[Neuroimaging] Nipy.org new website needs a complete remake

Mon Jul 27 03:57:57 CEST 2015

Hi,

On Sun, Jul 26, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Ariel Rokem <arokem at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The message with the link to the new version of the website went to the
> mailing list on May 18th. The redirection wasn't changed for another 3
> weeks or so. There wasn't anything but positive indications from the list,
> and no reason to think that anyone had any reservations about the new
> format until 2 days ago.
>

Yeah, sorry for being late to look at this. But as you said "better late
than never".

>
>
>>
>>
>>> I am sure that a bit of logic could be used to put in several different
>>> attractive images of brain data from which one would be chosen randomly
>>> every time you land on the page.
>>>
>>> Yes, you can put a carousel in the website and remove that background
>> with many images. You should also remove the mission with the form it is
>> now. It doesn't communicate.
>>
>
> I don't know what you are referring to. "Mission"? Are you talking about
> https://github.com/nipy/nipy.github.com/pull/1? That was mentioned in a
> message asking for feedback on the mailing list on May 22nd. Did you get
> any of these messages? Is all this a misunderstanding because the mailing
> list was starting to be a bit flaky at that point? I think that others got
> these messages, considering that a few people did have comments on this PR,
> before it was eventually merged a couple of weeks later.
>
> No, I mean that in the main page (nipy.org) you have  4 columns under the
jumbotron that say "cleary written, clearly explained etc." which we use as
mission statements. I think as it is now it would be difficult for someone
to understand were those texts refer to.

>
>>> As I said in my previous e-mail this website can be created using
>> Pelican too or with Sphinx and Bootstrap and it will be more pythonic.
>> About option 2. Jetkyll can be good looking because of bootstrap. We have
>> exactly the same good looks with Sphinx or Pelican. By the way also Pelican
>> supports both markdown and rst.
>>
>> What it seems as advantage is 1. but in practice it is not a big
>> advantage because even if people submit their markdown scripts the website
>> will be updated only when those are merged and still you will need someone
>> checking if they render correctly. I prefer if people who submit content
>> check the final website first in their machine before updating the final
>> website.
>>
> We can still use Jekyll only for the portal but the websites of the rest
>> of the projects will have to use sphinx anyway. So, why bother introducing
>> new tech.
>>
>
> That's roughly analogous to comparing local test runs to Travis. Another
> case in which additional technology is adopted because it removes barriers
> to collaboration and productivity. Definitely worth it in the case of
> testing/Travis. I think it's worth it here as well.
>
>
No, I think this is very different. Except it is something that I don't
understand right now. If jekyll doesn't allow you to preview the markdown
before making a PR then you are still blind on knowing how well the
markdown will render. Why don't we spend some time to look at the
alternatives e.g. Pelican etc.? I am confident that it will not need much
time to make the switch and that they will not be any disadvantages. But
hey I may be wrong. At least this is my understanding.

>
>> So, my final suggestion is to use Pelican for the portal which supports
>> everything that Jekyll supports and works in github fine. And for the other
>> websites e.g. dipy, nibabel etc. use sphinx with the same or similar theme
>> used in the portal but with some alternations to create a unique look for
>> each project.
>>
>> Some immediate actions:
>> a) For now I think you should at least add this information
>> http://nipy.org/project-directory/ to the first page and explain what is
>> your vision of this portal.
>>
>
> That's the link in the middle of the front page. Or am I missing
> something? Do you want me to move the entire project directory to the front
> page? That wouldn't look great, I think (but I think we've already
> established that I am not a web designer...).
>

No but I think it is nice to have the links of the individual projects in
the front page so that it is easier to find them. And a message explaining
what is NIPY. I think NIPY from now on will be mostly a term used for the
organization as the library will not be further developed.

>
>
>> b) Definitely change this background picture maybe add a neuro-related
>> picture. You don't need to wait for others to do that. You can do that by
>> yourself too. I am sure you have many cool pictures around.
>>
>
> Vanessa offered help earlier in this thread, so maybe she has an image she
> likes? :-)
>

Thank you Vanessa :)

>
>
>> c) Then let's set a meeting together and with other people who want to
>> help and I can show you how Pelican/Bootstrap work so you can then see the
>> benefits by yourself. Don't worry nothing from the content that you added
>> in nipy.org is going to be lost. All these markdowns can also be used
>> with Pelican.
>>
>> I will be available after Wednesday to help you with this.
>>
>> Let me know if you and Vanessa are interested about this.

