Hi Julien, thank you for bringing this up!
I don't think that this is of no interest in the community, it's just overlaid by the many other topics we are discussing currently. I personally think that all topics are worth to be discussed and elaborated, maybe they have to be prioritised a little bit more. Right now it's a little bit confusing and not easy to follow (and contribute to) the discussions besides daily business.
I think it is an important topic to simplify the backend component's UI and have more sophisticated usability there. On the other hand, it is important to somehow show customers the powers of OFBiz and the many already set-up functionalities. It would be a big step forward if we find a way to make this customizeable. For an ERP, it would also be a big plus to have some kind of "business templates" (!= UI templates) on top of such a mechanism, like
- Your customer sells products over the internet? - pull the ecommerce template
- Your customer brews beer? - pull the manufacturing +x template - Your customer has a small business? - pull the corresponding template etc.I belive that would require different configuration mechanisms, more on a database level with a clever UI instead of many different property files. And maybe a tool to chain services together on base of such a template.
I won't reduce the functionality in OFBiz per se, as long as they are stable and/or have a maintainer.
I know of at least one contributor who is also working on a more sophisticated UI, maybe he shows up here also ;-)
So, without having a concrete plan or more thought-out ideas how to implement this, I would support such an effort.
As a community, I think we have to find a way to channel the different interests from core technology work up to the business layer. Some kind of overall project management would help but would be difficult to install in an open community. Too many open building sites in parallel are not that efficient.
Curious what others think... Regards, Michael Brohl ecomify GmbH www.ecomify.de Am 07.05.15 um 12:48 schrieb Julien NICOLAS:
Hello All,Since I work on the bootstrap theme in OFBiz, I have many thoughtful, carefully read the ofbiz community exchanges and spoke with some members of the OFBiz community. Today I am convinced that the OFBiz project is a framework that is not intended to be an ERP. Its OOTB user interface is a nightmare and is not really user oriented. Several topics that seem to have no link together, seems to be linked around the same idea.The first topic is about functionality of OFBiz.On one hand, there is the OFBiz framework. It contains a user interface to show the possibility of OFBiz, but must be changed during integration. It also includes functional oriented features. These features split the community between those who want to keep them in the project and those who wish to exclude them. On the other hand, there are new initiatives,abandoned projects, old or having no longer contributors (project manager, POS, etc.) who need support, visibility, even if they are not added to the OFBiz project. A first approach was discussed with GIT. It can allow everyone to share their work more easily with branch feature. Which is good but not the best in my opinion.Another topic that is important to me is the functional part of OFBiz.Sharan explained me about its willingness to invest energy to make the software more functional, and if it's possible to have a version with ERP oriented for small businesses with minimal features but easy to use. Like growERP or TerCompta offer. Using OFBiz framework but simplify the UI to allow the software to be used intuitively without modifications.These initiatives come up against the model of OFBiz project. Who has still not decided whether it is an ERP, in which case it needs to adjust its UI or an automation of enterprise processes framework, which involves getting rid of unnecessary features dedicated to ERP.There are several solutions that could help to make better the model of OFBiz and satisfy the entire community. The first solution would be to limit the “OFBiz framewok” project framework for automation enterprise processes and to have another “OFBiz ERP” project which would use the framework as a basis, and which would provide a user-friendly UI and dedicated tools to ERP.The second option is to find a way to cut the project in extensions. This solution would have the opportunity to clean the framework and have features as micro projects and therefore no longer a monolithic software.I see a lot of debate about adding new functionality that allow to improve development, compile, manage sources, merge with another framework, but the debate on the division of project extensions seems not to interest. It seems to me extremely important to facilitate development and therefore, ultimately, the visibility of the project in the developers community.At Nomaka, we initiated an effort starting from the first solution. We took OFBiz framework, deleted all the themes and created a new one. Then we redesigned the interface to match a basic ERP. We started with actor UI. Disabled existing screens and created new ones more functional and user-friendly.I find it a pity to work alone in my corner without being able to easily share my work, without taking advantage of the OFBiz community knowledge to guide me onthe right way. I wonder if we could work on this axis and balance the rigidity necessary to have a stable project and flexibility that allow to include non-committer contributions ...What do you think ? Julien.
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