Re: Shale home page
On 10/18/06, David Geary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I plan to work on the home page, but I won't get much done until I get off the road for awhile, which will be in a couple of weeks. snip/ Great, you'll probably find a short description blurb (not more than 2-3 sentences--I'll try to take in the feedback from this thread) once I'm done with the items (below). Please feel free to delete/improve/adjust it as you see fit when you get a chance. Thanks, -Rahul If not working on it, I've been thinking about the homepage lately, and it strikes me that I don't really know how to spin Shale. We have so many unrelated features that it's difficult to say Shale is The addition of JPA makes things even murkier. Are we one-stop shopping for JSF? Proving ground for JSF 2.0? I know we're a set of services, but that's a rather bland description. david 2006/10/18, Craig McClanahan [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On 10/18/06, Rahul Akolkar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/25/06, Wendy Smoak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Someone on IRC brought up a good point about the Shale home page: We don't say what Shale *is* until 1/3 of the way down the page. I think the information in the paragraph that starts Thus, Shale is... belongs up at the top of the page. Thoughts? Volunteers to fix it? :) snip/ We really need to do this. I plan to make some changes as time permits (probably next week): * Remove logo bit from home page * Move the historical out to its own page * Try to add features-* pages content to the site sections of their own modules (for example, the description in the dialog module site - thanks Craig - is much more accurate and upto date that the corresponding features page) * Point to module sites rather than features-* where feasible * Move download and documentation (which is really Javadocs) sections to their own pages * The mailing lists and issue tracking blurbs on home page can go IMO, redundant given the LHS menu contains the links (need to add ML link) Thanks Rahul ... +1 on all of these. One additional note on the features sections. With the way things are now spread out into submodules, I think we'll be able to completely get rid of these by the time we're done, because the information will have been distributed onto the submodule pages already. But, we'll also want to make sure that the submodule list is up to date in every website (IIRC it is manually maintained via cut-n-paste) to reflect the new additions. As for me, I'm planning on finishing up the main page for shale-dialog, and adding the rest of the stuff from features-dialog to the shale-dialog-basic page, in the next couple of days. And then some new content, hopefully soon. -Rahul Craig -- Wendy
Re: Shale home page
On Oct 18, 2006, at 5:46 PM, David Geary wrote: If not working on it, I've been thinking about the homepage lately, and it strikes me that I don't really know how to spin Shale. We have so many unrelated features that it's difficult to say Shale is The addition of JPA makes things even murkier. Are we one-stop shopping for JSF? Proving ground for JSF 2.0? I know we're a set of services, but that's a rather bland description. I agree. Until about 4 months ago I only knew very little about JSF. I had not actually written a JSF app. Now, I'm in the middle of writing a pretty significant JSF app and teaching our team of developers how (and why) to use JSF. So I've gone in head first :-) Before I started this adventure I had a difficult time seeing where Shale fit. Now I'm starting to see the plugin points where it makes sense and hopefully we will start integrating Shale into our app in the near future. Maybe it's something like a meta-framework. It's not really a framework as such because JSF is the framework. But it is some missing parts that integrate fairly seamlessly with the JSF framework. Missing parts and added value - things like Clay and Dialog are added value. Things like the core ViewController provide missing pieces to the core JSF framework. Maybe some of the missing pieces should be submitted back as JSRs and we could work ourselves out of a job in that sense. Or maybe not. Maybe they are not as universally applicable as it seems at first glance. Of course as JSR-299 progresses we may find ourselves in a different category. There has been talk of building a JSR-299 implementation when the time is right. Greg
RE: Shale home page
On Oct 18, 2006, at 5:46 PM, David Geary wrote: If not working on it, I've been thinking about the homepage lately, and it strikes me that I don't really know how to spin Shale. We have so many unrelated features that it's difficult to say Shale is The addition of JPA makes things even murkier. Are we one-stop shopping for JSF? Proving ground for JSF 2.0? I know we're a set of services, but that's a rather bland description. I agree. Until about 4 months ago I only knew very little about JSF. I had not actually written a JSF app. Now, I'm in the middle of writing a pretty significant JSF app and teaching our team of developers how (and why) to use JSF. So I've gone in head first :-) Before I started this adventure I had a difficult time seeing where Shale fit. Now I'm starting to see the plugin points where it makes sense and hopefully we will start integrating Shale into our app in the near future. Maybe it's something like a meta-framework. It's not really a framework as such because JSF is the framework. But it is some missing parts that integrate fairly seamlessly with the JSF framework. Missing parts and added value - things like Clay and Dialog are added value. Things like the core ViewController provide missing pieces to the core JSF framework. I like the way meta-framework sounds, but it implies something more like Keel (http://www.keelframework.org). Shale's name provides the underpinnings for the verbage we need -- separate layers that can optionally be applied to your application. What's wrong with services? Maybe some of the missing pieces should be submitted back as JSRs and we could work ourselves out of a job in that sense. Or maybe not. Maybe they are not as universally applicable as it seems at first glance. A lot of us JSF EG memebers are very familiar with Shale, so I'm pretty sure that features like the ViewController and Tiger annotations will make it into JSF 2.0 in some form. Of course as JSR-299 progresses we may find ourselves in a different category. There has been talk of building a JSR-299 implementation when the time is right. I don't know if the category really changes. To me, that's just one more layer... ~~~ Kito D. Mann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Author, JavaServer Faces in Action http://www.virtua.com - JSF/Java EE consulting, training, and mentoring http://www.JSFCentral.com - JavaServer Faces FAQ, news, and info
