Hi Tim:
This will probably start a "flame war" (if those things still happen
:-), but again this is all for what I feel is the betterment of the
project. Please see my comments inline:
Tim Ruppert wrote:
Inline
Cheers,
Ruppert
On Oct 13, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hi Tim:
I fully understand your point of view and the constraints we all
labor under. Whether the old theme sucks or not is not in question here.
First question I have for you is what "guidelines" are you referring to?
Take a look at BizznessTime and then at Flat Grey and let me know when
you think each were designed from a look and feel perspective? That's
the point here - first impressions of whether or not this project is
stale or not. This is why it was developed and it can have a huge
impact on the people that see it for the first time. Not to mention
that as I said, my customers have custom themes built on BizznessTime
and are happy with them ...
You didn't answer my question. What guidelines?
I'm not disputing that your customers have nice themes. You, or your
company probably built them. Good for you! As a service provider, this
attitude towards the code base works in your favor. As an end-user,
maybe this approach towards the project code base doesn't work so well.
Please reconsider.
Secondly, why should a new user have to change a theme in order to
use OFBiz applications. If, as you say its easy to change a theme,
then it should be incumbent on the knowledgeable experienced OFBiz
user to change themes and not the new user. New users have enough on
their plate just learning how the applications work.
I'm talking about demo.ofbiz.org having a current looking theme so
that when people want to see the application for the first time,
they're not asking if we started with the backend design in 2001 and
then forgot to update it :) If you guys want that to be a deployment
setting for the demo store - I'm happy to do it that way - let's just
not act like the old theme is what is making OFBiz happen.
So am I. Lets talk about the demo site. On a recent visit (2 days ago)
what I saw was embarrassing and hence my comment about pride of ownership.
I'd like to "call you to the carpet" on making "OFBiz happen". How many
new user's to OFBiz (I'm talking end-users) have been "convinced" to
adopt based on theme changes? Do you even know? If you can show me the
numbers, then I will gladly change my tune.
Thirdly, please don't throw around "its easy" to do something without
siting references. You insult my intelligence and every other reader
on this list by implying that anything concerning recent releases of
OFBiz is "easy".
Please Ruth - come on. If you're not sure where the themes are, then
please use a browser tool to tell you where the CSS is that drives the
theme and tinker with it. If I had the references for you in my hands
- I'll lay them out like a towel - but since I didn't, I declined to
send you to the wrong place. Me and the other readers (and my
employees) dove in on the theme concept and tried our best to come up
with something quickly that would make an impact in the release. I
think we accomplished that in a big way. If it's not good, then
please help to make it better rather than turning back to something
that's not pushing forward (on the design front).
Tim, we are not talking about me. I know how to do this. I've spent
several years working with all aspects of OFBiz from the front-end CSS
to writing modifications to the Entity Engine to support database field
types not supported by OFBiz. I'm talking about new users.
I have tried to "make it better" by submitting JIRA issues.
How about if we start over with a design document and a baseline that we
know works - perhaps the Flat Grey theme, and go forward from there.
Give me developer/access rights to the code base and I'd gladly help out.
I'd much rather see these kinks worked out - since we're only talking
about CSS - not the magic of the screen widget / form widget, etc. In
this case, "easy" means that any web developer in the world that does
"Inspect Element" on Safari or anything else - will be able to see
where the CSS is - since that's 99% of how these themes are messed
with in the first place.
I agree with you here concerning working out the kinks. Where we diverge
is: I don't think it is up to end-users to do testing for the project.
Don't commit code (themes or otherwise) that has not been tested. Don't
make changes to OFBiz until those changes have been tested. Its pretty
simple.
Again, end-users have enough on their plate just learning the
applications. And, perhaps more importantly, end-user's for the backend
applications are not the same web developers you reference here.
You obviously see all this from a service provider's point of view and
not an end-user. Please understand, I don't provide OFBiz development,
deployment or integration services. I am an advocate for end-users. IMO,
if we don't get more end-users looking at OFBiz, you might as well kiss
this project good-bye.
Its all about mindshare, and while OFBiz has been good to you and
HotWax, your attitude is very similar to the "proprietary" mindset of
some software vendors that shall remain unnamed.
Please take off your service provider hat and look at all this from a
potential new end-user.
