Enhanced News Package Requirements

by Lin Chen

I. Introduction

Other docs of this package

This document describes the requirements for package News. The News package should include all functionalities of ACS3.4 News module, plus more features, cleaner file structures, and more user-friendly User Interface as described in this document.

In this document, the News package refers to this new package to be developed, while the News module refers to the existing News module.

This document includes the following:

II. Vision Statement

The News package is to manage news items, which are only interesting for a period of time, hence should disappear into archives when expire. News items should also be commentable by readers. This package will allow group-scoped news posting/viewing with configurable approval policy at newsgroups level.

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III. System/Application Overview

The News package should not depend on any other packages except ACS core.

When compared with ACS 3.4 News module, the goal of developing this package includes:

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IV. Use-cases and User-scenarios

The News package is intended for the following classses of users, which may or may not overlap:

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V. Related Links

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VI.A Requirements: Data Model

To minimize the effort of implementing this package as well as the upgrade effort from the News module to News package, all code in the News module should be reused as much as possible. The data model for the News module should continue to be used. More columns/tables can be added if needed. An SQL file will be provided to upgrade the News module to the News package.

VI.B Requirements: Scope

The news items should be scoped similar to how they are scoped in the existing News module. The News module has the following scope:

There should be admin interfaces to add/enable/disable newsgroups. Site-wide admins have full control to all newsgroups, while the newsgroup admins can only change the newsgroups they administer.

VI.C Requirements: Approval Policy

Each newsgroup may have one admin group (more than one newsgroups can have the same admin group), and has it's own approval policy. The approval policy can be one of the three values:

There should be web interfaces to set approval policy for newsgroups.

VI.D Requirements: E-mail Option

Each newsgroup should have an e-mail option. If the e-mail option is set to "yes", and the approval policy is "wait", then when a member suggests a news item, the admins in this newsgroup are notified by e-mail. The newsgroup admins can edit the e-mail option for the newsgroups they administer. The site-wide admins can edit the e-mail option for any newgroup.

VI.E Requirements: User Interface

In general, the user interfaces should be consistent (look and feel) and have convenient navigation.

VI.F Requirements: File Structure

Following the APM convention, all user files reside under /www/, all newsgroup admin files reside under /www/admin/. All site-wide admin pages are under /admin-www/.

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VII. Future Enhancements

Newsgroup Admins have an option to spam items to a group of users (can be a group of users result from a SQL query, for instance, users who have downloaded ACS within the last six months.

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VIII. Revision History

Document Revision # Action Taken, Notes When? By Whom?
0.1 Creation 12/12/2000 Lin Chen
1.0 Revision 12/29/2000 Lin Chen Kyle Nicholls

lin@arsdigita.com