Open position for web page admin

[nsunny]

...
So the page revamp includes the main page + some other pages linked to it.

That sounds great. The homepage would have to have some new content. It will have to have an introduction. And as an IDE's homepage it has to describe its features. And features would need a separate page. And some other pages would be needed for making the website more newcomers-friendly.

I think you should look at what other IDE websites are like. That would help much.
For example:
http://netbeans.org/
http://www.eclipse.org/
http://projects.gnome.org/anjuta/
http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://qt-project.org/doc/qtcreator-2.6/
http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi
http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/office-dev-tools-for-visual-studio

[jwdietrich]

Now we are getting into the page contents discussion. Let's do that later or in another thread.

Yes, there is a thread for this at http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,20426.msg117948/ .

[Zath]

What you need is a primary website on top of what you have now.
There would be a primary index.htm or index.php page with a friendly layout and links to other parts of the current site including this so-called main page.

That's not to say this area couldn't do with a change too.

[JuhaManninen]

What you need is a primary website on top of what you have now.

One more layer to click before you get to the essential stuff?
Uhhh!
"Primary website" and "Main web page" are the same thing at least in my vocabulary.

Juha

[Silvio Clécio]

Hello buddies

Would be very nice if you use Brook (http://brookframework.org) as back-end and Kendo UI (http://demos.kendoui.com/web/overview/index.html) / Bootstrap (http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap) as front-end.

Brook is sleek, intuitive, and powerful back-end framework for faster and easier web development, and it is purely Free Pascal!

Brook's site use Bootstrap as front-end.

I can help you in implementations (Pascal/JS/CSS/HTML5 etc.). And would be nice if you up all sources to Github (https://github.com).

Sorry for my english please.

[Zath]

What you need is a primary website on top of what you have now.

One more layer to click before you get to the essential stuff?
Uhhh!
"Primary website" and "Main web page" are the same thing at least in my vocabulary.

Juha

Yes, maybe. However, the layout and links would be far more friendly and obvious to newcomers. Part of the remit ?

[JuhaManninen]

I make a summary of what happened so far:

The plan was to have a new VM at FirmOS and give root access there for people developing the web page and maybe some web tools.
Now there is a new VM with FreeBSD 9.1 installed, but otherwise the plan changed.
"nsunny" jumped in, installed his own Apache + PHP + SMF test environment and made a nice dynamic page. It is still under development, you can see it here:
  http://adnan.freevar.com/online/lazarus/home.php

Another thing that changed was that admin rights for the production server were given to me. I am learning how to administer FreeBSD.
The current admins have become more active, too. This project clearly works as a catalyst.
That is how open source works. Somebody must bite the bullet and actually do things, even maybe stepping on some toes occationally.

The current plan is to publish the sources in SVN and do automatic "svn up" in the production server, after the page is tested and installed. Then people can provide patches for improvements.
The pages are dynamic, anybody changing them must have a test environment with Apache + PHP (or similar).
SMF will not necessarily be required though.

The new VM is still available for web tool development. Now there is almost nothing installed, I have learned how to use "portmaster".
If someone has an idea + talent + time + motivation for web tools, I think root access to the VM can be organized.

Write access to the project main SVN follows the normal "rules". If somebody provides good quality contributions for some time, makes a commitment to work with it for more time and wants to have write access, then it can be given.

Juha

[jwdietrich]

This is a great advance for the whole Lazarus project.

What is still missing from your description is a backup infrastructue. I think that we have already a backup strategy, but for the case that we don't I would like to suggest it.

[JuhaManninen]

What is still missing from your description is a backup infrastructue. I think that we have already a backup strategy, but for the case that we don't I would like to suggest it.

The FirmOS servers are backed up. The current pagas are also done with SMF + PHP + Apache, I don't believe the new ones need a different backup system.

One valid question is if a test environment is needed before the pages are updated from SVN to the web server.
For example security could be compromized by committing bad files to SVN. I don't see why someone with SVN write access would do that though.

Juha

[jwdietrich]

What is still missing from your description is a backup infrastructue. I think that we have already a backup strategy, but for the case that we don't I would like to suggest it.

The FirmOS servers are backed up. The current pagas are also done with SMF + PHP + Apache, I don't believe the new ones need a different backup system.