RE: Shale home page
Maybe it's something like a meta-framework. It's not really a framework as such because JSF is the framework. But it is some missing parts that integrate fairly seamlessly with the JSF framework. Missing parts and added value - things like Clay and Dialog are added value. Things like the core ViewController provide missing pieces to the core JSF framework. I like the way meta-framework sounds, but it implies something more like Keel (http://www.keelframework.org). Shale's name provides the underpinnings for the verbage we need -- separate layers that can optionally be applied to your application. What's wrong with services? The one sentence description I have been using lately that seems to resonate: Shale is a set of loosely coupled application framework services built on top of JSF. If need be, I also emphasize that we're talking mostly about the MVC controller part of JSF, and are agnostic about component libraries. Use whatever visual components you'd like, and use Shale's features to make the back end of your application easier to compose. I think the one senetence explanation works quite well. Loosely coupled is key. Of course as JSR-299 progresses we may find ourselves in a different category. There has been talk of building a JSR-299 implementation when the time is right. I don't know if the category really changes. To me, that's just one more layer... Agreed. So would a layer implementing the validation annotations (303?) if/when it actually happens. True. I think there are lots of opportunities for continually adding value to JSF. Some if it will make it into the spec, and some won't. Craig ~~~ Kito D. Mann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Author, JavaServer Faces in Action http://www.virtua.com - JSF/Java EE consulting, training, and mentoring http://www.JSFCentral.com - JavaServer Faces FAQ, news, and info
Re: Shale home page
On 9/25/06, Wendy Smoak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Someone on IRC brought up a good point about the Shale home page: We don't say what Shale *is* until 1/3 of the way down the page. I think the information in the paragraph that starts Thus, Shale is... belongs up at the top of the page. Thoughts? Volunteers to fix it? :) snip/ We really need to do this. I plan to make some changes as time permits (probably next week): * Remove logo bit from home page * Move the historical out to its own page * Try to add features-* pages content to the site sections of their own modules (for example, the description in the dialog module site - thanks Craig - is much more accurate and upto date that the corresponding features page) * Point to module sites rather than features-* where feasible * Move download and documentation (which is really Javadocs) sections to their own pages * The mailing lists and issue tracking blurbs on home page can go IMO, redundant given the LHS menu contains the links (need to add ML link) And then some new content, hopefully soon. -Rahul -- Wendy
Re: Shale home page
On 9/25/06, Wendy Smoak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 9/25/06, David Geary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, IMO, that paragraph and the rest of the Background section are dated now that we've cut ties with Struts. We could probably do with a new introduction altogether. I'm fine with either that, or moving it to a history page of some sort. I also get the impression, compared to sites for other projects, that our pages are a bit heavy on words and don't have quite enough pictures (and yes, I'm pointing to myself as the author of lots of that stuff :-). There's things we can do to improve it, but I want to focus primarily on finishing up the dialog stuff right now. And a snazzy new logo, dammit. James is running that show. :) Votes, we need the rest of the votes! Mine'll be in tonight (Prague time :-). -- Wendy Craig
Re: Shale home page
Not volunteering here but I definitely think we could streamline things so that its easier to navigate. IMO we have too much crammed onto that first page. sean On 9/25/06, Wendy Smoak [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Someone on IRC brought up a good point about the Shale home page: We don't say what Shale *is* until 1/3 of the way down the page. I think the information in the paragraph that starts Thus, Shale is... belongs up at the top of the page. Thoughts? Volunteers to fix it? :) -- Wendy
Re: Shale home page
On 9/25/06, David Geary [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Actually, IMO, that paragraph and the rest of the Background section are dated now that we've cut ties with Struts. We could probably do with a new introduction altogether. And a snazzy new logo, dammit. James is running that show. :) Votes, we need the rest of the votes! -- Wendy
Re: Shale home page
From: David Geary [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2006/9/25, Wendy Smoak : Someone on IRC brought up a good point about the Shale home page: We don't say what Shale *is* until 1/3 of the way down the page. I think the information in the paragraph that starts Thus, Shale is... belongs up at the top of the page. Thoughts? Volunteers to fix it? :) Actually, IMO, that paragraph and the rest of the Background section are dated now that we've cut ties with Struts. We could probably do with a new introduction altogether. And a snazzy new logo, dammit. +1 on that note! david -- Wendy
