[ckan-dev] Creating 4 featured groups on the index page instead of 2.

[Sean Hammond]

> There is quite much documentation about how to template and write
> extensions in order to customize CKAN. But to be honest: This is by
> far too complicated for non-developers. For example, I tried to figure
> out how to simply add a static page like "Feedback" or "Contact". Or
> to change CSS styles, change a page, etc. CKAN seems to be very
> flexible here by using some CKAN config parameters, some parameters in
> the admin GUI, templates, extensions and "resource" tools, but as I
> said that's too complicated. I still does not know how to customize
> CKAN without writing python code. Even the template engine is not
> really obvious and is just described for changing a page, not to add a
> new page.

For writing extensions, I recently started work on better documentation
including a step-by-step tutorial, you can find it here:

https://github.com/okfn/ckan/pull/943

(scroll down for the link to the new documentation itself). Now would be
a good time to get any feedback on this.

I'd like to do something similar for theming/modifying the templates as
well eventually, but we haven't started yet.

Unfortunately, yes, writing CKAN extensions and themes is a technical
topic, for programmers.

There is also some work on a user guide for users rather than sysadmins
or developers:

https://github.com/okfn/ckan/wiki/User-guide

>  I wish to have a basic CMS systems on top of the core CKAN (as data
>  storage) in order to build the static pages. Maybe something like a
>  mini wordpress.

I think a very simple and basic "mini wordpress" or a "mini CMS" (static
pages) feature where sysadmins can use a web interface to add blog posts
and static pages, would be quite easy to implement as a CKAN extension.
It would be a fair sized chunk of work though and would need a clear
spec before starting.

If you want to see how to add static pages to CKAN 2.0 using a CKAN
extension, ckanext-sa has some:

https://github.com/okfn/ckanext-sa