax: 415-752-2387 2166 Hayes Suite 200 San Francisco, CA
Dave, > Agreed. Believe me, if Bricolage can fit in with the existing framework, > then it's got my vote. It'll still need dispatch and navigation code for > the framework from Gevik of course, but the CMS side will be sorted. Further, Bric can do the navigation menus etc. -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Thu, 9 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > Dave, > >> Agreed. Believe me, if Bricolage can fit in with the existing framework, >> then it's got my vote. It'll still need dispatch and navigation code for >> the framework from Gevik of course, but the CMS side will be sorted. > > Further, Bric can do the navigation menus etc. 'k, since it looks like we're "agreed" here on what needs to happen, I'm going to setup a bricolage.postgresql.org VM (again) so that we can get started ... I'll need to do some upgrades to the latest version of Bricolage, but taht won't take too long ... With the 'new direction', we still haven't heard from Gevik, so, do we have an 'alternate lead' for this? Someone with *time* to work on it, in case Gevik isn't interested ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Wow! Did I create a monster or just awaken it? All I wanted to do was to build a kb to help us expand. :) Anyway, I missed yesterday's discussion (unfortunately). Now I read that the direction we agreed on yesterday is changed. (bye bye vision). We now want to use Bricolage. If you think this is what we need and it will help us achieve things we have been missing, then you have my full support, Let's see where THIS wind shall take us. To be honest I don't know "jack" about Bricolage, however it would be a pleasure to help on this project. Let me know what you have in mind. Regards, Gevik.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 10 June 2005 00:01 > To: Josh Berkus > Cc: Dave Page; Gevik babakhani; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > With the 'new direction', we still haven't heard from Gevik, > so, do we > have an 'alternate lead' for this? Someone with *time* to > work on it, in > case Gevik isn't interested ... He's an hour behind me time-wise, and it was pretty late when I was emailling last night. I expect we'll hear from him today. Regards, Dave
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 10 June 2005 08:23 > To: 'Marc G. Fournier'; 'Josh Berkus' > Cc: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > Wow! Did I create a monster or just awaken it? All I wanted > to do was to > build a kb to help us expand. :) > > Anyway, I missed yesterday's discussion (unfortunately). Now > I read that the > direction we agreed on yesterday is changed. (bye bye vision). > We now want to use Bricolage. If you think this is what we > need and it will > help us achieve things we have been missing, then you have my > full support, > Let's see where THIS wind shall take us. No, not entirely bye--bye vision :-). The idea is to use Bricolage to generate the template* content that will be automatically integrated with the main website (because the main site is built entirely from CVS, I invisage the output from Bricolage being automatically checked into the pgweb CVS - probably by a cron job). This will still need integration with the main site, work in Bricolage to setup templates etc, configuration of the auto-checkin of templates to the pgweb CVS, and some way to navigate all the content. I'm not entirely sure that the treeview idea will work - that will need investigation. * Note there is conflicting use of the word template here. Bricolage (as I understand it) inserts content into templates to produce the output. In our framework it's the other way round - the template contains the content, and the framework applys the formatting to it to produce the output. So, content + a Bricolage template should be able to produce a pgweb template! Regards, Dave.
