Hi,
Just wanted to announce the availability of the first (alpha) release of ProsePoint, a newspaper content management system.
Some things to note:
ProsePoint is a distribution built on top of Drupal 6.
It is currently alpha software and this is the first release. Hence, there are most likely all sorts of bugs and design inefficiencies. Please be welcome to try it, but use at your own risk.
It has the most customisation and add-on functionality of any distribution that I know of. The eventual aim is to have everything ready to go out of the box. No more searching for extra modules or testing of combinations of modules. Just install and go!
(On a technical note, if you want to find out how to do something in an install profile, this could serve as a good reference point.)
It features new code for tight integration with tinyMCE 3.1.x.
It features an almost pixel-perfect port of the gorgeous wordpress theme The Morning After (built from the ground up as a Zen subtheme).
I hope to contribute the theme and the rich editor back to drupal.org, but I need to bounce some policy questions off the drupal.org administrators first.
Find out more at the ProsePoint website.
The website is a bit sparse. My apologies. I want to provide more information, but I haven't really had the bandwidth to do it yet.
There is also a demo site. Just follow the links.
Finally, please forward this message onto whoever you think is interested.
Thanks for reading!
Beng Tan
--
ThinkLeft - Bridging business and technology
http://thinkleft.com.au
Comments
Cool
I was just thinking about something like this targetted at newspapers.
I see that you have built PP as an install profile. I would encourage you to get a CVS account and post the install profile. Even if you host a full tarball download and/or full SVN repo off site, then using at the very least an install profile project will let your issues, questions, etc. be visible to a larger Drupal community.
If you have code contributions for TinyMCE, I would hope that you can post them to the TinyMCE issues queue as a patch to be included.
If you have questions about code hosting or licensing, feel free to contact me directly and/or post the questions here.
Regarding hosting and code and related things.
Hi,
Yes, I do have questions regarding hosting and code and related things. So, here goes . . .
(Also, if at any point you want me to take this discussion private, let me know and I'll do so)
In the interests of a single-package install (instead of having to source multiple packages), PP and all relevant modules are in a single tarball together with Drupal core. I think I would like to create an install profile on drupal.org (I already have CVS access), but it's probably not appropriate to host the tarball there.
I was thinking of hosting the code on something like sourgeforge or launchpad. Do you have any opinions, or is there any official drupal policy, regarding this?
Similarly, I was considering using their (launchpad's) issues tracking system, on the premise that it would appeal to a wider audience than just drupal users (because I'm aiming PP at people who wouldn't otherwise be drupal users). Do you have any opinions, or is there any official drupal policy, regarding this?
I would also respond to issues filed against the install profile on drupal.org.
My tinyMCE integration code is a completely new module. I took this path because it offered tighter integration (and I wouldn't have to wait xx months). The module is meant to be packaged together with tinyMCE itself AND the tinyMCE compressor (again in the interests of single-package install). AFA I'm aware, drupal.org has a policy of not hosting tinyMCE code. Would I break policy if I contribute my module on drupal?
Finally, the Morning After theme. There is already a port of The Morning After on drupal.org. I tried to use this initially, but found it cumbersome to customise. (Zen is much easier to work with :) So, if I contribute my Morning After theme to drupal.org, is this going to step on the toes of the other author?
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
Feedback
No need for privacy, it's good to have other people chime in and have this here for posterity. Let's number and break this stuff down.
1) Install profile in Drupal.org
Yes, please, for reasons I already mentioned. Also, longer term (as in, if people donate and work on the related issues), then the project* system on Drupal.org will be able to manage releases related to install profiles and automatically bundle and host the core + install profile + contrib modules into a single tarball.
2) Hosting the code elsewhere
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "code". It's a copy of Drupal core, plus a copy of some contrib modules, plus the install profile. By all means generate tarballs as official releases from the PP website (which is, IMHO, what you should do). For further development, you will most likely benefit from the forward momentum of developers on Drupal.org itself.
