Hi Uwe,
I think the easiest way right now for you to get those rights and the right interface (the 1.0, not the old one which is still default on the farm) would be to give us the address of the XWiki you are using so that we can give it a look and help you a bit more effectively.
I am ok to do that, I will have some time tomorrow if you need a hand to switch to the new skin and start doing some basic stuff.
On the "philosophical" side, I would say that XWiki's gut compared with most other wikis lie in the fact that you can create cookie cutters
and you do not need to cut all your cookies by hand.
A successful app is therefore first an application that has a well-defined aim (ie, "I want to use a wiki as a contact manager in my company") and then one which builds on the tools and interface provided by XWiki to achieve this aim more effectively than a traditional wiki would.
What does the object model provides you with? Basically, a way to automate template duplication and modification. XWiki lets you separate form and content, a bit like the distinction between html and css. You can let the actual content to end-users and take care of the layout.
You can create elements that will operate on specific subsets (eg, only a given value in the pages of a given space) to provide users with effective ways to browse through content: for instance, a search searching only for elements in FAQ objects in the FAQ space, or only in the content of answers field and not in the content of questions field for instance, which would be impossible with a standard wiki. Currently, learning how to do so depends on the availability of existing code... I think we can progressively change this together.
As regards the documentation, right now it depends on user like you and me, who have the time and motivation to document new things as they come by them. I am not sure any "general framework" or whatever would be that useful here. It is more about everybody taking small, incremental steps, say 5 minutes a day to improve a page, add useful comments to the wiki and so on. I have started trying to do that, adding a FAQ, an application page, a reference and so on when I could.
Hopefully if the wiki way paradigm holds any truth we should end up with an amazing, Wikipedia-like database of our own that would tell all the secrets of XWiki. My take is, let's give it a try and we'll see what happens next :-)
Guillaume
PS: I do not mean to say that the killer app discussed before is not a good idea, only that (as I think Brian made the point earlier) it is easier to spare 5 minutes than 5 hours to work on XWiki.org..
.
On 05/04/07, Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu.dumitriu@gmail.com> wrote:
Well said!
You can ask the developers for assistance whenever you have difficulties understanding something.
Sergiu
On 4/5/07,
Oova <
ping.scan@gmail.com> wrote:
Guys,
I must be another breed, I barely follow you, 'these' users and 'those'
users, automatically generated comment pages for users to fill it out,
etc..... I am just lost or too old fashioned.
My humble opinion is as follows. In house building as in software, if you
want to enable somebody else to build an application (house) you give them a
description, what kind of particular applications (houses) you especially
are qualified to help building FASTER and BETTER than usual (Benefits
overview and tools to gain those benefits). You also write, what kind of
skill set might be useful to take advantage of the tools your provide. Then
you provide the architecture (blueprint, ....) and explain what kind of
interfaces (for walls, windows, plumbing, roofing,...) you created to enable
others to build. To expedite the break-in you give some sample applications
illustrating how the architecture, interfaces and tools helped gain the
benefits for some use cases. And I am sorry, no offense, you do not ask the
engineer who designed the software kit/ housing builder kit do document it,
otherwise it becomes a kit from highly skilled engineers for other highly
skilled engineers written in a highly specialized technise language, which
the target audience might not speak. You normally ask a guinea pig out of
the targeted audience to try to document, what it understands and let it
build at least one application (house) using the tools provided. And you
nurture the guinea pig with enough food, encouragement and help, so the
snowball effect making the whole target audience aware of your great stuff
can start and you as the engineer can go back cranking out the next great SW
and tool for even better applications and houses. Making sense? Any
agreement?
I am a guinea pig, I am eager to use Xwiki, because for some reason, I think
XWiki is a great concept (don't let me go into the 'Crossing the chasm
modeling, or the 4 steps of the epiphany', both great models of how to
establish innovation in the market place successfully and go beyond the
innovator's initial excitement). But you need to let the targeted audience
pick-up the momentum.
Enough Philosophy, if there is any agreement on what I said before, let me,
Guillaume and other 'users' spread the word in a lower level technise. To
enable us we need to understand
- targeted user (groups)
- architecture
- concept of object model and API
- guts (and not only nice webpages) of successful applications of the XWiki
(or is the XWikis main purpose to create nice looking webpages? I did not
think so)
Uwe
THOMAS, BRIAN M (ATTSI) wrote:
>
>
>>
>> I wish this were true... I don't think a second that it'll
>> work though as:
>> 1) users will say that they cannot document if they don't
>> know what it does
>> 2) once users know what it does, they usually go away
>> 3) users don't like to document anymore than developers like it
>>
>> :)
>
> Your points are generally true, but when you talk of "users" you're not
> necessarily talking of these users. I'm talking about people like me
> who would have loved it if someone had just told them this or that
> little tidbit of information, and gladly contribute it, especially when
> it's in the context of the document
>
>> But I like the idea... and would be game to try it... if
>> someone else implements it... (all my time is currently used
>> for the
1.0
>> release)
>>
>
> The only reason I haven't already made a start of it is that I haven't
> found an HTML DOM parser. Is there one in the myriad of libraries that
> come with XWiki?
>
>
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