Ok. I got in late on this one as I wasn't in last night. Here are a bunch of different comments. Josh: > > Without the ability to publish static HTML files (which > Gavin states > > Framewerk can't do), I don't think that it will be the > right direction > > for this ... > > Static HTML is only an issue if we expect it to need > mirroring. Which the old Techdocs never did. Right. Which is one reason it was very good that Google Cache existed, so you could actually *get* to the articles in a speedy manner :( The old techdocs was often slow and often down. It's a lot better these days (yeah, I know, it's still the old techdocs, but let's say just "back in the days" then), but still. There has been a lot invested in buildign the balancing/failover system for the main website, and we'd be fools not to use that. Marc: > 'k, since it looks like we're "agreed" here on what needs to > happen, I'm going to setup a bricolage.postgresql.org VM > (again) so that we can get started ... I'll need to do some > upgrades to the latest version of Bricolage, but taht won't > take too long ... Um. Shouldn't we first determine that we *know* that this is a good way of doing it? Meaning at least a proof-of-concept of the "bric can generate what's needed to fully integrate with the current site"? I for one am not fully "agreed" *yet*. Again, if bric can fullfill our requirements, then hell yes, I'm in. But there are several points I don't see adressed yet: 1) We don't know for sure that it can generate stuff that will plug into the current templating system. 2) bric can generate navigation, we know that. But can it generate nativation that integrates well with what we have now? 3) How does bric handle the logins? Right now there is one login for the /admin/ stuff, but it's not exactly flexible to maintain the passwords there. And we need some kind of "unified login system" between the different parts IMHO - so you don't need a separate account to edit/submit doc comments from editing techdocs pages. In general, I'm also not convinced unless we have a person who *knows* Mason (or whatever else you chose to use - IIRC bric can do different templating engines) who is willing to commit time *not just to get things started*. The web project has kind of a history with people getting started and then leaving. Only fairly few people tend to stick around and maintain it in the long run. Granted this can be an argument *for* a common CMS, but then it has to be a CMS that people already know. Either people who work on the stuff now (who *know* the current system - at least to some degree) or new people that will actually *stick around*. That said, personally I think people are vastly overestimating the work needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current framework and be done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of weeks back, and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using it straight up for the postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML validation stuff. And I also think peopel are vastly *underestimating* the work needed to get a "stock CMS" to "play nice" with what we already have. The stuff I did for work is in C#, and it really is a breeze to validate the resulting HTML there. I'm sure that can be done fairly easy in PHP, but I'm not good enough with that. If someone can get something together to validate the HTML (that it's both valid and only contains tags we want - we don't want people XSSing us, for example), then the rest is *easy*. The only thing to deal with is how to do the navigation, but that's a problem regardless of how it's done. The nav templates as they are now don't really deal with a whole lot of documents in a tree structure. But I'm sure something can be done relatively easy here - as Gavik has already shown. (BTW, for a easy-to-use, completely plug-in, WYSIWYG editor, that is BSD licensed, go to http://www.dynarch.com/projects/htmlarea/. If I could plug it into my intranet using C#/.Net and MSIE only, it should be *easy* to get it running on our open systems. //Magnus
> -----Original Message----- > From: Magnus Hagander [mailto:mha@sollentuna.net] > Sent: 10 June 2005 09:02 > To: josh@agliodbs.com; Marc G. Fournier > Cc: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > 3) How does bric handle the logins? Right now there is one > login for the > /admin/ stuff, but it's not exactly flexible to maintain the passwords > there. And we need some kind of "unified login system" between the > different parts IMHO - so you don't need a separate account to > edit/submit doc comments from editing techdocs pages. I don't believe this is necessary, and am currently envisaging Bricolage as being an almost totally stand-alone system, integrated with the main site purely via CVS and a suitable script to add/remove/update files every few minutes or so. The downside of that is that there are 2 authoring interfaces, one for the main part of the site, and one for the PGDN or whatever it gets called. I do not think this is an issue though, as the whole point of using Bricolage is to allow people other than use to do the work. At worst it will mean that maybe 5 or 6 of us might use both interfaces. The upsides of such an architecture include: - Vastly simplified implementation. - No dependence on Bricolage. If it all goes belly-up, then we (the webmasters/sysadmins) only have to worry about fixing CVS->Webserver. Bric could be fixed in a more leisurely manner. - Changes/upgrades to Bric or organisational issues for the PGDN contributors needn't concern us in any way, as long as the same output is produced in the same place. > That said, personally I think people are vastly > overestimating the work > needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current > framework and be > done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of > weeks back, > and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using it straight up for the > postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML validation stuff. Agreed. > And I also think peopel are vastly *underestimating* the work > needed to > get a "stock CMS" to "play nice" with what we already have. Not necessarily IMHO, if we take the approach I suggest above. Regards, Dave.
