[MTOS-dev] Feedback on CPAN, Templates and Documentation

[Dave Morgan]

Hi All,

As a newcomer to MTOS/MT I am having trouble following all the  
discussions
but I do believe this type of design conversation is extremely  
important.

We are an information service supporting over 500 clients wanting to  
move them onto
a perl/Postgres blogging platform. Many/some of our clients do not  
even have computers,
everything is done by fax. If there is not a "Print this Page"  
plugin, that is what
our next contribution will be

 From our perspective, MTOS must support 3 kinds of users, sysadmins/ 
developers, power bloggers (our data entry clerks),
and noobies (clients). Code should be written to the highest level,  
documentation should be written to the lowest.

What sysadmins/developers need:
- all code that is from/belongs/or could be in CPAN should be from CPAN
	- provide a perl script that will install needed modules from CPAN,  
do not provide them
		- for example is extlib/DateTime.pm the same as the CPAN version?
- a central place for documentation, currently we are aware of, (and  
probably missing much):
	- this list
	- ProNet, whatever that is
	- the wiki
	- the manuals
	- perldoc within the MTOS code
	- MTOS.org
- memory leaks fixed, if MTOS wants our code, then it is required  
that problems with existing code be fixed
	- I do not want to have to cycle my servers, that costs us money
	- it is not cost-effective for us to track down someone else's bugs,  
it cost us 16 hours to get mod-perl working,
	  we are willing to take on that job, but other than that, we prefer  
to add functionality to MTOS.

- also do I need to worry that the next release breaks our mod-perl  
install?
	- currently working fine, 60MB footprint, I don't understand the  
worries about memory, we still have further testing todo
	  before we go to production
- all php dependencies removed, if MTOS is perl use perl, we do not  
need the security headache PHP creates
- please continue the modularization work :)

What noobies need:
	- simple, easy to read, step by step HOWTO manuals
	- for example I am struggling, please someone help, to deploy a  
simple CSS stylesheet
		- problem spec: take the CSS from www.rigskills.ca and deploy in an  
MT blog
			- CSS style conflicts are no problem, but where and how do I  
deploy the code
				- cut and paste into where ?
				- upload a file and add an include into where ?
		- sooner or later we will figure it out, but a noobie? Ohhhhh, the  
pain

What power bloggers need:
	- see recent discussion of Template indexing :)
	- ALL templates must be editable
		- where are the descriptions of what a template does?
			- it is non-intuitive that an index template is a static page  
template
				- I am not even sure that is correct
	- the biggest thing we are missing (and probably due to our lack of  
understanding is how does a blogger
	  edit/customize the dashboard page.
		- We want to give our clients the ability to customize their  
newsfeeds, gadgets etc.

HTH

Dave

Dave Morgan
Operations Manager, Rigskills Canada
http://www.rigskills.ca
dave.morgan at rigskills.ca
403 399 2442



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