Tom, my comment here is that we tried to do the exact same thing in Summer 2014 on XDATA. Just note that “dummy site” is now what we have in our operational site for Apache OODT. I think we have just only recently come to a point where it’s more stable (we don’t have people like Sebb coming externally saying our links don’t work).
Now you are proposing to change the site again, which design wise is fine by me (though shows how much I know since I liked SK’s old site even - and the new site started by the next generation also looks nice too). However, stability wise it’s not fine by me unless *the entire site* is migrated, and until we run a link checker against it long before turning on the switch to move over to it. No one is clamoring for a website redesign - it’s mostly been discussion led by you and commented on by Val, and Lewis. My 2c. Cheers, Chris — Chris Mattmann chris.mattm...@gmail.com On 4/5/16, 8:55 AM, "Tom Barber" <tom.bar...@meteorite.bi> wrote: >Okay here's what I propose. Apache CMS will be retired, not any time soon, but >at some point in the medium term future. ASF Infra offer gitsubpub/svnsubpub >as the standard for website publishing and we(I?) want something more useable >for non webdevs. Thats not necessarily code free, but certainly an easy >process for people to upload new content. >My suggestion is that I knock up a dummy replacement site in Jekyll, that >migrates across a couple of the pages and some dummy blog content, and I'll >come back and demonstrate the user publishing flow, at which point we can have >a discussion as to whether its something we pursue, or not. > > >Sound like a plan? > >Of course in the mean time, if anyone else has any suggestions for a "dynamic" >static website, speak up! > >Tom > > >On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 10:09 AM, Tom Barber <tom.bar...@meteorite.bi> wrote: > >Indeed Val >Ease of use is something I'm trying to achieve because it makes it easier for >everyone to help maintain our resources with minimum effort. > >In Jekyll (if that was a chosen solution Markdown is entirely optional, you >can just as easily publish HTML content as markdown, I just mentioned it as an >easy barrier to get people to write blog posts, but there are a bunch of HTML >generating apps on the market, of you could use the WP editor, and hit the >source button and copy the content from WP to Jekyll, not great always the >most obvious workflow, but would do the job. > >Also, not tried it, but Prose.io gives you a MD WYSIWYG editor for github, so >assuming we were running the fork -> pull request model, you could edit the >OODT site using Prose on Github and just push over a pull request with the >changes made. > > > >Prose seems to support basic formatting and inserting of images, once a >website template is designed I would expect contributers to do any more >anyway, unless they wanted to, content should be about writing a blog post of >page and hitting the go button. > > >A quick google also reveals some Word to Markdown tools, I've not used them >either, but I guess they would do a job. > >Tom > > > > >On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 1:30 AM, Mallder, Valerie <valerie.mall...@jhuapl.edu> >wrote: > >You are absolutely right, in markdown you would be missing images. My >objection to using markdown is having to learn a new language syntax for >styling the text. I have no objection to having a static site. I just want it >to be easy to use and not require that you have to spend time learning >something new. If it takes too much time to do (because you have to learn some >new stuff in order to do it) you may find that people will put it on their >todo list but never end up getting to it because they are too busy working on >higher priority tasks in their day jobs. I think your primary goal (when >choosing what you want to do) should be to add as little work as possible to >people's plates. That's all. If there are any WYSIWYG editors out there that >have the option to do a "save as" to markdown format that would be optimal. >But I don't know if there are any. > > > >Sent with Good (www.good.com <http://www.good.com>) >________________________________ >From: Tom Barber <tom.bar...@meteorite.bi> >Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 7:17:42 PM >To: dev@oodt.apache.org >Subject: Re: OODT Website Changes (Redux) > >Also, (playing devils advocate) if it's a word doc why can't you just copy >and paste it into a markdown file? The only major thing you'd be missing >is any images :) > >Another plus to a static blogging site is, if you decide it sucks in a few >years time, you just have some html to move somewhere else, it's just a >static website, if you decide WordPress sucked or infra said they'd host >it, then down the line changed their mind, you'd have a much bigger task >on your hands. > >Tom >On 3 Apr 2016 00:07, "Tom Barber" <tom.bar...@meteorite.bi> wrote: > >> Hey Val, >> >> You can write HTML and a bunch of other stuff, but I'm trying to offer up >> a solution that is easy for people to deploy and develop on outside of the >> Apache infrastructure, and markdown, being just text is easy to deploy. >> Also Wordpress etc require databases and backing infra where as Jekyll is >> purely static HTML by the time it is deployed. >> >> I have no idea if Infra would support wordpress anyway, I doubt it, when >> they said they were retiring Apache CMS, it wasn't like "oh but don't worry >> folks, you can stand up a wordpress website", I could be wrong, but that >> was my impression. >> >> At the end of a day, creating a blog post that looks like: >> >> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/maciakl/Sample-Jekyll-Site/master/_posts/2012-02-10-code-snippets.markdown >> >> is much quicker than writing a bunch of HTML, but the Apache CMS is also a >> bit of a lie, because if you think you don't have to write HTML because its >> a CMS, you're sorely mistaken! ;) >> >> Tom >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 12:00 AM, Mallder, Valerie < >> valerie.mall...@jhuapl.edu> wrote: >> >>> I am not familiar with Jekyll, but I disagree with using markdown. Why >>> must we write in any kind of markup language? That would suck. Why not just >>> use a better CMS? There are plenty out there. I personally develop websites >>> in Wordpress. It's free and very easy to use. You can edit posts in a >>> WYSIWYG editor. You can also copy-paste from a Word doc into the post. Just >>> my opinion. >>> >>> >>> > > >>> Sent with Good (www.good.com <http://www.good.com><http://www.good.com>) >>> ________________________________ >>> From: Tom Barber <tom.bar...@meteorite.bi> >>> Sent: Saturday, April 2, 2016 6:45:21 PM >>> To: dev@oodt.apache.org >>> Subject: OODT Website Changes (Redux) >>> >>> Alright folks, >>> >>> Most peope who have been on the list for a while know we moved from the >>> most static of static websites to Apache CMS a while ago to allow for more >>> regular updating and maintenance of the website. >>> >>> Lewis then put a bunch of work into creating a template for the CMS >>> website >>> and we revamped a lot of the content, but the CMS has a bunch of issues >>> both in the ease of developing a website and also in maintenance so the >>> Infra team are retiring it. >>> >>> My personal opinion(having done some of this in my day job, and discussed >>> similar on some other ASF projects) is we migrate the website to gitsubpub >>> and Jekyll. >>> >>> This will give us the ability to easily stand up the existing website on >>> our own laptops, or development servers make changes and deploy them. Also >>> without the templating system that Apache CMS enforces upon you, its a >>> far >>> quicker development cycle. >>> >>> Of course we could just use standard HTML & Javascript, but part of the >>> reason I'd like to use Jekyll is the fact users can create content using >>> Markdown syntax instead of HTML and Javascript. Jekyll is a static >>> blogging >>> platform, so its designed for frequent updating, and as people may have >>> noticed I've been blogging OODT stuff on my personal blog because the CMS >>> is a pain to update. >>> >>> Has anyone got an opinion? It feels like we did stage one which was make >>> the website easier to update, but stage two is to make the process a lot >>> easier, and standardised. >>> >>> Cheers >>> >>> Tom >>> >> >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
