Re: OfBiz System Configuration Wizard

[Jacques Le Roux]

De : "Walter Vaughan" <[hidden email]>

> Adrian Crum wrote:
>
> > At the same time, we do get requests for a configuration UI.
> > Any ideas on how I should proceed? Does anyone see a need for such a
> > feature?
>
>
> Methinks the discussion should first be"the direction of OFBiz":
> is it to be a OOTB solution with a small basic need for customization
> (but the ability to be highly customized)
> or a ERP framework designed for consultants to customize for specific
> client needs?
>
> Let the debate begin... I've set followups to the user-list...
>
> At the end of the day it can't be both... or at least really good at both.
> --
> Walter
>

I'm not sure to see the frontier here...

Jacques

[Walter Vaughan]

Jacques Le Roux wrote:

>I'm not sure to see the frontier here...
>  
>
Except in the edge case, I don't see how many people who are at the
level of being able to install and operate SugarCRM could do the same
thing with OFBiz. And moving it up a level, compare installing a demo
version of OFBiz with downloading and installing the Microsoft Dynamics
GP 10 demo. Or staying closer to open source, installing postBooks
(http://www.xtuple.com/postbooks).

My point is that if it's an OOTB solution as the goal or even a forked
goal of the community, then last March when the 4.0 release was created,
some effort should have gone into consistent user interfaces,
installation wizards, documentation, manuals. The communty voted with
its keyboards to instead add hundreds of new features to the trunk
instead. Given that the number of bug fixes that have gone into the 4.0
release can be measured by a human hand testifies that the community is
addicted to features. NOT THAT IT'S A BAD THING :)

Me, I've always thought it should be as easy to install OFBiz as any top
line .php application that asks a few (or as many as is needed)
questions, confirms and configures itself, and is ready to operate
within minutes, and the configurator be re-entrant to allow
configuration changes in the future and also suggest settings for
certain conditions.

--
Walter "rambling post" Vaughan

[Adrian Crum]

Again, we use the Asset Maintenance component OOTB here. Even though I'm an in-house IT guy and I
was the one who installed OFBiz here, it didn't have to be me doing it. Our facilities manager
(person, not program) could have downloaded a binary release, unzipped it and started using the
Asset Maintenance component on his own. No consultant or systems guru is needed. Seriously.

Many of our users are at that skill level where they could download and install software themselves.
The problem comes when someone like that tries to follow the Production Setup guidelines and is told
to modify properties files and XML files. They won't know what to do at that point.

I believe this to be a very real scenario, especially once the Accounting component is finished.

A binary release doesn't have to come from the OFBiz site. It could come from another source, like
Opentaps. I suppose someone providing a binary release of their own could develop their own system
configuration screen as well.

-Adrian

Walter Vaughan wrote:

> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure to see the frontier here...
>>  
>>
> Except in the edge case, I don't see how many people who are at the
> level of being able to install and operate SugarCRM could do the same
> thing with OFBiz. And moving it up a level, compare installing a demo
> version of OFBiz with downloading and installing the Microsoft Dynamics
> GP 10 demo. Or staying closer to open source, installing postBooks
> (http://www.xtuple.com/postbooks).
>
> My point is that if it's an OOTB solution as the goal or even a forked
> goal of the community, then last March when the 4.0 release was created,
> some effort should have gone into consistent user interfaces,
> installation wizards, documentation, manuals. The communty voted with
> its keyboards to instead add hundreds of new features to the trunk
> instead. Given that the number of bug fixes that have gone into the 4.0
> release can be measured by a human hand testifies that the community is
> addicted to features. NOT THAT IT'S A BAD THING :)
>
> Me, I've always thought it should be as easy to install OFBiz as any top
> line .php application that asks a few (or as many as is needed)
> questions, confirms and configures itself, and is ready to operate
> within minutes, and the configurator be re-entrant to allow
> configuration changes in the future and also suggest settings for
> certain conditions.
>
> --
> Walter "rambling post" Vaughan
>

[Jacques Le Roux]

Walter,

OK, thanks this is more clear :o)

De : "Walter Vaughan" <[hidden email]>

> Jacques Le Roux wrote:
>
> >I'm not sure to see the frontier here...
> >
> >
> Except in the edge case, I don't see how many people who are at the
> level of being able to install and operate SugarCRM could do the same
> thing with OFBiz. And moving it up a level, compare installing a demo
> version of OFBiz with downloading and installing the Microsoft Dynamics
> GP 10 demo. Or staying closer to open source, installing postBooks
> (http://www.xtuple.com/postbooks).

Sorry, I have not time to MS or even postBooks. I installed SugarCRM last year though (never found time to seriously use it) and I
agree that this was pretty easy. I don't remember if I had to install easyPHP before.
But is installing and then using OFBiz OOTB so different and difficult ? Of course you have to install Java 1.5+ before, but even on
a Linux system it's easy (I'm mostly a Windows User ;p)
Then you run ant-install, then startofbiz and then ... you discover that OFBiz is not as simple as SugarCRM :o) As Jacopo (and
others) explained the point is not installing but using it in real business conditions. At this point you have to have a deeper
knwoledge on business ans tech. aspects and I'm not sure the average SUgarCRM user (or such package) have such a knowledge. Do we
really want to support this level of knwoledge and help this kind of people (nothing pejorative here) grabs OFBiz and for which
goals ? This is the real question !

> My point is that if it's an OOTB solution as the goal or even a forked
> goal of the community, then last March when the 4.0 release was created,
> some effort should have gone into consistent user interfaces,
> installation wizards, documentation, manuals.

We could all benefit from such efforts. I completly agree and moreover I'm already working on it, day by day, hour by hour, minute
by minute, and by chance I'm not alone :o)...

> The communty voted with
> its keyboards to instead add hundreds of new features to the trunk
> instead. Given that the number of bug fixes that have gone into the 4.0
> release can be measured by a human hand testifies that the community is
> addicted to features. NOT THAT IT'S A BAD THING :)

I must admit that I even have difficulties to follow all what is happening this last weeks in OFBiz. But don't we need a better
accouting and project manager components ?

> Me, I've always thought it should be as easy to install OFBiz as any top
> line .php application that asks a few (or as many as is needed)
> questions, confirms and configures itself, and is ready to operate
> within minutes,

I reckon OFBIz is already able to propose that using Derby OOTB. Though you may prefer to install Postgres to quickerly (more
quickly?) run ant-install.

>and the configurator be re-entrant to allow
> configuration changes in the future and also suggest settings for
> certain conditions.

This is the discussion Adrian launched, where a back at it, lot of words for nothing ;o) ? Don't get me wrong, I would love to have
a Wizard configurator, but we can't ignore the issues David pointed out (overidding parameters, with concurrent accesses) !

Jacques

> --
> Walter "rambling post" Vaughan
>

[Scott Gray]

Not sure how fingers you have but I must have committed at least 100 bug
fixes into 4.0, not to mention all the work done by Jacques and Si.

Regards
Scott

On 15/12/2007, Walter Vaughan <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Given that the number of bug fixes that have gone into the 4.0
> release can be measured by a human hand testifies that the community is
> addicted to features. NOT THAT IT'S A BAD THING :)
>
>