[sakai2-tcc] Improve the welcome page experience

[Matthew Jones]

I also think that keeping these updated without someone paid in charge of
this would be more of a challenge. If you look at the current static html
welcome pages I referenced that haven't been updated in ~3 years, nearly
all of the links on them are broken.

Imagine if we had to keep java files or web service scripts updated. ;)

For the SCA sites they have a important reason to making sure these are
updated. The day something breaks on trysakai we are investigating it.

Try some of the links on
http://qa3-us.sakaiproject.org:8086/portal

:)

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:59 AM, Matthew Jones <matthew at longsight.com>wrote:

> Many SCA's like you said have a "demo experience" to sell the instance.
> Like for Longsight someone can signup for
>
> https://trysakai.longsight.com/
> https://trysakai29.longsight.com/
>
> And they get enrolled in a few sample course and project sites with
> pre-populated data. I think it's the same for rSmart
> rSmart: https://mysakai.rsmart.com/xsl-portal
> and
> Unicon: https://testdrivesakai.com/portal
>
> . These are either populated through webservices, database dumps or java
> classes like the "SampleUserDirectoryProvider". Since the foundation (as
> you mentioned) doesn't have any staff or developers, and writing something
> like this takes substantial time, it's typically not something that gets
> any priority since it already does exist in some form though their process
> may not be public.
>
> I'm all for doing things to improve the efficiency of the QA process on
> the QA servers, but I don't think we should be using our nightly QA
> instance(s) as the the user facing demo's for what Sakai is capable of.
> These are significantly more likely to have bugs and other issues which
> could negatively influence the experience.
>
> If the foundation felt it was useful to hire a developer (or pay a
> developer) to setup a stable instance with demo data, that I could see
> happening, but I'm not sure of the ROI on that investment.
>
> On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 11:36 AM, Steve Swinsburg <
> steve.swinsburg at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think we need something in between having 1000 additional users and
>> just admin. Like two extra users enrolled in a site, an instructor and a
>> student. On by default.
>>
>> So then you can quickly jump in and use it but dont have to delete 1000
>> users if you want to then do something ereal with it.
>>
>> We need to lower the barrier for getting up and running with a simple
>> demo. And make it prettier.
>>
>> cheers,
>> s
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 1:29 AM, Matthew Jones <matthew at longsight.com>wrote:
>>
>>> I think for part #1 and #2 these users already exist, but not many
>>> people *know* about the SampleUserDirectoryProvider that has been around
>>> (in it's current form) for over 5 years. Most people know about admin, but
>>> this provider (which all of the QA servers use because they start up with "-Dsakai.demo=true")
>>> provides:
>>>
>>> * 1000 sample students with the username of
>>> student0001-student1000 (all password sakai)
>>>
>>> The first 10 or so students have "realistic" names (some of them i18n),
>>> the rest are all generic.
>>>
>>> * Sample instructor (instructor/sakai)
>>> * A sample ta (ta/sakai)
>>>  * Infinite other users (any user name that starts with test and the
>>> password Sakai).
>>>
>>> The big advantage of this is if you use the "instructor" user you can
>>> create a course site, add a roster and get all 1000 students enrolled in
>>> it.
>>>
>>> I use this all of the time, though it probably *would* be more useful
>>> documented on the front of the QA pages.
>>>
>>> Previously, the "welcome page" and other info was stored at
>>> https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/qa/trunk/. I'm not sure if the
>>> QA process is organized but I remember when I was running a QA, Alan/Seth
>>> did direct me here to update content. Though it looks like the last change
>>> here was years ago.
>>>
>>> [1]
>>> https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/providers/trunk/sample/src/java/org/sakaiproject/provider/user/SampleUserDirectoryProvider.java
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 7:45 AM, Steve Swinsburg <
>>> steve.swinsburg at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> I've just been having a discussion with a member of the Moodle
>>>> community about how the default Sakai front page isn't really that
>>>> exciting. This applies for both the default QA page and the normal install.
>>>> I tend to agree and think we can do better.
>>>>
>>>> Some thoughts:
>>>> * We could provide some info about how to login straight away.
>>>> * We could also provide some more demo accounts, with users added to
>>>> sites like the mercury site, and have them available on the front page as
>>>> well. This would be in line with the OOTB uPortal install.
>>>> * Maybe some more info about what you'll find inside.
>>>> * A few images wouldn't hurt.
>>>> * We could drop some of the pages on the left (like features and
>>>> training) and incorporate those onto the front page.
>>>>
>>>> Compare:
>>>> http://qa.moodle.net/
>>>>
>>>> And:
>>>> http://qa3-us.sakaiproject.org:8086/portal
>>>>
>>>> I'd be prepared to do any code mods required if we can get a UI person
>>>> involved as well, perhaps Gonzalo? We have made a good move with the
>>>> neoportal, lets go a little further!
>>>>
>>>> https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-22122
>>>>
>>>> cheers,
>>>> Steve
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> sakai2-tcc mailing list
>>>> sakai2-tcc at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>>> http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/sakai2-tcc
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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