[Plone-NGOs] Initial thoughts on a "Plone for Nonprofits" bundle

[Kai Harris]

On 1/8/07, Duncan Booth <duncan.booth at suttoncourtenay.org.uk> wrote:

> I expect the preferred technique these days is to use the ZMI to configure
> CompositePack on your development system and then export the configuration
> and import it onto the live system.
>
> But that's just the initial setup: the end-users of CompositePack have
> never needed to go anywhere need the zmi.

I'm speaking as a nonprofit professional trying to build a plone site.
 I'm neither an end-user nor a professional developer.  I have
recently taught myself enough to build page templates, but wish this
wasn't necessary knowledge to effectively use composite page-building
products.

When I looked at both CompositePack and ContentPanels in August or
September, ContentPanels had more out of the box functionality than
CompositePack, so I chose ContentPanels.  While I care about the
technical merits of CompositePack vs. ContentPanels, I want to use the
tool that requires the least amount of template-building.

I imagine that my experience is similar to many nonprofits.  We are
developing in-house and are learning Plone as we go.  Composite
page-building products should be designed for people like us.  Plone
developers can build their own custom pages templates without using
composite products, but I can't and most nonprofits can't unless they
hire a Plone developer!

As a side note - this email thread is my first real introduction to
the Plone Community, and I have to say I'm impressed!  It's really
cool getting such great responses and discussion about nonprofit Plone
use.

Kai

Kai Harris
Operations Manager
Legal Assistance for Seniors
http://www.lashicap.org