Thanks both for clarifying, exactly my thoughts, happy we are on the same page
:)
More (different) opinions?
Jacques
Le 14/05/2015 13:53, Pierre Smits a écrit :
Several issues have been registered recently to migrate specific ftl
functions to widgets. And patches have been attached. These just need a
review and get committed.
Yes, the use of ftl functionality is overwhelming. Even when it is not
needed at all. E.g. defining standard screenlet functionality.
And, for sure, it was the best (easiest?) choice for the contributor at the
moment of creation to get to the desired solution (think functionality
and/or time constraints).
Like widgets, the ftl functions serve a purpose. It is not either widgets
or ftl, but and widgets and ftl. But both techs should be applied wisely
and not mere for convenience sake.
When talking about moving from ftl to widgets (where possible), it all
starts with registering the improvement issue in JIRA.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Gavin Mabie <kwikst...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Community
I have not been able to continue the work on the bootstrap theme for the
past few months now and therefore resisted the urge to comment on various
threads in the mailing list about matters related. So maybe apologies are
in order. Having said that, these are my thoughts:
1. The UI, specifically HTML is as important as any other part of the
framework and should consequently be treated as such by the community.
2. Many projects with lesser architectural soundness but with sexy UIs'
have proven successful purely based on the UI. The Ofbiz architectural
framework rocks, but it not enough has been done to project this
graphically. The look and feel of the ecommerce app has not been upgraded
for more than half a decade now. This may be the reason why some are
looking towards integrating with other ecommerce projects. The Ofbiz
ecommerce app isn't bad - the demo just looks bad.
3. Graphical designers can easily write their own UI, as alluded to by
Adrian. This regardless of the Javascript framework you would like to use.
You can write your own widget templates and incorporate that in your theme.
It's possible.
4. The elephant in the room is the significant amount of "raw" ftl widgets
present in the current demos. This is where I got stuck with the bootstrap
development. We cannot move the theme forward without dealing with "raw"
ftl. I suspect that the same might be true for any other J'S framework.
Any volunteers?
5. Following on the previous point, developing a UI based on vogue JS
frameworks will be extremely difficult if we are concerned about breaking
older themes. Maybe it is time for a clean break.
So, this is my proposal:
1. Let's bodly adopt bootstrap. If there are any proponents of any other
framework, let them bring it forward so we can all discuss and work on it.
2. Put aside a sprint event to deal with "raw" ftls scattered all over and
get these converted into properly defined widgets.
3. Produce a more sexy ecommerce UI (this is critical to the Ofbiz brand).
There are other issues - but this I feel should be prioritised.
Regards
Gavin
On 14 May 2015 12:20 PM, "Jacques Le Roux" <jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com>
wrote:
Below are some, but this question is more to shake things a bit and know
what people think
I think everybody will agree that the Entity Engine is the gem of this
project, follows the Service Engine. I believe, though less polished, the
widgets are 3rnd, but that's only my opinion and I'd really like to know
others
Jacques
Le 14/05/2015 10:45, Pierre Smits a écrit :
But what are the proposals? Where can these be found?
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Thu, May 14, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Jacques Le Roux <
jacques.le.r...@les7arts.com> wrote:
Actually maybe I'm misunderstanding you and I also want to clarify with
everybody. I will try to be brief and right to the point!
Do you (we) want to replace the widgets by something like Ean and Anil
proposed many times, or do we want to improve them using these new
tools?
Jacques
Le 13/05/2015 22:15, Julien NICOLAS a écrit :
Le 13/05/2015 16:35, Jacques Le Roux a écrit :
Le 13/05/2015 15:04, Julien NICOLAS a écrit :
Hello Pierre,
Le 13/05/2015 12:35, Pierre Smits a écrit :
For what it is worth, the BOOTSTRAP_theme dev branch is a other way
to
enhance the user experience. Unfortunately the work is not done
yet.
The problem is that the GUI is a demo GUI. Then all the time you
spend
to solve all GUI problems, will potentially lost because nobody use
it (and
when I say that I think in particular to the order screen that is a
nightmare...).
It's better that OFBiz embedded GUI web framework (like bootstrap
but
not only, it can be bootstrap based tool for dashboard, etc.) and a
documentation on how to use it.
I don't know if nobody is using it (I guess some are ;)), but I
believe
a lot are reusing parts of it. The idea is not only to provide a demo
but
also to provide ideas, bricks to be reused. Did you wrote your own
totally
from scratch :-o (I guess not even considering ideas) ?
Is the BOOTSTRAP_theme dev branch not a way to embed one "HTML, CSS,
and
JavaScript framework" and use its artefacts inside widgets?
What are actually the parts you found so bad?
I mean if you need to adapt the actual visual theme to bootstrap, it
may
take a lot of time but the gain is very low.
It will be more interesting to add tool (like bootstrap or some js
tool
or widget) and use it for the future demo screen. To have a good
screen
render by using a new HTML/CSS/JS framework (like bootstrap), you must
to
define your global solution rendering and create GUI specifications
that
contain all visual cases.
If we speak about create a bootstrap theme not for demo but for a good
user experience, we'll have to create the GUI specifications first.
Then we
need a GUI developer group that define the guidance and validate new
screen. In my opinion, changing colour of the actual demo GUI is a
waste of
time. But use new feature for new demo screen, that change the demo
version
into a patchwork but it's not a problem :)
How the widgets are generated, the CSS class used, how js is used
inside
of that, etc. ?
If we go this way (embed a HTML framework in OFBiz) I remember some
proposed to use rather foundation, we would need to pick one and only
one.
Like wed did with jQuery as the main js lib that BTW we need to keep!
I agree. We have to make the choice of a framework and use it. But
we
can
keep in mind that maybe somebody want use another one so we can have
detail
documentation to explain how to change it.
Another point, prefer to use heritage for the default css class.
And with the next add-on management, it may be possible to have a
specific add-on by css framework ;)
Also some have proposed to get further and use something like Angular
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-5040?focusedCommentId=13887287
or Backbone
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-5522?focusedCommentId=13885989
you name it...
https://cordova.apache.org/ ("aka" PhoneGap) is also worth
considering
see
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/download/attachments/48792051/mobile_web.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1429534402000&api=v2
PhoneGap is a very interesting project but I'm not sure that a phone
app
is a priority but it's only my opinion :D
We need to make delicate choices and quickly, time is flying...
So true...
Julien.
Jacques
