[okfn-help] ckan FAQ.

Thu Dec 17 19:23:21 GMT 2009

Dear David,

Many thanks for your suggestions about CKAN! Very useful feedback. I
hope you don't mind I'm passing this onto our okfn-help list, which is
where OKF technical people lurk.

Brief responses inline below.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 8:22 PM, David Jones <drj at ravenbrook.com> wrote:
> From http://ckan.net/guide I quote: "If you have any questions about CKAN
> not answered here please post to info at okfn.org".
>
> So I am.
>
> 1.
>
> In the lists of packages (eg http://ckan.net/package/list but also search
> results and stuff), there are two symbols displayed to the left of each
> package.   cross,cross / tick,cross / and so on.  Their meaning does not
> seem to be documented (and it's certainly not obvious enough for my simple
> mind).  Oh wait, I just found the hover over.  Not accessible and still too
> obscure.

Agree. We should have a key.

> 2.
>
> One ought to be able to search for a package directly from this page:
>
> http://ckan.net/package/
>
> instead of having to clicking on "search" to take you to a type-in box which
> could easily fit on the "package" page.

Again agree. Generally too many click throughs. Same applies to adding
packages. Should be able to do all this from front page ideally.
Website should better prioritise key pages.

> 3.
>
> Why does searching for "crutem" not find the package called "crutem3"?
>  Lame.

Yep also agree that this could be improved.

> 4.
>
> What order are search results in?  Example, searching for "temperature"
> gives the package results in no particular order (that I can determine).

I believe it is in order of when they were registered on CKAN. I think
I also suggested a while back that we should have the option to list
alphabetically, etc. Ultimately faceted browsing of tags would be
amazing.

> 5.
>
> I just added the "gistemp" package.  The license is listed as
> "Other::License Not Specified" because I couldn't find a definitive
> statement.  However, in the lists it appears as "This package is NOT openly
> licensed" (once I discovered the hover over, see [1] above).  But it
> probably is.  Might I suggest that "License Not Specified" merits a question
> mark in that column?

Again I agree. Someone else also raised this. I think I said perhaps
there could be a question mark for 'not specified', rather than a
cross.

> Keep up the good work.

Thanks! :-)

Do let us know if you can think of anything else. Always very useful
to get feedback from users. Very grateful for your time.

> drj
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://www.okfn.org