SECONDSITE-L Archives

Archiver > SECONDSITE > 2007-09 > 1188845801


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: Re: [2NDST] SS and search engines
Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 14:56:41 -0400
In-Reply-To: <000601c7ee2d$77f0d780$bfb03643@roygt1jei28mrw>


Roy Sprunger wrote, in part:
> It is my understanding that SS presupposes a certain level of
> knowledge regarding HTML and at least an awareness of XML.

Roy,

Not really. It's possible to build a complete site in SS without knowing
_any_ HTML, and that site could include some or all of the people in the TMG
project and include exhibits, citations, sources, a place index, etc.

Some users--I have no idea what percentage--want to do more than that. Some
want to customize the look of the site, others want to include specialized
content that doesn't come from TMG. For those reasons, and others, they
modify the CSS parameters or provide custom HTML. In those cases, they need
some knowledge of CSS or HTML, but based on what I've seen and what I have
helped people with, the changes don't require a great deal of knowledge.

Some people go even further and customize the XML Formats used by Second
Site, but that's pretty rare, and in some of those cases, I've provided step
by step instructions.

> There is a limit on how much John Cardinal can automate.

True... but SS will make a great site even within those limits.

> Many users of SS have gone on to learn more about HTML,
> Java script, XML and the other parts of what it takes
> to create, manage and manipulate their own web page content. John is
> continually working to update and modify his application in
> keeping up with TMG and web page development. It is getting
> more difficult for true neophytes to just "jump in".

I don't think that's true. RIght out of the box, SS2 will make a nicer site
than SS1 made right out of the box in 2002, and the user doesn't have to
know anything more about the program:

- Make an SDF file with File > New...
- Choose the project
- Set the title and subtitle
- Maybe set the Flag Filter to select a subset of the people
- Make the site!

For people who want to customize their sites--as described above--SS2 will
do a lot more than SS1, and that's muddying the waters a bit: a lot of the
discussion on SecondSite-L since SS2 was released has been about things that
weren't possible in SS1, or were beyond even the power user skill level.
Also, there has been some confusion over User Items, but a few minor changes
in v2.0.3 and v2.0.7 have helped with that. Part of the confusion with User
Items and even in some other areas was due to prior experience with SS1:
users expected things to work a particular way in SS2 becauser of the way
that SS1 worked, and in some important ways, SS2 is different from SS1.

Don't get me wrong; I don't think SS2 is perfect or even close to it, but I
don't judge it against perfection. Most people have told me that SS is easy
to use. People who have trouble getting comfortable often have a basic
misconception about how it works, and once they get over that, they are
happy with the program. It's very difficult--if not impossible--to make a
program that _all_ new users will say is easy to use. That's true of even
simple programs. If one of the users who has difficulty demands a change of
some kind, or asks me to make SS easier to use, the request has got to be
put in context. It may very well be the case that making SS easy to use for
that user may ruin it for most everyone else! Brains work differently from
person to person and what's intuitive to one user may be confusing to
another. The goal is to find the sweet spot

- Most people (not all--that's impossible) find it easy to use
- People with modest goals like it
- People with more ambitious goals like it

I am sure I could describe that better, but it's something like that.

John


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