[horde] Re: Installing Nag (Re: [nag] Nag still been developed?)

[Chuck Hagenbuch]

[Cc:ing this to the Horde list, as well...]

Quoting Francisco Reyes <francisco at natserv.net>:

> What could I use for this authentication?
> Right after I installed horde and called ../horde/index.html it
> presented me with a login screen.
> I have no idea against what it is checking, or how to add users..

>From horde/config/horde.php.dist:

// What backend should we use for authenticating users to Horde? Valid
// options are currently 'application', 'imap', 'ldap', 'mcal', 'sql',
// and 'ftp'.
$conf['auth']['driver'] = '';

etc...

> After all those experiences I must say that I am frustrated with what I
> have seen.

It sounds like you want to re-do everything that we have done, yourself, 
because you don't like our documentation and aren't willing to help us 
improve it.

> Some suggestions for Horde:
> -Documentation needs to be improved to indicate that one pretty much
> can't do a thing with just the base.

What do we imply that you can do? I guess we can do this; suggestions on 
how you'd actually go about that?

> -The FTP should only have the latest usefull code or a complete snapshot
> of all modules at a point in time. I installed horde from FTP and nag 
> from CVS. Nag is NOT listed on the registry.php of the horde I installed.

We provide multiple versions of our applications so that people aren't 
always forced to upgrade other components. And sometimes applications 
aren't ready for a release when other components are. I agree that this is 
somewhat confusing, but neither of your suggestions are workable. Any 
other ideas?

> -Both the horde framework and the documentation for each project should
> mention that registry.php should be modified. As a just in case scenario 
> the module should have in it's own Install file the code 
> needed in registry.php. As an example the listed requirements for nag is
> Horde 1.3 CVS, but I installed 2.XX (don't recall exact number) from 
> FTP, yet nag was not listed on the registry.php I got from the FTP 
> download.

This sounds like a really good suggestions. I'll put it on my todo list, 
but I don't know when I'll get to it; if you, or someone else, would 
submit a documentation patch, that would be wonderful.

> -Installation from modules should be easier. If this is a "framework"
> why can't there be a convention by which all modules would be installed. 
> Even if there are some steps which are unique, if at least there is a 
> basic set of common steps, then for each module people would have an 
> idea of how it will be installed. Even better.. there should be a 
> script. I don't know about the quality of the code, it's functionality 
> or almost anything about horde.. but it's release engineering could use 
> some serious improvement. It seems there hasn't been a concerted
> effort/thought/planning on installation/integration/consistency across 
> the modules (although I only say this from trying one module, but not 
> seen anything specific on the main horde doc hints that there isn't 
> consistency otherwise there would have being more instructions right on 
> the framework).

First of all, I'm trying to address your points and not grouse about the 
fact that you clearly state, several times, that you haven't really done 
your reasearch and are just making generalizations.

An installation script would be great. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of 
time to do well and to debug it, and to make it consistent across all of 
the apps. The core team members haven't had time for it yet; there's a lot 
of other things we want to get done. So if someone would step forward and 
say "I want to do this", we'd help whoever that was out as much as 
possible. But there are only so many hours each of us has; we have to rely 
on the open source community to occasionally step up and help us out when 
something is wanted.

> -I could not understand why there werent two copies  of the dist files.
> One with the dist extension and another one without. Or simpler.. 
> include a script to make copies. If there is already an example on 
> the INSTALL for horde then why can't you just make a script?

We don't distribute the non-dist files to make sure that we don't 
contribute to people accidentally overwriting their existing 
configurations. A script would be great. Want to contribute one?

-chuck

--
Charles Hagenbuch, <chuck at horde.org>
"A dream which helps you to live your reality with dignity
 and justice is a good dream." - Tariq Ramadan