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Message-ID: <3D255A6B.3080205@outerthought.org>
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 10:35:55 +0200
From: Steven Noels <stevenn@outerthought.org>
Organization: Outerthought
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To: forrest-dev@xml.apache.org
Subject: Re: Skin issues (was: Re: Need todo list for Cocoon transition)
References: <D5203E6D-8F61-11D6-B865-0030653FE818@apache.org>
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Status: O

Diana Shannon wrote:

<snip/>

> Maybe it's a goal of Forrest to have a uniform xml.apache.org web site 
> -- but -- have you actually checked with other xml.apache.org projects? 
> Do they consider it a goal? Are all of them represented here? Have all 
> of them been participating in the skin development process?
> 
> It's seems to me, no. Am I wrong, lurkers?

The bert skin is based on the original proposal of Stefano which has 
been discussed into much length on general@xml.apache.org during the 
last months of 2001, IIRC. We know it will be a long time before 
actually showing something based on the discussions held in that time, 
but there was a consensus, then:

* we need a common design
* of course, it should be optional, you always have projects who like to 
go their own way (I'm not too keen on this, because it breaks the 
consistency of the xml.apache.org website, but that's life)
* the design Stefano proposed that time seemed the way to go forward

> Strategically speaking, as a friend of Forrest, you need to:
> 1. Update the Forrest site to show the Bert skin

I could be doing this next week, although I prefer to wait until Forrest 
is ready to easily support remote doco building.

Aside: anyone strong feelings against including Forrest on the 
xml.apache.org main site?

> 2. Contact all xml.apache.org projects and ask them to comment on the 
> skin. In other words, allow them to influence the design so that they 
> "invest" and "own" the final result. Otherwise, I fear it will be 
> perceived as a top-down approach which will have limited success.

see above

It's not that I don't want to go into that discussion anymore, but as 
Stefano stated some time ago, we should move away from the skins 
discussion and focus on core issues:

* remote doco building
* DTD documentation
* graphs
* PDF generation
* cross-project information (i.e. the main xml.apache.org site)

I want to tackle some of those so that others hopefully pick them up and 
enhance them - most of this stuff isn't too hard to implement but we 
seem to prefer talking about it on this list instead of getting things done.

<snip/>

> Above all, let's *not* let skin issues hold up our being able to use all 
> the other great stuff Forrest has to offer!

Yep. Do not understand me wrong: I love talking about these issues, but 
the better model currently seems to me to actually put something into 
CVS and discuss/change that afterwards.

Cheers,

</Steven>
-- 
Steven Noels                            http://outerthought.org/
Outerthought - Open Source, Java & XML Competence Support Center
stevenn@outerthought.org                      stevenn@apache.org