Template Design Standard (suggestion)

Starbuck,

I thought you had misunderstood my post, but it appears I misunderstood yours!

I thought you thought I was sayaing. . . . Well, you get the drift.

Quote from: Colin at Apr 09, 2006, 10:35 AM

Starbuck,

I thought you had misunderstood my post, but it appears I misunderstood yours!

I thought you thought I was sayaing. . . . Well, you get the drift.

Hi Colin - no problem, its easy to get lost amongst all the posts ...

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 08, 2006, 09:58 AM

LOL Mr Frog,

Unfortunately hordes of end users asking for free support (and many hours of it a day I might add) and trying to learn how to build a CSS template does not keep a roof over the Dev Team’s head. Unless you’d like to sponsor the effort of course. But that’s going to take high-six to low-seven figures to pull off properly.

Put another way, would you agree to allow me to land job after job, demand that you do them for me (promptly, but politely, but  sometimes selfishly and demanding), and never send you a single penny/pence/franc/yen/ruble. I would however compensate you with loads of praise about how cool you are and what a wonderful job you do.

If you’ll go for that I’ll gladly take you up on the offer!

Uh...
I am lost here. What sort of compensation are you getting right now from MODx ? What will be lost from what if you move towards a better templates integration in MODx ? What does having the possibility to easily load and edit templates in a CMS has to do with users "trying to learn how to build a CSS template" ?

Thanks for your input guys (and gal), as you can guess I am not suprised by your reactions 
I mean you ARE the targeted audience of MODx, and it comes as no surprise that you fully support its elitist position.

But hey I am still around and I do what French usually do in such cases :  resist

I am lost here. What sort of compensation are you getting right now from MODx ? What will be lost from what if you move towards a better templates integration in MODx ? What does having the possibility to easily load and edit templates in a CMS has to do with users "trying to learn how to build a CSS template" ?

In order to build a community that supports "non technical" end users, I think I’d spend close to 700-800 hours... there’d probably be another 3000 or so between the core team members. We’re getting zero compensation right now (actually, we’ve had almost $300 in donations, so that’s not totally true...). What would be lost is thousands of hours with no food on the table for the effort.

To go back to my previous question, what would you loose if you worked exclusively for me for a year without monetary compensation?

Quote from: sottwell at Apr 08, 2006, 11:30 AM

I have seven grandchildren, and never laid a finger on a computer until less than a year before my first grandchild was born. I am a high-school graduate, the first such in my family, and only two of my children ever finished high school. I come from a poor, uneducated background, and taught myself all that I know. I can manage a Linux network, have written assembly language utitlities for DOS systems, and now do pretty good with LAMP technology, all on my lonesome. I’ve been told by computer shop owners to go home and knit booties for my grandchildren. I’ve been told I’m too old. I’ve been told computers aren’t something for girls to do. I’ve had my sexual orientation questioned. But I damned will did it anyway, and even if I do say so myself I do it pretty well. I’ve run my own computer repair and office networking business. And I’m apparently fairly useful on this project. I’m nothing special, not particularly clever or talented. I never whined and demanded that somebody else make it easier for me. My point? Everything you need to learn is freely available on the Internet. If I can do it, so can you...so can anybody.

Do you have a garden Susan ? If yes, do you build your own tools ? I mean, a garden tool is usually made of wood and metal, and the information on how to make them has been "freely available" for centuries ...

I bet you don’t. Well MODx is an excellent tool for making websites, and I am already using it no matter what. Still, I think it would better suited for the needs of a lot of people if the wood handle was a bit more "polished", with less splinters. Therefore I make my position known without insulting people. (edited by me, it was not a fair thing to say). I am sure you get my "whining" point on this.

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 09, 2006, 11:48 PM

I am lost here. What sort of compensation are you getting right now from MODx ? What will be lost from what if you move towards a better templates integration in MODx ? What does having the possibility to easily load and edit templates in a CMS has to do with users "trying to learn how to build a CSS template" ?

In order to build a community that supports "non technical" end users, I think I’d spend close to 700-800 hours... there’d probably be another 3000 or so between the core team members. We’re getting zero compensation right now (actually, we’ve had almost $300 in donations, so that’s not totally true...). What would be lost is thousands of hours with no food on the table for the effort.

To go back to my previous question, what would you loose if you worked exclusively for me for a year without monetary compensation?

I still don’t get it. Of course I understand that your work on MODx is immense and that it represents countless hours of work. But as you are already not making any money on MODx what would you lose if you were developping a CMS that is more "dumb*users*like*me" friendly ?
I don’t understand your question as you already not paid for what you do

Monsieur Frog, that’s a low blow that’s not needed. Susan is a gracious, helpful, talented grandmother who’s not remotely arrogant. You’re way off base here, sir.

I am paid for what I do (working for myself). I will however make the software more new-user friendly as time permits, and it will get there one day in the not distant but not near future.

In the meantime, if you’d like to hire me to accelerate the process you know how to reach me or anyone else on the core team.

You’re still avoiding my question: would you work for even three months for free?

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 10, 2006, 12:00 AM

Monsieur Frog, that’s a low blow that’s not needed. Susan is a gracious, helpful, talented grandmother who’s not remotely arrogant. You’re way off base here, sir.

I thought that the low blow was when she implied that I was whining in her post 
Susan helped me many times in the past. I like her, and I even offered her virtual chocolates more than once !
But I am bit fed up that each time one I post on templates easiness, people just jump on me like if I was insulting the whole MODx dev team 

Quote from: rthrash at Apr 10, 2006, 12:03 AM

I am paid for what I do (working for myself). I will however make the software more new-user friendly as time permits, and it will get there one day in the not distant but not near future.

In the meantime, if you’d like to hire me to accelerate the process you know how to reach me or anyone else on the core team.

You’re still avoiding my question: would you work for even three months for free?

Actually I worked many times for free in order to get a job, and I still did it not so long ago. I also do my share of pro bono work...
If I had enough money, I would hire you guys
Who knows, it may happen one day