[Zope-dev] Re: [Zope3-dev] Are there Graphic Designers?

[Alexander Limi]

Hi, Alexander Limi here, I am responsible for Plone's design and XHTML/CSS.
I just want to clarify some issues:

* The goal of Plone is to be lightweight, to offload as much layout as
possible to the CSS. Should be possible to use in low-bandwith situations
(mobile 9600bps GSM connections etc).

* Target browsers for Plone are

   * Mozilla/Netscape6
   * Opera 5+
   * IE 5+
   * Konqueror
   * Netscape 4
   * w3m
   * lynx

These are the browsers I want to be able to guarantee that Plone works in. I
even added a graceful degrading layer for Netscape4, since it is so common
in the open source world. (it's broken at plone.org at the moment though,
just returned from my Easter vacation, and somebody has checked in changes
that stops it from working - I will locate said person and give him a good
whacking ;)

* Goal is 100% XHTML 1.0 compliance, and this will not break any browsers as
some people seem to think.

* Another goal is to use Javascript where useful, but always make it fully
functional without it.

* Plone should be very quick to load, close-to-no graphics, and is perfectly
suited for the new ZMI (in fact I designed it with this in mind ;)

* And - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet(tm) - PloneNG will utilize a lot of nifty
DOM tricks and probably XML/XSL to leverage the user experience on newer
browsers.


The point I really want to make here: cross-browser compatibility isn't that
hard if you approach it the right way and accept some degrading for inferior
browsers like Netscape 4.

As for comments about Plone's slowness at the moment - this has nothing at
all to do with the XHTML/CSS and general design - this is because of
expensive method calls in the Plone code.

What's *really* important about the new interface for Z3 is that the
management interface is designed by someone who understands *both* HTML and
UI design/usability to a high degree.

I have been proposed as one of the persons to take on this task, but as I'm
already investing a lot of my spare time in Plone, I would need something
more than just something nice to put on my resume. Finding work in the
interface/usability business is hard at the moment, and I can't afford to
invest a lot of time in the Z3 interface without being compensated for it in
some way.

If somebody (Zope Corp or any other organization) wants to sponsor this
effort, I'm sure we can come to an agreement on pricing. Discounts for the
Zope crowd ;)

I hope I don't come across as arrogant, but these are the realities - if I
don't get paid, I can't afford to do it. Such is the state of business
nowadays. Unfortunately. :(


-- Alexander Limi