Suggestion: Website redesign

[onli]

Hi
I spent the last day trying to build a prototype for a different s9y.org-site. I think that with s9y 2.0 on the horizon, the website could use an overhaul. The optical look, the way the features are presented, also the documentation.

As that may sound like a year-long or never finished project (and that is something i don't want to suggest again) i build the prototype as detailed as possible, with an example of how i would change the content, so there is something concrete to talk about.
Here a link to the Prototype. As he will probably only work in chrome yet, i made two screenshots: 1, 2.

It is only a suggestion. If you want, I would continue to work on that, implementing your remarks, making a s9y-template out of that, adding browsersupport, rewriting the documentation - and would happily accept every help i could get (with everything, but especially with the graphics. The images are placeholders!).

Your opinion please :-)

[Timbalu]

Hi Malte

Well done!
As far as I understand these picasa images, this isn't onl(y/i) an overhaul of s9y.org, it is also some redesign of the serendipty admin template and the default template, right? Or are these just the mentioned placeholder images to document the documentation on s9y.org?

If this is meant to be for s9y.org only, please continue!
I think redesigning the docs is something very needful, especially when including Garvins updated online book in near future!

I am willing to help as much as I can.

[onli]

It's only meant as an overhaul of s9y.org. As far as i know, yellowled and don are working on a new default tempate.

[yellowled]

It's only meant as an overhaul of s9y.org.

Personally, I don't see the point in doing a redesign of the whole s9y.org/Forum/Spartacus etc. shebang right now. We're going to have to do that at some point, but in my humble opinion, as of now any resources available would be better spent in core and plugin development.

Then again, updating the documentation is something I would consider very useful – although I know that Garvin is hoping to be able to put a translated version of his book online instead of it if and once the publisher gives permission to do so.

As far as i know, yellowled and don are working on a new default tempate.

As of know, I have an HTML skeleton based on the HTML5 Boilerplate which is about 90% finished, that's it. I'm not sure Don's going to find much time to contribute, which is fine by me. The issue here really is time management – right now, I'm more or less swamped with work and private stuff, but I should have more time at hand in about 3 weeks.

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

First of all, thanks for this work! To me this looks quite modern. I don't want to burst anyones bubble, but I'm afraid that it might not really be workable to implement. Currently s9y.org is powered by coWiki, which is no longer maintained - but we IMHO need a wikilike system to power our content.

However mediawiki does not really offer a good kind of automatted navigation, and I wouldn't know how to import the content...I'm afraid changing the content presentation according to the prototype would be impossible with cowiki....

IMHO I also would much more like to focus on the s9y admin styles and workflow. Maybe a workable way inbetween would be to create a static page for the s9y.org index page, with a presentational interface, more like a splashscreen - and then use the current s9y.org wiki for the pages after that...?!

[yellowled]

IMHO I also would much more like to focus on the s9y admin styles and workflow.

I'm afraid there hasn't been much progress on the backend styles, but I'll contact levito once more about it. If he's too busy to actually contribute, I might need some assistance with that, although with some hours of work this weekend, the frontend template is progressing nicely.

Maybe a workable way inbetween would be to create a static page for the s9y.org index page, with a presentational interface, more like a splashscreen - and then use the current s9y.org wiki for the pages after that...?!

Oh, boy. Please don't.

Is it completely out of the question to migrate to a modern wiki or even a CMS?

YL

[Timbalu]

Hey, Malte said heading to 2.0...! So this prototype can grow slowly and carefully. It is just one branch of future branding and serendipity development.

And I don't think there would not be a way to migrate (with a little help from us all) and have some main pages as an overlay on a modern background wiki or similar.

@Malte, personally I would change this white text on gradient blue thing to something more readable (at least on scrollable pages), which could lead to some different main design.

@YL, but we have time, since the frontend/backend developments were not meant to be for 1.6, were they?!

[onli]

@Garvin: Thanks for clearing things up. So I understand correctly that there are those different pieces at the moment: The website powered by CoWiki, embedding a s9y-blog, a separate phpBB-forum and spartacus (which also seems to be s9y-powered).

Are you really convinced we need a wiki? If the list of the recent changes is accurate, there are almost no contributors for documentation.

