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Author Topic: Open position for web page admin  (Read 71163 times)

JuhaManninen

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Open position for web page admin
« on: March 26, 2013, 09:17:53 am »
Hello

There has been discussion about improving the main page
  http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org
over the years. It cannot be improved with patches like other parts of Lazarus and its documentation can, so nothing has happened.
I see it as a black spot in our open source development process. Patches are handled quite well but all ideas about the web page are ignored.

The situation will change if there is a volunteer person or people willing to improve the page.
The person / people must have these qualifications:
- Some idea of web page development.
- Shares the opinion that the main page should be more attractive for new visitors, at least answering the question "What is this about?" and making installing / testing Lazarus easy.
- Must have commitment to maintain the page for some time.
- Willing to take ideas and feedback from other people, but also have own vision (otherwise it leads to headache).

The benefits are the same as for all Lazarus developers (the joy of helping). :)

The server resources for Lazarus forum and web pages are kindly provided by FirmOS.
  http://www.firmos.at/
There will be a new VM copied, and a VPN connection for it. Through VPN all ports and protocols can be used (ssh, ftp, scp, http).

The forum SW is TinyPortal which is a mod for SMF.
  http://www.tinyportal.net/
More technical details will be given if needed.

Please DO NOT use this thread to suggest actual improvements for the web pages.
I am afraid this thread will became very long if you do so. Use another thread for that.
We are now only looking for a person (or people). All possible suggestions should go to this new volunteer.

There are many long threads already about the topic. For example this one with hundreds of messages :
 http://www.mail-archive.com/lazarus@lists.lazarus.freepascal.org/msg05702.html

So, who is the happy winner?

Regards,
Juha
« Last Edit: March 26, 2013, 09:19:46 am by JuhaManninen »
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JuhaManninen

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2013, 10:02:10 am »
Two more things:

The main page can be (mostly) static HTML. Deep knowledge of PHP or TinyPortal SW is not needed.
A page can be defined as pure HTML in TinyPortal.

There is no dead-line really because the current page will be there until the new one is ready.

Easy job! :)

Juha
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

itmitica

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2013, 04:29:43 pm »
Count me in.

--
Mitică

fabienwang

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #3 on: March 26, 2013, 07:35:23 pm »
Hello,

I have a lot of experience with web programming, php, javascript, python, ruby, etc.
But i'm an horrible designer ^^

If i can help...
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Bart

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #4 on: March 27, 2013, 11:06:16 am »
How much time do you think maintaining the front-page would take (after the initial work has been done)?
I could make a new front-page, as long as it is OK to use only static html and css, but I'm not keen on spending too much time on maintaining (as in updating the page every week or so).

Also, I'm not really good at (visual) design. Most of my pages are "old style".

Also I'm not a native Engish speaking person, so chances are there will be strange language constructs, grammatical errors and misspelled words, so (and I think this would be wise for anyone wo will actually end up doing this) thorough review before publishing will be necessary.

If I understand correctly, the new front-page look, can be totally independant of the current style we use on the forum?

Bart

Dibo

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2013, 08:06:34 pm »
I'm missing pascal formatting in <code=pascal> tag from old site. New admin could add this on todo list ;)

BigChimp

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2013, 08:29:21 am »
@Dibo:
Please DO NOT use this thread to suggest actual improvements for the web pages.
I am afraid this thread will became very long if you do so. Use another thread for that.
We are now only looking for a person (or people). All possible suggestions should go to this new volunteer.
Want quicker answers to your questions? Read http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Faq#What_is_the_correct_way_to_ask_questions_in_the_forum.3F

Open source including papertiger OCR/PDF scanning:
https://bitbucket.org/reiniero

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nsunny

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2013, 09:52:07 am »
How much time do you think maintaining the front-page would take (after the initial work has been done)?
I could make a new front-page, as long as it is OK to use only static html and css, but I'm not keen on spending too much time on maintaining (as in updating the page every week or so).
Maintaining a small scale homepage will not take that much time. I think first 2-3 weeks is crucial. That's when bugs and improvements have to be made. But later on it would need attention once a month, or on an occasion. It is better that you use php or any dynamic languages to automate tasks that need maintaining. For example, announcements, forum popular posts etc. With dynamic you can almost forget about maintaining the website, except for design improvements.

