Need some JSR-286 Help from the Sakai CSS Wizards

[Charles Severance]

On May 2, 2007, at 7:56 PM, Colin Clark wrote:

> These also make sense to me. Though I'm curious to hear how you  
> think an "extensibility escape clause mechanism" might look in this  
> context.
>
>> All these hinge on a variety of assumptions that may be way off -  
>> that the portlet specification is *not* markup agnostic, for  
>> example (1), that the different selectors do *not* need to remain  
>> totally independent and standalone (2), that the need for  
>> simplicity trumps completeness (3 and 4), that it is *not* a  
>> heresy for a portlet to look great on my system and just "ok" in  
>> yours (5), etc.
>
> Chuck, how do these assumptions mesh with the Portlet 2.0 philosophy?

I think that the key is to come up with some simple extensions that  
implement what you are talking about - but not to go so far as to  
freak out the mostly geek population that makes up JSR286.  This is a  
nervous group because it is the big players (IBM, SUN, Oracle, BEA,  
etc) and they want a implementable spec - not one that is really broad.

My basic problem is that the 286 CSS won't even let me rearrange  
where menus are and put them in a single div and put content in a  
different div - at least not in a standard way.  I think of the  
necessary CSS to make it possible in Sakai for menus to be on the  
left and vertical or have the menus at the top and horizontal and  
justified left, center or right - all under control of CSS.

I think that the key is to get one or two simple but well done HTML  
wire frames in-hand for one or two basic use cases for a page.

Perhaps the two use cases are (a) a basic form with some fields like  
Modify details in the Sakai Account tool and then (b) a very simple  
list of items with actions and headings.

If I knew where the Sakai wireframes were - I could take a look at  
them and make more direct suggestions.

I will have to sell this to the 286 gurus so...  But I think that it  
is really important to fix this *now* because 286 will be around for  
a long time.

/Chuck