Hello all, So what is the plan at this moment? Hoe is going to do what? Regards, Gevik. > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www- > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Dave Page > Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 10:24 AM > To: Magnus Hagander; josh@agliodbs.com; Marc G. Fournier > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Magnus Hagander [mailto:mha@sollentuna.net] > > Sent: 10 June 2005 09:02 > > To: josh@agliodbs.com; Marc G. Fournier > > Cc: Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > > > 3) How does bric handle the logins? Right now there is one > > login for the > > /admin/ stuff, but it's not exactly flexible to maintain the passwords > > there. And we need some kind of "unified login system" between the > > different parts IMHO - so you don't need a separate account to > > edit/submit doc comments from editing techdocs pages. > > I don't believe this is necessary, and am currently envisaging Bricolage > as being an almost totally stand-alone system, integrated with the main > site purely via CVS and a suitable script to add/remove/update files > every few minutes or so. > > The downside of that is that there are 2 authoring interfaces, one for > the main part of the site, and one for the PGDN or whatever it gets > called. I do not think this is an issue though, as the whole point of > using Bricolage is to allow people other than use to do the work. At > worst it will mean that maybe 5 or 6 of us might use both interfaces. > > The upsides of such an architecture include: > > - Vastly simplified implementation. > - No dependence on Bricolage. If it all goes belly-up, then we (the > webmasters/sysadmins) only have to worry about fixing CVS->Webserver. > Bric could be fixed in a more leisurely manner. > - Changes/upgrades to Bric or organisational issues for the PGDN > contributors needn't concern us in any way, as long as the same output > is produced in the same place. > > > That said, personally I think people are vastly > > overestimating the work > > needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current > > framework and be > > done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of > > weeks back, > > and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using it straight up for the > > postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML validation stuff. > > Agreed. > > > And I also think peopel are vastly *underestimating* the work > > needed to > > get a "stock CMS" to "play nice" with what we already have. > > Not necessarily IMHO, if we take the approach I suggest above. > > Regards, Dave. > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your > joining column's datatypes do not match
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 10 June 2005 11:06 > To: Dave Page; 'Magnus Hagander'; josh@agliodbs.com; 'Marc G. > Fournier' > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Hello all, > > So what is the plan at this moment? Hoe is going to do what? You are still the only actual volunteer at the moment :-) Of course, you are free to bail out if you don't agree with the direction things are taking, but we'd obviously prefer it if you didn't! Regards, Dave. PS. Of course, I and others will always offer any help and assistance with the existing stuff & servers etc. as required even if we're not voluteering as such.
Hi all, > You are still the only actual volunteer at the moment :-) > Of course, you are free to bail out if you don't agree with the > direction things are taking, but we'd obviously prefer it if you didn't! Indeed, things have changed direction. This is of course good. It means we also are evolving around the KB idea. For me personally, it goes a bit fast because I am not familiar with the current framework set aside a new CMS and integrating it into the current system. Therefore it isn't clear to me how I can be of help. I think it would be wise if we just installed this thing first and play with it for a couple of weeks. Create accounts in it and just use it as if it was in production. Like a proof of concept as suggested in latest posts. Just then we could really say if the CMS is working for us. To my experience, CMS systems make you design and develop your information system in a pre-decided and pre-dictated fashion and most of the time you have to hack your way around to get it look and feel and work the way you really want, resulting something far off from the original requirement. This is where I like to remind we should be aware this out-of-the-box CMS isn't overkill. If you think about the real functionality we require, you end up with the following. The kb: - Must integrate into the current system. I don't think we want to change the current system drastically to fit any CMS. After all from what I saw in the sources, there is been a lots and lots of work done to get here. - Easy to navigate: you must be able to see the picture without digging page to page to get any information. Have you ever checked this: http://w4teclipse.com:8765/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.w4t.eclipse.developer.h elp/html/reference/api/com/w4t/dhtml/package-summary.html or http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ or http://www.cs.washington.edu/dm/vfml/ - Easy markup. We could plug in something like "kupu" (http://kupu.oscom.org/screenshots/) and filter the edited page on some unwanted tags. - People must be able to easily contribute: we can adopt the www.codeproject.com idea. People create account, they contribute, if the contribution ranks high or it was accepted (it was good to keep), then the contribution gets a stable status and it is accepted in the permanent kb. - must be manageable in the future. And not too much hassle regarding administration, mirroring and upgrades. I mean think about this. You can never know what a person knows about PostgreSQL. (except for the ones that we know by communicating during past years) Is he a database user, a pg programmer, a db administrator of just someone who doesn't like pg and try to fill the kb with crappy information. How are we going to address these issues with of without an out-of-the-box CMS. And of course you wouldn't want our dear future contributors write wonderful articles about how you do a SELECT * FROM. I just hate to see this becoming an uncontrollable monster eventually disinterest people using it. I am sure the current techdocs that is almost dead, was setup with good intentions. Am I too far off the subject now? Or this is something catching your attention also. Regards, Gevik.
