I have many people to thank, but most of all I would like to thank everyone for attending and participating. Vancouver managed to fool everyone into thinking it doesn't rain here, and we had about 300 unique visitors over the course of 3 days, averaging about 150 per day.

Thanks again to all our sponsors for helping to cover the costs of the space. I hope to help encourage and promote more of these events both in Vancouver and in the global community, and work together with many other open source projects on common issues.

And now...on to Northern Voice 2006. 

Or was it 15? 13 went by our very swank chartered bus to Wednesday's snow event at Cypress, 1 drove and I don't know what happened to Andre!

It was great. Walter and I taught Geo Dan how to cross country ski (he really didn't need our help, he is a natural!), 5 went snowshoeing and another 5 went downhill and snowboarding. Most importantly, everybody returned happy and unharmed 

[Cross posted from VanEats]

Attention, fellow OSCMS attendees. Need some fresh air or just a change of scenery to motivate your open source software development? I suggest the following two places. They both have delicious food and free WiFi: The Templeton (great diner style burgers both meat and veggie and breakfast, open at 9a.m.) and Take 5 (VanEats Take 5 Review) at 429 Granville (open 7a.m. - 8p.m. Mon to Fri; great coffee and food). Both are great for impromptu hacking sessions; especially Take 5's comfy couches! The Templeton being a diner is much smaller but it's nice and cozy

Ace Drupal developer, Neil Drumm, asked me to enumerate the costs for the snow event tomorrow Feb 8 (catch the bus at 5:15p.m. on the west side of the Vancouver Art Gallery) for those who are renting, so here they are:

1. Snow shoe: $20 for bus, $30 for tour (includes guided tour and rental, you get 10% discount if you have your own snow shoes) - total $50 (must tell Roland 604 729 7924 or catch me at the conference by 3p.m. Tuesday)
2. Cross country skiing: $20 for bus, $13.08 for trail ticket, $13.16 for rentals: Total: $47 if you don't have your own equipment, $33 if you do
3. Down hill skiing and Snowboarding: $20 bus, $28.04 lift ticket, $32.46 rentals, Total: $80 if you don't have your own equipment, $48 if you do

[Cross posted from my food blog, VanEats]

Here are the latest changes:

1. We're taking a bus (with plenty of room for your gear if you brought yours)! Meet 5:15p.m. Wednesday Feb 8 on the Hornby Street side of the Vancouver Art Gallery which is at 750 Hornby Street (about a 2 minute walk from the OSCMS venue at UBC Robson).
2. Cost for return bus fare is $20. Pay Roland Tanglao cash before 5:15pm. We need 20 to break even on the bus (it holds 40). We need more people (don't need to be OSCMSers!).
3. Snowshoers must take the guided tour since there are no lit trails. Cost is $30 (10% discount if you have your own snowshoes). You must reserve by 3p.m. Tuesday Feb 7th by letting me, Roland Tanglao know. Grab me at the conference, email roland AT rolandtanglao.com or call 604 729 7924.

Get the complete details (including links to rental info) at the updated event list: OSCMS Cypress Skiing, snowboarding and XC/snowshoeing event

Moderator: Bård Farstad

Most CMS rely on visual editors as a way to allow novice users to manage the formatting of content.

A major problem with these editors is that they are often some mix of unstable, feature-poor or hard-to-use.

Part of the problem is that developing visual editors is not usually the core focus of any CMS project.

Another key issue is that browsers, when taken as a whole, make crappy platforms for applications.

What can we do to enhance existing visual editors or create ones that work better?

How can we make integrating visual editors easier for all Free/Open CMSs as a class?

Perhaps we can develop common APIs and components as a way to help visual editor developers?

Phew! Almost at go time. There are some final schedule changes to make which I'll list below -- bring your other session ideas etc. to the conference space, and we'll do ad hoc scheduling, BarCamp style.

Dan Scott - cancelled. Dan unfortunately had work commitments which meant he could no longer attend. Shane Caraveo will be presenting his Remote XUL frontends in that evening slot.

New: Mambo/Joomla overview from Robert Broughton in the 11:15am slot. Yay Mambo Joomla! (I'm tempted to call it Moomla....)

New: Easing WYSIWYG editing pain -- 14:30 on Thursday. Users love WYSIWYG, designers hate WYSIWYG. Are there ways to make WYSIWYG editors not suck? 

Switched: Decentralized revision control systems and Large project workflow improvements have moved to the afternoon, so Improving Drupal Documentation and the Decisions Module have earlier slots. Commence yelling at me for screwing up the schedule.

Look for a certain ae2005 to be doing some day of scheduling of ecommerce related functionality and maybe some theming demos with the folks from FresnoFamous. Also, don't forget about Wednesday night's ski/snowboard/snowshoe extravaganza -- see Ski, snowboard, Cross Country Ski, Snow shoe at Cypress  -- Roland got us a party bus to drive up in, you can get all your rentals on the mountain.