Drowning in information, searching for knowledge
Posted September 26th, 2008 by adminA historical perspective of eZ publish and thoughts on 3D information.
This week, I found some nice articles regarding eZ publish on sitepoint.com. And oh so much more interesting, matched up the look and url structure of sitepoint, to a default eZ publish 3.9 install. Wonder which CMS provides the foundation for sitepoint?
Also noticed how quickly and cleanly pertinent content jumps out at you on sitepoint. It is simple to get around the sitepoint site, despite a tremendous range of topics and a huge amount of content. Sitepoint is a very convincing argument for using eZ, and a good place to get some ideas for managing large amounts of data and streams.
From the first article found in a Google search, the Harry Fuecks 2002 article, it is easy to get into all the content regarding eZ publish on the entire sitepoint site.
But since I made a list for myself with a few comments, I may as well post it here for posterity.
- Harry Fuecks 2002
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/phps-killer-app-parts-1-3/
Nice historical reference, the entire framework has morphed substantially since that time. - Bård Farstad has three nice articles on sitepoint, circa late 2004 early 2005. These are regarding version 3.x, and seem pertinent on 4.x, at least in the admin interface (the admin “siteaccess”).
- November 2004 Using the admin interface, particularly the design tab.
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/build-intranet-ez-publish/ - January 2005 - Templating tips
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/table-less-css-ez-publish/ - April 2005. Setting up a catalog, does not actually get into payment processing as the header would lead one to expect.
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ecommerce-website-ez-publish/
- November 2004 Using the admin interface, particularly the design tab.
- May 2006. Rebuilding an existing site using eZ. David Lewis
Covers planning, coding, moving to a new ez site, performance scaling.
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/rebuilding-vogue-com-au/2/ - December 2004 Martin Bauer, more thoughts on re-building a site. Defining the information architecture is the most difficult part of an ez publish installation.
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/rebuilding-gradlink-ezpublish/ - August 2003, Rob Purser, another nice historical perspective. eZ 4.x makes it dead simple to make the simplified site he desires. Enlightening is that building a new siteaccess with new set of templates is explained in it’s very simplest form. So simple even I can understand it.
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/ez-publish-3-1-take-spin/1/
The Sitepoint site is an inspiration, and a revelation. Sitepoint.com almost effortlessly keeps the information you want out in front of you. The material outlined above was practically thrust upon me from the moment I first arrived on sitepoint.
If single web pages are 1 dimensional and linked websites 2 dimensional sources of information. The clever design and layout of sitepoint.com is approaching a 3D information architecture. Sure you can make up your own individualized facebook, or your corporate QEDWiki to achieve practically the same thing. But that 3D information is only for your personal or corporate use. Sitepoint brings 3D information to a much broader group, developers in general. That surely is the future of publishing, 3D information. But as Martin Bauer points out, defining that information architecture for a given group is the artful part of an eZ installation.
Is 4D, the fourth dimension of information processing, the fourth degree of humans interfacing with data in the world around them, the ability to automatically include your real time location a la cell phone into an artfully laid out, sitepoint style, display? If so, eZ publish is ready for that.
Tags: 3D, 4D, ez.no, information