Open Project: Module Primer

[doc]

Hi,

there were some discussions about module guidelines in the German forum thread recently. Main focus of the discussion was on missing testing guidelines for modules.

However, I think there is another important point not sufficiently touched yet, which is the missing standard for Website Baker modules. In fact there are no official standards defined yet. Most of the modules available were created by cloning and/or modifying other modules with all the Pros and Cons associated with it. So far, only very basic docuementation is available for creating own modules (Advanced Documentation on the WB Help site) or the "Hello world" module. However, there is a clear lack of a step by step guide for ongoing Website Baker module developers.

For that reason, I decided to start an approach open to everybody who is interested to develop a "Module Primer" (German: Modul-Leitfaden) for Website Baker. How should this approach work? Attached to this post, you can find a very minimalistic but working page type module. The file itself contains the files required by Website Baker to install and uninstall without error messages, but does only show a short message in English in the frontend and backend.

The package also includes a README file, which provides some basis information for beginners (addressing the set-up of a development server (XAMPP), a WB test installation (WB 2.7) and explains the purpose of the main module files and the code contained). Apart from that, the README file introduces some text editors suitable for modifying PHP files. So far so good.

The next planed steps are to remove the hardcoded CSS definitions (Step 2a), to integrate mulitlingual support for German and English (Step 2b) and to separate HTML and PHP by the use of the template engine (Step 2c) shipping with Website Baker. Step 3 interaction with the MySQL database. Step 4 protection of module files from accessing. Other steps open for discussion and on demand.

Depending on the feedback and of course the help of volunteers, the project may grow in terms of functionallity (e.g. to develop a real module), in documentation (e.g. a HTML file, PDF or whatever) or in translations available. There is also room for other improvements, coding guidelines or testing requirements.

There are several possibiliies to contribute such as but not limited to:
 - coding experience (Javascript, PHP or any other)
 - translations of the "Module Primer", but also module language files (basic documentation is English)
 - design experience with GUIs (CSS, usability, accessibility etc.)
 - layouter, graphicer or texter (basic documentation will be a text file with plain text)
 - module tester etc.

So if you would like to contribute in any of the areas listed above, please feel free to post in this thread.

What if the project fails? Well than we still can proceed as before. However, I think we should give it a try as a community (which means together).

Looking forward to any suggestions but more for any form of contribution to the project.

What is this thread not? This thread is not for discussing the pros and cons of PHP4 or PHP5, or for discussing the pros and cons of object oriented programming versus modular one. If you want to discuss those aspects, please create a separate thread for this. I would highly appreciate, if this thread will be used more for "active" help and support than for "fruitless" discussions without any other contribution

Important note: The "Module Primer" that means the module itself and the text and images are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivate 3.0 License. You are free to copy and distribute this work for noncommercial purposes as long as no changes are applied, this copyright notice remain untouched and you provide a backlink to the Website Baker project (http://www.websitebaker.org).

The German thread on this topic can be found here:
http://www.websitebaker2.org/forum/index.php/topic,13134.msg79988.html#msg79988

Regards
Christian (ak doc)

Revisions:
Revision A: "README_module_prime r_step1_Rev-A.txt" (Mar 10, 2009; 21:00); previous version (4x)

[crnogorac081]

This is great news, I was just wondering what is the procedure to make a new module, aldo I am not coder, but with good instructions and examples anyone can try...

btw, on german language, there was some OBOTRA module or something like this...is this it, or this is new staff ))

Anyway great news man

cheers

[Luckyluke]

btw, on german language, there was some OBOTRA module or something like this...is this it, or this is new staff ))

/// OFF TOPIC... OBOTRA is a project from Iceat. It's located at the Dutch part of the forum. You can see it here.

[crnogorac081]

yes I saw it on german, but unfortunatly I cant read german... And I thought this was some improvement of that...but anyway it is great to hear that there are ppl who wants  to help others make more modules..

[doc]

Guys,

please only discussion on the topic Module Primer here. So far we have three replies and none of them is dealing with the topic of this thread.

