Re: Annotated Manual

I agree that it is time for a rework of the site. I think that the current design has served very well - I remember how stunned I was when it first came out. At the time, I even wrote Colin this little starry-eyed note about it :) However, as the project has grown and the site has needed to do more and more, it has gotten be a pain to maintain. I have worked up a rough content editor for the news, links, sites and projects sections of the site - it is very much based on what Rasmus had worked up earlier on. The code can be found at cvs.php.net/qaweb/site_rough/editor.php. However, I feel that it is too rudimentary to really be used in production. Also, there is a rough build tracker at http://qa.php.net/build_tracker and a rough idea that I had for a site design at http://php.nucleus.com/~zak... Sterling and I have been trying to get started on a redesign of the bug tracking system (and a few of the support systems needed to make a very good application). However, I schedules have not really meshed lately. He just finished his book project and I am right in the middle of one that eating my brain. I am hoping to spend a good deal of time on it in a month or so... I think that one of the important things to do for a rework of the site is to have a unified user management system (authentication, sessions, signup forms, user administration forms, permission system) that controls how user access the various resources and utilities on the site. I am quite sorry that I really won't have time to help with this for a while - I have really been looking forward to being able to work on the site... --zak ----- Original Message ----- From: "Colin Viebrock" <colin@easyDNS.com> To: <php-mirrors@lists.php.net>; <php-dev@lists.php.net> Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2000 10:34 AM Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Annotated Manual > [Sun, 26 Nov 2000] Simon Roberts said: > > > I agree, (plus get-user-notes could be abused by site users) but didn't want > > to add a few hundred files to CVS without the blessing of whoever really > > maintains the site. Plus, it needs the cron job, but that could be triggered > > remotely for now. > > > Before too many people do too much work on this, I think it might be wise > to look at the website in general and the mirroring policy in particular > for PHP.NET. > > It's been at least 2 years, I think, since designing the current version > of the site, and (while I really like some aspects of it) there are things > that could use some improvements. For example: > > - Load Time/Design: the current site is quite graphic-intensive. Not > only does the site take quite a while to download for people on > dial up, but it's probably quite the bandwidth hog for the popular mirror > sites. Plus, I don't feel like keeping up on the latest DHTML > implementations from Microsoft and Netscape, so I think (cool though they > are), the pop-ups and mouseOvers should probably go. > > - Mirrors: I'm not completely sure, but I think a good number of our > mirror sites are either off-line, out-of-date, or not rsyncing enough. > Also, contact info for the mirror site admins is probably out of date. > Also, I think it would be "nice" if all mirror sites followed the > standard naming convention of <country_code>.php.net, with www.php.net > simply being a portal site to redirect people to their closest mirror. > > - Manuals: as you've just stated, the annotated manual should be available > on all mirror sites. Ditto for the search function(s). > > - Updateability: it's a pain in the ass to manually edit HTML to add > news items, new links, projects, or sites. This should be databased, then > generated into the PHP files that get rsynced. > > - Advertising: love it or hate it, the possibility exists for PHP to make > some money off of it's popularity. > > > There are probably other issues that need to be addressed. I've done a > bit of quick work coming up with a new, leaner-cleaner looking framework > for the site, which you can see at http://newsite.php.net. > Only a mock up > of the main page is there now (so don't bother clicking on the links). > > I don't have as much spare time to commit to a redesign (and I mean > the programming) as I'd like, so I would like to propose forming a small > sub-list of people who are willing to work on fixing up the site. I know > Rasmus has some preliminary work on a management interface for > letting users and staff add and maintain sites/projects/links/news > items. I think Zak has done some work on this too. And I know the > documentation people are always hard at work on translations and such. > > I guess I'd like to suss out how receptive people are to some of these > ideas, and who's able to do what to make it happen. So I welcome your > comments. > > > - Colin > >