Vincent and Wouter -- thanks for the great responses.  I'll try to take your advice
and tweak just a space for normal users.
One thing I've identified that would be nice, but I don't know how to do...
I'd like the Document Metadata panel that is below the content panel to _not_ appear,
unless someone selects Comments, Annotations, Attachments, History, Information in the top
right corner of the content panel.  I think this must be possible, the reason, why else
would there be two ways to navigate to it -- top right of content _and_ tabs on meta
panel.  (I'm aware of turning off each Doc Metadata tab from the Page Elements... but
I don't want them off, just not expanded out.)
^ That would simplify the look quite a bit.
I've started some notes so I can reproduce what I'm doing at some point:
(scripting myself)
Create a new group "Wiki Users"
Create some users as Wiki Users
Login as them to see what a non-admin sees
Probably have 2 different browsers to keep flipping back and forth
Create a new Space, one which will be the normal user's default
Keep default skin so you don't stray from supported world
Go to Administer Wiki -> Look & Feel
Presentation you can change the color of the default skin
Page Elements -> turn off left panel, turn on right panel, etc
Panel Wizard -> choose what you want in the right panel
There are more things I'd like to do:
Backlinks has redundant pages something like " | sort | uniq" is needed.  A bug?
Add Search in right panel and remove X-WIKI header of page.  Header must be somewhere in
the skin?
Thanks guys -- I hope to help out with the "minimal config" page.
----- "Vincent Massol" <vincent(a)massol.net> wrote:
  Hi Guillaume,
 On Sep 8, 2011, at 10:37 AM, Guillaume Fenollar wrote:
  Hi,
 Finally, I think it would be great to have some available .xar 
 packages to
  download, not only one. It would give us the
choice to build xwiki 
 according
  to the features we're looking for. 
 What you're talking about is the Exension Manager ;)
 … which already exists and which you can try in XE 3.2 (it's missing a
 nice UI but the features are there). We need the max # of people to
 try it out and report issue if any.
 Thanks
 -Vincent
 Regards
 Guillaume
 2011/9/8 Vincent Massol <vincent(a)massol.net>
> Hi Wouter,
>
> On Sep 8, 2011, at 9:25 AM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
>
>> Hi Vincent,
>>
>> Sounds like a good plan to me, since it will make Xwiki more easy 
 to use
 > for
>> content managers with no coding background, it will lower the 
 treshold
 > for
>> people wanting to use xwiki.
>>
>> Xwiki is great, no question, but it offers so many possibilities 
 that for
 >> people like me who focus primarily on
content management and 
 usability
 > and
>> are by no means PHP and JAVA geniuses, it tends to get a bit 
 complicated.
 >>
>> IMO approach 2) is to be preferred because of the same reason you 
 stated
 >> allready.
>> Maybe we can collect ideas on stripping down over the userlist, 
 sort
 > them,
>> and use them to create the guide?
>
> yep that's the idea.
>
>> Is there a standard layout for guides like this allready?
>
> No but the guide could be put in the Admi Guide ultimately:
> 
http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/AdminGuide/
>
> Now the practice is to start writing this stripping down guide in 
 the draft
 > section and as soon as it contains something
we judge nice enough 
 to move it
 > to the final location (AdminGuide):
> 
http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Drafts/
>
>> Because then we would create it accordingly.
>
> Great. Feel free to create a page in the Draft space:
> 
http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Drafts/
>
> Thanks
> -Vincent
>
>> Thanks for the thoughts,
>>
>> Wouter
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Vincent Massol 
 <vincent(a)massol.net>
 > wrote:
>>
>>> Hi guys,
>>>
>>> It would be nice to have a guide on 
xwiki.org about this topic 
 of
 >>> stripping the default XE.
>>>
>>> Basically you have 2 approaches:
>>> 1) Don't import the default XE XAR (ie you start with an empty 
wiki, no
 >>> pages)
>>> 2) Start with the default XE XAR and make modifications to it
>>>
>>> Choosing 1) or 2) really depends if 2) is close to what you need 
 or
not.
 >>> Choosing 2) is the easiest though
since it's easier to remove 
 things
 > than
>>> to create new stuff from nothing :)
>>>
>>> If you can tell us what you don't want, we could maybe tell you 
how to
 > turn
>>> them off/make them disappear.
>>>
>>> Once we figure out together how to remove stuff, would be great 
 if you
 > guys
>>> could start a guide on 
xwiki.org about how to remove stuff and 
 stip
 > down
>>> xwiki!
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> -Vincent
>>>
>>> On Sep 8, 2011, at 8:51 AM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Scott,
>>>> I am not aware of a "Strip down Guide" but I had the same issue
 here.
 >>>>
>>>> What I did is just simply build op a space for the endusers, in 
which I
 >>>> created 3 Custom Panels for
navigation purposes, nothing more.
>>>> This you can easily do when you go to the space preferences and 
look at
 >>> the
>>>> panel wizard.
>>>> Here you can edit panels and place them accordingly in your 
layout.
 >>>> You should be aware of the fact
that the users go to the main 
 wiki
 >>>> (non-enduser in your case) by
clicking the logo, you might want 
 to
 > change
>>>> this, the same goes for the displayed search results.
>>>> You can also predefine if endusers should see the Comment box at 
the
 >>> bottom
>>>> of the page or not, etc.
>>>>
>>>> IMO the great thing of Xwiki is exactly this, you are in total 
control
 > of
>>>> what the endusers can see and are allowed to do.
>>>>
>>>> I hope this helps a bit, if you have more questions please feel 
free to
 >>> let
>>>> me know.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards and good luck,
>>>>
>>>> Wouter
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 10:11 PM, Scott Serr 
<serrs(a)theserrs.net>
 > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd like some guidance on heading towards a very minimal xwiki
>>>>> configuration, at least for end users.  The default xwiki UI is
 pretty
 >>>>> complex.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'd like users to see this:
>>>>> content (edit, print)
>>>>> search box
>>>>> minimal side bar
>>>>> backlinks
>>>>> (and not much more)
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there a guide on how to strip down what a normal user sees 
to the
   > bare
>>> essentials?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Scott 
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