On 8/5/07, David Chisnall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 4 Aug 2007, at 03:22, Jesse Ross wrote: > > > With 0.2 out the door and work starting on 0.3, I think it's time > > to put a fresh face on the website. Some site-related issues I've > > noticed: > > I agree that the site needs some work. > > > - The blog is using a different content management system > > (Blogger) than the rest of the site (Mediawiki), thus we're all > > maintaining two separate accounts to get content onto the site. > > This is the one that really irritates me. The Blogger interface is > absolutely terrible. The rich text editing thing doesn't work at all > (it randomly drops characters, or decides I want to overwrite > something I've already written). The HTML entry seems to mangle my > HTML in unexpected ways. It doesn't notify me of comments left on my > blog entries, so I don't reply to them punctually, and it doesn't > notify people that I've responded to them, making the comments system > useless (not to mention the lack of threading etc.) Having to > maintain a separate account for that is mildly irritating too.
Well, you don't really need to use a lot of HTML for blog. The purpose of blog is easy to publish. I do agree that the comments are not notified. But on the other hand, it is easier to discuss on maillist or SILC. So I rather not to use blog for serious discussion. It is more like a bulletin board for me. And most people probably read RSS, not even the blog web site. So I would say these are very minor issues. I feel it is more important to have a blog easy to manage. And blogger use gmail account, which I believe most of us has one already. > > > - Our blog is not functionally integrated into the overall site > > (URL or navigation-wise) > > Very true. The news part really should be much more tightly > integrated with the blog; it seems very strange to be producing both. > > > - Content management/navigation of Mediawiki is problematic (pages > > are not in well-defined parent categories, end-users have > > difficulty accessing relevant content) > > Part of this is a layout issue with our current design. We have some > navigation boxes at the top, and some on the side, and I tend to > forget about the ones at the top (they don't provide a strong visual > clue that they are navigation related). > > > - Recent code progress is still not in a prominent location > > (making it hard for users to know that we're still alive) > > It would be really great to have the RSS feed from cia.vc on the > front page somewhere, but I don't think mediawiki has a good way of > doing this. Showing the times of the last svn commits is a great way > of saying 'we're still an active project.' I don't get that from the > site at the moment. I also don't update things as often as I should > because MediaWiki markup is a pain to use (and very badly documented). > > Even though it's a bit verbose, I wouldn't mind having to enter [X] > HTML, although the big problem with that is that there is no extra > indirection with URLs, so you have to be careful with them. > > The web space we have on GNA supports server side includes, so it > would be relatively easy to use this directly if we had a set of > template pages and a set of banner includes (e.g. header, footer, > sidebar). To make a new page, you'd just copy one of the templates > and link to it. > > I think part of the problem with the current layout is that it's very > easy with MediaWiki to create new pages, leading to a lot of sprawl. > > > - We need good, recent documentation in an easily searchable/ > > browsable format > > I would like every svn commit to be accompanied by an automatic make > of the documentation on the server. This would be possible with the > svn commit hooks if we ran our own svn server (which I don't > suggest), but is harder with GNA. I've filed a feature request with > GNA. Another option is to use the downloads area to host the > documentation (e.g. http://download.gna.org/etoile/etoile.html). We > can upload to this using rsync, rather than svn, which makes it a lot > easier to automate. If we added a target to etoile.make that would > set the document install directory to a temporary location, make and > install the documentation there, and then rsync it to the server, > that would probably be helpful. I can image the documentation change much less than code. So I don't see the need to regenerate it whenever code changes. The download area has permission issues. For example, yesterday I tried to update the dependencies directory, but directory was created by Quentin, so I have no permission to use rsync or even sftp with it. It is not a ideal place for collaborative work. I still think GNA web space is a good place for documentation, where we can upload documentation manually. Since it also support SSI, I think it would be good as our front page, too. > > > - URLs have a lot of cruft (ie: the About page is at http:// > > www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/index.php? > > title=EtoileWiki:About , which would be much better as just http:// > > etoile-project.org/about ) > > I agree. > > > - Our identity is using violet, white, gray and black now -- the > > blue, green and patterned background are not a major part of our > > current identity as of 0.2, and will not be used at all for 0.3 > > - Large images (such as screenshots) overflow the page's edges > > So do wide