Web site

Prototype GRASS site

• http://grass.fem-environment.eu/

based on CMS Made Simple (here at FEM, we are running 10+ portals for two years)

Pages to be transferred from old to new Web site

HTML Site Map (incomplete): http://grass.osgeo.org/sitemap.html

HTML Site Map (complete): http://grass.osgeo.org/sitemap_full.html

• ...

Pages already transferred

• Imprint
• Download
  • Sample data
  • Addons
  • Logos
• Documentation
  • Manuals
• Donations
• Get involved! http://grass.fem-environment.eu/get-involved/

Pages to be completely transferred from old website to wiki

These pages are yet partially transferred:

• Documentation
  • Tutorials
  • Books
  • News
• Screenshots
• Applications
• Support
  • Community
  • Mailing lists
  • Commercial support
• Development

Pages to be modified before transfer from old to new Web site

• ...

Pages to be archived

• ...

Pages to be deleted

For sure, some old stuff is superfluous...:

• ...

Pages to be newly developed

Inspired by other sites, some new content must be developed:

• ...
• Terms of Use: http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/terms/index.html - some text to be added to this page

Leftovers

(a complete list of old pages to be allocated into above categories during the transformation process - are we able to automagically generate it?)

CMS Made Simple editing tricks

• Select editor to use in "My Preferences"
• Error "Smarty error: ... unknown tag - ...":
  • You need to protect curly braces '{...}' with '<literal>{...}</literal>'

GRASS Web Site planning

The current GRASS web site appear a bit overloaded and unmodern (since it has been kindly handcrafted with vim since 1998, of course following some evolution from plain HTML to HTML/PHP with RSS integrated). The question is:

• go Content Management System (CMS)?
• or stick with static pages?

To keep in mind:

• traditionally low number of contributors (hey, this could be better with a CMS)
• mirror sites want to copy/clone the site without more efforts than using rsync (i.e., static copy)
• the new layout should be modern, fresh and attractive

Update 7/2010: grass.osgeo.org is now running on new hardware on Debian Lenny.

Nice sites

Here a list of sites which are looking nice:

reSt + Sphinx

• Geotools.org
  • System: Sphinx
  • Advantages:
    • Page files can be maintained in SVN
  • Disadvantages:
    • No WYSIWYG editor
    • I think the GeoTools site is about as fancy as you can get with it (not very).

• MapFish
  • System: Sphinx
    • Another nice FOSS4G sphinx site

CMS Made Simple

• CMS Made Simple
  • System: CMS Made Simple
  • Advantages:
    • WYSIWYG editor
    • Access control via roles
    • Static mirroring seems to be possible via http
    • Very light system, installed in a few minutes
  • Disadvantages:
    • Requires browser for editing

Drupal

• OSGeo Foundation
  • System: Drupal
  • Advantages:
    • WYSIWYG editor
    • Access control via roles
    • Static mirroring seems to be possible via http (? check)
    • Can be run within OSGeo's Drupal server
  • Disadvantages:
    • Requires browser for editing
    • Rather heavy system, installation may be complex but OSGeo can provide it

• see prior attempt on the Web Migration to Drupal wiki page

• a command-line admin tool called Drush is available.

"Drush is a command line shell and scripting interface for Drupal, a veritable Swiss Army knife designed to make life easier for those of us who spend some of our working hours hacking away at the command prompt."

• Geopublishing
  • System: Drupal (? unsure)
  • Advantages:
    • see OSGeo above
  • Disadvantages:
    • see OSGeo above

PmWiki

• LyX
  • System: PmWiki
  • Advantages:
    • Looks professional, it's very hard to tell that their front page is actually a wiki
    • Does not make the homepage look like a personal blog (/node12345) or wiki site
    • Wiki editing means low barrier to entry
    • Lightweight (200kb) & snappy
    • html→pmwiki converter: libhtml-wikiconverter-pmwiki-perl
    • The LyX people took good notes on how to set it up (here) and are approachable.
    • A good philosophy (more)
    • Stored on disk in flat files so you can use unix command line power tools to bulk maintain pages.
    • thus Mirrorable
    • See lyx's www-* svn
    • See lyx's RSS feeds
    • Active, monthly/quarterly new releases for the last 5 years
    • Translations status looks nice
  • Disadvantages:
    • All skins look somewhat old-fashioned to me (MN)
      • Lyx wiki skins
    • Install by hand as no Debian package
    • Might have a single administrative password for locked pages (ie homepage), so need to investigate how change history is stored (e.g.).

Wordpress

• Some random science blog

this page is mostly a "It Works!" placeholder, but gives the idea.

Unknown

• OpenStack

unknown

• Quick-R

unknown

• Sakai
  • It's obviously using one but I'm not sure which one it is

(the page code contains "jQuery.extend(Drupal.settings...")

• Thunar
  • It's obviously using one but I'm not sure which one it is.

or handcrafted with vi? See last line in source code

New OSGeo Web site

• One proposed suggestion: http://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/marketing/website/design/draft2a.jpg