Maybe a workable way inbetween would be to create a static page for the s9y.org index page

I think the start-page shouldn't be in a different design than the rest of the site, and disconnected splashpages are evil ;).
More important: I like the rewritten feature-page more. That's why i included it, my prototype should not only show "new visual approach" but also "rewritten and refocused texts", something I'd like to extend to the documentation (note that the FAQ is also cleaned up a little bit, and I would have changed more if I didn't think of the answers to be quite good). I wasn't aware of your book replacing(?) the docu.

Maybe we could build the whole site with s9y? It'd be a very modified and specialised template, but it could work. Think anything would work with a template-system and an user-login with rights only for editing the documentation.

@Yellowled: I am not currently working on anything serendipity-related (apart from troja, which stalls at the time) and am coding a lot, so i wanted to do something different. Maybe give me a call if you need help.

@Ian: Well, before working further on the design itself, think there should be a vague roadmap how it could be applied or at least an agreement that a (not necessarily this, just a prototype) new design should be applied somehow, sometime.

[yellowled]

@YL, but we have time, since the frontend/backend developments were not meant to be for 1.6, were they?!

No, and they won't be.

For the time being, I'm working on both of them alone, which is fine by me. However, it means I have to spend time working on them when I have it available, which is kind of difficult at the moment. Right now, I'm concentrating on the frontend theme.

Once that has reached a point at which I need feedback, I'm going to show it to you guys. Might be another week or so, might be tonight. This will most likely be a rather basic version focussing on sensible markup and a solid base layout.

YL

[yellowled]

Maybe we could build the whole site with s9y?

This has been suggested before, more or less because most open source blog/cms do so, but I'm not sure it would be the most comfortable choice, especially since it's not really good at creating navigation elements automagically for many static pages.

@Yellowled: I am not currently working on anything serendipity-related (apart from troja, which stalls at the time) and am coding a lot, so i wanted to do something different. Maybe give me a call if you need help.

Well, I'm not at the point where I need actual coding help yet. I will, however, most definitely need some help with adapting plugins for HTML5.

If you're looking for a pet project … well, not to step on anybody's toes here, but in my opinion, it would be great if someone picked up the static pages plugin to maintain and rehaul it. This has become a crucial plugin, but it definitely could use some work. I guess this is pretty huge for a pet project and most likely not exactly a fun job, but I think it would be widely appreciated.

YL

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Even though our current wiki is not properly used, I think the need for an open documentable system is required; if we'd use a CMS, we would need one that could be easily used and supports full versioning as well as easy subnavigation and crosslinking. Personally, I don't see s9y able to provide this.

Also, the current content needs to be preserved somehow, so that we don't lose currently "working" content...

There are currently no specific ways to publicize the book on the documentation...but this would by my end-term goal for when the book can be "freed" by the publisher. I'm not in negotiating talks with them currently, though.

[yellowled]

* open documentable system
* easily used
* supports full versioning
* easy subnavigation
* crosslinking

Personally, I don't see s9y able to provide this.

Agreed.

"crosslinking" means an easy way to set links to other pages in the system, like a dropdown box or even automagic detection of links wiki-style, right? Because if we didn't need that, we could simply do this in static HTML and keep it in a GitHub repo.

YL

[onli]

* open documentable system
* easily used
* supports full versioning
* easy subnavigation
* crosslinking

Quite a list. We know that is possible to implement in s9y, but it would be a lot of work. Does someone now a CMS fitting to that description we could use, or is it necessary to extend the staticpage-plugin to be able to redesign the s9y-page? That'd be a challenging roadmap (designing a s9y-template, extending the staticpage-plugin to be able to write the mainpages and documentation in it, including those features).

Also, the current content needs to be preserved somehow, so that we don't lose currently "working" content...

If the redesign includes "rewriting the documentation", I'd like to question that requirement. Depends on how it is meant. The current documentation could and should be stored in a backup, possibly an accessable one, but not necessarily sidy by side to the maybe-existing new one.

PS @YL: github+"pure html" would be awesome as the prototype could be the real basis for that, sadly probably not easy to use.

[yellowled]

Does someone now a CMS fitting to that description we could use

Yes, http://www.contao.org (although I swore an oath to never use it again).

YL

[jimm1909]

Does someone now a CMS fitting to that description we could use

Yes, http://www.contao.org (although I swore an oath to never use it again).

YL

Where are we on this redesign currently? Has anyone thought of using Drupal?

Thanks,

-Jim