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Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 3:10 am
by onion2k
Cool.
If noone has any objection I'm going to escalate myself from project manager volunteer to Project Manager proper. And then I'm going to work out a sort of Gantt chart so we can get things rolling.
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 4:00 am
by ok
I agree

good luck!
Posted: Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:32 pm
by Jenk
can't get onto the wiki at the mo, but here is the use case diag I've made.. very simple, and as I would prefer we go step by step.. there isn't a lot to it

Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 3:41 pm
by onion2k
Heh.. nice diagram. The wiki is down at the moment (or just going slowly) so I'll post a few comments here:
1. Why does the admin need to see the same "Welcome Page" as the user?
2. Why does the admin need to see the same product catalogue as the user? (I imagine admin would prefer to see a more compact version without marketing fluff) (thinking about it, your diagram just says admin access the same data, so this point might be moot)
3. Ideally admin shouldn't have to approve orders, this should be done automagically on a successful return from the payment gateway. This could well be an option though.
4. Should admin be able to change the billing modular? I'd have thought that should be something for a developer/maintainer/installer of the application. (Unless that's who you mean by 'admin').
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:20 pm
by onion2k
I've made a "gantt chart" (sort, it's not really a proper one) outlining approximately the way I see the project going (click to enlarge):

Each box is 1 week .. so to get to a project release is 40 weeks in total. This is quite high pressure though .. if people want to work slower then now is really the time to say so. Clearly there's several things being written at once .. we'll need to divide up sections of the project.
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:28 pm
by Jenk
onion2k wrote:Heh.. nice diagram. The wiki is down at the moment (or just going slowly) so I'll post a few comments here:
1. Why does the admin need to see the same "Welcome Page" as the user?
2. Why does the admin need to see the same product catalogue as the user? (I imagine admin would prefer to see a more compact version without marketing fluff) (thinking about it, your diagram just says admin access the same data, so this point might be moot)
3. Ideally admin shouldn't have to approve orders, this should be done automagically on a successful return from the payment gateway. This could well be an option though.
4. Should admin be able to change the billing modular? I'd have thought that should be something for a developer/maintainer/installer of the application. (Unless that's who you mean by 'admin').
1. 'Welcome Page' just means base index (i.e. docroot/index.php) it's kind of a superflous addition to the chart, I added only because the admin will need to access something before getting authenticated (thinking too far ahead!)
2. Yeah, more of a 'check catalog is displaying correctly' than to actually view it as a user.
3. Optional is what I had in mind
4. I thought it might be worthwhile investigating if the client (shop owner) had the ability to change the billing module themselves, all of course via a nice easy to follow process via the site. The options will be limited to what modules they have installed, and any extras they will need assistance?
N.B. Administrator == Shop Owner.
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 9:29 pm
by Benjamin
I'm sorry about the problems with the WIKI. Dreamhost says they are having some network issues that neither they nor CISCO can solve so they are going to install a new core router that is 8 times more powerful tonight at 12CST. If this doesn't fix it I'll look into migrating all my sites to another host as these problems are not acceptable to me.
If you all want to pick out a domain name for this project I'll go ahead and buy it and host it, other wise we can continue to use a subfolder on Astions, it doesn't matter to me either way.
I still am unable to access devnetwork.net without using a proxy. It's rather annoying and I'm not sure that I 100% believe that it's my router blocking it. Other than the router control panel crashing I don't have any problems with it.
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:26 pm
by Luke
I'm fine with the subfolder for now... Have we even decided on a name yet? I can't remember.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:58 am
by matthijs
Onion: if I understand the chart correctly the skinning block is when the html/css skin-system is implemented? From the point of view as a html/css maintainer (volunteer) I would like to suggest that just as there are standards to follow in backend programming, standards on the front-end are important as well. That would mean absolutely perfectly clean output from the backend - if any html at all. Maybe some lean but semantic markup here and there, but nothing else.
That would assure the skinning part is loosely coupled (ha!) to the rest of the application. Which would make a big difference with a lot of existing software packages, as most of them are quite hard to change/modify design wise.
But I quess a lot depends also on the quality of the template system. I could assist in that part as well to make sure the front-end seperation and quality is assured.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 3:12 am
by onion2k
matthijs wrote:Onion: if I understand the chart correctly the skinning block is when the html/css skin-system is implemented? From the point of view as a html/css maintainer (volunteer) I would like to suggest that just as there are standards to follow in backend programming, standards on the front-end are important as well. That would mean absolutely perfectly clean output from the backend - if any html at all. Maybe some lean but semantic markup here and there, but nothing else.
That would assure the skinning part is loosely coupled (ha!) to the rest of the application. Which would make a big difference with a lot of existing software packages, as most of them are quite hard to change/modify design wise.
But I quess a lot depends also on the quality of the template system. I could assist in that part as well to make sure the front-end seperation and quality is assured.
Absolutely, the HTML team should have input to all of the other modules that output any HTML or CSS content. By "Skinning system" I meant the system to add new skins to the software, and the production of a few different demo skins to really show off how nice the application can look. This evening I'll write up exactly what I meant by each of the elements on the chart. And I'll add a couple that I've missed (store admin, and user management).
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 3:25 am
by Jenk
Use Case added to wiki.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 11:02 am
by ok
Good jub onion2k!
EDIT:
P.S
I can host the project on my server (and provide a *.1.vg domain).
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:21 pm
by onion2k
ok wrote:I can host the project on my server (and provide a *.1.vg domain).
A kind offer, but I think we're better off using DevNetwork/Google/Sourceforge/etc where possible, and Astions has very kindly already set up the Wiki for us all. Having worked on a couple of open source projects in the past I've found that trusting anything to a single point of contact can be a bit unreliable. I'm not suggesting you would be, just learning from past experience.
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:26 pm
by ok
You are right... And i think that Sourceforge is good place for the project (I don't know what google offers...).
Your plan starts from this week? if not, when?
Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:33 pm
by onion2k
ok wrote:Your plan starts from this week? if not, when?
I intend to start tracking activity on Monday next week (Sept 18th). I'm toying with the idea of writing a little app over the weekend to help.
EDIT: I was bored..
http://www.ooer.com/onion/gantt.jpg .. made with ..
http://www.ooer.com/onion/gantt.phps