[ZWeb] Re: volunteers wanted! zope foundation website as guinea pig

[Tom Von Lahndorff]

http://modscape.com/zope
I added "Design 2". I like it much better than "Design 1". I think we  
should work off of "Design 2" Thoughts?


On Aug 22, 2006, at 1:43 PM, Martijn Faassen wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> It's nearing september, and I'd like to start some work on  
> zope.org, in particular www.zope.org/foundation. I'm looking for  
> volunteers to help.
>
> As you all probably know, we have a Zope Foundation, of which I'm a  
> board member (representative for the committer members). Aroldo  
> Souza-Leite is also on the board as chairman.
>
> Aroldo and I are the board members responsible for the zope.org  
> website committee. The task of the zope.org committee is to improve  
> the zope.org web presence. Aroldo and I won't be doing the work or  
> decision making alone, but since we have the backing of the  
> foundation, we can make decisions stick. Volunteers are welcome to  
> join this committee!
>
> One of the first tasks at hand is to improve the presence of the  
> Zope Foundation on the web. We currently have a section here:
>
> http://www.zope.org/foundation
>
> This website doesn't look very pretty at all. My proposal is to  
> reorganize it, have some introductory text, put in links to  
> relevant information resources, such as mailing lists (including  
> this one), and to stick a nice layout around it.
>
> This project will serve two purposes:
>
> * to create a nice website for the foundation.
>
> * serve as an example and test case for the wider zope.org renewal  
> project.
>
> So, please help us out.
>
> Layout
> ------
>
> I propose we use Tom Von Lahndorff's design for the foundation  
> website. For the purposes of the foundation site we should strip it  
> down:
>
> * no login necessary
>
> * no search (unless we integrate google-based search, perhaps)
>
> * possibly no drop-down menus at the top. We could simply have  
> links there, or possibly a standard left-hand side navigation. This  
> design is the top page; we need to see a sub-page design as well.
>
> Tom, are you still there? This time we're going to use what you  
> made quickly, if you're willing!
>
> Structure and text
> ------------------
>
> Aroldo and I (Aroldo, I'm volunteering you :) are willing to work  
> on a bunch of restructured text documents that introduce the zope  
> foundation and set up the site structure.
>
> Technology
> ----------
>
> I've said this before, and I'll just repeat it again: let's try to  
> avoid technology discussions as much as we can. Most of us,  
> including myself, are techies, so it's attractive to do this, but  
> we just want to put a website up. This doesn't require any new  
> technology, nor does it require a heavy-duty CMS.
>
> To break my own rule on no technology discussions right way:
>
> I propose letting www.zope.org/foundation point to a Apache  
> directory, where we maintain HTML files. We will then generate such  
> HTML files from restructured text we maintain in the zope SVN  
> repository, using a simple script that drives docutils.
>
> If you want examples of websites that are managed this way and I  
> have personal experience with, check out the following places on  
> codespeak:
>
> http://codespeak.net/z3/
>
> http://codespeak.net/lxml/
>
> Since we're not aiming for a big site, this should be sufficient  
> technology.
>
> For the larger zope.org, we may need something else, or we may not.  
> Let's treat the foundation website as a trial case here too, and  
> see how we like it.
>
> There's one alternative to this approach that will also work on the  
> short term: a volunteer that's willing to work with zope.org and  
> integrate the layout and text and structure we want into existing  
> zope.org infrastructure. If someone volunteers to work on this, I'd  
> be happy to do it that way as well. Does anyone volunteer?
>
> Any other technological approaches require more setup and I'd like  
> to defer them for the time being. We can take them up when we  
> tackle zope.org proper.
>
> I hope we can all have this together in a couple of weeks, so let's  
> start working!
>
> Regards,
>
> Martijn