You also don't really want to be maintaining copies of core or contrib modules, but rather contributing to and testing their further development on Drupal.org itself. Keeping it offsite in your personal development environment or some SVN code repo for convenience are the main things you want to be considering.
3) Using Launchpad / another system's issue tracking system to appeal beyond Drupal
You need to appeal to your customers. Your non-Drupal customers are also unlikely to care about "issue tracking", regardless of whether it is at Drupal or Launchpad or wherever. I would recommend running some simple forums directly on the PP site. See the Ubercart site for the perfect example of a thriving user community around a branded Drupal product. Go ahead and highly brand PP. The fact that it is a highly customized / targetted Drupal install profile shouldn't matter -- talk about the benefits it provides to which target market. For instance, one of the "benefits" to developers / more technical people would be that it is built on the widely used and proven Drupal codebase.
The people most likely to get involved directly will be needing/wanting to use the wider Drupal community in any case, so I would recommend that code-focused issues remain there.
4) TinyMCE completely new module
This is the one that pains me. I understand ALL the reasons for having an integrated download. Perfect, that's what your tarball and/or offsite code repo is for (see http://svn.bryght.com/dev/browser/bryghtbase/ -- we've done the same for years). Writing a completely new module is the one that pains me: I'm SURE you could work with one of the two TinyMCE modules to add the functionality that you want. Add an issue with a patch and merge your code ... maintaining three TinyMCE modules is insanity. Your comment "I wouldn't have to wait xx months" just means ... you step up and scratch your own itch with patches, please!
5) Morning After New Theme based on Zen
Contribute it as Morning After Zen -- then other people can benefit from your work, directly on Drupal.org. I'm sure there are others that feel the same as you do.
Re: Feedback
Okay, I'll create an install profile project on drupal.org. We agree on this point.
Presently, PP is Drupal core, about a dozen contrib modules, and then about 4 custom modules that I wrote specifically for PP. Those custom modules which are not generic shouldn't really be hosted as standalone modules. It makes no sense.
I'll most probably host the tarballs on the PP website, and the tarball will contain the custom modules. If I get enough requests to split a sufficiently generic module out to be standalone, then I'll do that.
If I'm using an install profile project, I might as well stay with Drupal for issues tracking for now and see how things progress.
I think I'll create a skeleton launchpad project to point to PP and see if I can get exposure that way too. If Launchpad lets me, that is.
TinyMCE integration's a funny topic. It's always a bit of an achilles heel for Drupal, and until recently (when sun and quicksketch came in), no one seemed to care about it. I think what I'll do, is wait for wysiwyg.module to be stable for D6 and tinyMCE 3.x, and then work with them to merge our modules together.
However, my question still stands. Do you know why tinyMCE.module does not include the tinyMCE code? Is it due to licensing policy (tinyMCE is LGPL)? It seems silly to ask users to have to download two packages off an external website, and also run the (small) chance of downloading them incorrectly.
It's not a question of name clash, the other TMA theme is called ad_the-morning-after, so I can happily name mine something else. Its a question of whether the other author (and his sponsor) is going to be a bit miffed if I contribute a theme which will render theirs pointless. I guess you can't vouch for that, and it'll be a case of just do it and see.
Changing the default theme
And then, another discussion point. I would like to rip out garland and minnelli from PP and replace them with The Morning After as the base theme. That may or may not require (minor) changes to Drupal core. Do you know if anyone's going to be offended if I do that?
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
More
2) Making a PP_helper project that keeps your "custom" modules in one place might be something you consider. There are very few completely custom modules. Could you describe what they do?
e.g. our Hostmaster install profile depends on two sets of modules -- provisioning and hosting. See http://drupal.org/project/hostmaster for more details (Adrian generates tarballs and posts them in the group -- you can do that on the PP website).
3) Like I said before, exposure is likely not going to come from developers, but rather end users. I'll leave it up to you to act on that.
4) You didn't answer my question about how your module is different than the existing two tinymce modules (Tinymce and Tinymce tiny). You are incorrect on people not caring. WYSIWYG is a much larger abstraction layer, and definitely a good project.
