bells & whistles
It was pointed out to me that ZenMagick is lacking a few bells & whistles. Well, I always thought that if I do the heavy lifting eventually there would be some users that could create some more lightweight plugins, wrapping up their theme/template work.
To encourage people to do so and to illustrate that it isn’t that hard to convert existing Zen Cart template mods, I’ve checked in two new plugins:
- flyoutCategories
A port of the css_flyout_menu mod. - jscrollerSideboxes
Ported jscroller-sidebox-2.1.
It really isn’t that hard – you really should give it a go and if you need help there is always the forum. Now back to some more serious work, because these two plugins have revealed that resources in plugins (ie. .css and .js files) are not really that well integrated into the layout mananger code.
The downside of that is that they can’t take advantage of things like the minify plugin, and more…
Who was the idiot who pointed that out?
Your job has always been the heavy lifting and I am fine with that, but…
until you can get developers who are sufficiently acquainted with the inner workings of ZM, you will have to do some minor jobs too.
In order to get both things to work there has to be a bridge, clear explanations on how to write plugins and themes and a diagram with the ZM architecture would help (here we go again).
I am sure that to adapt that stuff is easy for you, but Chinese to those who are not familiar with ZM.
I will review everything that has been done in the wiki shortly and will let you know pointedly.
Right now I am stuck with installation issues, I have to investigate that first.
Comment by Carlos Kosloff — May 3, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
Yes, I know all that, but it’s really a catch 22, ATM. You want docs, diagrams but at the same time more code
I understand the dilemma, but it’s mine too.
I think one reason I am not so sure about these kinds of plugins is that ZenMagick is also aimed at more advanced people and professional developers.
ZenMagick has proven to save substantial amounts of time when used properly. That should be the real incentive for people like yellow and people from other zencart web shops. They should not have that many problems writing new fancy plugins, while being more competitive at the same time.
It is quite possible that ZenMagick is reaching a make or break point, but I am not really sure about it. It’s been growing slowly for a long time and sometimes I think becoming bigger is something that should happen a bit later. OTOH, more users means more testing and improving ZenMagick at a faster pace which is also good. And, obviously, with growing user numbers the likelihood of code flowing back into the project is (hopefully) increasing up to the point where it actually happens
My apologies if the post was a bit crotchety, sometimes I just need that…
Comment by DerManoMann — May 3, 2010 @ 11:10 pm
“ZenMagick is also aimed at more advanced people and professional developers.”
Precisely, but I don’t see many professional devs bearing the standard and writing plugins, in fact, I only see you.
Want to get more devs involved?
You have first to get more people involved, by making it easier, please bear in mind that those who install websites for others are not devs or programmers, just web designers.
Those web designers are the customers for programmers, but you have to get ordinary users involved first, then web designers, lastly programmers.
My $0,02.
Comment by Carlos Kosloff — May 4, 2010 @ 3:18 am
Yes, but as long as there aren’t any more developers involved there won’t be anyone else beside me writing plugins. So, my stand is that developers now do have the chance to seriously influence where ZenMagick is going and so far yellow is the only one that might take advantage of that.
Pity, really, considering all the complaining about Zen Cart and how hard it is to get the Zen Cart developers to listen to anyone…
Comment by DerManoMann — May 4, 2010 @ 3:56 am
“my stand is that developers now do have the chance to seriously influence where ZenMagick is going…”
I don’t know about yellow and other developers.
I am willing to take advantage of the help and mentoring you offer to write plugins to ZM.
But that is just me.
Consider this: why would a web designer get involved with ZM if they can crank up faster a site with all the bells & whistles they need, with other solutions?
Web designers don’t care about the intricacies of code, they just want fast and easy.
Also, why would for profit programmers bother with ZM, when they have a larger audience in other solutions?
Same thing goes for themers.
Please understand that I will continue to support ZM in the forums, the wiki and writing stuff for it, as much as I can.
But one guy is not enough, I am concerned also about my business.
I understand that you are a coder and feel comfortable talking code with other coders.
But to make ZM grow so you can continue to deal with “heavy lifting”, you definitely need to make it more accessible.
If you need to write more plugins for that, then that is the way to go, at least for the time being.
Comment by Carlos Kosloff — May 4, 2010 @ 4:20 pm