> > 3) How does bric handle the logins? Right now there is one > login for > > the /admin/ stuff, but it's not exactly flexible to maintain the > > passwords there. And we need some kind of "unified login system" > > between the different parts IMHO - so you don't need a separate > > account to edit/submit doc comments from editing techdocs pages. > > I don't believe this is necessary, and am currently > envisaging Bricolage as being an almost totally stand-alone > system, integrated with the main site purely via CVS and a > suitable script to add/remove/update files every few minutes or so. > > The downside of that is that there are 2 authoring > interfaces, one for the main part of the site, and one for > the PGDN or whatever it gets called. I do not think this is > an issue though, as the whole point of using Bricolage is to > allow people other than use to do the work. At worst it will > mean that maybe 5 or 6 of us might use both interfaces. I was envisioning us using logins to post comments (to verify emails etc) on docs etc in the future. To get rid of the spam for one thing, and to be able to better deal with feedback etc. In that case, we are talking way more than 5 or 6 people (hopefully). > - Changes/upgrades to Bric or organisational issues for the > PGDN contributors needn't concern us in any way, as long as > the same output is produced in the same place. I don't beleive that will ever hold up in reality. In theory that is the way, but in practice I highly doubt it will be isolated. > > And I also think peopel are vastly *underestimating* the > work needed > > to get a "stock CMS" to "play nice" with what we already have. > > Not necessarily IMHO, if we take the approach I suggest above. Then we clearly disagree on that ;-) At least we agree on most of it :-) //Magnus
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik Babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 10 June 2005 12:19 > To: Dave Page; 'Magnus Hagander'; josh@agliodbs.com; 'Marc G. > Fournier' > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > I think it would be wise if we just installed this thing > first and play with > it for a couple of weeks. Create accounts in it and just use > it as if it was > in production. Like a proof of concept as suggested in latest > posts. Just > then we could really say if the CMS is working for us. OK - I believe Marc is setting that up. > To my experience, CMS systems make you design and develop > your information > system in a pre-decided and pre-dictated fashion and most of > the time you > have to hack your way around to get it look and feel and work > the way you > really want, resulting something far off from the original > requirement. > This is where I like to remind we should be aware this > out-of-the-box CMS > isn't overkill. I think it probably is, however, if that's what the actual intended contributors would like, then let them have it as long as it produces output we can use in the main site. To do so, it needs to produce pages that look like (not including the two dashed lines): -------------------------------------------------------- <!-- BEGIN page_title_block --> About <!-- END page_title_block --> <h1>About</h1> <p>PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) based on POSTGRES, Version 4.2, developed at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. POSTGRES pioneered many concepts that only became available in some commercial database systems much later.</p> <ul> <li>Foo</li> <li>Baa</li> <ul> <p>some <b>bold</b> text</p> -------------------------------------------------------- The rest of the page can be formatted as required, using the most simplistic XHTML 1.0 Strict compliant tags - ie. With no inline css/fonts/colours etc. These pages do not need any menus, headers or footers etc. as the framework will add these, as well as the appropriate stylesheets. > If you think about the real functionality we require, you end > up with the > following. > > The kb: > > - Must integrate into the current system. I don't think we > want to change > the current system drastically to fit any CMS. After all from > what I saw in > the sources, there is been a lots and lots of work done to get here. The CMS should produce a bunch of files similar in format to the example above. A script then runs every hour and checks these files into the pgweb CVS. From there on, no further work need be done. The live site /already/ automatically updates and rebuilds itself from CVS every hour, so getting the template pages into the CVS is all the integration that is required. > - Easy to navigate: you must be able to see the picture > without digging page > to page to get any information. Have you ever checked this: > > http://w4teclipse.com:8765/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.w4t.eclip > se.developer.h > elp/html/reference/api/com/w4t/dhtml/package-summary.html > > or http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ > or http://www.cs.washington.edu/dm/vfml/ Yes, now this is where the magic comes in. The CMS should be able to