Yes, Happy New Year to one and all. I couldn't figure out what to snip, so I'm top-posting...
I've been buried with compiler and build process work, so it has been months since I actually tried to build something from the very beginning. Maybe we can get some other folks to try to build something from scratch as well or build out examples in a "Tour de Royale" and see if there are issues. Peter said he looked over the examples recently and they seemed fine. Once I get through the build scripting I will take a look. However, I still believe the Apache Way is incremental improvement. Having a big public launch will be great some day, but I'm not sure how soon that day is, and until we get there, we need to make releases with incremental gains and try to target folks who are willing to be pioneers and help us build out the thing we have a big public launch about someday. Also, we will have limited budget for a big public launch. I keep thinking that we need to grow virally like any other social media phenomenon. And that means making one customer happy, then two customers, then four, etc. And testimonials will be important to have when folks come to investigate Royale, so it doesn't make sense to me to wait until some big launch day. I agree that most folks will not come to Royale at first for an extensible component model for their website, but IMO, the sooner we can show that our all of our web presence was built in Royale, the better off we are, and also, I am always searching for a "hook" that will continue to convince Adobe to keep paying me to work on Royale, so I am trying to find new ways to use Royale in hopes that one of them will get people interested in Royale at Adobe. My main focus will still be on migrating people's Flex apps, but it might be helpful to me to have made a certain amount of progress on some other approaches that might be important to the folks who pay me. I understand that we CAN publish your version of the site as the Royale website, but AIUI, that is mainly because the ASF does not "release" web sites. Also, I'm not sure they did a thorough investigation of the licensing of all of the fonts used because it doesn't truly matter for an ASF project's web site. But if we want to cut over to a Royale version of the web site some day, I would want the source to be ALv2 compatible, and I don't see how ET-Line is ALv2 compatible. So, please explain how ET-Line is ALv2 compatible or please try to find a way to replace its use in your version of the site so that portion of the site won't have to change some day when we want to cut over to the Royale version. Thanks, -Alex On 1/1/18, 7:44 AM, "carlos.rov...@gmail.com on behalf of Carlos Rovira" <carlos.rov...@gmail.com on behalf of carlosrov...@apache.org> wrote: >Hi Alex and all, And first of all Happy new year to all of you! Hope 2018 >be a great year for all of you! :) > > > >2017-12-30 8:50 GMT+01:00 Alex Harui <aha...@adobe.com.invalid>: > >> >> I agree with what you say. What I am suggesting is making enough >>changes >> to the site to attract people who can help us create a "most usable >> product". I don't think we have enough people to do that as fast as I'd >> like, so I'd rather tweak what you have to do what I see in many >>shopping >> centers: a sign goes up saying that Store XX is coming soon and they >>are >> hiring. Only later does that sign come down and they have a grand >> opening. Similarly, I would like to tweak enough of what you have to >>say >> that we need "pioneers" and folks who like the bleeding-edge. Even one >>or >> two more folks who can work well with others would be great. I haven't >> gone through every page you've done, but on the main page, I think we >>only >> need to change the NPM section in some way. >> > >IMHO, and talking about my experience with my own business and other stuff >I tried to build and market in my professional life: >making noise of a product that is not enough mature, use to result in a >very bad strategy that make the opposite effect and make >people run away from it instead of buy or adopting it. > >So, my plan would be to focus in make Royale do what people coming would >expect to do, and maybe here is where we have some >discrepancies on what we are trying to achieve. > >So don't worry now about website. It only needs some tweaks, and little >work to make it ready to publish. >We need to talk about things in Royale plan itself. > > > >> One reason for my mockup of the website in MXML was to make sure folks >> truly understood the power of the extensible component model for Royale. >> You are still focused on traditional interactive Applications, and I >>agree >> that migrating Flex apps is a key market for us, but you also seemed to >>be >> interested in folks creating new projects, and I wanted to illustrate >>that >> Royale, with MXML and an extensible component model can be a benefit >>there >> too. I may be crazy, but I