[Phpwebsite-developers] Please let me introduce myself...

[Geoff S. <Ge...@Ho...>]

Hello:

I am new to phpWebSite and to this list, so, please excuse any redundancy
with previous postings. Also, let me state that I am VERY EXCITED about the
prospects for phpWebSite!

I'm currently using phpNuke for several websites that I host. But, I'm not
satisfied with phpNuke for several reasons:

The system seems to be a bunch of stuff grafted together without much
thought as to design, feature interaction, or, coding technique. (I've been
able to follow the code just fine and have made numerous small enhancements
to support my customers without problems and without breaking things (which
is a common complaint with phpNuke).

The developer has done a good job, but isn't interested in a collective
development effort.

I've POLITELY asked questions or made comments on the php-Nuke site and have
been insulted and abused by people apparently have nothing better to do than
review everything posted on the site so that they can hold people
accountable for their ignorance. I've found the same to be true to a lesser
degree at the NukeAddon site, as well. I'm not interested in participating
in a community that is based on one-upsmanship instead of helpfulness and
cooperation.

Let me state that I have not downloaded the phpWebSite code to look at it.
Although, given the discussion I've seen on the website, I don't have to
look at the code to know that more attention is being paid to design and
coding then is the case with phpNuke.

Here are a few questions:

What techniques are being used to model phpWebSite? Is the work product of
this modeling available for review somewhere?

Are there published standards for calling functions and classes, physical
organization of functions and classes into source code files, or function,
class and variable naming conventions? Here's the real question: given that
many different people will be working on different areas of the system, what
is being done to insure that the coding will be uniform across the entire
system?

Who is responsible for the project at Appalachian State? Is this a project
run by students who will graduate and leave the project without a rudder?

Now, having played with the demo site, here are some immediate
concerns/kudos:

The news pages have Topics. The calendar has Topics and Sub-Topics which are
not related to the news Topics. I'm wondering why every part of the website
(forums, news, calendar, links, etc. wouldn't use the same set of topics and
sub-topics? I haven't modeled this to see exactly what that would look like,
but...

I like the way the independent pages are setup. This is a huge improvemnt
over the phpNuke Sections!

I also like the Administration system.

But, the system suffers from a deficiency in phpNuke: I found that when I
was doing Administrative tasks, when I hit the "process" button, I didn't
come back to a place that allowed me to continue working. So, I had to
navigate around to get back to where I was.

The menuing system is great!

But, there is no way to setup a page of news stories on a particular topic
and put it in the menu. Take a look at:
http://www.actionagenda.com/categories.php?op=newindex&catid=7 This is
essentially a Home page for a particular topic. (Note: "Politics" is listed
in the Categories Menu on the right. It could have been, but isn't listed in
the Main Menu on the left.)

I'm also concerned about a few other issues:

Do you have planned the ability to setup administrators to manage a
particular topic or area of a phpWebSite site? This is a critical
requirement for me.

Is there a master plan somewhere that gives an idea of what plug-in
components are planned and when they might be implemented?


Geoff Staples,
Founder
Action Agenda <http://www.actionagenda.com/>

3883 Turtle Creek Blvd., Suite 1812
Dallas, Texas   75219-4432
214.599.0260

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