Keep it up!
Cheers,
Eleftherios

Cheers,
>> Eleftherios
>>
>>
>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Ariel
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 6:46 AM, Eleftherios Garyfallidis <
>>> garyfallidis at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Gael, Vanessa and Ariel,
>>>>
>>>> Gael I think the previous e-mail thread was about moving the pages into
>>>> github.io and not about the design, the technology or the content of
>>>> nipy.org. This being the portal of all projects needs to communicate
>>>> the ideas better and use libraries that can be used in other projects too.
>>>> Hopefully also be as Pythonic as possible and as useful and attractive as
>>>> possible.
>>>>
>>>> So, my point is that the new portal, although it has some nice ideas,
>>>> for examle it is using bootstrap which allows for better and more
>>>> responsive viewing
>>>> from different devices, it is not ready for prime time. And it
>>>> shouldn't be online with the form that is now. So, I would recommend to use
>>>> the previous website with updated links to the new github pages until this
>>>> one is in a better form.
>>>>
>>>> Now about the technology used for creating the website. From my
>>>> understanding Ariel is using the default engine promoted by github which is
>>>> jekyll which at the end is using bootstrap. But bootstrap can be used with
>>>> sphinx and with pelican too which are both Python projects.
>>>>
>>>> So we could actually have two better options. For the portal we can
>>>> use:
>>>>
>>>> a) Pelican which is an alternative of Octpress/Jekyll in Python. I used
>>>> it to make my  own website and it is easy to use for creating static
>>>> websites (like the portal). Link here http://garyfallidis.github.io
>>>> and here https://github.com/Garyfallidis/website-dev . Pelican
>>>> supports both markdown and restructuredtext.
>>>>
>>>> b) It is now possible to use Sphinx with bootstrap directly. See here
>>>> https://readthedocs.org/projects/sphinx-bootstrap-theme/ and here
>>>> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/sphinx-bootstrap-theme/
>>>> The option is possibly the best solution as we could just update our
>>>> template engine (to use bootstrap) and continue using sphinx as before. But
>>>> now we can use any template we want and have a much more responsive website.
>>>>
>>>> Ideally the portal should have a main theme and then the different
>>>> projects would make some alterations to this theme to create their
>>>> individual image. For example in Dipy our main colors are black and orange
>>>> so we will alternate the theme so we can use mainly those colors is our
>>>> website.
>>>>
>>>> Vanessa of course I am writing this e-mail because I am willing up to
>>>> my capacity to help Ariel or anyone else who wants to improve the look and
>>>> feel of the organization.
>>>>
>>>> Ariel in summary, I think the portal is not well designed right now and
>>>> the content needs some more work before it is presented. I am happy to help
>>>> and I think you will find it useful to have a look in the links that I have
>>>> in this e-mail before we meet. In the meantime, I would strongly suggest to
>>>> upload the old portal until we have something more solid. I hope this is
>>>> okay.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Eleftherios
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 4:41 AM, Gael Varoquaux <
>>>> gael.varoquaux at normalesup.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 08:57:48PM -0400, Eleftherios Garyfallidis
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> > It seems that nipy.org has recently changed. The previous page was
>>>>> much
>>>>> > better from what we have now.
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree with you that the previous page was much better in term of
>>>>> design
>>>>> (more colors, a more structured layout, and an image that looked like a
>>>>> brain clearly visible) and of content (clear list of main projects and
>>>>> subprojects).
>>>>>
>>>>> However, the change was advertised. I understand that you missed it: we
>>>>> all have too much mails and too many things to do.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think that you could make proposals and maybe pull requests to shape
>>>>> the website toward something that you like better. It would be great.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gaël
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Neuroimaging mailing list
>>>>> Neuroimaging at python.org
>>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/neuroimaging
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>
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