output some sort of index file along with all the content. This may just be another simple page with hyperlinks in a hierarchy of <UL></UL> tags, e.g: <ul> <li>Item 1</li> <ul> <li>Item 1, subitem 1</li> <li>Item 1, subitem 2</li> </ul> <li>Item 2</li> </ul> A new indexing script is then added to the web framework that parses that file and generates the navigation tree. > - Easy markup. We could plug in something like "kupu" > (http://kupu.oscom.org/screenshots/) and filter the edited > page on some > unwanted tags. Yes, that is an option if a CMS is not used. > - People must be able to easily contribute: we can adopt the > www.codeproject.com idea. People create account, they > contribute, if the > contribution ranks high or it was accepted (it was good to > keep), then the > contribution gets a stable status and it is accepted in the > permanent kb. Bricolage should handle all of this, however, if we don't use a CMS, then a simple moderation email to the pgsql-slavestothewww list would suffice in the same way that we currently moderate doc comments, news and events etc. > - must be manageable in the future. And not too much hassle regarding > administration, mirroring and upgrades. By keeping the CVS as a buffer between the CMS and the frontend site, mirroring and upgrades etc, needn't affect the website at all. You could even replace the CMS with something entirely different, and as long the replacement wrote it's output in the same place, in the same simple format, it would make no difference to the website. > I mean think about this. You can never know what a person knows about > PostgreSQL. (except for the ones that we know by > communicating during past > years) Is he a database user, a pg programmer, a db > administrator of just > someone who doesn't like pg and try to fill the kb with > crappy information. > How are we going to address these issues with of without an > out-of-the-box > CMS. And of course you wouldn't want our dear future > contributors write > wonderful articles about how you do a SELECT * FROM. Indeed. > I just hate to see this becoming an uncontrollable monster eventually > disinterest people using it. I am sure the current techdocs > that is almost > dead, was setup with good intentions. This is another reason why I like the CMS -> CVS -> Web idea. Even if the CMS dies a death and falls into disuse, all the content will be on the main website in the appropriate format, and will be subject to all future style/layout changes, and may be updated just like any other page on the site. Regards, Dave.
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Magnus Hagander wrote: > That said, personally I think people are vastly overestimating the work > needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current framework and be > done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of weeks back, > and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using it straight up for the > postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML validation stuff. 'k, I think that *overall* this is our biggest issue ... Dave was proposing "lets move techdocs and then worry about the WYSIWYG editor", which, a large portion of us disagree with ... the WYSIWYG editor needs to be in place *before* moving techdocs, so that the migration isn't on just a couple of ppls shoulders ... Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of hours, that satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? Now, you mention that your code is in C#, which isn't really a big issue, as there are at least two FreeBSD based C# compilers that I know of: http://www.southern-storm.com.au/portable_net.html http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3A1C93FA-7462-47D0-8E56-8DD34C6292F0&displaylang=en Either of which can be installed ... just say the word ... I don't necessarily agree that we need a big, full blown CMS for this, which is why some have suggested Gavin's Framewerk stuff, since it didn't throw a bunch of bells and whistles in ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Gevik Babakhani wrote: > Hello all, > > So what is the plan at this moment? Hoe is going to do what? We're still discussing it ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> > That said, personally I think people are vastly overestimating the > > work needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current > framework > > and be done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of > > weeks back, and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using > it straight > > up for the postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML > validation stuff. > > 'k, I think that *overall* this is our biggest issue ... Dave > was proposing "lets move techdocs and then worry about the > WYSIWYG editor", which, a large portion of us disagree with > ... the WYSIWYG editor needs to be in place *before* moving > techdocs, so that the migration isn't on just a couple of > ppls shoulders ... Ok. Works for me. > Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of > hours, that satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? Well, one of the most difficult things is how do we deal with the navigation of these pages. And *this* I cannot do in a couple of hours :P > Now, you mention that your code is in C#, which isn't really > a big issue, as there are at least two FreeBSD based C# > compilers that I know of: I don't think this is a good idea. In the interest of maintainability (which is hugely important in this case and one of the main points about going this way) this should be done within the same framework as before, and thus be PHP. I'm just hoping that someone can show me a pre-cooked version of a HTML/XHTML validator ;) //Magnus
