plone vs the new guy the initial struggles of a beginning plone developer

Plone vs The New GuyThe Initial Struggles of a Beginning Plone Developer

John HrenUniversity Wisconsin - Oshkosh

The Point of the Presentation

• Help new people (people newer than me) learn more efficiently

• Give those who train new people some ideas on how to teach Plone

• Add some new thought as to what should be put in training material

• Show the steps I went through to create and implement the Time Conflict Card Product

Why Am I The New Guy

• 20 years in Distribution as a Manager, Quality Director, Buyer, Branch Manager

• Laid off in 2008• Went back to school at UW-Oshkosh in 2009• Majored in Computer Science• Graduated May 2011• Started work at UW-Oshkosh June 2011

Why is Plone, Plone

• CMS (content management system)• Python• Object orientated database• TAL Expressions? Otherwise known as a “Simple TAL

Expression”• Buildout and Bootstrap.py• Theming• ZOPE• Which leads to………

A Pretty Steep Learning Curve/Cliff/Wall

What’s In My Quiver When I Started?

• A Canadian (Kim Nguyen)• UW-Oshkosh Development Staff• Some Plone experience with OIE• Google • Professional Plone Development 4 by Martin

Aspeli• Plone.org• Which makes the Score about……

Plone 31 and John 0But the good thing was, I did have a lot of help and the game was just

starting.

My Initial Job Duties

• Learn• Help Kim implement Intranet • Add new ideas• Turn forms into products• Try not to get in the way• Say nice things about Canada

How I Learned

• http://plone.org/• http://zope.org/• http://www.python.org/• http://readthedocs.org/docs/collective-docs/e

n/latest/• https://ploud.com/index.html• Professional Plone 4 Development by Martin

Aspeli

More Learning

• http://www.buildout.org/• http://wiki.zope.org/ZPT/SimpleTutorial TAL info• http://plone.293351.n2.nabble.com/• http://www.zodb.org/• http://docs.diazo.org/en/latest/introduction.htm • http://plone.org/products/dexterity/

documentation/manual/developer-manual

Even More Learning

• Classes• Conferences• Stack Overflow• Chat Room• Sprints• User Groups• Tune Up Days• Polk Library and their ebooks

(www.uwosh.edu/library)

Remember Though,There is so much documentation out there that getting off track is easy. My experience though is don’t ask a question without trying to figure out the answer on your own first

A Quick Note To Help Document Creators

• Thank you for your input• Indexes• Reference notes• Definition of Terms• Don’t assume, write to your audience

A Quick Example

Drupal’s Learning Page

A Quick Note About IDE’s

• Have a favorite• Use it to check in/out code to your repository• Sublime Text 2

The Time Conflict Card Product

Intranet Task Force Says, “Pick a Form.”

• Study was done to determine possible choices for biggest impact

• Needed a form that would hit all cross sections of the campus, Instructors/Staff/Students

• Add/Drop/Time Conflict Card• Initiated by Students, signed off by Instructors,

entered by Staff, Great Choice!

What is a Add/Drop/Time Conflict Card?

Meeting With The Registrar

• What constitutes an approval• Sometimes instructors sign off other times

departments sign off• Legal claims• Signing off on class limit and requisites• Comments• Security• One last question….

WHAT DID WE GET OURSELVES INTO??!!??!!

Decision Time

• Start with Time Conflict Card• Lightly used• Design Functionality will be used in both Add

and Drop cards• Testing could be managed easier• Transitions = Approval

Design Problems

• Instructors should only see the cards they need to sign off on

• Needs to be user friendly interface• Comments need to be easily accessible• Notification system• Can’t let cards sit to long• Complicated Workflow

Tools

• PloneFormGen• Northstar• Workflow Manager• Collective.easytemplate• JQuery

PloneFormGen

Making The Form

Generating the Product

The Product is Generated

• The product will be downloaded into your download file.

• It then needs to be moved to your src file

Don’t Forget to Install Your Product

Here is Your Product

Workflow Manager

Workflow State

Workflow Transition

Sanity Check

Diagram

Create and Manage a Card

Start a New Time Conflict Card

The Top of the Card

The Bottom of the Card

Filling The Card Out

Filling Out the Card

Submitting

The Code

• Jquery• Collective.easy.template• Content.py• View.pt

Thank you for listening!John Hren

University Wisconsin - Oshkoshhrenj@uwosh.edu