I came up with this set of tasks. Of course some of them are related or overlap. My idea was that everyone in our little group could take charge of one task (or maybe two smaller ones).

That does not mean that you can't or shouldn't work on other tasks, but I think that each task needs one person to keep the big picture.

New templates website

Assigned to: Rogier

Status: Site is up and running

A site with all the documentation and information about this project. A wiki for the classes and IDs and recurring code. An RFE / bug list (because stuff sometimes gets lost at webgui.org). A progress / priority list of all templates (per asset). RSS from the mailing list. Contact info of the team. Planning.

Workspace site

Assigned to: Arjan and Rogier

Status: In progress

A site for the development of the new templates.

Functional specs for templates

For each asset: what kind of / how many templates do we need? What are the features to include? Usability: what will the designer expect from the asset, but also what will the end user expect?

Making templates

Clean up and reconstruct the templates. Document used classes and ID's in the wiki.

Inventory of templates

Assigned to: Tabb and Mego

Status: Completed

Make a list of all existing templates, sorted by asset.

Prioritize the templates. Templates that are used often should have priority.

Keep track of updated templates, which ones are done, which ones are under construction, etc.

Inventory of recurring template constructions

Often a section of code can be found in more than one template. These sections need to be identified and documented (wiki). This documentation will be used as a reference for making new templates.

An RFE will be needed if a section of code recurs, but with different syntax or template vars. For example: the attachment loop in an article is the same as the one in a CS post, but the template vars are different.

Inventory of javascript

Assigned to: Patrick

Status: In progress

Forms

Assigned to: Arjan and Rogier

Status: In progress

There is already an RFE for forms, but it is not complete. Forms will need a complete overhaul. We should make a functional specification that includes among others: correct use of the label tag, the possibility to generate just the form id for easy customization.

Research css frameworks

Assigned to: Rory

Status: In progress

The framework will be used for page layouts and the layout for complex assets (CS, wiki, photo gallery etc). We are looking for a balance between ease of use and versatility. Semantic classes and IDs are required, because a designer should also be able to use the html when not using the framework (?).

RFE and bug management

Assigned to:  Tabb and Mego

Status:  In progress

RFEs and bug reports will need to be monitored. Also some begging and lobbying might be needed. Maybe some volunteers can be found for the programming.

Testing

Assigned to: Elnino, Tabb, Mego

Status: Not started

The testing of new templates consists of two parts: standards compliance and designability. For standards compliance testing it may be possible to program some automatic tests? Also backward compatability should be tested.

Inventory of community suggestions

Assigned to: Arjan and Rogier

Status: In progress

To prevent reinventing the wheel, we should see if there are some templates in the community that we can use as a starting point for the new defaults. There might be some usefull stuff in the bazaar as well.

Note: the final decision about what to use and to include is with the project group. We'll have to communicate this to the community as well.

Appoint a decision maker

Assigned to: Rogier

Appoint a decision maker to break any deadlock. Whomever the decision maker is, they need to accept input from the community to make an informed decision rather than one that serves their own interests alone.

WebGUI stylesheet

Assigned to: Diona

Status: In progress

Create a stylesheet for global and commonly used styles.

System messages stylesheet

Doug suggested that we should include a webgui stylesheet for errors, warnings and informational messages. First step is including standard IDs and classes for these messages.

After we have things defined with common class names, a future possibility then is to have a custom stylesheet added to every request (including Admin Console or otherwise un-templatable pages).

Editor css

We should look at the editor configuration and try to prevent non-validating markup, while retaining user friendliness. Also the overriding of editor generated tags by reset/user styles should be taken into account.

For example: replace inline css or basic tags with tags w/ classes. Classes for the editor could be added to the webgui.css or perhaps a separate stylesheet.

Moreover, we should check if the default editor settings can be improved on.

WebGUI asset controls

Assigned to: Tessa

User styles sometimes change the appearance of the controls. The markup is odd and redundant. Could/should we simplify the markup and add/change the css to prevent the controls to be changed by user css?

Cool stuff (optional, low priority)

All of the above is focused on making basic, clean and simple templates. But it might be fun to add some templates with cool features. Think YUI navigations, other YUI stuff, templates using the new slideshow player, etc.

Again, let me know if i missed something. Anything is open for debate. Thanks.

Rogier | United Knowledge
www.unitedknowledge.nl · www.webgui-help.nl

Great, looking forward to it. Question: could you arrange it that you and/or Mego become a moderator for the templates list? It would be nice if we were able to keep it organized, e.g. merge the two threads about guidelines that are going on.

Btw, I'm working on the planning for our fist deadline: november 15th.

Rogier | United Knowledge
www.unitedknowledge.nl · www.webgui-help.nl

This is encouraging. I understood there were something like 387 templates, but according to this inventory there are only 243. Is that correct? 

Rogier, any progress on planning? I'm curious what our first step will be.

Meggo, can you moderate the forum, combining the threads about guidelines (or ask someone at PB to do this)?

Thanks,

Diona

----
Knowmad Technologies
http://www.knowmad.com

Forms

There is already an RFE for forms, but it is not complete. Forms will need a complete overhaul. We should make a functional specification that includes among others: correct use of the label tag, the possibility to generate just the form id for easy customization.

I think there are other aspects of forms that invite inprovement. I know that while building Thingy Yung wanted form plugins to be able to inform about their properties and I know from Martin that the modules in the form folder cannot be overridden in a custom folder like other modules can be to name just two examples. I believe, but we would have to ask JT, that there are plans to redo the forms system in WebGUI 8.

Therefore I thought the I we could post a message on the dev-list to propose to write a draft of a possible new architecture for the forms system combined with an inventarisation of the requirements different people have. We could ask to do this on a wiki on webgui.org. I know the guys from Oqapi would be happy to think about this and perhaps Yung and some other people too. A concrete proposal makes it easier for JT to draw some lines and makes a redo easier. (and easier for developers to contribute to) I guess that many things we as a template group want from the forms system will not be honoured in the 7 release cycle. And perhaps that time can be well spent, because we will need some really good ideas to overcome YUI's policy of not being standards compliant and to keep YUI stuff templatable for a normal designer. Because right now form plugins just write links to YUI css files in the extra's folder.

At the same time: we should also ask for the help of some developers to look for things that don't have to wait and can be improved right now.

Kind regards,

Arjan Widlak

United Knowledge
Internet for the public sector

www.unitedknowledge.nl

I've gone through and merged all of the tasks that were posted here, as well as some from other threads, into the first post.  I've also added in some of the assignments and progress for individual tasks.

A few things are still left unassigned.  For "Appoint a decision maker", I'm guessing this would be Rogier and/or Arjan?  Thoughts? 

And are we still thinking about using SVN or are we going to just use a workspace site, as mentioned in a different post?  If we are going to use SVN, I can post a quick tutorial of how to set it up (if needed).  Otherwise I will remove that from the task list.