Buildout for a educational Plone site

[ajung]

Hi,

I've created a buildout configuration for Plone 3:

<http://www.plone4universities.org/Members/ajungtest/buildout.cfg>

This will create a standard Plone 3 buildout plus some additional products
like CMFBibAT, FileSystemStorage, FacultyStaffDirectory, Reflecto,
FCKEditor and TextIndexNG3 and some more. In addition it provides support
for storing files directly on the filesystem instead of using the ZODB
(using FileSystemStorage).

How to use it:

 - download the buildout.cfg
 - run 'buildout'

That's it.

Better documentation and better visibility on the plone4uni website will
follow soon.

Andreas

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[ajung]

Hola Nate,

--On 22. Dezember 2007 14:48:01 -0600 Nate Aune <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi Andreas,
>
> Thanks for taking the initiative to create a buildout. However, I'm
> not sure about some of the products that you've chosen to include.

The bundle contains staff that I am using for deployment to my educational
customers. I am working successfully with several institutions in this
field...from chairs to institutes to universities).

>
># ATSchemaExtender
>
> This one is particularly nasty because it wipes out the entire
> Archetypes directory that comes with stock Plone, and replaces it with
> another one. I'm concerned about migration issues, if someone wants to
> remove the product. Now they have to try to recover the original
> Archetypes directory?

This was a culprit of the old FSD version (which is now using
at.schemaextender)

>
># TextIndexNG 3.2.1
>
> Doesn't Plone3 already provide for full-text searching of Word/PDF
> docs?  It seems like adding another dependency such as TXNG3 is
> unnecessary when Plone3 has this out-of-the-box.
> I realize that TXNG3 has a lot of other advanced functionality, but
> I'm guessing that for most educational institutions, these are not
> must-have features.

A common requirement are multi-lingual websites...and Plone does not
support
language-dependent indexing of Plone content (together with LP).

>
># FileSystemStorage (enabled for File type)
>
> While FSS is an excellent product, I would be wary of promoting this
> product when a future version of Plone is expected to use Zope's
> built-in blob support in the form of plone.app.blob. If universities
> start using FSS, there could be significant cost in migrating to
> another external file solution.

Right now we have no official Plone solution with blob support and
no official released Zope version with blob support. I don't promote
unreleased staff. I promote solutions that are known to work and that
were reliable in former projects. This conservative strategy is much better
than using cutting-edge software - especially stuff that is not integrated
into the Plone core so far. In addition using non-Plone-core add-ons were
always a PITA during migrations. If plone.app.blob becomes more mature and
if it should go into the Plone core, let's use it...but for now I consider
it risk deploying Plone sites on unofficial core extensions (especially it
seems to require a special Zope 2.10 version with blob support). The
experience (especially the migration experience from some universities
using Plone 2.X so far) tells us: not staying mainstream -> big migration
fun (or call it pain).

>
># ZWiki 0.6
>
> Again, ZWiki is an excellent product, but Plone 3 now provides a very
> capable Wiki solution in the form of wicked. This is likely to be
> sufficient for most universities needs.

No. Especially when you work with people with a scientific background they
usually work with ZWiki and extensions like LaTeXWiki.

> I think we want to be careful
> about confusing people with too many choices. Let them try out the
> built-in wiki that comes with Plone 3 first, and then if they find
> it's not sufficient, they can always upgrade later to ZWiki.

As with TXNG: it's optional.

>
># FCKEditor 2.4.6
>
> I'm sure FCKEditor has some distinct advantages over Kupu, but why
> replace the default editor with another one, when most universities
> are going to get along just fine with Kupu? Kupu is also more tightly
> integrated with Plone, whereas with FCKEditor, there will be features
> that are missing that Kupu already provides. Why confuse the users
> with yet another choice?

No single customer  is actually  happy with Kupu. FCKeditor works fine with
Plone 3 and there is no functionality missing. FCKEditor just works and the
site administrator and the user has the freedom to choose either Kupu or
FCKeditor. You argue: don't confuse users with multiple editors, I argue:
don't distract users with a toy editor. If you like Kupu, take it. Most
professional Plone users don't like Kupu.

>
> I guess the point I'm trying to make, is let's make a buildout that
> leverages the existing features of Plone 3, and not add any redundant
> and potentially intrusive products unless they add real immediate
> value for the people who are going to be evaluating the product.
>

Sorry but I have to disagree. The buildout contains software that is
actually used successfully in educational deployments.

> Sure, some power users will prefer TXNG3 over Plone's default
> full-text indexing, and some will prefer ZWiki over wicked, and some
> will prefer FCKEditor over Kupu, but why include all of these  in a
> "base" distribution of Plone?

See above. The quick installer give the administrator the choice what
to install.

>
> I could see these add-ons being included in a "advanced / power user"
> edition, but I think for now, the focus should be on letting people
> try out Plone as it comes out-of-the-box, with add-ons that don't try
> to replace existing functionality, but augment or enhance the core CMS
> with features suitable for an educational institution, such as
> FacultyStaffDirectory, CMFBibliographyAT and PloneFormGen. None of
> these products have many dependencies, and can be uninstalled without
> any consequences.

Sorry Nate but I am not working on trialware :-) This is about doing
professional software for professional customers and most universities
or related institutions are not interested in trialware...they want working
solutions :-)

>
> While I can completely understand your desire to promote your own
> products (and they are indeed excellent products),

Huh? Except TXNG there no other product from my side. So there is
nothing about promotion.

> I think we should
> weigh that against the needs of the greater educational community.

I have contacts to most German universities and related institutions that
work with Plone and some of them are customers of mine. So I am aware of
their needs :-) In addition we have contacts to universities through the
German Zope User Group (DZUG) which has a special committee to deal with
universities using Zope and their needs. I doubt that the needs of
other universities are much different.

Happy Xmas,
Andreas



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