> Futon is awesome. It is often the first thing our users see of CouchDB and > the > feedback is unanimously positive. *Futon is slick, it is simple, it is to > the > point and it does all (well most) you need.*
Yep, this is why I love it :) > index.html: A portal page. At the moment, the first thing you see in Futon > is > the list of databases. I'd like to see (as an replacement or an addition > needs > to be discussed), a "welcome" page, a portal if you will, that will show > the > first time user a little more information about where he is and what he can > do. > Something like? > > 1.) Validate Your Installation [link to the test suite] > (if it fails, look at [link to troubleshooting wiki page]). > > 2.) Learn CouchDB [link to the docs]. > > 3.) Use CouchDB [link to list of DBs]. > This sounds good, but what if I want just to check my databases status? The main use of Futon - as a developer - is to see docs, see why something has gone wrong, and so on. The "cool home page" can be good and useful for first-time users, but boring for the developer: he has to click on a link to get to the databases. So, IMHO, there should be an option to "disable" the new home page. > > News Feed. The Futon home page should display an RSS/Atom feed containing > latest news items for CouchDB, like announcements of new versions, or > security > issues and the like. Whether this should be an opt-in or opt-out thing, > needs to be > decided, I can see reasons for both, but I think users should be able to > disable > it, again runtime config to the rescue. Are you sure it should go into Futon? Or better: what should Futon be, in your opinion? I'd rather prefer it to remain a sort of "control panel" for my databases. I prefer to fire up a newsreader or gmail to see announcements. > List of installed apps. With CouchApps shaping up, Futon could show a list > of > installed applications alongside created databases. The way to detect > CouchApps > is not yet defined, though there are sensible proposals. > Yes, this is good. I'd make this sort of a "tab" though: welcome page, databases, installed apps. With an option on the welcome page like "Default page:" and a dropdown with welcome page, installed apps, databases. Maybe also news, if you really want to. > > > More pluggable architecture. Hey, it might even be easy to add new pages to > Futon already, but I'm sure we can im prove that. The idea is that users > can > write add-ons to Futon that are not of interest for all users but only > those who > use CouchDB for a specific purpose (see next item). Futon then wouldn't > have to > include all features for everybody but we'd have a repository of Futon > plugins > that people can install. The repository of plugins should be a CouchDB > database > that users can just replicate the plugins they like from. Mmm I think this would mess up the slick interface of Futon too much. I dont want it to be a sort of Facebook, it's Futon, I use it to manage my databases and it does its work well. > > -- > > Cluster management plugin. CouchDB will be deployed in clusters of CouchDB > nodes. It'd be really cool if we had a Futon plugin that allows you to do > all > sorts of neat things with that cluster. Like monitoring how it is behaving > or > restructuring the cluster at runtime. Agreed! Another tab maybe. > > > Cheers > Jan > -- Good post Jan. I like some of your ideas; however, I'd prefer Futon to remain a control panel instead of becoming something like "MyCouchDB" or "iCouch"... Cheers! Andrea Schiavini
