GHOP #121: Create a recipe for setting up a shopping cart site in Drupal

Hey, Sorry I haven't posted anything yet. I plan to do a screencast. I'm currently outlining it. Question though...is it safe to do a tutorial with a beta version?

This is what I have for an outline so far. Its in Word Document form. I'm trying to juggle this and homework. I'll update it as I work on it more and more and then I'll make the screencast with probably about 20 attempts. >.<

I'll extend your deadline on the google task tracker. For the screencast, I don't think you should concentrate on module installation and enabling--maybe do it for one module and then just say repeat.

The script looks good so far.

You will find alot of information on http://www.ubercart.org/docs/user

Dan

@aclight: I planned to just demonstrate one installation and tell the user to repeat. I have the outline set up that way I do for myself when I explain it. I feel explain which modules need to be enabled is essential info. I'll go over it quickly or I could put it in notes.

@Dan: Thanks :)

Here's what I have so far. It needs revising and it's incomplete, but it's progress.

http://blip.tv/file/597063 (I just uploaded it so it may take a while for it to be converted to a flash video file.)

This is looking very nice so far.

I realize that the task description does not require this, but it would be really helpful if you could create a handbook page for this tutorial as well. You wouldn't need to spend a lot of time on that--it could basically be the outline for your script, as well as a few useful links or side points here and there. No screenshots are necessary. The page would of course link to the screencast. See http://drupal.org/node/200657 for an example of what I mean. Again, not required for you to complete this task, but it would be really great.

I do have a few comments about the screencast you have up right now:
A.) Around 1min into it, you say core, but I think you mean (and should say) Ubercart core.

B.) The module installation section takes too long, IMHO. I think you could get by with referring the user to the handbook page (assuming you create one as I suggest) which might have a list of ALL modules that need to be enabled for Ubercart to work using your tutorial.

C.) In some cases you're typing in the description fields. It would be a little faster if you could copy/paste a description into that. But I'm not sure if that's easy to do with the screencast software, so if not that's fine.

D.) I'd like you to have an image to upload for your sample product. If you can't find an image of a red (or another color) t-shirt that you have permission to use, that's fine, but it would be good to have the picture so you can more fully demonstrate the features.

E.) You typed in the same price for the store purchase price and the sale price. It would be best to use these fields as intended, and make the sale price higher than the store purchase price.

F.) It would be nice if, before you demonstrate adding an item, you already had several other items added, and in various categories. Thus, when you go back and show the catalog, etc. you have other items there and it's easier to see how the item you just added fits in with the site.

G.) Make sure to follow the guidelines given at http://drupal.org/node/62196, especially with regard to the creative commons logo. I think it's ideal to add the CC logo at the very beginning of the screencast, along with a title slide, and then go into the screencast.

The audio is clear, and you are speaking at an appropriate pace and with good enunciation, and I feel that this is definitely headed in the right direction.

I realize that you may already know about all or most of the things I pointed out above, but I know that redoing a screencast is a pain, so I wanted to make sure to point out everything I could think of now so I don't come back later and mention them then :) However, most of these are pretty minor, so if you weren't planning on redoing the beginning of the screencast I could live with things as they are. But at least think of them as you move on from here.

Again, great work! Keep us updated with your progress, but if you feel you need a bit more time when the due date comes around, feel free to let us know.

Thank you very much for the review. I plan on redoing, expanding and refining it and making a handbook page. I hope to have this done by this weekend. Its hard to juggle homework this. Speaking of homework...

Very nice first draft. I feel like this will be used by a lot of people to help them set up a store.

A couple minor details that haven't been mentioned yet :) :

Don't let the status report show an error. It's probably just that you haven't run cron yet, but it distracted me, and people new to Übercart or Drupal won't know what that is.

TAPIr is pronounced "tay' per", like the animal.

Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see the finished screencast.

Here is what I hope is the final draft:
http://blip.tv/file/612890

There were some audio sync issues and I think I fixed them. There are a few audio artifacts but I hope they're not too distracting and acceptable. I also wasn't able to get the title slide and CC slide to work out. Sorry. If anyone knows of a video editing software that would allow this, It would be appreciated.

Overall you did a nice job with this. I think I could use this screencast to at least get a basic shop set up in Ubercart.

I said earlier that a handbook page wasn't required as part of this task. However, after re-reading the original task description, it does state "The final deliverable will be a published page or video in the Drupal.org handbooks, reviewed by a member of the documentation team."

But since creating a handbook page should be really easy, and I trust that you'll actually follow through with that, I'm willing to go ahead and give you credit for this with GHOP since I think you've done everything else (with one possible exception, see below).

Here are my comments and suggestions. I would appreciate it if you could address the simple ones that don't require you to redo the screencast. For the suggestions that would require a redo, just keep them in mind if you happen to do another screencast at some point.

1.) Add a link to the handbook page you'll create on the blip.tv page. In addition, a title slide in the video with the URL of the handbook page would be nice. I realize you had difficulty editing the screencast to do this, and that's fine. I haven't made a screencast before, but I would have tried just having the title and CC license slide in a Powerpoint presentation (or similar) and include those in the screencast at the beginning.

2.) On the handbook page you create make sure to provide a link to the blip.tv site for the video and also please add a note with the license on it to the handbook page. Everything in the handbook pages is supposed to be CC 2.0, but a note that specifically states that would be good.

3.) I wasn't sure if you did the last thing on the requirements list: "- install an additional cart specific contributed module of your choice". If not, I'm not sure it is worth having you redo the video for that. But if you didn't do that, perhaps on your handbook page you can have an additional section with some written instructions and a screenshot or two that describes how to do this. That would be perfectly fine with me.

4.) I assume that Ubercart can use a select box for the size attributes instead of having a text field where the user types in the size. If so, I would suggest using that instead of a text field. Again, this could be a section on the handbook page.

5.) FYI, when you were going through the checkout process, your email address was visible briefly. If you have a problem with that, you might need to edit or redo the video. It doesn't matter to me but I wanted to make sure you knew this.

6.) I'd like to have a brief conclusion at the end of the video just to wrap it up so it doesn't end so abruptly.

So, as I said at first, you did a great job. I trust that you'll follow up with some of the points above before GHOP is over, but I want to give you a chance to claim another task, so I'm headed over to the Google tracker to mark this task as closed.

Thank you very much for the credit. I count on redoing the screencast addressing the comments above. I'm a perfectionist >.<

Just to let you know I have not abandoned this issue. I'll work on it throughout this week.

This was marked fixed in the Google tracker. See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7762478718465017930&hl=en

Hey,
I've been busy with school big time. I haven't touched this for a while and I'm sorry. It saddens me the task is closed. I will find time to redo the videocast and create a manual page.
I have now found ways to add slides, so I'll incorporate that as well.

I'll post what I can.

@linuxlover: Don't be sad that the task is closed. You *did* successfully complete the task, and marking it closed allows it to disappear from our My issues trackers, etc. Marking it closed is in no way an indication that you did a bad job or anything. You can feel free to reopen this issue if/when you get the time to work on updating this and you want some feedback.

We all know how busy school can be, and now that GHOP is over feel free to contribute when you get the chance--no pressure.