[ckan-dev] publicdata.eu Sprint plan

Sun May 29 09:17:50 UTC 2011

Hi Seb,

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Seb Bacon <seb.bacon at okfn.org> wrote:
> However, I think that the question of what the default theme of CKAN
> should be needs more thought.  For example, on the technical level,
> there was a decision a while ago to use Wordpress HTML structure and
> CSS clases/id.  I still think that that's arguably a good idea.  It
> may be an even better idea to support PHP as a templating language,
> but that's another story... */me ducks*

I get the wordpress part (though I don't like it, it limits us to
making everything structured like a blog) but as for PHP I see little
possibility of doing this right without moving the entire frontend to
PHP (how else do we get template variables, helper callbacks etc.)

> Also, we need to have a think about who we are trying to appeal to
> with our default skin.  My opinion is we should be trying to grow our
> community by appealing to those who are most likely to influence
> decisions to use it on a large scale; potentially Bernard (see
> http://wiki.ckan.net/User_Stories -- I updated it yesterday, complete
> with scary pictures :)  And I am not sure Bernard would like
> functional minimalism.

Pictures are really really scary and I am quite sure none of the
depicted will ever see CKAN, but hey.

I do disagree with your assessment of who we should cater to, though:
I don't see CKAN.net as a product brochure, its a functional tool and
as such it must first and foremost serve its actual users. We can of
course have some shiny ad site where we announce its advantages but I
think that mixing this into the actual site is counterproductive if we
want to promote its actual use by data wranglers in every-day
operation.

If we have one USP we should build on, its the idea of having a
community of data users collaborate around the platform. And even
though "people will join and play with you" is still a hard sell to
most government entities, I think we can only make the point by
building a fantastic community at ckan.net.

> So, I would prefer if we started out by implementing the new theme as
> a stand-alone extension.  Then we can continue discussions (informed
> by what you produce for PDEU) about what the *default* theme should
> be, and/or even ship CKAN with a choice of themes.

OK

- Fr.

>>> Also: re-theming meaning just CSS and header, or more fundamental UI goodness?
>>
>> No, this is mostly about CSS, but I must admit to thinking about
>> restructuring the HTML of CKAN a little bit - if we're going to
>> incorporate another layout, the next version of CKAN (with its
>> breaking change in forms handling) would be a reasonable point to do
>> so (let the protests begin here...)
>
> I think we need a separate thread of discussion about this, as above,
> perhaps after you've done PDEU (I think it will be really informative
> to start with a minimalist version).
>
>>>> Currently GitHub, Quora, Google
>>>> Projects & Fusion Tables are at the top of my list -which info sites
>>>> do you like best?
>>>
>>> In terms of pure visual looks:
>>> I like http://www.google.co.uk/search?tbs=isg%3Ato&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=pizza
>>> but I don't like Google Code
>>
>> Curious, rgrp thinks so too while I find it very functional. I'm just
>> a fan of those really stripped down things, like
>> http://correlate.googlelabs.com/ that was released yesterday: simple
>> side bar, search bar, account header - done.
>
> Yes, I like the latter too.  But using Google Code / Projects somehow
> makes me wince.  I don't know why.
>
> Seb
>