Reading/expertise level

I like the idea of a two plus section book. Section one for beginners, two for intermediate and possibly an advanced section, or would that best be reserved for an additional book?

psydoc said

I like the idea of a two plus section book. Section one for beginners, two for intermediate and possibly an advanced section, or would that best be reserved for an additional book?

My initial thought are to do the newbie and intermediate sections in a single book. I kind of like the idea of a really advanced book offering that touches on stuff that few in the ocPortal community would ever attempt. This, to me, would be geared towards web designers and web developers.

I think keeping the really advanced stuff out of the basic book will both get the book done earlier (we will have few options for authors of the really advanced stuff) and will make ocPortal less intimidating while helping our basic new ocPortal users to get their sites up and running and, hopefully, growing out the ocPortal community.

Bob

I concur.  

As I have said:

Even before this book idea came to light I had started jotting down ideas for 2 books for ocPortal. One aimed at the Administration of the site and One aimed at Development of the site.

Development concepts should be avoided (or very minimal) in this book because a WHOLE book could (and should) be written on that subject.

This book should be aimed at Basic Administration  but although I use the word basic that does not mean the topics and content can't be advanced. In fact they should be. We just shouldn't be discussing much about Development as that is a small segment of the community and many Administrators don't want to learn that. They do want to know how to layout and manage their site and install things developed by others. They want to know how to make their site pretty and several other topics that fall under the administrators role.

That said Intermediate to Advanced topics should be the main focus but in a clear easy to understand format. Writing PHP code should not be a topic or at least a very minor one.

Duck, I am confused. In your second paragraph you say "basic administration"; however, in your third you say "intermediate to advanced" should be the main focus.

I think the book should be a basic guide for someone just starting to use OCP, in the first section, and intermediate in the second.

It is possible that a third book for advanced users, including advanced theming and integration issues should follow. That is my opinion.  

Sorry if I confused you. What I mean by "Basic Administration" is the more common tasks associated with administrating your site. Not Development topics and such. To me that means plenty of options from intermediate to advanced uses of the administrative section of the site. I think LESS time spent on how to FTP etc is better and MORE time spent on what to do to add pages, style your site and plug in addons etc. This is what I mean by intermediate to advanced.

The OCCLE is an ADVANCED topic but once explained is a very powerful and highly useful tool for the administrator. This topic to me is far more important than deep discussion about FTP and Domain setup etc. But that is my opinion and it seems it is the minority opinion at the moment. So unless specifically addressed for a response I am choosing not to participate in this discussion any more to allow the majority to finalize their plan so that I don't contribute to any more procrastination. I am simply waiting for instruction on what my role is to contribute.

P.S. I don't mean that reply to be as sucky as it sounds I just don't feel we are moving properly forward and I feel I am contributing to that by being argumentative and think it is time for me to shut up is all so sorry if I am offending.

No worries, Duck…I am easily confused.  

I agree with you that FTP, domain name setup, etc. is something they should already know, and not something the book should cover, unless to simply reference some other resources from which that information can be learned.

Please, do not apologize. I jumped in here recently. It may be that my suggestions are not relevent.

Duck said

Sorry if I confused you. What I mean by "Basic Administration" is the more common tasks associated with administrating your site. Not Development topics and such. To me that means plenty of options from intermediate to advanced uses of the administrative section of the site. I think LESS time spent on how to FTP etc is better and MORE time spent on what to do to add pages, style your site and plug in addons etc. This is what I mean by intermediate to advanced.

The OCCLE is an ADVANCED topic but once explained is a very powerful and highly useful tool for the administrator. This topic to me is far more important than deep discussion about FTP and Domain setup etc. But that is my opinion and it seems it is the minority opinion at the moment. So unless specifically addressed for a response I am choosing not to participate in this discussion any more to allow the majority to finalize their plan so that I don't contribute to any more procrastination. I am simply waiting for instruction on what my role is to contribute.

P.S. I don't mean that reply to be as sucky as it sounds I just don't feel we are moving properly forward and I feel I am contributing to that by being argumentative and think it is time for me to shut up is all so sorry if I am offending.

To be clear, I know that I (and I believe this to be the case of most others) have not suggested that we have deep discussions about FTP or setting up domains. Quite the contrary, my attitude would be to provide a list of requirements and, possibly, suggested tools that will be needed.

OcCLE is a topic for discussion in the intermediate or advanced areas. Most of OcCLE is currently documented in the current codebook (though it perhaps needs updating). This can be handled by reference or a quick copy and paste job. Let's not get hung up on something silly like this.

Bob