[kdewebdev-site] redesign of the quanta web site

[Chris Martin]

Andras Mantia wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 April 2007, Philipp Wendisch wrote:
>> Andras Mantia wrote:
>>> On Tuesday 17 April 2007, Philipp Wendisch wrote:
>>>> yes it is, i work on debian, and it's quite simple. drupal comes
>>>> with its own installer. but actually i rather use typo3 instead of
>>>> having to deal with drupal, beside the fact that drupal is mysql-
>>>> and postgresql-only.
>>> So I have no idea what is typo3. Any link how to install drupal on
>>> Debian? I assume it is not that simple like "apt-get install
>>> drupal".
>> yes, but it is very easy, grab the tarball form drupal.org, unpack it
>> and run the install-script from your browser. it is quite straight
>> forward
> 
> The server where this should run is in a remote place (without X 
> installed), but I have full rights to it. Do I run the install script 
> on my browser at my local computer? Well, I will see it later (once I 
> get some time for this), but if you have the answer/experience, I'd be 
> glad to hear it.
> 
>> typo3 is another cms, it is very powerful. and  -yes- there is a
>> debian package available ;-) a little search on apt-get.org reveals
>> where to find it
>> http://www1.apt-get.org/search.php?query=typo3&submit=Anfrage+abschic
>> ken&arch%5B%5D=i386&arch%5B%5D=all
> 
> Good this apt-get.org. I'm not a Debian guru, my system runs suse, but 
> the server where kdewebdev.org is hosted is a debian one, this is why 
> I'm asking about debian.

Who needs apt-get.org? just use apt-cache

apt-cache search typo3
apt-cache show typo3

If you have any Debian questions, feel free to email me. I've been using 
it on my desktop, and servers, for years.


>> but after all before discussing wether to use a ready made cms, would
>> there be any effort? ok I do not have access to the website-svn, but
>> before switching it yould be interesting to know wether it would be a
>> waste of the already existing code or not. would it make sense?
> 
> Surely we will waste some code. The question is how useful would be a 
> CMS in the end, when you think about maintenance, adding new features 
> (like rss feeds, blogs, forums), updating its look and feel and so on. 

The real question is what do the developers want? I think RSS is a 
given, but that's easy enough to code (and it comes built in to most 
blogs/forums). Do you guys want blogs? Do you want forums? Or are you 
just giving examples?


> I don't know the answer for these questions as I never used any CMS.
> I wrote part of the kdewebdev.org code to easy our work as much as 
> possible regarding adding new releases, news, sub-sites and all these 
> from Quanta itself, so it is basicly also a test-bed for Quanta. I'd 
> like to continue to use Quanta in the future as well to maintain the 
> site, but would be interesting to see how Quanta can be made to work 
> together with a CMS.

IMO a CMS is intended to not have to use such as Quanta. Obviously the 
site developer would use it to create/edit/upload templates and such, 
but the content would be added and managed through the CMS. In theory, 
once the site is up and running, you wouldn't really need Quanta for 
updating content.


>  After all it comes down to the same thing: make the site easier to 
> maintain and develop.
> 
> Andras
> 

I think CMS are easy to maintain (in a pointy clicky way).
I also think the people that maintain the kdewebdev site are more than 
capable to edit code, and don't need features a CMS provides. Unless 
they just want an easy WYSIWYG editor to type news into. If that's all 
you want, FCKeditor or TinyMCE could be dropped in to a page to add 
news, FAQs, etc., much easier than moving everything to a CMS.

Also IMO CMS are a pain to develop around, especially for the type of 
things that the kdewebdev sites already contain. BUT, that said, things 
like RSS, blogs, and forums all come with most CMS (or are available as 
a plugin). So, again, it's really a matter of what the developers want.

It's been a while since I've looked at the site code, but if I remember 
correctly there is already some form of template in place. I was 
thinking it applied to all sites (*.kdewebdev.org), but I could be 
wrong. Seems to me it'd be easier to just drop the new design in that, 
rather than try and stuff it all into a CMS.

I realize old accounts weren't moved to the new server. So if you'd 
create mine again, I'll check out the latest site code. That way I'm not 
speaking from fading memories, and could make a more informed suggestion.
I can also do what I can to assist in coding new features, or 
integration (with either the new design into the existing site, or a CMS).

-- 
Chris Martin
Web Developer
http://chriscodes.com