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Magnus Hagander wrote: >>> That said, personally I think people are vastly overestimating the >>> work needed to just stick a WYSIWYG editor into the current >> framework >>> and be done with it. I know I did one of these for work a couple of >>> weeks back, and it took me *2 hours*. I looked into using >> it straight >>> up for the postgresql site, but I got stuck on the HTML >> validation stuff. >> >> 'k, I think that *overall* this is our biggest issue ... Dave >> was proposing "lets move techdocs and then worry about the >> WYSIWYG editor", which, a large portion of us disagree with >> ... the WYSIWYG editor needs to be in place *before* moving >> techdocs, so that the migration isn't on just a couple of >> ppls shoulders ... > > Ok. Works for me. > > >> Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of >> hours, that satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? > > Well, one of the most difficult things is how do we deal with the > navigation of these pages. And *this* I cannot do in a couple of hours > :P Well, I think that Gevik was already prepared to deal with that aspect ... the only 'hold back' anyone seems to have been voicing is a means for a non-HTML programmer to submit/add articles without requiring an HTML programmer to do the mark up ... Its just, from my point of view, the WYSIWYG that is missing ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 10 June 2005 16:27 > To: Magnus Hagander > Cc: Josh Berkus; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of hours, that > satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? When I suggested that was possible I got shot down in flames <sob> :-) /D
So if I understand correctly. We want to integrate this CMS, give people access to it to write their stuff, the somehow we want to show the data out side CMS in our own tailored templates and pages?
> -----Original Message----- > From: Gevik babakhani [mailto:gevik@xs4all.nl] > Sent: 10 June 2005 16:59 > To: 'Marc G. Fournier'; 'Magnus Hagander' > Cc: 'Josh Berkus'; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > So if I understand correctly. We want to integrate this CMS, > give people > access to it to write their stuff, No, it will run standalone, in it's own virtual machine, completely separate from the main website. > the somehow we want to > show the data out > side CMS in our own tailored templates and pages? Yes. Instead of writing complete HTML pages, it will write the very simple format templates that our framework then formats into usable HTML. Regards, Dave.
Magnus, Dave, > > Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of hours, that > > satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? > > When I suggested that was possible I got shot down in flames <sob> I've had all too much experience using CMSes which were "thrown together in a couple of hours" lately. The WYSWYG editing is the easy part -- there are several OSS components to do that. What requires work and *considerably* more than a couple hours of troubleshooting includes: Permissions (like, can any author edit any article, or only the author who wrote it, or only editors?) Authentication Navigation Moderation (who can approve articles and how?) File Uploads Author Attribution A mature CMS (like Bricolage) handles these things in a user-tested manner. A 2-hour CMS wouldn't handle them at all, instead counting on a WWW-admin to fix things whenever they get broken -- which would be every day. The idea of using something like Bricolage for TechDocs is that when it becomes popular, nobody on this list necessarily needs to be involved in day-to-day operation. That is, you designate a few trusted authors as moderators, and they take care of moderation and "burning". The only time you get involved is if the CMS-->CVS gateway breaks down. BTW, one issue with CMS-->CVS: how will we delete articles? I'll talk to David Wheeler about this on Monday when he's back from the 'con. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > Sent: 10 June 2005 17:29 > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > BTW, one issue with CMS-->CVS: how will we delete articles? Script reads CVS/Entries, and cvs remove's any files that are listed there, but are no longer present in the output from Bricolage. I don't believe that will be a problem. Regards, Dave.
