[ZWeb] NZO / Plone / etc

[george donnelly]

[Sidnei da Silva wrote (sidnei@x3ng.com) on 2/18/03 2:55 PM]

> Sorry for the confusion. I hope you have time to make some suggestions
> at least. I would be glad to implement them.

hi sidnei

Ok, I have some comments/suggestions. If they are liked, then I'll try to
find some time to implement them. (Though I guess I would need access and
I'm still unclear as to what I have to do to get this.)

1. HTML Code:

The template uses ways too many div's. I don't know if there is much of a
performance cost but it seems needlessly messy. Also, why does it use a
table? If its for NN4 compatibility then I can implement a way to get
NN4-compatible all-CSS/no-table layout.

2. <title>:

The <title> of the first page should have some keywords in it, eg Content
Management System, Application Framework, etc so that Zope.org comes up
prominently on searches for these terms in search engines.

3. Navigation:

The Welcome, News, Members and Search (should be called Advanced Search)
links are really kind of obscured and not very useful in their present
location.

On navigation: the top 5-9 sections of the site should be identified and be
prominently and redundantly navigable. The left-side navigation box is
excellent and I think an abbreviated site map should be at the bottom of all
the pages and i think we should consider a nav bar across the top, running
under the logo and search box.

Why are there two Documentation sections? I think they should be merged.

Utilites is a pretty generic term; its not obvious what would be in that
section.

Are DevHome and ZopeProjects the same thing?

How about a Downloads Section?

Let's put News and Members in here.


4. Javascript:

I think the javascript stuff should be dumped. It slows things down and its
hard to make this work reliably across all platforms. Also, I suspect the
main user of zope.org is the developer and and developers do not seem to be
javascript fans.

5. Input Buttons:

The input buttons look weird to me, like caved in. I think one thing that
would help is giving them some padding so they're not so cramped. Also
perhaps giving them a background color that better distinguishes them from
the white background, perhaps a darker gray with white text or the blue
that's in the header and white text.

6. About box:

I frankly don't see the need for the About box that appears on every page.
How about this:

Status: this only needs to be seen by a manager or the owner of the object

Type/meta_type: ditto

Last Modified: Let's put it at the bottom of every view method like this:

Last Modified: 2003-01-12

Creator: Let's put it in a byline under the title of the object. For
example:

Created by zettai 2003-01-12


7. Comments: 

Let's put the actual comment form on the page. To have to wait for an extra
screen to load before you can input your comments seems wasteful of time and
an unnecessary barrier. Let's do it the way everyone else does it. I think
it would be good to offer this as a tab as well along with View and State
etc.


8. Tag Line:

 Zope.org has not tag line. It needs a short and prominently placed
description of 8 words or less because the word "Zope" does not give me
people any clue as to what Zope is or does.


9. Preferences: 

I think you should also be able to specify here whether people be allowed to
contact you via the feedback form(s).

Also, while changing my prefs i ignored the skin form and simply went with
the default which was Plone Core. Well, this locked me out of the site, sent
me a http auth dialog box that only went away after cancelling it 6 times (i
clicked cancel and it came back, cancel, came back etc) and the showed me
the CZO style.


10. Search Results

Let's do it the normal way:

linked Title
Descriptive Text
Date/Author/Etc

This works for google, yahoo, etc etc. Let's leverage the standard.

Let's also make the Keywords of objects appear in the search results linked
to a search that results only in objects with that subject. The same with
Author/Creator and Item Type.

It would be interesting to be able to search within any given results set.


11. News:

The most important aspect of a news item is the title, right? so let's make
that the first and biggest part and not the posted by etc etc. Also those
lines are not necessary. also the title should be linked to the full text.

I'd also like to implement that blog here that I was selling before. ;)


12. Members

Is it really useful? Or are there plans to build this out that just haven't
been realized yet?


13. FrontPage

I would opt for a 3 or 4 column front page that has information
from/pointers to all of the sections along with a short 1 paragraph intro.

And let's not forget the RSS feed, the news box, the zope exits and the
image of the zope book linked to amazon.

14. Things that Rock

The overall design

The contents view and the recently added items stuff is very cool and looks
very good.

The breadcrumbs are excellent.

The index pages of the sections are very well done.

All your hard work!


Like I said, I'm willing to implement this stuff, tho perhaps not very
rapidly.

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