tables etc. > > > - The large central flower image, while attractive, provides no > > functional information and becomes quickly redundant on subpages > > I agree. On a small form-factor device, I have to scroll on every page. > > > - The blog should be using a similar theme as the rest of the site > > Agreed. > > > I know most people are comfortable with Mediawiki based on > > conversations we've had before, but I'm wondering if using > > something else wouldn't be better. In the past I've proposed > > WordPress, but Drupal looks like it might be a good long-term > > solution also/instead. I'm wondering if anyone has any other > > suggestions about what to do with the site, or if there are any > > major objections to moving to something drastically different in > > the process of building 0.3. > > After 0.2, we used something like 50GB of bandwidth in three days. > Hopefully 0.3 will be even more popular, and so anything that > involves none of us having to pay for that seems like a good > solution. I would advocate putting as much of the site on GNA as > possible. Use the website area in svn with SSI for the main pages, > and the download area for automatically-generated documentation. I'm > not sure what to suggest for the blog. I found a support item from > 2004 saying GNA planned on supporting PHP 'soon,' but as of 2007 they > still don't. They do support Apache SSI, which apparently allows the > running of external programs, but I'm not entirely sure how one would > go about using this. Without this, allowing comments is quite hard. I agree here mostly to use GNA space. I also want to mention that I don't really like to allow users put comments everywhere (blog, wiki, etc). It is really hard to find them all and reply back. I rather pool all the discussion on maillist and SILC. To me, blog and wiki are just a place for publish, not discussion. Yen-Ju > > > I have some proposals for a new site hierarchy, which I've outlined > > below -- if no one has any objections to it, I'd like us to move to > > something that is more closely in line with this structure, > > regardless of what underlying technical solution we use. A clean > > URL hierarchy will help us keep new content focused and near other > > relevant content. It will be important to add redirects > > into .htaccess so that old links are redirected to the proper > > location. This won't be easy as it'll have to all be done by hand, > > but it needs to happen to make sure people are ending up in > > (approximately) the right location. > > > > Home etoile-project.org > > - News /news (blogs, press, feeds) > > I like these sub-categories. We should try to keep a clear > distinction between blogs (what developers are saying) and news (what > the project is saying officially). > > > - Etoile /etoile -> /etoile/$version (overview) > > I'm not sure we need the $version bit here. Could you elaborate? > > > - Download /download -> /etoile/$version/download > > (should also provide a link to /more) > > I presume this will be a little wrapper around the download.gna.org/ > etoile stuff? > > > - Features /features -> /etoile/$version/features > > I'm not sure why this is separate from /Etoile. > > > - Support /support (contact, bug submission, > > etc) > > Yup. > > > - Get More /more (apps, add-ons, etc) > > I'm not completely sure what goes here. > > > - For Developers /dev -> dev.etoile-project.org > > - Getting Started dev.etoile-project.org/start > > - Installation dev.etoile-project.org/install > > These two are definitely needed. Currently we have more accurate > information on the blog than on the main site for installing. > > > - Documentation dev.etoile-project.org/docs (needs to allow > > for > > user comments) > > We can automatically generate PDF and HTML documentation for > frameworks, and I suggest we start doing that and putting it online > soon. Any insufficiently documented framework should be treated as a > bug for the 0.3 release. > > > - Status dev.etoile-project.org/status (CIA feed) > > I'd like to see this on the front page. As soon as people visit the > site, there should be something saying 'look at us! We're an active > project.' The GNUstep site is the exact opposite of this; the front > apge rarely changes, and there is nothing dated on the page giving an > indication of when it was last modified, so a casual visitor could > easily assume the project was dead. > > > ( -> represents a redirect) > > A lot of the exact URLs will be defined by how we implement it in the > end. If we are using GNA, then this will affect things unless we put > some frame wrapper on etoile-project.org. > > > Please let me know if there is anything I'm missing. Other > > comments, suggestions, flames, etc are always welcome. > > Two things I would say are missing: > > - FAQ. > We want a quick reference to questions like 'are you trying to clone > OS X' > > - People > It might just be me, but I find it easier to trust a Free Software > project if people are willing to put their names to it. Having > faceless developers makes it much harder to relate to the project. > We have something like this on the current site, but it's quite well > hidden. > > David > > _______________________________________________ > Etoile-discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-discuss > _______________________________________________ Etoile-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/etoile-discuss
