Jon Edwards wrote:
It's just a pity that the core stakeholders and corp guys don't seem to see the imperative. I know the Experience guys are pushing for better compliance, leaner CSS and JS, etc. But I'd imagine that their efforts are always going to come down to a board-level decision, or a decision based on retaining outmoded, legacy rubbish in an effort to retain their old user base...
It would be good if we got a decent response. There's often the odd, "it's coming, it's coming," but never anything concrete.
I know that it may seem this way, but I don't think that it's quite accurate to say that we don't see this as imperative. There are, as you have pointed out, a number of factors involved in the perception and some of those factors have recently and are continuing to receive attention.
There are, actually, also a number of things that could be done by users of the platform to help both actually and perceptually. This is not implying that DNN Corp won't or shouldn't also take action, but as a community there are some things that are within our ability to affect. Here are a couple of my personal thoughts:
- There is nothing keeping us from working with each of the module projects to improve their emitted HTML/CSS. This is not a function of dealing with the core at all, the module projects are handled in the community (with core support), but with appropriate volunteer resources we could affect this kind of change immediately.
- Portal templates. DNN has had the ability to customize default templates for years... it's just one of those features that is not well understood and so not well showcased. Tracy Wittenkeller uses this capability to help him deliver "Powersites" (eg. http://eq-skin.t-worxpowersites.com/) which are feature rich, but it would be just as easy to create a template that is more minimized.
- We can also push some new admin modules into the Forge. With DNN 5, the Admin & Host modules were broken out into actual "modules" which can be uninstalled, hidden from menu's, etc. There's on reason one can't configure a site to hide what is unnecessary or even create some new Admin or Host modules which provide that more "simple" interface.
My personal desire here is that we continue to cultivate a community that acts where it can as well as influences where it can't act. We don't always have to wait for core changes to affect dramatic change in the ecosystem. And the best influence is a few positive examples.
Love the thoughts. Hope my contribution adds positively to the discussion.
Cheers,
Scott