Website Update

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

So,

Haven't done one of these in a while... Thanks to Louie for nagging me into
posting it. :-)

Where are we at?

  - Since Boston it's been pretty slow, but with a quiet period coming up in
    the release process, there will be a lot more time to work on the
    website. (I'll be taking a few weeks off really active release team
    stuff to work on it, too.)

  - The combination of xhtml and xslt, with sprinklings of php, is working
    well. Maintaining the website will be a lot simpler, and it's fairly
    likely that these formats will not go the same route as WML 1.x. :-)

  - Aiming for live framework beta (LFB) after those intensive hacking
    weeks. Consider this the equivalent to the first GNOME 2.0 Developer
    Platform beta way back when during the 2.0 process -> it's going to be
    rough, and Andrew Orlowski will probably say rude things about it.

  - Malcolm Tredinnick has shown some interest in hacking on doc-i18n-tool,
    hopefully to generalise it a bit and add the few features that would
    make it really elegant for both docbook and xhtml work. If this happens
    soon, it would *really* be worth including in the LFB. I'm personally
    very keen on full i18n for our websites, using tools that our i18n team
    are familiar with.

  - Last week, the docs team and Owen Taylor weighed in on the pros and cons
    of automagically building documents from CVS or having to check them
    into the website module manually. Automagic won, and we now have a
    really cool little system for sucking documentation out of CVS as part
    of the build process -> no more error-pron cron/mail launching stuff,
    and it's just a few additional variables to define ("where is the doc
    source in cvs?") beyond what's required for the build system normally.
    Plus, the docs integrate directly into the standard site design. Rock!
    Documentation web page maintenance becomes a no-brainer.

  - Jonathan Blandford has suggested that we replace news.gnome.org with a
    holding page with prominent links to gnomedesktop.org, whilst we wait
    for the new website and news feed. This is a good compromise, and a very
    healthy move for our poor webserver, widget. :-) That will be happening
    in the next week. Pay your respects (or otherwise) to Gnotices...

  - Steve Fox is still giving the current website the beatings it deserves,
    handling change requests and corrections nearly every day. I will be
    buying Steve a case of beer when we have the opportunity to meet. So
    should you.

  - As the LFB is released, we'll be calling for further contributors. Based
    on past experience, this will undoubtedly be a very noisy and difficult
    process. :-) To discourage that, we'll attempt to assert some kind of
    structured process, but that's currently in the "how do you get a herd
    of cats to even point in the same direction?" stage right now. Lots of
    inspiration from the G2D process though, given that the monolithic
    website upgrade is rather like the leap from 1.4 to 2.0. :-)

This is just a fairly random update, please email gnome-web-list if you have
any queries or suggestions. [ Note that we'll probably be more interested in
suggestions once the LFB is up. ;) ]

Thanks,

- Jeff

-- 
           "It's weird being without white noise." - Catie Flick            
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