@JuhaManninen
I am good in html, css, javascript, php, mysql. I have built many custom scripts/websites (which include an article submission system with categories, users, templates, localization etc., phpBB voting system which integrates with the user database to cast votes, a technology product website which gives incentives based on referrals and many more...). So I can help.
(I have got to admit that I am still a bit inexperienced on subdomains, protocols, load balancing and vpn)
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jwdietrich

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #8 on: March 29, 2013, 10:02:17 am »
Please DO NOT use this thread to suggest actual improvements for the web pages.
I am afraid this thread will became very long if you do so. Use another thread for that.
We are now only looking for a person (or people). All possible suggestions should go to this new volunteer.

Please discuss possible actual improvements at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,20426.0.html .
function GetRandomNumber: integer; // xkcd.com
begin
  GetRandomNumber := 4; // chosen by fair dice roll. Guaranteed to be random.
end;

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Bart

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #9 on: March 29, 2013, 10:35:48 am »
It is better that you use php or any dynamic languages to automate tasks that need maintaining. For example, announcements, forum popular posts etc. With dynamic you can almost forget about maintaining the website, except for design improvements.

If that (dynamic content) is a requirement, then count me out.

Bart

marcov

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2013, 11:01:11 am »
  It is better that you use php or any dynamic languages to automate tasks that need maintaining.

Commonly thought, and totally wrong. Why? Three  reasons:

- static html is more easily mirrored.
- FPC does not use hosted sites with only minimal serverside options (like preinstalled LAMP), but own servers. Running e.g. FPC programs in cronjobs is thus not a problem
- Any FPC/Lazarus devel can operate and maintain a pascal template expander that expands a markdown/XML or whatever version of the news to a new
    static page. As a devel, he is also supposed to be able to add something to a html or XML document.  Not all can handle PHP, and while more than one can do some PHP,
    that is something else from knowing the exact version and set of pkgs on the server.

Quote
For example, announcements, forum popular posts etc. With dynamic you can almost forget about maintaining the website, except for design improvements.

With a setup as e.g. the FPC site, you can simply add the news to some file in SVN, and the rest goes automatically. 

 

nsunny

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #11 on: March 29, 2013, 12:16:46 pm »
@marcov
Quote
- FPC does not use hosted sites with only minimal serverside options (like preinstalled LAMP), but own servers. Running e.g. FPC programs in cronjobs is thus not a problem
- Any FPC/Lazarus devel can operate and maintain a pascal template expander that expands a markdown/XML or whatever version of the news to a new
From your response I understand that you are thinking websites based on freepascal. That is totally what I did not have in mind. I have never tried it. I don't know if is it appropriate for this job. You would know better.

Quote
- static html is more easily mirrored.
May be. But using dynamic language allows changes very fast and even easier with a backend (Admin panel). No need for going over codes. There are SMF and Mediawiki running in Lazarus website. They use php (= dynamic). Dynamic should be used where it is needed. (The current webpage is SMF based and thus php based.)

But yes, dynamic scripts may have security issues. Things like SQL injection can totally ruin the website when a hacker attacks. That's why it is better to test the software throroughly or use CMSs that are regularly updated.
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JuhaManninen

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #12 on: March 29, 2013, 12:27:11 pm »
One important thing came up in our devel mailing list discussion.
The web page sources (html/css/javascript) should be under revision control just like any other source files.
There will be a sub-directory in SVN and then people can provide patches. The web page development will be an integral part of the open source development process. Cool isn't it!

Now the situation is a little confusing. Helmut has not copied the VM, I guess he is busy.
The web admin Marc suggested creating "HTML articles" under the current pages. He only must enable some options for it.
I don't know the details of this plan yet.
How about access rights?
How about dynamic contents? I mostly agree with Marcov, "static" pages are mostly enough here. It includes client side JavaScript.

The TinyPortal SW already provides dynamic contents (forum posts) in the current main page.
I guess the "HTML articles" would not allow that.
I will return when I get more info...

Juha
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

Bart

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2013, 04:29:20 pm »
The TinyPortal SW already provides dynamic contents (forum posts) in the current main page.
I guess the "HTML articles" would not allow that.

I think we should not have that (forum posts, tweets, svn logs) on the main page.

Bart

JuhaManninen

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Re: Open position for web page admin
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2013, 05:16:30 pm »
I think we should not have that (forum posts, tweets, svn logs) on the main page.

Yes, at least not being so dominant.
We have been talking about the main page only but actually the contents can be divided to many pages.
So the page revamp includes the main page + some other pages linked to it.

Now we are getting into the page contents discussion. Let's do that later or in another thread.

Juha
Mostly Lazarus trunk and FPC 3.2 on Manjaro Linux 64-bit.

 

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