From rmunn at pobox.com Tue Jul 5 15:33:14 2005 From: rmunn at pobox.com (Robin Munn) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 09:33:14 -0400 Subject: [Mailman3-dev] User interface for mailing list archives Message-ID: <20050705133314.GA26328@resin.csoft.net> It's been a while since I had any time to look at Mailman, and from the silence of this list, it seems I'm not the only one. Let's remedy this situation with some discussion. :-) I've long felt that Mailman's built-in Web interface to the archives was poor to middling at best. It works, but it could be so much better. I was going to sit down and try to design a better way to do mailing list archives, but then I came across the Lurker project (http://lurker.sourceforge.net/) and realized that someone else had already done the hard work. To see Lurker in action, check out http://webwareforpython.org/archives/list/sqlobject-discuss.en.html Lurker is GPL'ed, but it's written in C++, so just incorporating it wholesale into Mailman 3 would likely be a non-trivial exercise. But we could certainly learn from its interface. Am I the only one who's dissatisfied with the current state of Mailman's archive pages, or do others feel the same way? Anyone else know of other mailing list archivers that we could learn lessons from? -- Robin Munn rmunn at pobox.com From barry at python.org Tue Jul 5 16:33:39 2005 From: barry at python.org (Barry Warsaw) Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 10:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Mailman3-dev] User interface for mailing list archives In-Reply-To: <20050705133314.GA26328@resin.csoft.net> References: <20050705133314.GA26328@resin.csoft.net> Message-ID: <1120574018.9790.9.camel@geddy.wooz.org> On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 09:33, Robin Munn wrote: > It's been a while since I had any time to look at Mailman, and from the > silence of this list, it seems I'm not the only one. Let's remedy this > situation with some discussion. :-) Unfortunately, I've been in the same boat. Thanks for jump starting the discussions! > I've long felt that Mailman's built-in Web interface to the archives was > poor to middling at best. It works, but it could be so much better. I > was going to sit down and try to design a better way to do mailing list > archives, but then I came across the Lurker project > (http://lurker.sourceforge.net/) and realized that someone else had > already done the hard work. To see Lurker in action, check out > http://webwareforpython.org/archives/list/sqlobject-discuss.en.html A quick (literally 2 minute) look shows some promise. There are some nice elements, but also some non-intuitive elements to the u/i, at least for me. What exactly does the activity column and the sigma column mean? The thread view is kind of nice. The attachment MIME types seem broken (text/plain downloads with a .attach suffix so my web browser doesn't know it's text). The fact that it's been i18n'd is a good sign that it can handle messages in different languages/charsets. > Lurker is GPL'ed, but it's written in C++, so just incorporating it > wholesale into Mailman 3 would likely be a non-trivial exercise. But we > could certainly learn from its interface. > > Am I the only one who's dissatisfied with the current state of Mailman's > archive pages, or do others feel the same way? Anyone else know of other > mailing list archivers that we could learn lessons from? I think everyone feels the same way you do, Robin! If nothing else, I think we could definitely modernize the interface to use relevant current web technologies. Of course, my dream is also to provide read-only imap and nntp access to the archives as well so people can use applications built for viewing email natively. As another, more radical approach, take a look at Ka-Ping Yee's Zest archiver . There some really, really nice things he's done with this, and it's all in Python. :) -Barry -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 307 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part Url : http://mail.python.org/pipermail/mailman3-dev/attachments/20050705/6cb35823/attachment.pgp From Jones.L at ocr.org.uk Tue Jul 5 16:47:35 2005 From: Jones.L at ocr.org.uk (Lawrence Jones) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 15:47:35 +0100 Subject: [Mailman3-dev] User interface for mailing list archives Message-ID: <303FDA7A454ED549AFE2438E1B13AAF01DDBFB@SDCJNTEX01.ucles.internal> Have you seen this? http://zesty.ca/zest/ I've got no idea about it's development status, etc but it looks amazing! Comes with it's own design paper too. IPR isn't mentioned from what I saw, but it's a research project and open source (not necessarilly FOSS though). ********************************************************** If you are not the intended recipient, employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this communication and its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication and its attachments in error, please return the original message and attachments to the sender using the reply facility on e-mail. Internet communications are not secure and therefore the UCLES Group does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UCLES Group unless otherwise specifically stated. The UCLES Group is getting a new look - we are adopting a new name and a new identity which expresses what we do more clearly - from July this year (2005) we will be trading as Cambridge Assessment. ********************************************************** From Jones.L at ocr.org.uk Tue Jul 5 17:28:21 2005 From: Jones.L at ocr.org.uk (Lawrence Jones) Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 16:28:21 +0100 Subject: [Mailman3-dev] User interface for mailing list archives Message-ID: <303FDA7A454ED549AFE2438E1B13AAF01DDBFC@SDCJNTEX01.ucles.internal> I wrote: >Have you seen this? > >http://zesty.ca/zest/ Well yes, you probably have since Barry posted it a few minutes before mine went round, sry :S Well, they do say great minds think alike... ;) Having taken a better look at it, it's far more complex than I first thought. It's also very rigid and requires a standard writing style using '>'s to denote the previous message and assumes that the rest is the author's text. It divides the whole lot into chunks and matches replies to the text they're replying to. I can tell you now that the users on my lists will not follow that writing style (although many to most are non-technical users). I'm interested in 3 things to do with this: 1. how much it breaks if you don't stick to it's rules? Ie: how robust is it? Can it be made more robust? 2. if implementing it would make for a change in ethos for Mailman which reduced it's accessibility to non-technical users? This depends on 1. not knowing much about e-mail protocols, this might sound a bit stupid: 3. does zest's design rely on e-mail in a certain format? Ie: can you still do plain text mails? renJones ********************************************************** If you are not the intended recipient, employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination or copying of this communication and its attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication and its attachments in error, please return the original message and attachments to the sender using the reply facility on e-mail. Internet communications are not secure and therefore the UCLES Group does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this message. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UCLES Group unless otherwise specifically stated. The UCLES Group is getting a new look - we are adopting a new name and a new identity which expresses what we do more clearly - from July this year (2005) we will be trading as Cambridge Assessment. **********************************************************