[Zope-CMF] sitin with a designer

[Bill Anderson]

On 02 May 2001 10:52:14 -0500, alan runyan wrote:
> 'the default CMF view is tad confusing', said the designer.  essentially the
> biggest problem they have overcoming the default CMF skin is that the
> 'actionBox' isnt distinguished enough from 'content'.  it makes for a fairly
> confusing control panel.


Huh?


> here are some problems that were discussed:
> 
> *  you cant easily tell where you are (there are no consistent breadcrumbs)

So add them. :) 

> *  when you add a folder you are dropped into the folder (w/o warning) and
> w/o breadcrumbs you have no visual cue where you are


Well, a small one, yes. You see the link to the folder you were just in,
though i agree that one should probably not be dropped into the new
folder by default.

> *  when you are adding content (applies to ZOPE as well -- saw someone
> struggling today with it) - there is no cue where you are adding the content
> (especially
> since the left tree view doesnt sync with where you are in the right pane).
> you see Add DTML Method and a description, it seems putting the breadcrumbs
> above that wouldnt be too much trouble?

So feel free to modify, I believe) the folder_contents view. I disagree
that there is no clue as to where you added something when you added it;
it puts it right where you are. 


> * he felt the actionBox and its state was very much distraction and said it
> was visually disconnected from the main interface (i.e. it looked like
> content, as stated before)


How do you mean 'looked like content', or more specifically, what did he
mean by that?

> * he wanted the actionBox actions visually hidden unless he NEEDED them
> (roll over at the top/menu style) - I asked him to draw up a comp and I will
> try to help evolve it.

Tell him he is free to code some CROSS_BROWSER and CROSS_PLATFORM
javascript to do so. i doubt very much the default skin will include
drop-downs, etc for several reasons. One is the browser support issue. I
can browse the default skinsned sites in CMF with a text browser. the
default should be useable bythe maximum amount of clients. Adding
dropdowns/popups, etc is a customization thing, not a default thing.
IMO.

(for the curious, point the awesome text-browser Links at
http://www.libc.org for an viewing pleasure :)

> * when trying to skin teh default CMF he couldnt figure out all the places
> the CSS were being used.


Uhhhm, not to sound rude, but a designer who can't read HTML would
bother me some. Perhaps he/you meant somehting else? Every time a
class="foo" is used in the html, CSS is used. Pretty much every page.

> 
> NOTES:
> * after using GoLive w/ ZOPE - I see how PageTemplates could be *very*
> effective workign w/ designers- or at least I think I see how...
> * Dreamweaver appears to have major problems with ZOPE: can not rename (?)
> files, no extensions causes problems, is there a way to know these nuances?
> * Zope Tutorial was *too basic* for the designer.  he is not a programmer,
> but he knows plenty about HTML.  He would purchase a book if it were not too
> technical.  I believe he felt the Zope Book was a bit too technical.  I will
> get more info.
> * in CMF its a bit 'vast' OOTB.  in Interwoven seeing the 'branch' and
> having a sandbox users can instantly feel like they can work on content.  is
> there a way to 'site_load' a buncha html into a CMF?
> * hopefully we will have a pretty ok, default CMF + nice colours skin *very
> soon*


With a few _minor_ tweaks, the default is fine for a default. Rememebr
the X-platform and x-browser nature of it. Client side scripting should
be a bare minimum, if any is to be involved at all (which, IMO there is
no need).

> 
> can we now using .'s in our object named w/o having unexpected
> repercussions?  It seems you need the .html/.dtml for dreamweaver and goLive
> to work properly (HTML Kit doenst need that) -- I've seen this discussed
> before.  It seems that index.html works just great (at the root having
> index_html saying if there is a index.html in the folder render it ;)


No. having the dot is bad juju in my experience in CMF. unless of course
you don't use the actions stuff. :(




Bill