There are many discussions on the dev list and elsewhere (see the TinyMCE group here) on why. In short, keeping a copy of a giant piece of Javascript in Drupal's CVS that is just a "shadow copy" is not good practices. See the dev list if you want to read up on the thread the last time it came up: http://lists.drupal.org/pipermail/development/2007-May/023997.html
My main point is merging with the existing modules. The bundling of the library code can be done in your tarball which you're going to offer anyway. Would the tinymce modules want to integrate image-assist like functionality out of the box? Yep, they would. Consider providing a patch, or contact me offline if you want more details.
5) I doubt anyone will be miffed.
6) You can set the base theme in your install profile. Not changing core will make it easier for you to keep things upgraded.
Also, ultimately, all of this is advice. Offended or not, you can do whatever you like as long as it follows the GPL. I am of the opinion that working with the community on the development side, and marketing to users on the external side, will get you farthest fastest. No one from the Newspaper group has chimed in yet, but I would suggest you book some time to pick up the phone and talk to Ken Rickard and Steve Yelvington amongst others -- two long time newspaper industry veterans.
Good luck.
Re:
One of the modules (pp_ch.module) implements Channels / Editions functionality. A Channel and an Edition are two content types, associated via a nodereference. When someone views a Channel, they automatically view the most recent published Edition for that Channel. I also included code such that a Channel's latest Edition and a Channel's archive can get automatically inserted into the Drupal menus.
Another module (pp_ed.module) implements the editing capability, providing the functionality that tinymce/wysiwyg and img_assist does.
Another module (pp.module) pokes extra descriptions into some node edit forms, and also extracts any images from teasers into a separate $node->variable so it can be laid out better.
Yes, I agree, there are very few completely custom modules. But, every time I create a Drupal site, I create a custom module to put in all sorts of code snippets to polish the site. The custom module (in this case, pp.module) doesn't implement generic functionality, but adds that last 1%.
Yes, thank you.
Sorry, perhaps the "not caring bit" came out too strongly. I had a look at Wordpress's tinymce integration a few weeks back, and I thought "why can't drupal do that?". There shouldn't be a reason why. So I decided to give it a try.
But looking at the state of tinymce.module/img_assist or wysiwyg.module/img_assist for D6, it looked like it would be quite a while before they would be stable and usable. Given the past track record of tinymce.module, the fact that wysiwyg.module is trying to do something even harder, and that I would also have to wait for img_assist.module to be ported to D6, that could take anywhere up to a few months.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not rubbishing wysiwyg.module. I think it's a commendable idea, but I also think it's a much bigger job than just tinymce.module.
If any combination of tinymce.module/img_assist.module or wysiwyg.module/img_assist.module was stable and usable for D6, I would have used it. But they weren't, and there was no certain timeframe when they might be ready.
So I decided, as an interim solution, to fix my own problems (rather than wait for someone else to fix them for me) and wrote my own module to cover for both wysiwyg/tinymce and img_assist. And then when wysiwyg/img_assist are both stable for D6, I'll submit patches to merge my editor with theirs.
In the meantime, however, I also thought that some people might also want pp_ed for the very same situation I was in. Rather than be accused of hoarding this code to myself, that's why I offered to contribute back to drupal.org.
Ah, yes, thanks for this pointer. I knew the discussion must have taken place somewhere. It is a drupal.org policy decision then, albeit not a licensing-related one. Well, now that I understand the reasoning behind it, I will abide by it.
Oh, that's already been done. If you look at the demo site, that is what is created upon ProsePoint install, including all the pregenerated content.
I was talking about changing the theme for the install process. At the moment, this is hardcoded to Minelli.
True, but there's a difference between legal requirements and community ethics. GPL aside, I'd prefer not to offend the community, or if I have to, I'd prefer to know in advance if it's going to happen.
Shall do when I have the bandwidth.
Thank you. You've been a very balanced voice of reason.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
good idea, some comments
I've always wondered why nobody ever did this.
