[geeklog-users] What I like/don't like about geeklog

[Dirk Haun]

Daniel,

first of all: I saw that you submitted this as a story on geeklog.net
(why not in the Feedback forum?), but the formatting of that post is a
mess, so I prefer to respond here ...

>-the mailing list is very dead - where do you guys exchange thoughts?

Which mailing list (we have several)? Which "guys" are you talking about
(users or developers)?

Most of the user feedback these days happens in the forums on
geeklog.net. The developers use the (closed) geeklog-devel mailing list
(of which a digest is posted to geeklog-devtalk) and IRC, mostly.

Also keep in mind the time of the year and the fact that most of the
developers are busy with family or business matters. Yes, it is sort of a
slow phase currently and I would have preferred to have Geeklog 1.3.9 out
months ago, but such is life ...


>-the designers (program design) of geeklog only seem to be happy when they
>can separate the whole thing in as many files as possible.

In a word, that's nonsense. The Geeklog code is separated into logical
units of managable size. I don't think we have that many files there.

You may be thinking about the themes, but even there it does make sense.
Please keep in mind that Geeklog ships with 7 default themes. Usually,
you will use only one theme on a site, which brings down the number of
files drastically.


>-I tried to find out how to write a plug-in for geeklog and gave up. I tried
>to find out to write one for phpnuke and was really about to change ... In
>geeklog you need to spend so much more time - it's unbelievable.

So what did you try? Did you see the Plugin Developers Guide? Do you
realise that you don't need to implement all of the functions? A very
minimal plugin can be written in a couple of minutes, depending on what
you want to achieve.

Check out the "MacIG" plugin available from geeklog.net's download area.
It only implements 4 functions of the plugin API to achieve one specific
goal (extending the user's profile). Of course, a plugin such as the
forum will make use of a lot more of the plugin API functions ...


>-gmail is not finished yet ...

What's gmail? Isn't that a plugin? And why is that a problem?


>-I miss Multilanguage - though I would not be content with the way others do
>it: I should be able to say which languages I know and which one I prefer.
>Writing articles should be possible in Multilanguage so that the user gets
>preferred language (if it exists) and understandable articles (not just 1
>language). Others give you only your set language. 

We await your code contribution then ...

Seriously, this is an open source project. Some things have "always been
that way" - design decisions have been made at one point and then never
questioned again. And some things just aren't that easy to change and/or
not high on the list.

If you don't like how certain things work, suggest alternatives, discuss
them (on one of the mailing lists or in the forums, for example), submit
feature requests or, preferrably, patches (and keep an eye on CVS). The
infrastructure for all this is there - use it.


>-is it true that I may change the footer in geeklog (not like in other
>CMSes) so that people need to ask which CMS it is (I think people who are
>interested will ask - others don't care)?

Yes, you can remove the "Powered by Geeklog" logo / link, if you like. It
would be nice if you could provide a link back, though, but it doesn't
need to be on every page (since you're German: An "Impressum" page would
be a good place for a link back to geeklog.net).

bye, Dirk


-- 
http://www.haun-online.de/
http://geeklog.info/