Re: [vos-d] thinking about a new web site
Posted at: http://interreality.org/phorum/read.php?2,107,114#msg-114 reed wrote: Peter Amstutz Wrote: --- > On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 02:09:11PM +0200, hellekin > wrote: > > *** I can give a hand on the new version. > > Great! > I have a friend that does some illustration, I was thinking of asking him about doing a few graphics/illustrations that could be used as a background or side images to frame the website and give it a nice solid visual theme/identity. I might start doing a bit of revision of the website content in preperation, reorganize the content into objects that will be ready to insert into any layout structure we develop. Reed ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] thinking about a new web site
On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 02:09:11PM +0200, hellekin wrote: > On Mon [EMAIL PROTECTED]:58:07 -0400, Peter Amstutz wrote: > > > > Anybody want to help do a new site design? > > > *** I can give a hand on the new version. Great! As I wrote in the previous email, I think want to keep more or less the same set of sections, but do a new layout for the overall page template. So feel free to create a new style sheet, menu, header/footer layout, background, logo and so forth. Put up a sample page and link to it on vos-d and everyone can comment on it. How does that sound? -- [ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet] [ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ] [ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ] signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] thinking about a new web site
On Mon [EMAIL PROTECTED]:58:07 -0400, Peter Amstutz wrote: > > Anybody want to help do a new site design? > *** I can give a hand on the new version. == hk ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] thinking about a new web site
On Mon, Oct 22, 2007 at 07:56:09PM -0400, Reed Hedges wrote: > > Here are some ideas I had on revamping the web site. > > Graphic Design > -- > > * Change the background to white or another light color. Maybe change > the main content area to a different shade too, rather than current grey. > > * A set of background/side illustrations, that convey some of the more > general themes of VOS and Interreality -- interconected things; > multifaceted stuff; distributed structures -- but also look cool and > have a "computer graphics" style to them. Sure. I did the current design a few years ago based on an even older design of yours (still online at http://interreality.sourceforge.net/ !!!) (we should probably take down the sourceforce page, although it is of historical interest ;-) Anyway, I don't claim to be a competent graphic designer, and the interreality.org cascading style sheet has grown completely out of control, so it is probably time to start over from scratch from a design standpoint. Anybody want to help do a new site design? > Pages > - > > It's great that the site runs on hypervos. Maybe we want to keep it, or > maybe we want to switch to something else then go back to it. It would > be great to have text in Vobjects that can be reused on multiple pages. Having updated the pages, I think it's worth staying with HyperVOS for now. We'll want to transition to an s5-based system eventually, but we need s5 first. > If we use a wiki for the main pages, we'd need to hide all the meta wiki > stuff. I've seen quite a few projects that use a more or less straight up wiki for their whole site, take http://bazaar-vcs.org/ for example. Hiding the wiki links does look more polished, though. > Sections > > > I don't think we really need a hierarchy [with the exception of "About", > see below], at least for the "public facing" aspect. These links can be > listen in a little table or grid at the top of the page, like they are > now (but set in a grid so they line up nicely, perhaps with logical > groping/separation). > > * About [See below] > * Screenshots > * News [redirects to forum announcements] > * Download > * Docs > > * Forums > * Mailing Lists > * IRC > * Servers [not at first, but eventually link to running servers] > > * Bugz > * Contact That's pretty much what it is divided up into right now, minus a "contact" page, and no "servers" page since there are none. > About Section/Docs > -- My main concern is that so much stuff is changing, in terms of both overall goals (trying to be a more focused on addressing specific tasks) and in the specifics of the technology, its hard to write useful documentation until development has settled down a bit. -- [ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ] [Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet] [ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ] [ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ] signature.asc Description: Digital signature ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
Re: [vos-d] thinking about a new web site
