Internet Software Suite

This is something that's been bouncing around in my head for awhile now and with some personal adventures I'm about to par take in as well as the mentioned SnarkPit back-end change I figured I'd talk a little about it here.

What I'm thinking of making is a fully featured web site suite that a perfectly oblivious user could use and create unique web content. For example, I'm thinking of having a graphical program that allows you to visually arrange the pages templates, which could be streamlined into existing content with no headache for the owner or users of the site.

I'm thinking up more things for it, but I want to hear what people need. So, people's of the Internet, what features, would you want to see in something like this?

Any and all ideas are welcome. We're talking features, specific abilities. Nit picking is VERY welcome.

Thanks.

Some extra information:
My intent with this project is to make a licensable piece of software. So, one of my main goals is to not only create something that works very well, but also, improves existing technology and alleviates user concerns.

This is really an open requirements elicitation.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well this went exactly like I planned. :rolleyes:

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

It sounds extremely ambitious on the part of being able to slip it easily into existing content (unless of course you mean content already created by your software). At the moment it sounds like a WYSIWYG which also acts as an organiser? Is it all possible to get it to interact with MySQL for instance, and script like Perl PHP ASP etc? Or is it just a case of static HTML with perhaps basic scripting.

My problem is that it's hard to imagine what exactly the program you describe would look like? Where would you start, from the user's point of few? What would it look like?

The description is quite abstract so if you ask what features would be handy I just feel the urge to say "everything".

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Why snark works.

Okay.

The main interface would be something written in an locally executable language, like Java or something. It would go through the "set up" process with some sort of Wizard asking for account and server information.

You would select features and abilities you want the site to have. It would then upload the base case files on those selections. From there you would be able to use the software to edit styles, graphically, (it would output a modified CSS source file and upload it for you). The rest of the code is HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and various other scripting languages that need to be used.

As for databases, yeah, of course it will support many kinds. It can also, I haven't decided yet, have a utility that allows you to transfer databases, or adapt them. So, for instance, it'll read in all the table information from a SQL database, and you can add to it manipulate it, or whatever, and output it to a SAP or Oracle database. The internal representation will probably be in XML.

Supporting editing for any of these languages is just silly, as many IDEs exist (Eclipse is what I would go with) that support them. I could get permission and package it together and launch it with specific configurations.

I know it sounds really big, but don't worry about that.

I'm looking for what you would think that type of software would need in terms of user abilities (how you want to use it as a user) and features the resulting site would need. Like, the Forum should have language filters, or something.

I'm just making a list of various requirements for various sections. I'll try to form an outline of those so maybe this will look a bit more structured.

Beginning Setup Wizard:

• Create a local user account (profiles)
• Record remote user accounts (server information)
• Give options for unpacking

Main Program (This will have subsections):

• Create and Save Web Sites based on existing template designs (CSS/2)
• Upload the work
• Download existing states
• Launch chosen language or text editor.

• Visual Editor

• Change object properties (color, size, position of areas, text, images, etc)
• Create new objects
• Delete objects
• Save configurations

• Database Editor

• Download existing database data
• Upload new database data
• Convert between databases (if possible, some databases use radically different methods)

Internet Software

• User accounts
• News

• How the news works

• Forums
• NewsFeeds/RSS
• NewsLetters
• A base, default, CSS page configuration. (or multiples of them)
• Administration and Owner abilities
• Database table viewing, to retrieve or alter a specific piece of information.

Are you guys getting the idea now? Of course, there are situations where this wont help, like if your entire site is written statically in HTML. Where it will help is transitioning (or creating new sites) with all the actual content held in a database.

While the Site code could be distributed on its own, if I want to license it, it needs more. I mean, using this, you could grab some webspace, and have a fully functioning site (that actually works and looks good) up and running with in a day.

Reaper, all the questions you asked me are what I'm asking.

What I'm looking for is, from a user's perspective, what would you like to see as abilities in the software? This includes how it looks and acts.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

I should be shiny.
Ya, I'm not much help, sorry.

I sounds like your trying to make it possible for the average idiot start and maintain their own (rater complicated/professional looking) web site.
This is a highly marketable idea. Good luck with it.
Do you have a guess how long it's going take to create a working model once your past the planing stage?

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Reality has become a commodity.

I'm hoping with a couple of friends' help, the actual development will only take like three months. But, we'll see.

The thing that's going to take the longest is the visual editor.