The topic of this thread is: "Are there people out there willing to offer their active help in creating a "Module Primer" for Website Baker"?

Thanks for your comprehension.

Regards Christian

[Edit]: have sent a PM to iceat to check for synergy effects on that - let's see

[Argos]

I'm no coder, but I could do some text or translation (Dutch) perhaps. Or some styling/html maybe.

[iceat]

This is a very interesting project! I think one of the main goals should be speeding up module development by creating some sort of scripts library. We should get deeper on this topic after the first release of OBOTRA.

Keep up the good work!

[doc]

@Argos: Would be great, if we could start with a kind of Text template (e.g. Word, Open Office template or a HTML template). Translations into Dutch is also highly appreciated as the Dutch and German part are the most active community parts at the moment

@Iceat: Yepp, goal is to speed up module development but also to apply some kind of standards users can stick to without loosing flexibility. Looking forward for the first release of OBOTRA.

Regards Christian

Please note:The "Module Primer" Readme file attached to the first post in this thread was updated to Revision A".

[doc]

Hi,

please find attached the Step 2a of the "Module Primer". This step is introducing some techniques to avoid clashes of CSS definitions and shows how the support of frontend.css and backend.css works.

You will also learn how you can add the possibility to modify the module frontend.css and backend.css files via the Website Baker backend.

Have fun.
Christian

P.S.: By the way, this is still an open project open to anybody who would like to contribute 

[mahalleday]

What i would like to see is something that lists and explains all the built in WB functions.  I can't tell you how much that would have helped and me in the development of my module.

Perhaps a Wiki of some sort could be made for this standard that way it could be easily changed and updated as need be.

[doc]

@mahalleday:
Agree, that would be a great addition for Website Baker. However, this needs to be addressed by somebody else, as I will only run this project up to Step 4 as written in my first post .

Based on the feedback and the help of the community, this project will either stop or be continued after Step 4. Let´s see what happens

Regards Christian

P.S.: Some basics can be found in the documentation on the Help website I wrote about 2 years ago.

[doc]

Hi,

please find attached the Step 2b of the "Module Primer". This step shows why text outputs should be organized in language files and provides the basics to create multi-lingual modules. German and English language file included.

Have fun.
Christian

[doc]

Hi,

please find attached Step 2c of the "Module Primer". This step shows you how to use the template engine shipping with Website Baker to separate and maintain PHP and HTML markup in individual files.

Attached you find three files. The README file and the corresponding template engine example code files (copy to WB root folder manually, this file is not a WB module zip archive).

The last file (module_primer_step2 c.zip) is the worked out example of the "Module Primer" module using the PHPLib template engine.

Have fun.
Christian

[oeh]

Hi.

I'll do the Norwegian translations. NO.php
And maybe the readme files as well.

Regards
Odd Egil

[doc]

Hi,

I'll do the Norwegian translations. NO.php And maybe the readme files as well.

Sounds great. Simply attach the files to this thread once you are done.

Regards Christian

[doc]

Hi,

this is just to inform you that I recently switched most of my websites to another Open Source CMS.

For that reason I will not continue the "Module primer" any longer. If there are any volunteers who want continue the project, please feel free to give it the direction and structure you want. In case the license is an issue, please feel free to change it to what ever fits your needs.

Best regards
Christian

[snoork]

have you found something better en more easy to use than wb?

[casinnova]

that sucks...  I was anxious for the rest of the steps.  I would like to learn WB more in depth and maybe help develop stuff...  but at the moment I do not understand enough of the system and how everything works.  (not to mention i'm a php noob = P)   but,  I have already committed 2 websites to WB and I have put alot of time into it.  I am already knee deep,  I figure I need to take the full plunge.   
Also,  I am not fluent in Estonian but I have made a few Estonian module translations for my site.  So, I could help out in that sense as well.   

[oeh]

Hi All.

Are there any chance we're able to get his project up and running again?

There are so many great coders out there that maybe would be able to contribute to this project.

If any one should feel the itch, I'll be willing give it a go to coordinate.

Anyone?