PostNuke

1. Remove all images from the archive that do not relate directly to the PostNuke eg: the "filemanager" images are still in the archive, as are the forum images, but not the forum module.




2. Package the languages seperately -- I know some will require all languages, but I'm betting most people only need one, or a couple.

If you do this it will probably mean offering the languages as either discrete archives, or one archive with all the languages.

This will also mean that each module/plug-in will have to package their own language files and place them under that modules directory (as some already do). Additionally the images for each module should be placed in a directory under that modules directory.

I think this will also make the installation of PostNuke a little easier because you add the extra features to the base, rather than downloading the base, remove the stuff you don't want and then upload to your live server.

This can also help when you want to remove a module, simply delete the entire directory for that module and it is gone. No more searching throughout your site for bits 'n' pieces

To please those that "want everything in one go", all packages could be placed in one master archive.

I realise that this all probably means more work for the developers at release time, but ultimately I think it will produce a nicer, more professional and user friendly distribution

Oh yeah, what you guys have done so far really rocks!!

We all know that article system is going to be rewritten and in articles and comments on this site you can see quite a lot of suggestions that users (we all) miss or would like to improve. This article would like to try to concentrate all these ideas to one place. The importance of article system deserves to make a little brainstorming here I guess. This should be non-developers' help to developers.

I will try to give a list of things that I feel that they should be added, things that I found in articles, comments and forums of this site, but also things that are maybe nonsense and I didn't think about them to all details but someone might find out that it is not nonsense or might have another valuable idea based on this.



And I would like to ask you all to comment this article and say what you think about this list, try to add something more and try to make order based on their importance (maybe admin could create a poll?).

So...here we go:

1. article header
   
   
   
   Let's start from the top. I feel that admins should have a tool to edit the header. Of course you can reach it by editing the source but PN is said to be also for those without any knowledge of PHP and MySQL. Maybe at least a manual what and how to edit is needed. (The problem is that every time you upgrade you have to edit those files again.)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
     a)   I think that a lot of people would like the author's name to be shown instead of its nick (see my article). Nick does not really makes your site credible with serious information.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
     b)   If you have a text that was not originally written for your site, you sometimes need to put older date (few years back) but it is not possible without editing database. Maybe it is a nonsense because it could make a mess - you would probably need two date options: "written on" and "posted (or inserted) on". You could choose if you want to use both or just one of them. What do you think?...
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




2. two (and more) authors
   
   
   
   It happens... It is rare, I know, but sometimes there are two people that are authors of one single article. Then it is needed to show them both. I have no idea how to implement this probably admin would have add the second one). You will find it very useful when you meet the situation...
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




3. author overview
   
   
   
   When you click on the author (it is not possible in PostNuke theme now, there is no link) you should get his(her) info. It means also some short text (introduction) and his e-mail as well as list of his articles (which you can get now already).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




4. hometext and bodytext
   
   
   
   Sometimes you add an article (for example a tale) when you do not want the hometext (prefix) to be shown on the article's page again because you use part of the article's text in prefix to show what is it about. And you do not want it on print page too. You can reach this editing the code again but I think that there should be an option when adding the article where you could tick where you want hometext and bodytext to be shown. Something like this:
   
   
   
   
            article's page      print page
   hometext           no                     no
   
   
   bodytext           yes                    yes
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   I guess it shouldn't be so difficult to implement but there is a problem: PN uses the print page for AvantGo which means that you would not see prefix in this case. It would be needed to have a special AvantGo page that would be actually the same as it is now so that it shows both the texts.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




5. related articles
   
   
   
   At the end of each article you could there might be list of related articles from the site. I do not know how to chose them but manually.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




6. related links
   
   
   
   Similar as above. It could be somehow connected with Web Links section but not necessarily. It is good for the reader when he can click on related link where he can get something more. He shouldn't leave our site so the link should be opened to new window.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




7. poll for each article
   
   
   
   Well we have a polls now on the main page. Great feature but sometimes it would be great to have a poll for each article you publish. Don't you think so?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




8. WYSIWYG editor for adding article
   
   
   
   We have a plug-in Submit News via PDHTML. Why not to have it directly in admin section for adding new stories?
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




9. magazine/newspaper style layout
   
   
   
   You can see this request in one of the latest articles.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   




10. news submitting without admin control
    
    
    
    Comes from this article. It would probably need small change in user system so that admin
    
    
    could give or deprive the rights to publish.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    




11. private/public articles (registered/anonymous)
    
    
    
    Details here.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    




12. disable article
    
    
    
    A feature that allows you disable publishing the article. It would be still in database but you cannot see it on the main page or its own page until you enable it again. (I guess it is possible to unite this with previous suggested feature.)
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    




13. pictures in articles
    
    
    
    Article here.
    
    
    Now you have to do it your own provisional way. I have implemented pictures in my site this way. CSS is defined in article (.flow { float: right})
    
    
    then I add this class to each image (class="flow"). I guess the default theme could have something like this in defined in style.css. It is a way but you should have an option to upload pictures directly when adding new story and have a possibility to choose a place of the picture.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    




14. subcategories and subsections
    
    
    
    Read more.

There are probably even more things you would like to have in article system of the Great Post Nuke. Try to think and list them here. Try to comment these above. Maybe we will reach the ideal that developers will accept as a challenge.

P.S.: If this workshop is succesful why not to have them more often. What about having a workshop about user system next time?