[Catalyst-dev] Removing TTSite From The Tutorial - Request For Feedback

[hkclark at gmail.com]

Been getting bounced with "[lists.rawmode.org. (100): Connection timed out]"
errors.  Trying again without an attachment (using a link to svn instead).
If anyone out there gets this, let me know. :-)  Sorry if it results in a
dup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As I mentioned in my other note, I have been working on an update to the
Tutorial.  The main items I was trying to take care of in this update are:
1) Remove TTSite
2) Update to Ubuntu 8.10 (therefore, Cat v5.7014, C::Devel v1.07, DBIC
v0.08010, etc.).
3) Reorganize MoreCatalystBasics.pod to have the flow where the user is able
to run the app the first time much earlier and slowly build it up from there
(running the app each time along the way).

I wanted to get some input from the group on #2.  A big thanks to dhoss
(Devin Austin) for doing some initial work on removing TTSite!!  I have
taken most of the elements in the "wrapper" file he came up with, add some
basic CSS, and integrated it into the rest of the Tutorial.

The main thing I wanted to run by the group is some comments on the wrapper
page, the CSS and the overall look and feel of the application.  Hopefully
this is a much more minor and less contenteous issue than the Ubuntu vs.
some other environment issue discussed in my other email, :-)  but I still
wanted to give people an opportunity to comment on the new approach before
we get too far into it.

I decided the best way to show the gist of it is with a small tarball --
download and open the small tarballl at
http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/Catalyst-Manual/5.70/branches/n=
o_ttsite/lib/Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial/sample/MoreCatalystBasics_sample.tgz.
It contains the wrapper.tt2 as well as enough to show the final state of
what the app looks like at the end of MoreCatalystBasics.pod (so you should
be able to untar it and open book_list.html and have it pick up both the CSS
and the header logo image).  And, for folks who want to see all of
MoreCatalystBasics.pod with the changes inserted, it's obviously available
here:
http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/repos/Catalyst/Catalyst-Manual/5.70/trunk/lib/=
Catalyst/Manual/Tutorial(or
rev=3D8784 for the diffs).

Are folks OK with the wrapper.tt2, the static/css/main.css, and the rendered
output?

There was some discussion about using a CSS framework such as emastic (and
possibly even throwing something like jQuery in the mix), but it seems like
the goal of the early chapters in the tutorial should be to keep it as
simple as possible and that too much time on CSS or JavaScript/AJAX would
bog down the user.  That being said, adding that in as maybe an optional
part at the end of the tutorial seems like it could work well.  Thoughts??

Thanks,
Kennedy

PS -- Site note re #3 above: The new approach does cause the flow to jump
around a little more between the different parts of MVC, but I think it will
help the users because they can see the results more quickly, catch mistakes
earlier, and get more of a feel formodern, incremental web development.  Let
me know if people hate it, but that was my thought process behind the
change.  Thanks.
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