Hello all,
I’m a student of computer science and design at Brown University. Having recently worked with Mailman setup, I’ve also been following the developer conversations.
I notice that on the to-do list, one of the entries is:
"Update visual style and information architecture of list.org and the wiki to feel more unified, be more navigable, and present a modern appearance”
How can I contribute to the redesign? I’d love to work alongside anyone already taking the lead on this, and put my branding + UI/UX experience to use.
Sorry if this wasn’t the best way to post this request, but thanks very much in advance.
Best, Atty Eleti
On Feb 22, 2015, at 10:48 PM, Athyuttam Reddy wrote:
One of the things I like about the current site is that it's all static files. We have zero need for anything fancy like a CMS.
There are two big problems with the current site. First, the design is pretty 1990s. Second, it's built with really ancient tools. ht2html is the toolchain we use to turn template files into the site's HTML. A bunch of us wrote that originally back in 1999!
I've been (very slowly) looking at some more modern tools for building static sites, including Pelican and Nikola. Both are Python-based, available on PyPI. Of the two, I've had better luck with Nikola.
I've been trying to modernize my own personal sites using it and it's been kind of nice, if a little quirky here and there. I haven't rolled anything out yet because I haven't had much time and I pretty much suck at web site design.
In addition to being a static site generator, I really like that the content can be written in reStructuredText, which is exactly the same format we use for all core documentation.
We don't have a ton of content on the www site, but both Mark and I do update it (him more than me). The current site is built from this branch:
https://code.launchpad.net/~mailman-administrivia/mailman-administrivia/admi...
So my thinking goes, take the basic content, give it a new shine, improve the navigation, and build it using Nikola. Keep all the source material under a $vcs (I'm happy to move to git, but that's really dependent on Mark's opinion). I personally like the color scheme, but I think the only thing that has to match is the logo (which I still love), and of course any thematic changes would have to be matched by the wiki.
It would be cool for you or anyone else with interest to take a crack at this.
Cheers, -Barry
On Feb 22, 2015, at 10:48 PM, Athyuttam Reddy wrote:
One of the things I like about the current site is that it's all static files. We have zero need for anything fancy like a CMS.
There are two big problems with the current site. First, the design is pretty 1990s. Second, it's built with really ancient tools. ht2html is the toolchain we use to turn template files into the site's HTML. A bunch of us wrote that originally back in 1999!
I've been (very slowly) looking at some more modern tools for building static sites, including Pelican and Nikola. Both are Python-based, available on PyPI. Of the two, I've had better luck with Nikola.
I've been trying to modernize my own personal sites using it and it's been kind of nice, if a little quirky here and there. I haven't rolled anything out yet because I haven't had much time and I pretty much suck at web site design.
In addition to being a static site generator, I really like that the content can be written in reStructuredText, which is exactly the same format we use for all core documentation.
We don't have a ton of content on the www site, but both Mark and I do update it (him more than me). The current site is built from this branch:
https://code.launchpad.net/~mailman-administrivia/mailman-administrivia/admi...
So my thinking goes, take the basic content, give it a new shine, improve the navigation, and build it using Nikola. Keep all the source material under a $vcs (I'm happy to move to git, but that's really dependent on Mark's opinion). I personally like the color scheme, but I think the only thing that has to match is the logo (which I still love), and of course any thematic changes would have to be matched by the wiki.
It would be cool for you or anyone else with interest to take a crack at this.
Cheers, -Barry
participants (2)
-
Athyuttam Reddy -
Barry Warsaw