Could you elaborate more on your website about what's in the package -- it would help people. I didn't see Drupal 6 or Drupal itself mentioned at all.
On the theme, this is an original port by you? Not a revision or copy of the existing Avioso Designs port of "The Morning After" to Drupal? (AD The Morning After: http://drupal.org/project/ad_the-morning-after) Cool. If it bothers the Avioso Design people, tough nails. Please do post yours here in the theme directory with a distinctive title and notice that it uses Zen. (+ any other technical details people should know.)
Dan Knauss
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danknauss
New Local Media :: www.newlocalmedia.com
Re: good idea, some comments
Yeah, me too :)
Maybe because everyone's too busy with their own Drupal projects, while I need to score a couple of wins to raise my profile.
The aim is to develop a single-install software package which installs as a fully configured newspaper website.
At the moment, I've implemented the channels/editions idea (inspired from http://drupal.org/nyobserver), along with integrated tinymce with image handling, and a couple of cosmetic bits and pieces. It's not much, but I know there's a lot of functionality and contrib modules I will still add. And of course, if people make suggestions as to what they want in it, then I'll sure listen.
Basically, I want PP to be ready to go out of the box ala Joomla and Wordpress, including pregenerated sample content.
Oh, and I want the tinymce integration to be as good as Wordpress.
Marketing wise, I haven't really mentioned Drupal on the PP website (though it is there if you look hard enough), because I'm aiming for people who wouldn't otherwise be Drupal users, and I didn't want to confuse them as to what software they were using.
But yes, ProsePoint is a Drupal 6 distribution. Although I have ideas about making some cosmetic changes to Drupal core (which, if it eventuates, I would only do if I intend to provide the support myself).
Yes. The theme is a completely new port by me. I started with the Avioso port, tried to fix it up, decided it was too painful, and then ditched it after half an hour and started from scratch using Zen.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
sounds great
That all sounds super.
Re. tinyMCE, this seems to be about as good as rich text editors gets in Drupal. Is there any reason why someone can't take JCE, a GPL mega-enhancement of tinyMCE for Joomla, and port it to Drupal, Wordpress, etc.? JCE does it all--especially useful with its capacity to upload and edit images, create thumbnails, popups (slimbox/thickbox/etc.)...
Even mostlyCE, an enhanced version of tinyMCE for Mambo, is better than tinyMCE. WHoever took that on would just have to support this all long-term, but the demand would certainly be there for it.
Joomla also has a plugin for XStandard Lite (http://xstandard.com/) which is another intriguing option:
"XStandard is a standards-compliant plug-in WYSIWYG editor for browser-based content management systems. The editor generates clean XHTML Strict or 1.1, uses CSS for formatting, and ensures the clean separation of content from presentation. Markup generated by XStandard meets the most demanding accessibility requirements. XStandard Lite is free for commercial use and installs on Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000 or XP. You have to manually install the browser plugin on the computer you use for editing before you can use this editor. Instructions can be found in the readme.txt in the zip-file."
Dan Knauss
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danknauss
New Local Media :: Riverwest Neighborhood Network
www.newlocalmedia.com :: www.riverwestneighborhood.org
Dan Knauss
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danknauss
New Local Media :: www.newlocalmedia.com
Have you considered
Have you considered FCKeditor? I hate WYSIWYG editors, but when a client insists on one, I find FCKeditor to be slightly less objectionable than TinyMCE (the "tiny" part being a huge misnomer).
The Boise Drupal Guy!
yes and no
Yes, if it's my choice I use FCKeditor in Drupal, but I don't like it a whole lot either.
It seems the persistent, fundamental problem or question is, can you have a lightweight editor, clean code, and happy kn00b-users?
E.g. a WYSIWYG editor that can tie into your stylesheets, use custom templates, and produce standards compliant code (or as close as possible) while also serving people who don't know any html/css and are going to be pasting stuff in, possibly from Word, and they need a basic way to handle images, files and A/V content associated with an article....
