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Templates?
by Xanadu on Friday 07/May/2004, @06:02
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Hey!
I like Quanta a lot and use it fairly often. I'm looking to do a couple sites from scratch (not just maintain a couple as I have been doing). The thing that bugs me a bit about Quanta is there are no templates (ala Frontpage...) to really choose from for a foundation for a new site (or a new face for an old one).
As it stands now, if I find a site I like on the web, I DL the css, and a page or two for templates after striping out content and force feeding that to Quanta. Is there really a bonus to using Quanta over kdevelop (for project management features), or just simply using Kate?
I hate to come off like I'm flaming since I, by no means, intend it to be a flame, I just think there's a large need to increase the ease of use for noobier folks to be able to slap together a (standards compliant! :-) ) site as easily as they can with Frontpage.
*I'm not endorsing Frontpage, I freakin' hate that package, but it does have it's advantages for a n00b.
--
Matt |
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Re: Templates?
by Andras Mantia on Friday 07/May/2004, @06:36
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>The thing that bugs me a bit about Quanta is there are no templates
> (ala Frontpage...) to really choose from for a foundation for a new
> site (or a new face for an old one).
Quanta has a template system, just that we need contributors who create site templates, code snippets, etc. With the help of the TemplateMagic script, it's even possible to use customizable templates, like asking for some input from the user and replace parts of the template with the user input.
>Is there really a bonus to using Quanta over kdevelop (for project
>management features), or just simply using Kate?
I'd say there is. ;-) Autocompletion, visual editing, table editing, easier tag attribute editing, problem checking and reporting, integrated preview, php debugger and so on, things that make html & xml editing more easier.
Andras
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Re: Templates?
by Eric Laffoon on Friday 07/May/2004, @17:47
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We introduced templates in the end of 2002 and made several big appeals for people to make templates. We have had several people say they would. You're incorrect about there not being templates. Dave Reddish contributed some very nice ones that were included in the BE 2 release. Most of them are in kdewebdev/quanta/data/templates/pages/html/xhtml/. Get them at
http://webcvs.kde.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/.
-rw------- 1 eric users 3342 Apr 3 11:24 Quanta_Times.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2081 May 4 01:05 leftMen_BB.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2359 May 4 01:05 leftMen_Quanta.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2063 May 4 01:05 rightMen_BB.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2344 May 4 01:05 rightMen_Quanta.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2535 May 4 01:05 twoSideMen_BB.html
-rw-r--r-- 1 eric users 2880 May 4 01:05 twoSideMen_Quanta.html
The problem with templates being loaded up is as follows...
1) How do we know they are good templates for you?
2) How do we know they are applicable to the DTDs you're using?
3) How do we know they are arranged in a way that makes sense for you and you will be able to find what you want?
It's easy with FlunkPage if you're just going to shovel crap in there that looks cute when rendered, but when you have all the DTDs and preprocessing language options it becomes a much tougher question to do it right.
Fundementally our templates break down to global, user and project scopes. Can you honestly say global should be loaded down? If so please offer some because free software is *community* driven, "community" of course meaning us and Dave Reddish so we can tell him to get on it. ;-)
Templates are easy to create...
* Layout your initial framework for a file and save it - edit as needed
* Take a file and save it as a template and strip out what you don't need
* Highlight some text for a snippet and select File>save as template
Templates are just files in your file system so they're easy to copy from one project to another... in fact if you have those FlunkPage templates in a mounted directory you can soft link them. It seems to me that after you've been doing a little development you're goint to have a nice collection of templates, unless you just want a page made for you... in which case there are tools that will give you fast and sloppy. You have to make a little effort to resource fast and good.
Inherently though the real problem is deciding between a deluge or spartan global templates. Spartan was easy since we decided we would be better occupied coding. One of the features that we will be working with in our next release is the ability to use Global resource repositories for toolbars, actions, templates and scripts. We plan to integrate access into Quanta. This means you will be able to be on line and select from the menu to search Quanta's repository for a particular resource, say DHTML page templates or CSS layouts. You will be able to find what you want and download it directly to your template directory in the appropriate scope. Likewise if you develop a template and the guilt of not contributing jack becomes heavy you can select to submit to the repository. There it will be received and vetted by an admin whose job it is to make sure that no harmful, useless or overly redundant resources make it into the library.
All of these ideas together add up to what I feel is the best way to resolve this intelligently. As to why Quanta is better than other tools for this Andras gave an answer, but I'm not going to bother. Our users confirm our experience in technology, usability and web development have created a tool that rocks and that many feel is better than Dreamweaver. FrontPage is neither a credible tool nor a market leader. Quanta is designed exactly for getting the most done with the least time and effort. It has features you need to use to see the value of and in the use you realize it can't be beat.
As far as comparing us to FrontPage, I don't consider that a flame. You're talking about a tool for dead languages that incorporates proprietary extentions. You're also talking about a ruthless multi billion dollar company convicted of criminal violations of the anti trust act. All that is by the way, but the key point is that MS FrontPage is a CONSUMER product that you plop down your cash for. Not that I feel that we shouldn't strive for a product that meets or exceeds expectations, but this comparison is looking at Quanta from a "consumer entitlement" position. This is community software freely given. That doesn't mean that we should say "we've given enough and we don't care". It does mean that when you say "this product is deficient here" where that deficiency can be addressed by someone with your skill set that I can say "Well this is what we've done, why don't you help us with that part?" It certainly looks like we have a common interest here.
I'm very idealogically attached to Free Software. I know that most people won't do much, but when someone can but they want somebody else to do it anyway that is annoying. I put in at least 20-30 hours a week and have invested thousands of dollars in this project. As a matter of principle I'd like a few people to put in 10 hours or so and change this. Is that too much to ask? When we put out a call for help and a year and a half later ONE PERSON has stepped forward and done something with it. I have to be honest. That's dissapointing.
The inevitable fact is we made Quanta user extensible because we don't have the manpower to do everything. If we can't come up with a way to involve more people in the community in the way we all rah rah that Linux and open source is an invincible jauggernaught then we will have to decide where to limit our ambitions. User and comminity involvement is in our plan, but if everyone is to thoroughly entrenched in a consumer mind set then we will not be anywhere near as good as we could be. World domination takes time though. The real solution happens when the on line resources are launched. It will finally be so easy that people will be able to participate with almost no effort. I belive that is when we will begin to shine here. Until then perhaps you could help?
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