believe that Royale can be useful in many >>more >> places than what folks think of as traditional Applications. I still >> think we want to use Royale to produce our web site some day (which >> doesn't have to be now). >> > >I agree. I believe Royale could have a target far more open that Flex has, >but I think we have here a warning: >people coming to Royale will not search for a tool to make website on the >first term. They will come to make >things in HTML like they produced with Flex (or Angular, or something >similar). But if they succeed, they will >want to use Royale for all other things. So focusing on something that is >still not the min focus is a mistake for me. >We should focus in make Applications as easy as we did with Flex, and that >is not happening right now. >I tried to start building an App with Royale for the theme feature and get >stuck as I started with Slider (I still couldn't >get back to it and see Peter's changes). So that's for me where we are >failing. We need to have components that work. >And right now as we start working, things are still not working. That's my >main point. If I want to start working in styling and >Theming but the basic components are not working, think in people coming >to >us for the first time...Hope you could >figure their opinion about Royale although we have a great and good >looking >website, or even if we can build some >basic website. They simply will gone since what they expect to get out of >the box is not working. > > > >> >> In mocking up the site, I realized there might be content in your >>proposed >> site that is not ALv2 compatible, so I am suggesting changing that now, >> otherwise, it may be much more noticeable the day we want to cut over to >> the Royale version of the site, since the Royale version will probably >> have to release-able as an Apache release. > > >> I'm in no hurry to switch over to the Royale version of the site. I >>just >> want us to take a few minutes here and there to continuously improve it. >> I still don't know where the line is between theme and content, but if >>the >> colors and fonts aren't part of the theme and you can tell us what you >> used, we can make sure the fonts will be ALv2 compatible and the Royale >> mockup will look a little better. >> > >That's what I want to said that we have no problem at all with licenses on >the site. >If you read the ticket we created with legal they express full support of >our website in the current >state, so we can publish it and have it as long as we need. And when we >reach the point >where we can change to a Royale website we can do that (tomorrow or 5 >years >in the future). >For that reason, don't worry about this and go with the things that our >users really wants for us > > >> >> Meanwhile, you've been saying for a few months now that you want a >>better >> UI set, but really, I have no idea what work needs to be done when you >>say >> that. I don't doubt that there are bugs and missing features in our UI >> set, but IMO, we are not staffed with a QA team nor are we staffed to do >> things for "completeness". We pretty much just try to do what potential >> users ask for on the mailing list. Priority is given for folks >>migrating >> Flex apps. Someone asked for modules so I put together basic modules. >> Someone asked for a TreeGrid, Peter put one together. Harbs put >>something >> in about Validation. Someone asked about I18N, I showed a way to do >>that. >> If you want to migrate an app (even Tour de Flex) and can show us >> specifically what is broken, we'll try to fix it (or better yet, help >>you >> fix it). >> > >To make theming and style working I think we need to team to make this >work >you or Peter have a huge skill in architecting but don't have UX skills. >In >the other >hand, I can make UX thing work, but If I find stuck with something that >doesn't work (i.e: Slider) >I can lose lots of time figuring it and fixing it. So, my best bet is: we >should join. We can >choose a component (i.e: Slider) and try to build an App Example that use >our framework changes >to introduce styling and themeing. And try to make it good as better as we >can to match >most of what Flex did in the Slider case, then go with other and so on... > >In the end, a new user coming to us, should start building with Slider >directly without find anything that >make stop their work. That should be our goal, at least with 15-20 >components. > > >> >> Of course it would be better if we could match Flex 4.6, but I'll be >>happy >> if we can approximate Flex 1.0. That's where it all started. And Flex >> 1.0 didn't have modules or I18N or a TreeGrid. IMO, we have to be >>clever >> and smart about where we spend our energy and time and continuously >> improve and continuously try to recruit new people. We can't be like a >> corporation with a fixed staff that builds something with limited public >> input and then launches it. >> > >I