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast
[email protected]
Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website:
http://www.myofbiz.com
Tim Ruppert wrote:
We are all working within the constraints of _not_ redesigning the
entire set of backend applications - which is really what needs to
be done. The old theme sucks visually - has no spice, doesn't fit
today's look and feel guidelines AT ALL, looks really old - so I'd
say from someone who does this day in and day out - you're WAY off
when it comes to the way that people react to it (be clear, this
does not talk to using it on a day to day basis). We've been very
successful in building themes off of Bizzness Time - please are
reacting in a really positive way.
There is nothing other than a visual change on the BizznessTime
theme. There are no other extra widgets or the like. it's just a
reorganization of the data that's there to help give it a facelift.
I'm not talking to users - I'm talking to you and everyone else who
has issues with it. Fix it ... or go back to the old theme in your
own setup - don't doom the rest of us to have to go apply first
impressions with that really lame setup.
As for the documentation - I'm not sure - checkout Confluence - we
just dug in and tried to bring the backend apps out of the early
2000s instead of letting it sit stagnant.
Cheers,
Ruppert
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595
On Oct 13, 2009, at 7:10 AM, Ruth Hoffman wrote:
Hello Tim:
If this a tool for convincing people to use OFBiz, then IMO, we are
way off the mark. The backend applications where the BiznessTime
theme has been applied are designed for end-users who may not and
probably do not have any experience with HTML or CSS. Lets not
forget who our audience is here.
If the foundation, as you say is so solid (and I have not doubt
that it is), then reverting back to a simpler yet more accessible
theme should be the way to go. Fancier is not always better.
On another note, could you point me to the end-user documentation
covering creating new themes. I'd be happy to try this out and
post my findings.
Regards,
Ruth
----------------------------------------------------
Ruth Hoffman, Author, Mentor & OFBiz Enthusiast
[email protected]
Looking for more OFBiz info, please visit my website:
http://www.myofbiz.com
Tim Ruppert wrote:
We exclusively use the BizznessTime theme with clients because
it's WAY easier to change, skin and adapt to everyone's liking /
look and feel. I think it would be a huge mistake to roll it back
to the Flat Grey as we have not had any of the same problems once
everyone gets over the initial shock of seeing something different.
If the community wants to roll it back - then go for it - but it
isn't wise. FIX the problems that you don't like in the
BizznessTime theme, or create one of your own - it's easy to do -
this is a much more solid foundation to build on then the old (and
looking really old) theme that's been in there since the
beginning. Have any of you tried to edit the CSS to make any
changes that might not make it so "large"? It should be pretty
easy with this setup.
Anyways, think on it and do what you will do, but remember this is
still a tool for convincing people to use OFBiz. I'd leave this
in place and change it to the ugly, ugly in your own installations
before I wanted to go back to Flay Grey as a sales tool ....
Cheers,
Ruppert
--
Tim Ruppert
HotWax Media
http://www.hotwaxmedia.com
o:801.649.6594
f:801.649.6595
On Oct 13, 2009, at 3:40 AM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Hi Hans,
So far,
* it seems that most people find things too large and prefer to
zoom out.
* it seems also that not much specific bugs were reported, and
those reported should be easily fixed (not quite sure though...)
I repeat myself about where to report about this subject : create
a subtask at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-2398
In his 1st reply Chris Snow suggested a change. But I'm not sure
it's enough for doing the same thing as a zoom out
Maybe we could ask Ryan Foster if it's possble to shrink the size
(of everything ) else we may vote for the "return of Flat Grey"
as default
theme.
What do you people think ?
Jacques
PS : Hans I saw you opened a subtask for the field size issue,
thanks!
From: "Hans Bakker" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sure the Business theme looks good but.....
The general problem is that the characters, fields and actually
everything is far too big....If i specify a field to be 2
characters, at
least 5 fit in....
So set the default to flat_gray in general properties is perhaps
better.
Regards,
Hans
On Mon, 2009-10-12 at 16:19 +0200, Jacques Le Roux wrote:
Hi,
I'd like to know what the community thinks about Bizness Time
as default theme.
Do you use it?
Do you change for another theme ?
Which one fo you prefer?
Did you find bugs in one of the theme but not another?
Thanks
Jacques
--
Antwebsystems.com <http://Antwebsystems.com>: Quality OFBiz
services for competitive rates