Dan Knauss
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/danknauss
New Local Media :: www.newlocalmedia.com
Re:
I'm not a big fan of wysiwyg editors either, but it's not important what I think. It's more important what the end-user thinks, and I'll try whatever works best for them.
I've been using wordpress as a benchmark for this. Without having used WP much myself, it seems like they can handle all this. If they can, there's no technical reason why we can't. So I'm going to give it a try.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
The Morning After theme has been contributed
See http://drupal.org/project/tma.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
what's the plan?
I'm wondering, do you want to keep it a basic distribution targeted towards online newspapers or do you really intend to make it a one-stop CMS solution for newspapers that can replace existing workflows? Especially in the latter case, but to some extent also in the former case, wouldn't you need a company and multiple programmers devoted to that? I really like that someone has taken up the challenge to make the install profile (and related goodies) that we've been talking about for so long but didn't deliver, so kudos to you, but I'm also somewhat sceptical of this distribution if there is no long term strategy to keep it going. But 'sceptical' isn't 'cynical' so I'd love to hear more.
(And, although that's a minor issue, I just don't care about RTE's at all. Even if they'd produce perfect code, I'd still pick Textile or Markdown any day.)
Re:
I believe in doing what's best for the users, so I suspect the one-stop solution would be better since it's more convenient for them.
Maybe, possibly :)
I intend to be here for the long term, however, I realise that this can only be an empty promise since PP has only just been born. All I can say is to come back in 3 or 6 months time and see if the project is still alive, and you can make your own judgements then based upon the results.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
Unable to install
I've tried to install it (to localhost which works with other drupal installations well), but was not able:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function db_result() in (...)\xamplittle\htdocs\pp\includes\path.inc on line 55
(I've also tried an other localhost in an USB stick, but it timed out in turn time limit was raised.)
Issues Tracking
Hi,
I've just set up a launchpad project to track bugs and issues. Please file a bug report there.
The url is https://bugs.launchpad.net/prosepoint.
Thank you.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org
RE: TinyMCE I think you are
RE: TinyMCE
I think you are doing the right/only thing that actually makes TinyMCE work really well in an install. A module that is specific to your needs and a customized version of the TinyMCE code itself. The current version of TinyMCE module needs work, but I don't see it ever moving as far as modules that integrate with customized versions on the TinyMCE code.
RE: Install Profile
This is really the same approach we are taking with the Open Media Project (http://groups.drupal.org/open-media-project). We will kick back to the community when we have time, but a lot of what we are doing in going too specific to the public access community and broadcast servers like Princeton or Tightrope to try to generalize. By focusing your effort on solving problems for a specific user community instead of writing generalizable solutions, you will likely achieve more impressive results than the general community in the short term. Longer term, most (all?) of these efforts have failed completely or lost momentum (CivicLabs, DrupalEd, etc).
I really like your FAQ about forking. "Technically, yes. Philosophically, no." :)
As long as your goal is to move Drupal forward and not to truly fork it, I completely agree with m. de la costa, that Drupal will benefit from these "fork-like manifestations". They show what's possible with Drupal if a smaller number of talented developers buckle down to solve specific problems and aren't distracted by trying to make the code do everything for everyone.
If you can make TinyMCE work better for publishers by modifying the module, TinyMCE code, and Theme... DO IT!
Your bikeshed doesn't have to work for everyone. Looking forward to watching where you go with this.
Re:
Hi,
Finally! Someone else who sees the arguments for and against. I'm so glad I'm not the only one.
I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel and I have no interest in forking Drupal. My target users are non-technical people and they couldn't care less that 90% of the functionality of ProsePoint comes from Drupal. I have every intention of moving ProsePoint to Drupal 7.x when that time comes, all things being equal between now and then.
ProsePoint is open source. There is nothing to stop other people peeking inside and porting it's ideas or code to Drupal. If there is enough vocal demand for a specific feature, I'd consider preparing submissions to core or contrib myself.
--
ThinkLeft - http://thinkleft.com.au/services/drupal
ProsePoint - http://www.prosepoint.org