like the approach of the strand-beads, or PAYG, but in the end that >should be something that will make >people choose as they build. The problem right now is that we want people >come to us and we have lots of pieces >but many of them doesn't work well, or directly doesn't work at all. PAYG >and compositions vs inheritance will be >a key factor in we reach something that works like Flex (or near it), We >can target Flex 1.0 since in that version >most of components worked pretty well, Button, TextInput, Slider, List, >ComboBox, CheckBox, RadioButton. >I was trapped by Flex since I started to build, and things worked out of >the box!! That's not happening with Royale right now, >and we thing that people will understand that and expect they use all that >is done so they can build on their own, but >that will never happen since people expect to adopt a framework that make >his life easier, and Royale in the current state >will make the opposite. > >> >> I hope we do have different things in mind. I know my mind does not >>have >> all of the answers. We need good ideas from different people, including >> yourself. We have this mailing list to try to get some level of mutual >> understanding, but folks are still free to scratch their own itch. We >> don't even need to all agree, we just have to try to not get in each >> other's way, and try to help folks succeed in scratching their itch if >>it >> makes sense. >> > >Right, we only need to reach a state where we can make enough noise to >make >people come (publish website, spreading the word to the four winds,...) >but we should ensure we have something that really works or the result >will >be people saying very bad things about Royale, and that's not what we >want. >We want the opposite. For that reason this is very important. > > > >> >> So, I don't know how much time you have, but in summary my requests of >>you >> would be (in order): >> > >going through this list > >> >> 1) Make some tweaks to the site to try to recruit more committers >>instead >> of users >> >This is difficult since what we are supporting Royale is currently what we >are and >all know what we want to get. getting more people on board will happen >when >people >try us, see Royale work and want to improve it. > >> 2) Tell us the colors and fonts used on the site and whether you chose >> those colors and fonts or whether they are part of the theme >> >As I said, colors and fonts are chosen by me. But that's not a problem, >even nothing about licenses in website > >> 3) Replace ET-Line font in your version of the site or show us that it >>is >> ALv2 compatible >> >Againg, we don't have license problems as Apache legal give us green light >in the current state. > >> 4) Try to build something with Royale so you can be more specific about >> what is missing/broken. Maybe you could try to make our ASDoc example >> look and work better. That might expose some things the UI set needs >>that >> is more tangible. >> >> I can go again over Royale Theme example app and try Peter's changes. >Hopefully the Slider could be working now, >but if that's ok, we should try to team to revise each component and try >to >make it working out-of-the-box, in look and feel, >layout, events and so on. > >If we don't get that, don't expect Royale to convince people out there, or >don't expect that our component model and features >do that, since they are great if are features build over a good working >technology. That's the main point I want to try to express here. > > > > > >> I pretty much agree that we don't want to give users the impression that >> Royale is a UI set that is the equivalent of React before it is, but I >> think we need to get a release out soon and try to establish a workflow >> where we can release more often, so we can continuously improve the >> releases. And the UI set probably won't be as ready as you would like >>it >> in these first releases. I just think we need to do that in order to >>try >> to attract one or two more committers to help us make a better UI set, >>and >> attract one or two more users who are willing to ride a bumpy road with >>us >> so they can be a testimonial to attract other users and slowly build up >> momentum. I don't think we can make big leaps. >> > >I'm with you that we need a first release as soon as we can to build over >the rest. But only to put the wagon on rails >For me that release only would be something like the actual website. Tools >to prepare Royale to get what it really needs: >A good working UI set that looks good and behaves ok so I can build a >first >app without much hassle. At that point all >the tools could be in the end be use to show and spread the word to >people. >And that people will find at that time that Royale >works and would eventually join to us as user or as devs to improve it. > >Making things in a incorrect order, would make us have a horrible result, >I >guess > >Thanks > >Carlos
