# Some thoughts **URL:** \ **Category:** Radiant CMS\ **Created:** [September 22, 2006, 7:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-thoughts/69603 "2006-09-22T07:10:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Maurizio_B)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 7:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-thoughts/69603/1 "2006-09-22T07:10:26Z")
Hello. I love radiant, thus, by transitive relation, its creators too 🙂 I find it is the simplest to use and most effective CMS I’ve ever used. There are two categories of people using radiant: people who knows ruby and rails, and people who doesn’t (either because they are not programmers or simply they have not enough time to study them). Radiant should be friendly with both categories. I’m certain it is with the first one, a little bit less with the second one (the non programmers). 1. Essential is an extensive documentation with **a lot of examples** (working and practical ones–how to, etc.) easy to spot in the radiant web site; it seems to me this is going to improve quickly even if, given the importance of this issue, I’d second John’s idea to have a dedicated site for examples, plug-ins and documentation (“We need something like Textpattern’s [http://textpattern.org/.](http://textpattern.org/.)”, John L.). 2. The core has already a lot of functionalities and radius tags are very powerful, but an end user needs “plug-ins” or “add-ons” modules which extends the system functionalities beyond the core ones, and that **work out-of the box** (without patching or other programming related activities). The first ones that popup in my mind are, for example: page/tree level password protection to accesss/edit pages (either on the site site or the administrative interface); easy to setup form with mailing capabilities; some way to support multilingual sites; search; sub.menus; tagging; comments; (it seems the last three are there, based on the last posts I read on the list); various behaviors, and an easy way to use multiple of them concurrently if necessary (I think there is a recipe on this which was posted on this list). I understand easy to follow recipes are already available, they just need to be packaged. I’ll be pleased to help with documentation (translation, proofreading of examples, ecc.), test new code as required by the core programming team or plug-in developers, try to answer easy to solve questions on the mailing list, evangelism for radiant, contribute resources for the plug-in/documentation dedicated site. Many thanks to the core team for having conceived and put radiant in the wild. –M ---
**Author:** ![Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Maurizio_B)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 10:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-thoughts/69603/2 "2006-09-22T10:48:00Z")
Maurizio B. wrote: > Hello. > > I love radiant, thus, by transitive relation, its creators too 🙂 > > … truncated … > > 1. Essential is an extensive documentation with **a lot of examples** > (working and practical ones–how to, etc.) easy to spot in the radiant > web site; it seems to me this is going to improve quickly even if, > given the importance of this issue, I’d second John’s idea to have a > dedicated site for examples, plug-ins and documentation (“We need > something like Textpattern’s [http://textpattern.org/.](http://textpattern.org/.)”, John L.). > > 2. The core has already a lot of functionalities and radius tags are > very powerful, but an end user needs “plug-ins” or “add-ons” modules > which extends the system functionalities beyond the core ones, and > that **work out-of the box** (without patching or other programming > related activities). The first ones that popup in my mind are, for > example: page/tree level password protection to accesss/edit pages > (either on the site site or the administrative interface); easy to > setup form with mailing capabilities; some way to support multilingual > sites; search; sub.menus; tagging; comments; (it seems the last three > are there, based on the last posts I read on the list); various > behaviors, and an easy way to use multiple of them concurrently if > necessary (I think there is a recipe on this which was posted on this > list). I understand easy to follow recipes are already available, they > just need to be packaged. > > … truncated … > > –M Most of the functionality you speak of will most likely be done as plugins since, I believe John’s goal was to keep the base system pretty simple. While I agree some improvements can be made, I don’t think the goal is to create a feature-laden system. That’s just my opinion though, I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@Maurizio\_B](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Maurizio_B)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2006, 1:04pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/some-thoughts/69603/3 "2006-09-22T13:04:57Z")
On 9/22/06, Ian G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Most of the functionality you speak of will most likely be done as > plugins since, I believe John’s goal was to keep the base system pretty > simple. While I agree some improvements can be made, I don’t think the > goal is to create a feature-laden system. That’s just my opinion though, It seems your opinion is in line with the radiant spirit. The plugin approach is perfect. Plugins though must be well documented, easily accessible (found and downloaded), and working out of the box (tested) to be used effectively by non programmers.