Re: Releases overwhelming us - need for improving the dot?

On Friday, April 11, 2014 11:19:28 AM Jos Poortvliet wrote:
> On Friday 11 April 2014 20:34:08 Ben Cooksley wrote:
> > On Fri, Apr 11, 2014 at 8:36 PM, Jos Poortvliet <[email protected]>
> 
> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > A bunch of people, including Mario and myself and people from the
> > > release
> > > team of course are spending quite a bit of time on release work. There's
> > > a
> > > whole bunch of beta's and RC's atm, and with the releases splitting up,
> > > more work is coming, not less.
> > > 
> > > A few people have already shared some ideas about dealing with that -
> > > clustering releases (all development releases together twice a month,
> > > all
> > > bugfix releases once a month etc), getting new people involved, making
> > > changes to our infrastructure.
> > > 
> > > What exactly needs to change I can't tell you but I think all three
> > > above
> > > have to be part of the solution if the situation is to become more
> > > sustainable.
> > > 
> > > So, we need to get together and work on this. That needs not only promo
> > > people but also one or more people able/willing to touch the code of the
> > > dot so we can automate and fix a few things. For one, people can submit
> > > articles - but that system does not work. It would be great if that
> > > would indeed result in something that can reasonably quickly be edited
> > > in shape. I think it would also help to have templates in place so we
> > > can more easily and quickly put together release announcements,
> > > especially the 'boring' ones like development- and bugfix releases.
> > 
> > Please clarify how the current system doesn't work - it is a touch
> > difficult to fix things without knowing how it is broken.
> 
> Broken is a big word perhaps - we only have a form where one can send emails
> to the dot editors. Ideally, people would be able to just create an article
> and submit it for review instead of sending a odt or txt file and pictures
> in an email and having us do all the markup & stuff.
> 
> > In terms of the current code - the Dot is powered by Drupal 7 using
> > several off the shelf modules.
> > For numerous reasons, i'd suggest we continue to use off the shelf
> > modules where possible (eases maintainability, helps with security,
> > etc).
> 
> I don't disagree ;-)
> 
> BTW if it is possible to add a graphical editor, that'd be quite nice. I
> don't use them a lot but with some basics like adding images and esp tables
> it is often easier and quicker to be able to switch between a graphical
> editor and a direct html view.
> 
> In any case, for me it is very much about having a conversation about what
> we could do to improve things and then doing it - be it adjusting or
> creating some scripts to make the changes needed for a release in KDE's svn
> easier or whatever... I'm not saying the system is broken, I'm saying it is
> becoming more work and at least Mario and myself can't sustain the amount
> of work we put in over the last months.
> 
> > > Mario proposed to get together at Randa for a Dot hackaton. Another
> > > option
> > > would be Akademy. I personally can't make it to Randa but I will be at
> > > Akademy.
> > > 
> > > Please comment on these three questions:
> > > * Do you agree a dot hackaton could help and are you willing to help
> > > out?
> > > * Are there 'techies' willing/able to help out on the dot code?
> > > * What option (Randa or Akademy) would work for you?
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > Jos
> > > 
> > > PS sorry it took me a while, Mario...
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Ben
> 


Okay...slow down. Getting at appropriate solutions will take some serious 
thinking, maybe some Drupal work, but certainly some attention to the entire 
release and release publicity process.

Ben has his hands on the tech stuff. He is able to do whatever tech work needs 
to be done...or he/someone else from the sysadmin team can figure it out. 
However, I agree strongly with Ben to stay with off-the-shelf modules. 
Creating custom modules is not a good idea for us (please just trust me on 
this. I've been working with Drupal for a long time.)

It's also not just a simple matter of finding a Drupal module that seems to 
fit the bill. Selecting the right module takes some investigation and probably 
some sandboxing. Changing access control is also not trivial.

Adding a graphical editor sounds like a good idea. Here again the devil's in 
the details...
1. I recently added CKEditor to a Drupal 7 site for non-HTML people. (I do 
most of the content stuff on that site.) Switching between the editor 
plaintext HTML introduced unwanted changes. I worked for several days to get 
this right and finally took out all the graphics editing stuff. (Examples: I 
don't want <p> tags; they are not needed. If I put in CR/LF, I want a new 
paragraph. I don't want to add in <br /> tags.)
2. We have published almost no tables. I can recall only one that we did for 
the Dot. 
3. Using something like CKEditor is not going to resolve the image insertion 
difficulties. We're better off hosting the images rather than linking to them 
externally. So we'll still have to upload images. There are some things we 
could do with this to make it easier to reuse images. 
4. The way we use images doesn't work well with templates. Do we float right 
and click to enlarge? Not always. What about centered larger images...should 
those be click to enlarge or not? Sometimes we use borders, but not always.

There is already a template in place for release announcements on the Dot. I 
don't know how it works, but it's plain to see from looking at a series of 
release stories on the Dot. 

There is also a rough template for kde.org/announcements about releases. I 
don't know how this works either, but it clearly is templated. The notes 
etherpad serves as something of a template.

The Workbench module looks inviting, but I don't see how it deals with the 
image manipulation issue, which is the thing that takes the most time for me. 
It may do that, but without installing the module and experimenting it's tough 
to tell.

It's not clear who will be using an enhanced Dot interface. Where are the new 
content contributors going to be coming from?

I suggest looking at the entire process and leave Drupal alone as much as 
possible. 

However, we definitely need to do something. I appreciate the work that Jos 
and Mario put into the release publicity. Others provide content or editing. 
It all takes a lot of work. And it seems to always be a scramble.

In that scramble, actual work on the Dot and kde.org/announcements are not the 
big issue. Providing templates and better editing tools there are not going to 
change the situation much. Where we've had difficulty is getting meaningful 
content ... What's new? What are the big stories? We struggle to get that. 

Then there's a fair amount of editing to smooth out the inputs from various 
people and projects. 

Off to translators who need several days with the final English version.

Screenshots.

What's really needed is a process that delivers those goods.

It seems to me that a hackathon would be useful for sorting out the process. 
Randa is also out for me. Akademy would be better.

Carl








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