[ZDP] Beginners Guides

[Chris Withers]

Hi,

Just throwing some more small change into the pot...

It strikes me that one of Zope's problems is that there's no obvious
course of action for a beginner, so lets create one. How about adding a
new portal: 'New Zope Users'

I'll coem back to this in a minute but, also being picky ;-), how about
re-arranging the portals into the following order:

Prospective Zope Users & Developers   New Zope Users & Developers
Zope Users                            Zope Developers
Zope Administrators                   Zope Hackers
Web Designers                         Special Interest Groups
                                      [PTK, ZDP, ZEO ...]

If you see what I mean: SIG's is a 'portal' with each of the interests
being 'sub-portals' like 'Project, Members, Projects' are now) It means
only the 'core issues' are actually portals and there's less stuff to
distract and confuse people...

I also think it focusses things better :-)

One other little suggestion: how about having a very brief description
below each title (by title I mean ZDP Portals, Zope Quick Reference,
Zope Book and the like) as I can imagine it would still be very
confusing for a newbie to come to zdp.zope.org and try and figure out
what all these things are...

Anyway, back to the New Zope Users & Developers portal.
I see this being made up basically of Beginners Guides, which should all
be based heavily around examples (like the original ZCMG and ZDG
were...) including the following topics:

1. How to Install Zope (Unix, NT, etc...)
2. Building Your First Zope Application (DTML Methods, etc, but NO
security)
3. Zope Security 
4. Using Relational Databases
5. Developing Your Own Product (ZClasses, Python Methods, etc)
...and maybe some more? (suggestions please ;-)

These are not supposed to be comprehensive, just a give a 'possible
root' to doing something in simple, clear, reliable & up-to-date terms.
I can see each one being made up of a Step-By-Step guide (literally:
step 1: do this, step 2: do that...) with a section of (filtered for
newbies) FAQ at the bottom and possibly a collection of jump-off links
related to that topic.

The idea is very much to keep it simple but make sure it works. I see
this as being a new Zope users first port of call. No assumptions should
be made and nothing complicated should be introduced unless it has to.
Lots of screenshots/etc would also be useful and they should be
available as PDFs/PS files for download. Some people (me included... ;-)
find it a lot easier to work from a printed guide when you're already
using the screen for something else...

If people think this is a good idea and someone can show me how (and I
can find some time...), I'd be happy to give the implementation of the
above a go...

Comments?

Chris