OE eZXML Templates

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kracker (the)	Friday 29 June 2007 9:22:45 pm I received a request recently that struck me as interesting idea. We are needing a little code work done and was wondering if you are interested. It is probably more javascript than anything else. Basically we want to add a drop down to the OE buttons. When a user makes a selection from the drop down it populates the editor with related XML content. In essence the same way the insert table function works. A basic example: User selects "Health & Wellbeing" from the drop down the editor then insert the following rendered XML. <header level="1">General</header> <header level="2">Medication</header> <table border="1" width="300px"> <tr> <td>Name</td> <td>Effect</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </table> We would need a method to be able to add and edit entries from the drop down. And it would need to be relatively painless to re-add this function after an upgrade to the OE editor, ie. not have to pick through their js code, perhaps a simple include or something. It is an addon I think the community would find useful so we'll probably contribute this one too. Let me know if you would like to look at this and how much you would charge if so. Yet after looking that the most complete offering of features to both user and administrator/developer we saw this project being time consuming and a potential danger if the customer disrespected our time. After some time I wrote a document to address my own concerns before returning to the customer to ask again for a hard line budget, if they have unreasonable expectations it might be best to walk away, it's happened before. Project Name: OE eZXML Templates Document http://www.zshare.net/download/2493450911ab18/ http://gamma.zshare.net/download/903ba5daebe2f072737b603510b14e2b/1183177797/2493450/ez_oe_textblock_document.pdf I share this document because someone else might wish to pickup this project and I think we had a few good ideas which deserve to be shared rather than never see the light of day. Enjoy :\ Still with this document I realized that this customer would not engage. We quickly pushed all of this aside to continue on ... I asked the customer again what their budget limit was for this project. I was disheartened to hear their reply which seems unreasonable. We weren't thinking that is was going to be a big project as the elements already appear to be there in OE. Usually we expect to receive a quote based on how many hours it would take you to undertake the work. It sounds as though you think it is going to be a big project so may not be best to proceed with you. We were thinking it would only be a few hours work for an experienced programmer, so in the few hundred dollar range. If it's larger than that we can look for other alternatives or leave it until there is greater demand from a client for it. It sure read like the subtext in the customer's reply was derogatory. I challenged the customer to submit all of this to Open Funding. I thought to myself how it would be really interesting to hear just what the forum might say to this situation, to hear just what others think about it's complexity. Our design provides for the flexible implementation of all requirements / features but is hardly 'in the few hundred dollar range'. <i>//kracker</i> <b>Theme: Sole : Exile EP : Terror in the Water</b> Member since: 2001.07.13 \|\| http://ezpedia.se7enx.com/

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kracker (the)

Friday 29 June 2007 9:22:45 pm

I received a request recently that struck me as interesting idea.

We are needing a little code work done and was wondering if you are 
interested.  It is probably more javascript than anything else.

Basically we want to add a drop down to the OE buttons.  When a user 
makes a selection from the drop down it populates the editor with 
related XML content. In essence the same way the insert table function 
works.  A basic example:

User selects "Health & Wellbeing" from the drop down the editor then 
insert the following rendered XML.

<header level="1">General</header>

<header level="2">Medication</header>

<table border="1" width="300px">
 <tr>
   <td>Name</td>
   <td>Effect</td>
 </tr>
 <tr>
   <td></td>
   <td></td>
 </tr>
</table>

We would need a method to be able to add and edit entries from the drop 
down.  

And it would need to be relatively painless to re-add this 
function after an upgrade to the OE editor,  ie. not have to pick 
through their js code, perhaps a simple include or something. 

It is an addon I think the community would find useful so we'll probably 
contribute this one too.

Let me know if you would like to look at this and how much you would 
charge if so.

Yet after looking that the most complete offering of features to both user and administrator/developer we saw this project being time consuming and a potential danger if the customer disrespected our time. After some time I wrote a document to address my own concerns before returning to the customer to ask again for a hard line budget, if they have unreasonable expectations it might be best to walk away, it's happened before.

Project Name: OE eZXML Templates Document
http://www.zshare.net/download/2493450911ab18/
http://gamma.zshare.net/download/903ba5daebe2f072737b603510b14e2b/1183177797/2493450/ez_oe_textblock_document.pdf

I share this document because someone else might wish to pickup this project and I think we had a few good ideas which deserve to be shared rather than never see the light of day. Enjoy :\

Still with this document I realized that this customer would not engage. We quickly pushed all of this aside to continue on ... I asked the customer again what their budget limit was for this project. I was disheartened to hear their reply which seems unreasonable.

We weren't thinking that is was going to be a big project as the elements already appear to be there in OE.

Usually we expect to receive a quote based on how many hours it would take you to undertake the work.

It sounds as though you think it is going to be a big project so may not be best to proceed with you. 

We were thinking it would only be a few hours work for an experienced programmer, so in the few hundred dollar range.

If it's larger than that we can look for other alternatives or leave it until there is greater demand from a client for it.

It sure read like the subtext in the customer's reply was derogatory.

I challenged the customer to submit all of this to Open Funding. I thought to myself how it would be really interesting to hear just what the forum might say to this situation, to hear just what others think about it's complexity.

Our design provides for the flexible implementation of all requirements / features but is hardly 'in the few hundred dollar range'.

<i>//kracker</i>

<b>Theme: Sole : Exile EP : Terror in the Water</b>

Member since: 2001.07.13 || http://ezpedia.se7enx.com/