Re: [Jwma-devel] Testing Struts version

[Dieter W. <di...@wi...>]

Leonard,

> - My users keep sending out messages from "Firstname Lastname".  I did
> so
>    myself even after setting up my profile -- seemed that JWMA didn't
>    default to the profile set up.  Sorry I can't be more detailed on this
>    bug, but it's been a few weeks. It would also be nice if "Firstname
>    Lastname" could be filled in from LDAP based on login for the default

Ok. I will check where the problem is hidden. If you set up the preferences,
probably the mail identity is not selected correctly.

For the "other" issue, I think we should probably re-establish the hook for
the "first login page". Whether looking up the name there from LDAP or not,
I would suggest to leave to a specific implementation, as I think we should
not assume everybody to have an LDAP server.
Brings us back to a discussion we have started time ago, a branch for a
large installation (were I agree that these things are a big issue).
So far we do scale, could you live with the re-established hook?

(To explain it better: when logging in we can detect whether a user logged
in before or not. From there we can include a routine that redirects to a
page that handles first-time logins).

 > - Do you have a UI designer on the project?  Or is there another client
> from
>    which you'd like to borrow the look and feel?  I think the UI is
> confusing
>    and I can't be specific about why, but with most web clients I feel
> like
>    the next obvious action is just "there", and with JWMA I have to hunt
>    around.
No. All jwma pages are 100% edited by hand. I agree that I have not spent
much time on the view part (except eliminating the scriptlets and making it
99% web designer editable).
I fear that you have hit a personal limit here. I am not a professional web
designer and my knowledge about web design is limited. Additionally I am a
"power user" so what seems logical to me, is probably a labyrinth for the
standard user. 
At the moment I do not have any free resources (time specifically) to spent
time overcoming this personal limit, so any contribution or even alternative
view is welcome. If view design hits limits due to controller and model, I
will help to overcome them.

> (I had some doubts about whether I should include the second comment
> above, as that is a very subjective matter.  If we want, I can
> investigate doing some direct user testing of the UI.)

See above. Don't worry about it, any comment is valuable, because at least
we will discuss it and be conscious about limitations.

If you ask me I prefer user driven design, so some use-case studies would be
perfect if the user base is representative.

What I already know is that the view is the most exposed part and that you
can never satisfy everybody, so my approach was to allow people to modify
the view rapidly without having to worry about the backend implementation
(if that one is powerful enough). Probably we should try to find an
acceptable "out-of-the box" design and leave the rest to the jwma user (the
one that installs/leverages it).
Last but not least this could be a great way to make money from jwma
(customizing, installing and maintaining it).

Best Regards,
Dieter