[Zope] mems-exchange.org Zope work

[Patrick Phalen]

[Andrew M. Kuchling, on Thu, 23 Dec 1999]
:: We went live with some revisions to our Web site last Saturday, and
:: some of them will be of interest to Zopeheads.  The most significant
:: new feature is a new version of the Sequence Builder, which is at:
:: 
::     http://www.mems-exchange.org/z/process/builder/

Nice! I wonder if this might be applicable for improving the new Zope
user download/install experience?

It would be nice if www.zope.org could use Zope (duh) to implement a
form-driven customized installation documentation builder. What do I
mean by that?

New users come to download area and fill out a form which asks them
certain basic questions ...

	o OS
	o ZServer-only or Apache + ZServer, etc.
	o PCGI, FCGI
	o ZODB only or ZODB + DA
	o and so forth

... resulting in a customized, printable Web page of sequenced
installation steps, devoid of any distracting noise about matters
which aren't pertinent to their needs.

The current situation is a turnoff to new adopters, as reflected by the
number of people who fail to notice subtle requirements squirreled away
in the numerous install docs.

E.g., for someone to get started with Zope using Apache and FCGI (soon
to be a very common thing), they have to read README.txt, INSTALL.txt,
WEBSERVER.txt, /ZServer/INSTALL.txt, /ZServer/README.txt,
/ZODB/INSTALL.txt, plus numerous others squirreled away in
different directories. Then the docs send them to the Fast
Engines Web site for download, after which they need to read numerous
FCGI documents and also are encouraged to go to www.apache.org to fish
around for official information about mods and configs. All in all, this
can take hours, is potentially confusing, and is ripe for human error,
leading to the same install questions being asked over and over on the
Web site.

Why not adopt a granular approach, decomposing all the factoids and
serve them up to the "customer" on a need to know basis in one nice
presentation?

===

(Now if we could just get RedHat to include Zope in the core
distribution, so that we do all the minor upgrades using their whizzy
new Update Agent!)