[kdewebdev-site] Activating the site

[Eric Laffoon]

On Saturday 19 February 2005 12:36 pm, Andras Mantia wrote:
> On Saturday 19 February 2005 21:20, Eric Laffoon wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > Dave Reddish sent me an update of the site based on his visual layout
> > which I like. I am currently doing some work with it this morning as
> > well as extracting some of the XHTML into PHP and setting up the
> > initial base include library. There are several factors about the
> > site design to keep in mind. For one I want to do PHP5 and the new
> > XML features in PHP5 continue to seem like a useful thing to use. For
> > another I want to use a Subversion respostory.
>
> The question is where do you set up that repository and how we will
> access it. Also who will have to right to upload from the repository to
> the main site server? Will this be automatic (a script synchronizes the
> SVN repository with the kdewebdev/public_html) or manual upload?

This will be on a new virtual server. All options are available as well as 
ACLs and some of the features we've talked about for Quanta team 
development. ;-)
>
> > Finally I have a large
> > number of ideas that I want to accomplish and I'm now confident there
> > is only one way to do this... I really need to lead the development
> > here. Andras has pointed out my time factors and I consider time to
> > be less than relevent because it can be worked around. The problem is
> > various associated factors and how much work we want to throw away.
> > Everything will be moving to a virtual server running PHP5 and
> > Subversion which I will maintain.
>
> My problem is that for KDE 3.4 we should have a new site, which offers
> some basic features like:

Let's change our documentation to reflect it and then announce afterwards. 
This is all easy enough to do and what I said I wanted to do doesn't impair 
this.
> - up-to-date documentation
Easy to put up.
> - a FAQ
Already started.
> - a way to download and upload resources (KNewStuff and through a web
> interface)
This should not be difficult to complete in that time.
> - an easy to update news part
I already have this for my business site so I can import it if there is 
nothing better on the table.
>
> > There are several key factors that need t be addressed.
> > 1) organization and content - to some degree this has been addressed
> > by subdonamains.
> > 2) KNewStuff - we need to either set up PostgreSql or rewrite some
> > things for MySql
>
> Why do we need an SQL database for this?

1) There are existing PHP scripts for managing this.
2) When there is a substantial resource pool this gives you the ability to 
easily search and categorize.
3) When we have hundreds of submissions we will need this to make it practical 
to use.

I concede that I have yet to go over it in extensive detail but this is what I 
saw for the server side. In any event the developers of KStuff offered their 
help too so it's not going to be a problem. If a suitable solution is 
available without SQL great, but I suspect it's used for good reason and we 
should set up anticipating a large resource pool.
>
> > 3) Initial and transitional server management - currently there are
> > problems accessing the active server running PHP4 from user accounts
> > and CVS 4) Setup of the database and registration and population
> >
> > I could present a long list of what I want to accomplish, but there
> > has been a lot of talk and not a lot of action, so I'll try to give a
> > concise thumbnail.
>
> I think we need something that can be accessed by anyone wanting to help
> in the web development. So the site development is not stopped because
> you or me does not have time to work on it.

Things have been stopped precisely because I did not factor and plan time to 
work on it and tried to find people to assume a leadership role. I don't want 
a mess so I want things done right... just like you do with the application 
development. In particular the application is well defined at this point 
through a lot of initial effort on my part. So I can turn it over to someone 
which has never worked and forget about what I want to accomplish or I can 
dedicate the effort to get what I want. I am planning the latter and I'm well 
capable to manage this so I want to skip the prolonged discussion about 
minutia that stalled things in the past and focus on getting things done.

Because I plan for this site to be an exemplary tool for our project, not 
merely adequate, it is essential that I assume the same kind of leadership 
role with it that I did with Quanta in the early days and with Kommander. 
fortunately these projects are much more capable to self direct, though I 
plan to increase involvement in them for 4.0. As we begin involving people 
and they become comfortable with their roles work will continue regardless of 
our efforts at that time. 
>
> > Several things will happen with the site. For one, in order to use
> > KNewStuff and make a submission you will need to register for obvious
> > reasons.
>
> The KNewStuff submission is through anonymous FTP (or SFTP or whatever).
> You provide the upload URL in the KNewStuff providers.xml file like:
>   <provider
>       downloadurl="http:/quanta.kdewebdev.org/newstuff/knewstuff.xml"
>       uploadurl="ftp://quanta.kdewebdev.org/newstuff/upload/">
>   </provider>
>
> So anyone can submit, just that you should review. As the submissions
> will be digitally signed, on the server a script may run which sorts
> the uploaded files and accepts (copies) the files from trusted users
> directly to the download folder, while puts the others in a queue and
> informs the maintainers.

Right, and I've given a lot of thought to this. What I want to do is minimize 
the effort to maintain this and automate it as much as possible while 
maintaining security and integrity. We will also need people to assume admin 
tasks. I hope this becomes a key factor in the success of our project and if 
so it should generate a fair amount of traffic.
>
> > This will be used for the resource management system. The
> > system will apply a rule based filter to manage risk levels and make
> > the resource administrators lives easier. It will look something like
> > this.
> > 1) new and unknown
> > 2) known and (probably good || probably not good)
> > 3) trusted || not trusted
> > 4) automatically (accepted || rejected)
>
> Yes, but this can be now replaced with simple manual work (checking from
> time to time the upload folder).

Right. I will want to review this also as to the structure. Initially this 
will be less work so we can do this transitionally. In addition to this I can 
have an admin automatically emailed when submissions arrive and set up a pool 
of admins to review. What I want to do is to develop all this with an eye to 
the target result so that it transitions instead of convulses.
>
> > Logically the case could be made to also have the user register to
> > use KNewstuff for download too.
>
> I don't think this is possible now.

There are several ways to address this. I've given it some thought and I need 
to look at it some more. Anyway this can all be done transitionally. We can 
enable simple admin for a short time.
>
> > Currently what we need to do is to check who is active and wants to
> > be part of the project and begin some preliminary work which will
> > mostly be able to be translated to our new server. I'll post a
> > separate email on that. Presently I still have a few related things
> > I'm doing that will affect to a small degree my preparation to
> > transition but I will begin working on the virtual server shortly. In
> > the mean time we can get some things up on site.
>
> we should...
>
> Andras
I have been working on it, but I may take some time to recreate. ;-)
-- 
Eric Laffoon
Project Lead - kdewebdev module