On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:58:32 -0700 Pete Travis <me@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I've been thinking of implementation, in general terms. A lot of the > details would fall out if a few preliminary goals are established, > and the replies so far have come from a necessarily technical > perspective. Allow me to offer another, on presentation: > > Who is the target audience for formulas? We can roughly group the > user base into two areas: end users and experienced users. I would > group the average desktop linux enthusiast in the former, and include > the majority of Fedora contributors, system administrators, and > wizened enthusiasts in the latter. > > Targeting the end user would require a lot more effort in > presentation, but would provide a bigger payoff in terms of marketing > value and user draw. Targeting the latter would allow a much easier > implementation - really, we would just have to agree on a common > style and guidelines for shipping playbooks and put them in a git > repo to be cloned. Sure. I think it may be that it's easier to target the one group short term, but keep the other group in mind for longer term implementation. > Without solid presentation, we will expending effort to the exclusion > of less experienced users. I propose that from the beginning, > Formulas should be implemented with the intent of making their use as > easy as clicking the link to download a spin. I think that we can > agree that drawing more users to Fedora is generally a Good Thing, > and that Formulas could help keep the contributor funnel full. Sure, but there might be some (hopefully informed) questions asked of the user. Ideally there would be a 'defaults' mode where it just took defaults, but I think interactivity is a good selling point as well. > So, a Formula should contain: > - an ansible playbook > - any required ansible templates (These could well be required by all formulas...) > - descriptive content in html using a defined template, or in > a format translatable to html > - a fun banner image > - indexable metadata > > The presentation layer should provide: > - a browseable, searchable interface built from Formula > metadata > - a rating system, to promote involvement > - a moderated comment system, to promote involvement > (although comments can detract from perceived > professionalism) > - a script to crawl through the git source and create and > index the content > - individual Formula pages displaying the above mentioned > descriptive content, with direct links to the playbook file itself > - a GUI URI handler to guide the user through the interactive > portions of the formula, and to promote a sense of accomplishment Yes to all this. Also, I would really like a command line version of the tool that exists on the end user machine. (in addition to the gui one). Much of the presentation layer could fit into a larger "software center" type thing as well. There's been talk of such a project, and if there's any movement on it we could perhaps leverage that for formulas as well. kevin
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