Remember, the average idiot also tends to be a manager :wink:

I think if this thing linked up with Crystal Reports some how I'd make a multi-million dollar empire in less than a year. Nearly every company uses that stuff and they always have issued with integration.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

If this is aimed at users who only know that php or mysql are some sort of scripting language, then I'm perfectly qualified as a beta tester. :smile: Which leaves me sort of in the dark as to what features should be included, as I don't really know what the features are that you've already described.

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i eat paint

Your idea is so simple, and all most seams necessary. I don't think it's possible that your the first person to think of this. Try to make web design easier that is.
You should ask your self why something like this isn't already readily available and what could keep you from completing the project. (patents/copyrights?) Maybe you'll find something you haven't thought of all ready. Not to say you haven't thought a lot about it all ready.

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Reality has become a commodity.

This is aimed at, generally, all users. The ones who know nothing, but want to get stuff up and running, as well as users who know it, but don't want to write it themselves.

I think, maybe this seems all so obscure because what I'm really describing are four or five pieces of software with another piece that links them all together?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Honestly, this sounds like a genius idea if done right. I could see myself using a tool like this, easily. I agree with RedWood, though. Sounds too good to not have been tried before which probably means it's more difficult to pull through than it seems.

A humble try of input: What about a search function? Good site-searches are very important IMO, and are quite scary to implement for an amateur scripter.

Other than that...

I think it would make sense to think this through for a very specific site, from idea to finished content. So many details to consider. What would you do if you wanted to remake the Snarkpit as it is from scratch? Would a project like that even be within the possible scale for the program you aim for?

You know, the reason you don't exactly see a rain of response in this thread is probably because it feels obvious to think that you have a better idea of what's important, for the programming/feature aspect, than most of us. What we could provide is IMO mainly feedback on general usability, a real-world test of the concept.

Things like "where do I find the menu that lets me make a new text-box", "how should a selected Object be marked in the Visual editor?" or "is it clear that this text has a CSS format or are these just individual properties?". It's where most programs break for me. I have to mention Gimp again, a wonderful and feature-rich program which never really took off because its interface is bad and unintuitive, even compared to otherwise inferior programs. While, on the other hand, I switched from Opera to Firefox not because I missed any features but because FF is so darn logical, simple and efficient to use. I never even bothered to use extensions until months of heavy FF use.

I guess very, very early feedback on very, very basic sketches of the interface are more vital to the quality of such program than a general feature-wishlist. As long as the structure itself is open, features should be addable pretty easily. While the interface and bigger design choices would have to be planned from the earlies versions on.

In other words, I think it'll be more productive for you, Crono, if you continue giving us examples of how the program should work and we comment on what we would miss or what confuses us. There are millions of very small details that strongly influence the workflow but we cannot possibly forsee. While most features we would ask for are probably variations of obvious Text-field/database links which do not really require their own program feature.

I would really like to help you on this project, but it's so hard to come up with specific features. :/

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Why snark works.

Honestly, this sounds like a genius idea if done right. I could see myself using a tool like this, easily. I agree with RedWood, though. Sounds too good to not have been tried before which probably means it's more difficult to pull through than it seems.

Difficult doesn't really concern me, because this isn't as difficult as it sounds. The whole thing that would make it really difficult is not designing the framework well enough. But, that's something I'll do when everything is said and done and I'm ready to get going on it.

Just trust me. It isn't like this is the first thing I've made. And, there's a reason why I'm starting input nearly a year before I'm going to be developing the thing.

And whether or not it's been done or attempted before doesn't concern me. Someone has written a kernel before, should that stop me? No. Someone has written graphics software before, should that stop me? No. Why should this be any different? In software, as long as you do something different or better, you can sell it (and in a lot of cases, you just need the bigger name and you can sell your inferior software anyway)

The way this is really suppose to work is I go, name very useful features you would like to see in one of those pieces of software, or just focus on one right now, how about the actual web site code, and from that, I produce the inner workings and mold everything else around.

Maybe this looks too big or complicated for anyone to come up with anything. So, how about this.

You said Search. Search is good. Would you like to elaborate on it? How would you want to search to work for the user?

I specifically started this thread here because of the Snkarpit reboot talk. I always thought it was absolutely ridiculous that websites would do this "reboot", or redesign of changing the code base, and completely obliterate the database. Right now you could write something on your own that rips all your information in the database to some XML files, then read them into a new database. You can also change your new code base to use the old database tables. There's all sorts of ways you can save your data, but all the people who have authority at various websites are oblivious to them.

It's sort of like the average Windows user thinking re-installing Windows whenever there is a problem is a good idea. So what if I lose all my personal data, it wasn't that important.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.