[ZDP] Some remarks about the portal design(s)

[Rik Hoekstra]

Hi Maik,

Please remember all remarks are meant as remarks, _not_ as criticism. I just
think it needs to be said you're doing a terrific job for the ZDP and for
ZOpe in general. I know it is easy to remark on someone else's work, but
still, think about i as thinking along...


> - THere is no login button/link

I'd just wait for LoginManager to do that.


[rh]I thought so, just wanted to make sure

> - The separation between the yahoo-like portal things and the
> ZDP-projects lower on the page is a bit strange.

Right. I am still experimentin with this.

[rh] OK.

> Moreover it is not clear what is what, and why it is there.

I have tried to make this absolutely clear by changing the headers
to always say so. This may also seem strange, but for the people
who are new to this stuff it will be helpful. Example from

http://zdp.zope.org/portals/users/dtml

"All Resources and Links relating to the Subject "DTML" and all Topics for
Users"



[rh] Yep, I appreciate your efforts, still I'm afraid they're not clear
enough. A little weeding will do wonders ;-)

> I think a link with a little
> explanation is more in the spirit of the homepage. Now we have like five
> different links to DTML or DTML related items on one page. No user who
> doesn't know what he's looking for (or what ZQR, ZSnippets etc mean)
> will be able to find easily what he's looking for.

I want to remove the FAQ, ZQR and Snippets from the main page once I this
stuff is integrated. I want the visitors of the ZDP site to find what they
expect to find in a way they are used to, at least for the time being.


[rh] OK, agreed. Perhaps you should mention that on the homepage.

> - The members portal should give an 'overview at a glance' of what
> changed at the zdp site and where to find it

I have deactivated this feature, because of too many changes. I need
to work on this later.

[rh] OK. Perhaps you could use some help? (all this seems like a terrible
lot of work)

> - While I really like the direct search options, they are not always on
> topic (like searching on Zope.org for projects in the Members portal).

They are generically on topic. I want to have user defined searches as
well, but this it for now.

[rh] OK. We'll wait and see ;-)

> It would be even nicer to have a digest mode, which searches more
> machines at once and give a ranked result list. I know this is a lot of
> work, but it's only an idea

I know of such search engines, but I'll rather wait for a Product that
someone else may develop :-)



[rh] I have some ideas, just not enough expertise and/or time. This seems
like a very good candidate for a Zope solution (with pluggable brains and
searchable objects already there)
Someone else interested to cooperate or at least give advice? Anthony
Baxter, are you listening?

> Any reason why the searchable mailinglist archives are not included (in
> the hacker, developer etc portals) in the automatic searches? Chris,
> does this sound like a good idea.

Well, I have included egroups links inside Topics. Should we allow
that in Subjects and Portals as well ?

The developers Topics also have this:

http://zdp.zope.org/portals/developers/development/products



[rh]Yes, but Chris WIthers has been plugging the searchable mailing list
archives at his site (can't find a link now, sorry)

Rik