Here are some ideas I had on revamping the web site. Graphic Design -- * Change the background to white or another light color. Maybe change the main content area to a different shade too, rather than current grey. * A set of background/side illustrations, that convey some of the more general themes of VOS and Interreality -- interconected things; multifaceted stuff; distributed structures -- but also look cool and have a "computer graphics" style to them. Pages - It's great that the site runs on hypervos. Maybe we want to keep it, or maybe we want to switch to something else then go back to it. It would be great to have text in Vobjects that can be reused on multiple pages. One possability is to use a wiki for all the pages, and then transition back to hypervos once S5 is ready for it. We could have some pages consist of more free form brainstorming and draft documentation like the current wiki, and some pages be the more public facing webpages, but those pages could be smaller but interlinked. More detail below. If we use a wiki for the main pages, we'd need to hide all the meta wiki stuff. I'm also planning on figuring out how to set up a somewhat customized drupal site for a different project, so if that works out maybe we could use that. Sections I don't think we really need a hierarchy [with the exception of "About", see below], at least for the "public facing" aspect. These links can be listen in a little table or grid at the top of the page, like they are now (but set in a grid so they line up nicely, perhaps with logical groping/separation). * About [See below] * Screenshots * News [redirects to forum announcements] * Download * Docs * Forums * Mailing Lists * IRC * Servers [not at first, but eventually link to running servers] * Bugz * Contact About Section - This is where we explain what the heck Interreality is, and "sell" it. One thing we could do is have a set of short descriptions, each aimed at a different kind of person who might be interested, or describe in general terms how you might approach solving particular problem or implementing a type of idea using VOS. Docs Here we have short articles that explain how to do specific programming tasks with VOS (howto's), as well as the reference manuals. We should probably take S5 as an opportunity to split up the reference manuals, to have one for each library. I don't know if we should just update the "Creating Interreality" manual, or split it up into smaller documents. I'm inclined to split it up a bit, or at least separate the "VOS Design" document from the more practical program/how-to manuals. ___ vos-d mailing list vos-d@interreality.org http://www.interreality.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/vos-d
[vos-d] thinking about a new web site
I'm thinking about revamping the web site -- while I still want to
eventually write the next generation hypervos ("Interreality Web"?),
this is depends on the s5 work. Editing the current hypervos through
mesh is rather cumbersome, and quite a lot of information on the site is
varying degrees of out of date (and therefore misleading for new users).
I think it would be a good idea to retire s4 hypervos for the main site
in favor of a more prepackaged solution for the time being.
I think the site primarily needs the following collaboration tools:
- Wiki: Probably stick with MoinMoin. This is suitable for doing simple
static pages like the entry page, about, download page, etc; as well as
permitting user-contributed pages.
- Bug tracking: Probably reinstall bugzilla, unless you have any other
suggestions.
- Mailing list + web forum: I think a lot of casual visitors are more
likely to read and post to a web forum than join the mailing list.
People will also use forum activity as a measure of the "liveness" of
the project. I think the best of both worlds will be if we can find
either an integrated forum+mailing list manager (I haven't really found
anything yet) or a forum that supports cross-posting with an existing
mailing list (which I've found one so far - Phorum - which appears to
have a plugin that can do that.)
So I'm proposing:
- Rework the MoinMoin-based wiki to serve as the main page, shuffling
the current content onto other pages (and/or deleting out of date
stuff).
- Set up bugzilla again.
- Set up forum software (Phorum, or maybe something else) and tie it to
vos-d. This means email to vos-d shows up on the forum, and forum posts
go to vos-d.
One other thing worth considering would be some kind of blog+comments
feature for news. This may be possible with the right forum software
(and/or using the forum module of some larger CMS...)
I'm not 100% committed to this plan, but it is likely the easiest path
since we largely continue using the software we already have running on
the site. The goal is to spend thursday doing new site in preparation
for the interreality3d prototype release on friday, so that people have
a shiny new site to come to. By increasing the promenence of the wiki
and adding a forum, this should encourage more participation and
feeback.
--
[ Peter Amstutz ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ][ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ]
[Lead Programmer][Interreality Project][Virtual Reality for the Internet]
[ VOS: Next Generation Internet Communication][ http://interreality.org ]
[ http://interreality.org/~tetron ][ pgpkey: pgpkeys.mit.edu 18C21DF7 ]
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