Excellent!

One valid question is if a test environment is needed before the pages are updated from SVN to the web server.
For example security could be compromized by committing bad files to SVN.

This is a good suggestion. SVN may in fact be quite delicate.

[Chronos]

One valid question is if a test environment is needed before the pages are updated from SVN to the web server.
For example security could be compromized by committing bad files to SVN. I don't see why someone with SVN write access would do that though.

SVN is very good tool to use also for community web development. Multiple volunteers could get write access but as with every project there should be someone responsible for result (quality assurance) who have to check commits and make manual update (svn update or svn export) directly to web.
Stable branch could be managed in parallel to trunk.
And in this point every contributor should have installed their local test instance and test changes before commiting to repo. Installation instructions should be placed in repo.

[etrusco]

For now, couldn't we at least have some more info in the Info Box of the start page?
IMHO the same info as the presentation of the installer seems good enough:

    What is Lazarus?
Lazarus is a cross-platform IDE for Pascal. Its aim is write once, compile anywhere.

    How to reduce the exe file size?
The default binaries are very big because they include debug information. For release builds you can switch this off in the Project settings.

    Licensing:
- The LCL is licensed LGPL with linking exception. This allows you to create apps with any license you want, including commercial.
- The IDE is licensed GPL. If you distribute a modified IDE you must follow the GPL.
- Other packages and components have various licenses. See the readme of each package.

[svatas]

Hi,

I am littlebit lost - is there any reason why the main page could not be delivered via some "standard" CMS like Joomla, Drupal or Wordpress?

Than the look and fucntionality could be provided relatively easy.

I can offer some knowledge as I am using CMS for long time...

[rhapdog]

Warning... this is an inordinately long post.

I hate to say it, but so far it looks as though there haven't been any true Web Developers reading this.  I don't mean to offend, but if all a person can code is straight static HTML, then the site will have to be updated often.  If you are going to do it using a CMS, then it's pretty much the same thing, except several people could learn to use the "editing" features of the CMS and update it.

What is available for software now can do everything you need.  SimplePortal and SMF can provide you with the professional quality of pages you are looking for, and all you need is someone who is intimately familiar with SimplePortal and SMF 2, who is an expert PHP programmer, expert at JavaScript, CSS3, HTML, and must also be a good graphic designer to make the site come together in a single "themed look" that is unique to Lazarus and doesn't have the straight-out-of-the-box look.  It would be nice if the person were also familiar with Apache web servers.

Programming the appropriate content to display in a professional manner to make the site easy to understand for any newcomer to the site is not that difficult.

I have 25+ years experience programming in Pascal/Object Pascal (15 years with Delphi, and I have been dabbling with Lazarus as well), and I have 10+ years experience doing web application development and web design in PHP/JavaScript.  I also have 4+ years experience with the code base of SMF, with 2 years experience creating custom themes for SMF and writing entire web sites that utilize the theme files from SMF in order to look consistent throughout the site.

This is a job I am definitely capable of, but alas, time is my biggest enemy.  I have, late in life, taken on the additional responsibility for being the primary caregiver for a 3 year old and 6 month old, which means my time is rather limited.  However, since there isn't a large rush on this project, and since I am otherwise "retired" from actual work, this could be just the diversion I've been looking for to occupy my free time to keep my skills up-to-date.

I'd like to throw my hat into the fray.

[JuhaManninen]

@svatas, PHP (or Pascal) is good enough for the backend. There is not so much dynamic contents that Joomla, Drupal or Wordpress would be needed.
Besides, people who know those systems say that they are difficult to configure. Dunno why.

@rhapdog, the place is already taken. "nsunny" has made pages using PHP.
It has a download button which identifies the client OS, which is very cool.
It needs some tweaking before going online but the sources are already available :
 $ svn co http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazaruswebsite/trunk lazaruswebsite
Later people can improve it by sending patches, but not yet.
If you want more info, please read the heated discussion from other threads on this forum.

There is another page project started by itmitica. It uses Pascal and the Brook framework. Let's see how it will look like.

If you want to exercise your Object Pascal skills, Lazarus project has almost 1600 open issue reports to choose from.