Structure of our websites (in CVS + on the servers)

[Christoph Cullmann]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Friday 11 October 2002 10:04, Rainer Endres wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Thursday 10 October 2002 17:39, Navindra Umanee wrote:
> > If you want to do some constructive WWW work and got some free time,
> > might I suggest that you focus on content?  Websites like the dot need
> > a lot of help content-wise.  Having a pretty website that's dead with
> > no regular content isn't exactly the best "corporate" image...
>
> I just want to clearify Cullmann is not the only one owrking on this. There
> are more ppl involved, including maintainers of some of the bigger
> *.kde.org pages. He is just doing the visible stuff, wich enables
> _everybody_ to help.
I won't dictate the design, I won't dictate the content, I won't dictate who 
maintains what (and how should I do that at all ? ;).
I just want to get first some structural stuff done before the mass of peoples 
help with the design/templates/navigation changes, as it is very 
contraproductive to first redesign a webpages, change the link structure and 
so on and later break all the new work with moving around subdirs (atm that 
doesn't break much, as the most links goes over the *.kde.org subdomains, not 
over the dir structure, but that will change if the pages move closer 
together in the future).

>
> Navindra, I nowhere saw any statement by cullmann that the content has to
> be neglected. We have _lots_ of content already, but it is hard to
> maintain, thats the main reason nobody tries IMHO. The desing suggestion is
> there, and using it while renovating the content we have, is the best way
> to test it. So lets not stop discussing it just because there is work to do
> on the content.
Yes, content is there (perhaps the dot is not the "activest" news page in the 
net, but if I send there everyday that I am today happy and well will surely 
increase the traffic, but not really the content ;), but the content is not 
really managed. Our managing efforts won't take away resources from content 
writers, they will make it much more easy to actually create new content.

>
> The current kde.org pages are a good example for "community structure"
> based websites. *.kde.org reflects the structure of the KDE project, wich
> is totaly unfamiliar with ppl outside the project. It has grown this way,
> it is not bad, but it can be improved. Thats one goal to keep in mind.
> kde.org is mostly an entry point for ppl outside the project, not only the
> KDE intranet page.
;) right, too
kde.org stuff has grown up in years, most subpages are really maintained very 
well (look at www.koffice.org, printing.kde.org, usability.kde.org), never 
want to create the impression that the maintainers hasn't done a great work 
on their pages, they have done and hopefully will do in the future ;)
But nobody has (or at least not really) managed the structures around the 
different areas/app pages, which created the current mess. Users will go to 
www.kde.org and search for info, which is in the most cases allready there, 
but hard to find. Each subpage has it's own news format, as their is atm no 
common news function (in templates/* now their is allready a stolen one from 
www.kde.org for common use which uses rdf). Each subpage needed to create 
it's own templates, now their will be common for future use. And so on.

>
> The most important point to keep in mind for this effort, is to make
> maintaining and generating content for kde.org as easy as possible. Not "it
> works" but easy. When we want "normal developers" helping on the content,
> they must be able to do so without caring about masses of HTML or stuff
> like this, just generate the content wanted and include it at the place it
> should go.
Yeah, exaclty, and with the new templates we will set up under www/templates 
which will be easily includable from everywhere under www.kde.org we can get 
both:
1) very easy page generation
2) very consitent look and feel (in the end our webpage will have like our 
    desktop environment a common look and feel)

>
> Just my 2ct, but I intend to invest quite some time and work to help in
> this effort, since I think it has to be done.
which is nice ;P

cu
Christoph

- -- 
Christoph Cullmann
Kate/KDE developer
cullmann at kde.org
http://kate.kde.org
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.0 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE9po07yPjDGePm9UIRAhd0AJ4oCwU0dTCsQVEmyHvAsc8t3Q7aawCfUtaV
6VFevC11mi05NsRgx3HEuZE=
=yfb+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----