For a while, I've been thinking about Satchmo and what we need to do next to improve it. I think from a feature perspective it matches up quite well with many offerings. Yes, there are plenty of areas for improvement still but the one thing that I really think we need to address is improving the ability to manage the store.
Right now, we just use the basic django admin with a few customizations. We also have a few helpers like edit_inventory, export_products, variation_manager, etc. The problem with these is that they are just not sufficient for having a "normal" user manage the store. I also think that if we can improve some of these things, we can hide some of the complexity of Satchmo and gradually reveal it as people need it. It would also allow us to customize it for our unique needs where it makes sense. So, what I'm proposing is to create a Satchmo management interface that is separate from the django admin. This is sort of how LFS does it and I think it's a good approach. Basically, I would create a series of views that allow things like: - Simpler product creation - Streamlined order processing - Inventory management - Basic reporting - Customer Management The idea with all of these is that we would make it useful and functional out of the gate but would make it easy for you to customize for your unique store needs. I envision this all being views and templates without any tables so we can rapidly iterate and improve it. As we get a couple of functions out there, we'll get ideas to add more and improve it. The admin interface will still be there for some things - but it will truly be for store administration not store management. My questions for the group are: 1. Does this make sense? 2. Has anyone done past work here that might be useful for us as a starting point? 3. Is there anyone that's strong with UI work that would like to help with the layout/design etc. The truth is, I think this could be fairly simple to get off the ground and working and that it would go a long way towards making Satchmo more approachable and useable. I'm excited about this idea and hope this could be a way to get others involved in Satchmo's development. Thanks, Chris -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Satchmo users" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/satchmo-users?hl=en.
