Web site

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Revision as of 12:04, 16 July 2010 by Neteler (talk | contribs) (grass.osgeo.org is now running on new hardware)
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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:

  • 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).
  • 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
  • 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
  • Geopublishing
    • System: Drupal (? unsure)
    • Advantages:
      • see OSGeo above
    • Disadvantages:
      • see OSGeo above
  • 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 (oops I lost the url) 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:
      • 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.).