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Zikula has moved more towards developers helping developers. Zikula is just not for the average user, like Postnuke was. It's just to difficult and limited in user support and modules for the average user that just wants to get it done.
Although I find the negativity in mesteele's tone unpleasant and unhelpful, and although I am still actively using Zikula and have converted 7 sites from PN to Z with considerable anxiety but little difficulty, and although I am committed to using and helping with Zikula going forward, I think what he says here is a legitimate criticism.
As it has gotten better (more powerful and flexible), Zikula has definitely gotten harder for the non-coder or newbie to use, and the conversations here on the Forum look to me as if there is less activity and instruction for the unsophisticated user.
Here is a concrete example. I am working on a site that needs to be able to host blog-like contributions by several contributors on related aspects of the electronic medical record in primary care. News won't work well for this because I really need to be able to separate these pseudo-blogs: their content is enough different that they really need different templates. Clip (nee PageMaster) is the obvious solution. The documentation makes it possible to set up several separate pubtypes with individual suitable templates. I say 'possible' rather than 'easy' because the template work does require some comfort with PHP, Smarty, CSS, HTML. But then it gets harder. Each of these should have its own rss/atom feed. This is not an unusual or esoteric request - it's pretty basic to expect to be able to subscribe to content in a content publishing module. But there is nothing in the documentation, either English or German, and there is only one thread here (mine) where I ask the question and have gotten a couple replies, but not enough for me to resolve the issue. There is a 2 year old open ticket registered for version 0.3.1. As it stands now, creating blogs with Clip (one of its obvious and stated uses) is really possible only for those with fairly robust coding skills - not for the new or inexperienced user.
What would likely have happened in the PN era would have been:
- Someone posts a request for help with rss for Clip
- Several people post suggestions and include some step-by-step information aimed at beginners
- Some dialogue ensues about the advantages and disadvantages of the different approaches
- Someone (like me) comes along, uses the information in the thread and then either summarizes it in the thread or adds it to the documentation. (Old timers will remember that this happened with creating new forms in Formicula.)
I am NOT criticizing folks here. I think progress is being made and that documentation is going to improve. We've been through a big stretch where there was a real moving target phenomenon for documentation. But I think that our defensiveness in response to mesteele's tone doesn't acknowledge the validity of this part of his criticism.
Hmmm. Maybe this should have been a new thread?
Peter
Edited by pheski on Mar 19, 2011 - 09:23 AM.
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Peace
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The commonest cause of problems is solutions.
I'll guess there isn't a 
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