Sample Data

[Jacques Rentzke]

hi

I noticed that another Sample Data set was added to 3.0 (beta1).

Where would one find the discussion around what sample data options are available, and what changes are made between major releases?

With the recent addition of "Learn Joomla English (GB) Sample Data" we now have these:

None
Blog English (GB) Sample Data
Brochure English (GB) Sample Data
Default English (GB) Sample Data
Learn Joomla English (GB) Sample Data
Test English (GB) Sample Data (only in Test releases?)

I'm not sure what determines the order of display in the 3.0 installer, but this is how it's displayed.

How are these decided on, and could they be better?  (The Blog sample data, for instance, does not sell Joomla very well)

I have not checked all of these again, but I don't think we have sample data that shows off the new 3.0 features, or that's updated to the new template module positions.

Where would one find the discussion around what sample data options are available, and what changes are made between major releases?

Should there not be more (or any!) input requested before these new Sample Data sets are committed?

regards,

Jacques Rentzke

[Chacapamac]

Jacques Rentzke

This is a good point, personally, as dev I never used the sample data (on 1.5), but having a promotional and help/informative sample data that wiil show off wat’s new or an overview of Joomla 3 will be great.

Personally I think that presenting a blog section is extremely important. I always use a blog in all my sites to present News, Featured products or such. The blog part became the communication/feedback heart of the site. I normally pass automatically all new entry from that blog to Facebook/Twitter .... and add a Facebook comment system to complete the system. Those News/Featured products are also presented in the front page in some kind of carrousel. Blogs use this way are extremely powerful to retrieve feedback and propagate important information in a lively form. I hope that the blog part of Joomla 3.0 will be reinforced (at least being able to present image thumbnails with links to article) not possible without the readmore... Look at Wordpress and around the web, blogs are a one of the most recognize powerful communication tool and Joomla should continued included it in is core.

I’m not an expert in 3.0 and the Sample Data should be light and really informative — The target audience here is mostly Newbies.

• Present Joomla - What it is, Who are behind and where it goes. Some numbers (World wide sites, downloads??)

• Show off Highlights, strength of the platform

• What can you do with Joomla — Link to Joomla Portfolio and important sites made with Joomla (in joomla.org)

• Help section with important links to maintain, produce and install Joomla sites —>Templating, multilingual, upgrades, forums, technical stuff, security +++

• Hey maybe a survey to retrieve feedback

Need to be cool and swift...

[elin]

Sample data is developed as part of an ongoing discussion between people working on the CMS. There have been threads on it right on this list in fact. We had a great session about options for SD at  JAB and a lot of good ideas about what it will look like going forward. Also with the new dashboard UI we have the possibility of putting more informational data in a more appropriate location (the administrator) which is going to be powerful. 

 

Ultimately once we have the infrastructure for installation from joomla.org rather than via the package we can have many choices of data but for right now we are focused on useful baseline datasets for specific use cases (e.g. simple blog, simple informational/brochure site)  as well as the testing data set and possibly an accessible data set that will default to Hathor + Beez  (currently it is a struggle for people who need Hathor to actually get it into operation).   Kyle and I also have at one point discussed a developer oriented data set with typography etc.

The new default data is designed as quick start data for beginners who need to know some specific information e.g. how to find the administrator, how to start creating content, where to find documentation and the support forum, etc ... and is also designed to address one of the biggest requests which is that it be easy to delete.  

The 1.6-2.5 sample data which is currently being repackaged as learn joomla was a combination of a number of disparate goals, learning joomla (which is what it is designed to since it explains all the views and modules, how to use parameters, how to implement acl and how to use alternative layouts among other things), Ron's desire to have a business and a personal template. Hannes wanting to have business and personal examples, the desire to have testing data, and my desire to address the three groups of installing users (beginners, updaters, professionals) .  However it doesn't work well for people who want to just put up a site fast and now our three groups of users can each have their own data sets.

Beginning users making their first site don't need any technical information (if they do, we are failing in design), they just need to know how to login  and get started building a site and also where and how to get help if they need it. 

One of the main points I talked about at JAB is that when someone has installed you are no longer selling them on the CMS, you are trying to get them to feel successful and happy with the first couple of hours of using Joomla so they don't abandon it. So you don't need to show off or do advertising or overwhelm with information, you need to help them be successful at things such as creating some content and getting it to display and putting their logo in the template header. If you look at what happens when you install different applications you see that the ones we thing of as most usable don't do a lot of advertising ... they get out of the way and let people do what they installed the application to do. So more and more we are moving in the direction of having specific data sets for people who want to do specific things. 

http://jandbeyond.org/programme/sessions/session/session/73-sample-data-hands-on-workshop.html 

Elin,

[Steve]

So how can people contribute to improving the sample data?

Where can they go to start helping out?

[brian teeman]

Mea culpa - i had said I would do something about this but life got in the way

[Gary Jay Brooks]

I love the new sample data set and I hope we keep simple versions in place for users that are confused about all the sample data.  We run the Joomla demo site and we had to build a tool specifically for managing the sample data set to keep the users from being confused.  With the new sample data set we can avoid having to have a extra tool in the demo users sites that clears all content.    

Gary Brooks