I agree with Julien's analysis.
If I say "sub-projects" again, Jacques will whack me upside the head but
I really think that a restructuring of the way the architecture is
presented and developed would provide a number of benefits:
- increase community involvement with less work for the current key
committers
- reduce or eliminate sub-optimal inter-component dependencies through
clearer definitions and independent releases of components
- reduce mixing of core seed data with demo and customizable seed data
and inter-component data confusion.
- facilitate the construction of components and add-ons that do not have
undesirable or unknown side-affects
- facilitate the injection of a smart installer that would allow the
selection of components and templates as suggested at install time.
- facilitate the development of an OFBiz marketplace for add-ons and
industry-specific configurations.
- make the role of the framework as a base for other products much clearer.
- possibly make it easier to "Moquify" the framework if the framework
API can be made less implementation dependent - lots of issues here that
already have been fully ventilated last week.
Ron
On 07/05/2015 7:28 AM, Michael Brohl wrote:
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.
--
Ron Wheeler
President
Artifact Software Inc
email: rwhee...@artifact-software.com
skype: ronaldmwheeler
phone: 866-970-2435, ext 102