Re: Retiring ports.php
On Aug 15, 2019, at 09:06, Mojca Miklavec wrote: > On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 at 15:27, Joshua Root wrote: >> >> I think ports.macports.org is already clearly superior to ports.php, so >> we should change the Available Ports link to point there. However, we >> should not remove ports.php so as not to break existing links. I think >> we should make ports.php queries redirect to the corresponding p.m.o URL >> when possible (it won't always be possible since ports.php lets you >> search more fields). > > What about specifying what is still missing and adding that > functionality to the new app? > >> Thoughts? > > I would definitely like to get a clear visible link to the main > website, as well as some post to macports-users and macports-announce. > Potentially we could even keep both sites for a little while. But what > would also be nice to do is some ability to back-link to the main > website from ports. Do we have someone with clear suggestions about > the landing page of ports.macports.org? > >https://github.com/macports/macports-webapp/issues/47 > > ports.php is simply part of the main page, so it's easy to keep > navigating to other parts of the site; we would need to add something > to the new app as well. Some kind of top / global menu, and definitely > improving the landing page. > At the same time it would also be nice to revive the discussion about > improving the overall design. >https://github.com/constantin-p/macports-site/issues/1 >https://constantin-p.github.io/macports-site/ > and converge to the design & content that we "all" want :) I am pleased that a better ports web app and main web site are being worked on, but I have not been following their development and won't be doing so due to spending time on other interests. The new web site looks great. I haven't examined it in detail so I don't know how it compares to our current site in terms of content: what it has, what it doesn't yet have that it later will, what it doesn't have from the old site that has been decided is unnecessary. The ports web app looks pretty good too, and certainly better than ports.php. I agree that once the new ports web app is thought to be ready, old ports.php links should be redirected to the new web app, (rather than serving effectively duplicate content, or answering with a 404 not found), where the new app provides the same functionality as the old. We can do the redirects by editing ports.php (which might be easier to start with, especially while we want to redirect some links but not others) or by creating web server rules (which we may want to move to once all links are redirects, since we may want to get rid of the php engine entirely at that point, if we move to GitHub Pages hosting for the rest of the site.) I agree that some of the old ports.php functionality needn't be preserved. For example, ports.php search expressions can use MySQL syntax [1], which I would just as soon not expose to users going forward. My hope is that all of our web pages adopt a unified navigation header. Some time ago I tried to think about what such a navigation header would contain, but it is difficult to encompass all of our sites in a way that makes sense, is not too wide, and is not overwhelming to casual users. I thought it might be worth thinking about classifying links as either "for users" or "for developers", so that casual users needn't encounter developer links unless they visit a developer-centric site like the buildbot, but it's not always easy to draw the line (e.g. Trac is for both users and developers). Note that the ports web app needn't be a separate hostname. If we want it to be at www.macports.org/ports, for example, we can do that by adding web server rules in the CDN interface. We already do this to map /news/ to GitHub Pages while the rest goes to Apache on Braeburn. [1] for example https://www.macports.org/ports.php?by=name&substr=mysql%25server
Re: Retiring ports.php
On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 at 16:16, Joshua Root wrote: > > On 2019-8-15 23:58 , Mojca Miklavec wrote: > > On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 at 15:27, Joshua Root wrote: > >> > >> I think ports.macports.org is already clearly superior to ports.php, so > >> we should change the Available Ports link to point there. However, we > >> should not remove ports.php so as not to break existing links. I think > >> we should make ports.php queries redirect to the corresponding p.m.o URL > >> when possible (it won't always be possible since ports.php lets you > >> search more fields). > > > > What about specifying what is still missing and adding that > > functionality to the new app? > > Sure, that would be even better, but presumably takes time. :) > > From a little testing, ports.php lets you search by platforms (not that > useful TBH), and tries to let you search by license, but it doesn't > actually work. I think that during early discussions I explicitly suggested to more or less ignore the platform as it's pretty useless :) Searching on the licence field could be doable, even if a bit tricky to get right with these and/or expressions (you cannot do direct matching on the full string). I guess we first need to fix the and/or display anyway. We could perhaps store this as binary json and then do searching on binary json for the matching? I have somewhat mixed feelings about whether this is worth spending time on. What I would like to really see with respect to licencing is the info about whether the port is distributable (at least on the latest OS). But I guess this info would best be coded in portindex.json, but generating that info might take a lot of time at the moment. > Yes, there should definitely be at least a link back to www.macports.org > from ports.macports.org. This should be straightforward to add (even if I would still prefer some proper & nice solution to some quick hack). > ML posts can be done too but are not blocking > website changes. :) Definitely. > > https://github.com/macports/macports-webapp/issues/47 > > > > ports.php is simply part of the main page, so it's easy to keep > > navigating to other parts of the site; we would need to add something > > to the new app as well. Some kind of top / global menu, and definitely > > improving the landing page. > > Yes, that would be nice too. I still think it's better than ports.php > even as-is though. Sure. Mojca
Re: Retiring ports.php
On 2019-8-15 23:58 , Mojca Miklavec wrote: > On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 at 15:27, Joshua Root wrote: >> >> I think ports.macports.org is already clearly superior to ports.php, so >> we should change the Available Ports link to point there. However, we >> should not remove ports.php so as not to break existing links. I think >> we should make ports.php queries redirect to the corresponding p.m.o URL >> when possible (it won't always be possible since ports.php lets you >> search more fields). > > What about specifying what is still missing and adding that > functionality to the new app? Sure, that would be even better, but presumably takes time. :) >From a little testing, ports.php lets you search by platforms (not that useful TBH), and tries to let you search by license, but it doesn't actually work. >> Thoughts? > > I would definitely like to get a clear visible link to the main > website, as well as some post to macports-users and macports-announce. > Potentially we could even keep both sites for a little while. But what > would also be nice to do is some ability to back-link to the main > website from ports. Do we have someone with clear suggestions about > the landing page of ports.macports.org? Yes, there should definitely be at least a link back to www.macports.org from ports.macports.org. ML posts can be done too but are not blocking website changes. :) > https://github.com/macports/macports-webapp/issues/47 > > ports.php is simply part of the main page, so it's easy to keep > navigating to other parts of the site; we would need to add something > to the new app as well. Some kind of top / global menu, and definitely > improving the landing page. Yes, that would be nice too. I still think it's better than ports.php even as-is though. - Josh
Re: Retiring ports.php
On Thu, 15 Aug 2019 at 15:27, Joshua Root wrote: > > I think ports.macports.org is already clearly superior to ports.php, so > we should change the Available Ports link to point there. However, we > should not remove ports.php so as not to break existing links. I think > we should make ports.php queries redirect to the corresponding p.m.o URL > when possible (it won't always be possible since ports.php lets you > search more fields). What about specifying what is still missing and adding that functionality to the new app? > Thoughts? I would definitely like to get a clear visible link to the main website, as well as some post to macports-users and macports-announce. Potentially we could even keep both sites for a little while. But what would also be nice to do is some ability to back-link to the main website from ports. Do we have someone with clear suggestions about the landing page of ports.macports.org? https://github.com/macports/macports-webapp/issues/47 ports.php is simply part of the main page, so it's easy to keep navigating to other parts of the site; we would need to add something to the new app as well. Some kind of top / global menu, and definitely improving the landing page. At the same time it would also be nice to revive the discussion about improving the overall design. https://github.com/constantin-p/macports-site/issues/1 https://constantin-p.github.io/macports-site/ and converge to the design & content that we "all" want :) Mojca
