[tech] New website proposal (Or: How to beat a dead horse)
Luke Williams
shmookey at ucc.asn.au
Wed Mar 11 00:53:28 WST 2009
Hi everyone,
I've been working on a new design and back-end for the UCC website based on the complaints I've heard about the current one and suggestions I've heard for future ones.
Here's my pitch: design-wise, it drops the rapidly-aging header graphic from the old website and provides a range of quick-access links in the header - users shouldn't have to 'dig around' on the site to find something. On the back-end I'm using ikiwiki backed onto git: it's fast and stable (because it generates static html) and because it uses a conventional revision-control system, you can check out the sources and edit it in whichever editor you like. For quick updates, you can also edit in browser. Of course, it brings all the well-understood power of a wiki to the site too, and has a design created from scratch with free software.
What I haven't addressed yet are the domain-specific issues: content and structure. I present to you my proposal for a new UCC site structure (which is really not that different from the old one) as a wiki page on the site in development itself: http://ucc.asn.au/ver2/sitemap/
Note that this is a design only and most of the links don't work and header doesn't reflect the currently selected page. The 'edit' link does work and presently uses OpenID and local ikiwiki accounts for authentication.
Feedback from IRC has been mostly positive, the most common complaint being about the design: that the text is too small. I haven't used a desktop in two months, so I'm not in much of a position to comment, but minor cosmetic changes aside - do you think this new design, structure and backend will work for a replacement UCC website?
I'm not sure how reliable (read: existent) my internet access is going to be in the next few days as I rough it on cheap transport through southern Thailand, so I might not be able to reply/defend my choices/throw a hissyfit and threaten to leave the club as quickly as you're used to in discussions like this. So: have at it, tell me what you like and what you don't like - check out the sources if you'd like to have a play around (they're on mussel:/usr/local/git/ucc-site) and let's see if we can get the ball rolling on an update to the website again!
Luke
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