David,
> The ecommerce UI is 100% FreeMarker, the form widget is not used because the
> customer facing stuff is meant to be customized in a very visual way.
Hmm. Quick question here. Any way I can insert Dojo into form widget? All I really need is to
attach "onChange/onClick" hooks onto form widget elements (<drop-down>, <text>, etc).
Frankly, I find FreeMarker format clean enough (not messy). Form widget is even leaner. Endeavors
at across-the-board UI changes, like what Eric's team is doing, shouldn't be too difficult at all.
>> I don't know about $2500 pricetag for doing up the UI alone. At double
>> that price, you could have a whole new OFBiz tailored for your
>> organization (without data migration from legacy systems).
>
> Wow, where could I get that? If I could get a sub-contractor to do that much
> for that price I'd make a killing!
Erm. I do make a living crafting boilerplate systems that can easily empower armies of low-cost
labor. I was referring more to in-house costs than software vendor prices.
OFBiz itself is such a boilerplate system, and a very powerful slick one at that. Don't you make a
killing when building systems with OFBiz? I'd have thought you do.
> This is a good point too Jonathon. It does make me wonder though what Eric
> saw that represented things to be different than they are. Eric, perhaps you
> could comment on that? Was it something on an OFBiz site or in OFBiz
> documentation?
Let me put in my share first. Here's where/how I got that impression (let's not focus on sales
representation for this).
Fortunately for OFBiz, the Apache brand name brings to mind a solid and well-managed project. I
got the impression that there are physicists and young PhD hackers on the OFBiz core team. More
than that, I thought (ignorantly?) that Apache somehow enforces some kind of constructive
standards and discipline in its projects. Not sure if Apache standards help or hinder, no
experience there myself.
Unfortunately for OFBiz, that same brand name brings with it some possibly
unrealistic expectations.
I just bought a remote RC helicopter. And I know all about unrealistic expectations. After 3 hours
of training my thumbs, I expected to fly it like I would a real heli. I didn't tune my heli (micro
frame makes small errors look BIG), didn't trim it for specific flight conditions (hey, I thought
it's just a toy!). And then I learned this: There's a difference between RTF (ready-to-fly) and
ARF (almost-ready-to-fly) packages. Now, if I could just get my thumbs to work like arms and legs.
A big part of the fun with RC helis is becoming quite a heli mechanic yourself (PhD in physics
should help too).
Jonathon
David E. Jones wrote:
Hey Jonathon, it's great to get your point of view on this.
That said, I'm sure you know mine is coming... ;) Don't worry I'm not
going to attack what you said, but rather hopefully just explain some
anomalies.
On Feb 26, 2007, at 5:05 PM, Jonathon -- Improov wrote:
Since they're talking about the UI, then they are somewhat correct.
Some of the UI use Freemarker, some use form widgets. Also, there's a
great deal of refactoring going on at the moment for UI (by Adrian
Crumm). One of the problems with CSS styles usage, just to name one UI
problem, is that styles don't describe the content but the UI
attributes instead.
The ecommerce UI is 100% FreeMarker, the form widget is not used because
the customer facing stuff is meant to be customized in a very visual way.
In general, the UI isn't as cleanly coded as it should be.
This is certainly true, and probably always will be. However, for many
it doesn't matter so much...
But then again, large variety of coding constructs in the UI are to be
expected, and are less crippling than similar mess in the backend
modules. Developers generally place less emphasis on UI than backend,
since UIs are really much easier to correct in comparison.
The reason it is how it is now is that very few people have the
motivation and means to improve it. Most of the web design folks don't
really use the HTML or CSS from the base template AT ALL.
A good web design company will start with a graphic design, code it up
in HTML/CSS, and then put that HTML/CSS into the dynamic templates (FTL
files), replacing the dummy text from the design with dynamic code as
needed.
Two points on this:
1. there is no natural feedback cycle here to improve the open source
project
2. for projects that take this approach the current HTML and CSS
practices in OFBiz are only an example and are mostly thrown away for
real world use
I don't know about $2500 pricetag for doing up the UI alone. At double
that price, you could have a whole new OFBiz tailored for your
organization (without data migration from legacy systems).
Wow, where could I get that? If I could get a sub-contractor to do that
much for that price I'd make a killing!
Please do share...
> but I think doubling the price right around the time that the
project should
> be completed is not good business.
Oh. Your developers should've fully assessed OFBiz in the early
stages. This tells me one of many possible things: your contractor may
not be very IT-savvy, and couldn't assess OFBiz himself/herself nor
afford a capital outlay to hire a team to do the assessment before
he/she took the project from you.
This is a good point. For ecommerce stuff, another important thing is to
make sure they have web design and dynamic web site experience.
Lastly, we need to understand that OFBiz is open source. We didn't pay
anything to use it (unless you bought the docs!)
If you buy anything from anyone that's what you're buying. You are NEVER
buying OFBiz itself. I assume you are referring to the training
materials from Undersun (well, now from Hotwax). If so, you are not
buying it from "OFBiz" or any organization that owns any of OFBiz. If
you buy the training materials you are paying to use them, not to use
OFBiz, in any way imaginable.
I know, the initial knee-jerk reaction is to ask: "Why'd they
represent it as thus?". Call it bad or inaccurate or back-firing
marketing if you want, but OFBiz is a solid platform to work with, and
it's free.
This is a good point too Jonathon. It does make me wonder though what
Eric saw that represented things to be different than they are. Eric,
perhaps you could comment on that? Was it something on an OFBiz site or
in OFBiz documentation?
-David
