Some tips that could be implemented in a few days/weeks on the zope website: [sorry if those are a bit "rude", but I feel that some little things would make the zope site even better, and since some of those are very simple things, I don't see any other option than applying them now ;-) ] - have a longer description of search results. Those are +- 25 chars long, it's a strange idea to have only the beginning of the title. A short description should be included. If a document has a "description" property, include it under the title link. Each memeber of the site should be encouraged to include a "description" property to his objects. - have a 1-10 rating for products, and gives the ability to rate products (eventually with comments). Give the opportunity to sort the products based on rating. Display the category of each product in the product list. Each object on the website should be rate-able. Any visitor should be able to rate any object on the site. The search engine should use this information. - Create a product documentation framework. A simple text file with all the titles would be sufficient. Even better, in the member area, add another type of product : "documentation", with all the properties ready to be filled up. Authors are lazy, because they do it for free, so let's help them (us). - Create a product repository separated from the members page. It's strange to have products stored on the members page. A product has nothing to do with a member beside the fact that he is the author. No one search a product based on author. There is something strange : the product area already exists, but it contains the information to download zope itself. Products are listed at the bottom of the page. I'm not sure everyone sees them. Separate the main zope downloads and the products downloads. Microsoft doesn't mix windows and office pages after all... - Give something better than the empty member page (see : http://www.zope.org/Members ). With zope's wonderfull versions, it should be easy to keep "the maintenance" outside the live website. Maintenance pages should never exist on a zope powered site. Give at least a listing of all the members. It's 3 lines of dtml. Or did I miss something? - and if something doesn't work, at least you'll have tried... I firmly believe that zope is powerfull enough now. What I (as a semi-newbie) need for now is: - documentation - tutorials ...and a very good website. As a newbie, when I come to the zope website, It's bit like when I first tried zope : it looked powerfull, but some of the features were hard to find. Anyway, let me say that zope is the best thing that hapened to my computer since well... hum... since... since a very long time anyway ! Philippe
Have you looked at the Zope Directions document recently posted on dev.zope.org?
http://dev.zope.org/Resources/ZopeDirections.html
Dramatically lowering the bar for developers to create quality components is our number one priority going forward. It will be evolutionary and not happen all at once, but it will be happening.