RFC: We need a new demo site

Creating Neos & Flow Design & UX
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TLDR: from my perspective we need a new demo site, with a more “real life” context and not just a feature show case.

The current situation is not weird because the demo site is just a show case of feature available on Neos. The demo site is the first touch point with the CMS for many users, so it need to feel the following requirement:

  1. Nice & polished Design/UX (basically UX is our main focus, the demo site should promote our values)
  2. Real Life (what about some kind of product launch website about Neos, but targeted at selling the CMS
  3. Promote best practice and a place to learn basic stuff in TS (listing, pagination, reuse content, …)

We start an interesting discussion here https://neos-project.slack.com/archives/neos-general/p1478264802007145 about build your own package or adapt existing one … and I think we have one of the best CMS out there to go with “build your own lean and focused package” … and not fall in the “build generic monster”.

For the point 3. every feature implemented on the demo site must have a blog post on Neos.io that explain how to build them, the pros/cons, the traps, … and advanced tips & tricks.

If we succeed to go in the direction, I think we can improve the first contact with the CMS, highlight key feature of our tools and help people use them correctly.

What do you think about this ?

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I think it would be great to have a better demo site.
I also think that the Demo site should be available to test Neos without having to install anything first or sign up for some service.
After a discussion on Meet Neos I’ve set up this just as a least-effort example and maybe a point to start from: http://neosdemo.passcreator.com/
I think one of the problems of the current demo site is not so much that it lacks more real-life examples but more that it’s still too hard for editors that want to see Neos to find a way to do exactly that.
That’s maybe part of a different discussion but I think it’s related to this.

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Discussion at Neos Barcamp Hamburg between @dimaip, @berit, @sebobo

  • We could use the idea and basic design of the current neos.io
  • We should put effort into a good showcase of features and best practices instead of creating a big idea for the demo site
  • We should look into improving the Neos.NodeTypes package to also use best practices, e.g. splitting NodeTypes into separate files
  • Tutorial blog posts which have their code in the demo website would be great
  • Use frontend framework so we have less work and people know it already
  • We need a tutorial on how to continue after your understood the demo site and want to continue
  • Maybe we continue with using story books as the basis for the demo site, or having a tutorial how to create a storybook for your own
  • Milestone 1 for a Neos 3.1 demo site would be changing the code to use current best practices
    • We would propose best practices we will include, but not too much discussion
      • DocumentType based rendering ?
      • Provide more Fusion Objects to simplify stylesheet and js includes?
      • Fluid only for templates without too much or without logic?
      • Fusion objects instead of partials?
      • Allow NodeTypes.yaml files to be put into folders (needs core change)
      • How to organize NodeTypes.yaml files with mixins etc…
      • How to override an existing NodeType to have your own labels etc…
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I’m in line with your view of a new demo site. Generally, the demo site should feel like the average SME website: A few pages, a blog, a contact form.

If this gets built I would volunteer to write a step-by-step guide on how to build this demo site from scratch. This way you can understand everything that’s going on. Also, you know exactly what you’re going to build.

The documentation for Neos (and especially for Flow) is a real drawback for newcomers. You can get lost between the new concepts that Neos introduces, a new template language, a completely new DSL Fusion. There are no clear best-practices in the docs. If you only have an hour or two to play with Neos then it will not be a lot of fun.

I will definitely need help for this. I do not have enough time to write a whole step-by-step guide.

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