[Cmfcollectorng-develop] alternate CollectorNG user interface

[Kevin T. <kt...@bc...>]

Hi,

I am working on an alternate skin for CollectorNG for use with my web
site. There are a few reasons for this:

 * I want to maintain consistency with my web site, and it has a
   slightly different layout and look and feel than stock CMF or Plone

 * I'd like to have a slightly simpler tracker product, so I'm not using
   the deadline section or the subcategories

 * To integrate my installation of the CollectorNG with the rest of the
   site. For instance, I am already storing a users contact information
   elsewhere, so that information does not need to be provided when the
   submit a bug.

We also have a support staff at work who use an older non-CMF tracker
(ZShrink) which we've written a custom user interface for. This other
tracker uses CMFMail to allow you to submit issues via email. The user
interface is very simple and streamlined, and allows things like
changing the priority and assignment of multiple issues in one form.
Eventually I would like to migrate this user interface on top of
CollectorNG if possible.

Further down the road, I also might use the stock CollectorNG user
interface if our developers want to take advantage of fields such as the
deadline, subcategory, etc.

I am wondering if there any major changes planned under the hood of
CollectorNG that would break alternate skins?

And if alternate skins are provided, I wonder if provisions for choosing
which skin is used for each CollectorNG instance should be a part of
CollectorNG or if that decided from elsewhere in the portal?

I'll probably have something workable sometime next week, and I'll email
out a URL for it then, and can consider making this alternate skin
usable outsite of my site if there is any demand for it.

-- 
-- Kevin Teague
   Genomics Web Developer
   BC Genome Sciences Centre
   http://www.bcgsc.ca