[geeklog-devel] Suggestion: simple mode

[Euan McKay]

Some people may have noticed that I made a simple "blog" plugin last
month. This replicates some basic functionality of stories - you can
have just a title, content, permissions, comments. That's it. Another
thing I have done on sites is set display:none on many of the items in
the staticpages editor.

The reason is that many users find the interface for editing things in
Geeklog too intimidating. There are too many features for some users.
Naturally, lots of features is a good thing, but not everyone needs
everything. (This is sort of relevant:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/11/21.html the following
article linked from the bottom of that page is also.)

I would like to suggest a config option to use a "simple" interface
for the admin pages, or perhaps the ability to hide certain options.
This could be accomplished by having two templates for the editors for
items such as stories and staticpages, and making sure that any
missing items are either in hidden fields or are simply set to
default. I realise that the stories page is greatly improved by having
tabs, but simply having the options there is confusing for some
people. And others just click and tweak randomly because they can't
choose what to ignore, and end up in a mess.

Removing the clutter will make it much easier to create sites for
people who are less computer literate, and help differentiate Geeklog
from other CMSs.

Thoughts?

Euan.

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Euan McKay
PhD Candidate in International Relations
Department of Advanced Social and International Studies
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
The University of Tokyo