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Dave Page wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] >> Sent: 10 June 2005 16:27 >> To: Magnus Hagander >> Cc: Josh Berkus; Dave Page; pgsql-www@postgresql.org >> Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. >> >> Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of hours, that >> satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? > > When I suggested that was possible I got shot down in flames <sob> Actually, and my memory can be bad, my recollection was that you wanted to migrate the whole techdocs over to this new layout first, and then focus on 'input tools' (cart before the horse, so to say) ... it wasn't a matter of could it be done, but when, that had most of us concerned ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > Magnus, Dave, > >>> Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of hours, that >>> satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? >> >> When I suggested that was possible I got shot down in flames <sob> > > I've had all too much experience using CMSes which were "thrown together in a > couple of hours" lately. The WYSWYG editing is the easy part -- there are > several OSS components to do that. What requires work and *considerably* > more than a couple hours of troubleshooting includes: > > Permissions (like, can any author edit any article, or only the author who > wrote it, or only editors?) > Authentication > Navigation > Moderation (who can approve articles and how?) > File Uploads > Author Attribution Very good and valid points ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> > > Now, if you can throw together something in a couple of > hours, that > > > satisfies everyone's concerns ... ? > > > > When I suggested that was possible I got shot down in flames <sob> > > I've had all too much experience using CMSes which were > "thrown together in a couple of hours" lately. The WYSWYG > editing is the easy part -- there are several OSS components > to do that. > What requires work and *considerably* more than > a couple hours of troubleshooting includes: > > Permissions (like, can any author edit any article, or only > the author who wrote it, or only editors?) I was envisioning something really simple in this department - anybody who sign up can write. And the same ppl who can approve news and events can approve articles. An edited article becomes a new version of it, and the new version has to be approved to sho wup. When approved, the old one is replaced. > Authentication Yes, this is a problem. And it's a problem for bric, or any other CMS. Because they will provide authentication to the CMS, which means if we want authentication for anything else we either have to push that into the same CMS (which we may or may not want), or we have separate sets of userid/password combos - which sucks bigtime. > Navigation Indeed. And a CMS does *not* solve this. It helps doing so - but so does our current templating system. My experience is rather the opposite - a CMS makes this *harder*, because it often contains fixed assumptions about what you want. > Moderation (who can approve articles and how?) See above. > File Uploads You mean for attached images etc? Yes, that is the difficult one. > Author Attribution Not sure I follow you here. > A mature CMS (like Bricolage) handles these things in a > user-tested manner. A 2-hour CMS wouldn't handle them at > all, instead counting on a WWW-admin to fix things whenever > they get broken -- which would be every day. You clearly have a different experience with these mature CMSes than I do. The ones we use at work certainly need a lot more handholding than the homegrown ones, because they do things *their* way and not *our* way. > The idea of using something like Bricolage for TechDocs is > that when it becomes popular, nobody on this list necessarily > needs to be involved in > day-to-day operation. That is, you designate a few trusted > authors as > moderators, and they take care of moderation and "burning". > The only time you get involved is if the CMS-->CVS gateway > breaks down. Except for the manpower to maintain the CMS. But if you have this manpower available then sure, I'm not against it. As long as it integrates with the site enough that things like template changes don't break it (which it seems would not be a problem if you use bric and push it into the cvs tree etc). I'd also very much like to see an authentication system that can be reused for other parts of the site - I hav eno idea if this can be done with bric (couldn't with any of the other CMSes I've worked with, but I haven't tried bric) I'm certainly not against using a ready-made CMS on principle. I just think it'll end up with more work than people expect. //Magnus
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Magnus Hagander wrote: > Yes, this is a problem. And it's a problem for bric, or any other CMS. > Because they will provide authentication to the CMS, which means if we > want authentication for anything else we either have to push that into > the same CMS (which we may or may not want), or we have separate sets of > userid/password combos - which sucks bigtime. not necessarily, since Bric uses PostgreSQL for a backend, it should be a simple matter of modifying our PHP slightly so that it authenticates off of its central password table ... this should be the least of our worries ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 10 June 2005 17:40 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Marc G. Fournier; Magnus Hagander; Josh Berkus; > pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: RE: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Actually, and my memory can be bad, my recollection was that > you wanted to > migrate the whole techdocs over to this new layout first, and > then focus > on 'input tools' (cart before the horse, so to say) ... it > wasn't a matter > of could it be done, but when, that had most of us concerned ... Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion. It's not like I'm in charge here so I can't understand why my thoughts were taken in such a way - as far as I'm concerned we all have a right to voice an opinion, and the opinion that gains the most support is the one we should take, provided there are no valid technical or legal reasons to prevent us doing so. Anyway, I really rather like the CMS -> CVS -> Web architecture as I think it will offer the solutions we all want. Josh gets a CMS of choice to manage the content, and we get to host the content using the existing infrastructure, all nicely seperated so breakage of one doesn't affect the other. /D
Dave, > Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather > than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an > opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion. Well, I was with you until you mentioned TechDocs. Then it became an issue I have strong opinions about. Gevik, are you still with us? Willing to give Bricolage a try? -- --Josh Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
I've got everything setup, just working on loading the database right now ... On Fri, 10 Jun 2005, Josh Berkus wrote: > Dave, > >> Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather >> than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an >> opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion. > > Well, I was with you until you mentioned TechDocs. Then it became an > issue I have strong opinions about. > > Gevik, are you still with us? Willing to give Bricolage a try? > > -- > --Josh > > Josh Berkus > Aglio Database Solutions > San Francisco > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org > ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Yes I am still here, just catching up reading. Let's try this thing and see if it is what we really want. Please note that I am not a pearl person but then again it should not be a problem. > -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www- > owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 9:47 PM > To: Dave Page > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. > > Dave, > > > Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather > > than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an > > opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion. > > Well, I was with you until you mentioned TechDocs. Then it became an > issue I have strong opinions about. > > Gevik, are you still with us? Willing to give Bricolage a try? > > -- > --Josh > > Josh Berkus > Aglio Database Solutions > San Francisco > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
'k, you'll probably want to start perusing:
http://www.bricolage.cc
I have 1.8.5 (the latest) installed, and have installed all of the
"Optional" perl modules as well as the required ones, just to make sure
that we have all of the functionality ...
As I mentioned earlier, my last step is to get the database loaded ...
hope to have that finished tonight, and will post URL info once done ...
On Sat, 11 Jun 2005, Gevik babakhani wrote:
> Yes I am still here, just catching up reading. Let's try this thing and see
> if it is what we really want. Please note that I am not a pearl person but
> then again it should not be a problem.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www-
>> owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus
>> Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 9:47 PM
>> To: Dave Page
>> Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org
>> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website.
>>
>> Dave,
>>
>>> Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather
>>> than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an
>>> opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion.
>>
>> Well, I was with you until you mentioned TechDocs. Then it became an
>> issue I have strong opinions about.
>>
>> Gevik, are you still with us? Willing to give Bricolage a try?
>>
>> --
>> --Josh
>>
>> Josh Berkus
>> Aglio Database Solutions
>> San Francisco
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org
>
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
'k, bricoalge server is up and running ... I've sent Gevik/Josh/Dave login details so that they can dive into things ... On Sat, 11 Jun 2005, Gevik babakhani wrote: > Yes I am still here, just catching up reading. Let's try this thing and see > if it is what we really want. Please note that I am not a pearl person but > then again it should not be a problem. > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-www- >> owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus >> Sent: Friday, June 10, 2005 9:47 PM >> To: Dave Page >> Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org >> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Proposal for building knowledgebase website. >> >> Dave, >> >>> Well, I voiced an opinion that that particular feature could wait rather >>> than overload Gevik at the outset of his first project. That was only an >>> opinion of course though it seemed to get blown out of all proportion. >> >> Well, I was with you until you mentioned TechDocs. Then it became an >> issue I have strong opinions about. >> >> Gevik, are you still with us? Willing to give Bricolage a try? >> >> -- >> --Josh >> >> Josh Berkus >> Aglio Database Solutions >> San Francisco >> >> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- >> TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to majordomo@postgresql.org > ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664