History: Project:Renovation

Source of version: 17 (current)

!Introduction This page will be used to document changes and new ideas for renovating the Lojban.org web site. The date is 14 Jan 2009. A fresh year, a fresh web site! __Please add your ideas and they will probably be implemented if they are sensible.__ !The shoutbox It needs to be removed. It's rarely used and nothing comes of it. Imo, people should be able to use the forums, mailing list or IRC channel to voice anything. If they are unable to do this we've done something wrong. The shoutbox just takes up space and adds yet another channel of communication which further partitions the concentration of focus for lojbo. All in favour of its removal? Let's not be sentimental, btw. — chrisdone : .ie.i'esaisai .i .a'o ma'a spocatra ti loi ba'e fagri mi'e .kamymecraijun. !The menu The menu is currently in the progress of being changed. Here is the old menu: * Help * Home Page * Popular Pages * What's New? * Donate * Recent Changes * Login * __About Lojban__ * What Is Lojban? * Why Learn Lojban? * What Is Lojban?, The Book * FAQ * __Learning Lojban__ * Lojban For Beginners * Advanced Lojban * Texts In Lojban * __Helping Out__ * Donate * Official LLG Projects * LLG Committees * Contributing To This Site * Giving Feedback * Resources * FAQ * Lojbanic Forums * Vocabulary * Promotional Materials * Community * Public Pages * Web Pages in Lojban * Non-English Lojban Materials * Lojbanic Software * Multimedia * Texts In Lojban * Miscellaneous * __About This Site__ * About The LLG * Contributing To This Site * LLG Publications * LLG Projects * LLG Committees * Contact Us And here is the new one: * __About__ * Introduction * FAQ * __Learning__ * Books * Vocabulary * Lojbanic Software * __Community__ * Mailing list * IRC Chat * Forums * Links * __Contribute__ * Dictionary * Wiki * Toggle Multimedia * Lojbanic Texts * Audio * __Wiki__ * Recent Changes * Public Pages * Popular Pages * RSS feed * __The LLG__ * Official Projects * Publications * Committees * Donate! *Links to pages which need creating. Feel free to create pages that need making, otherwise I will do them tomorrow. The 'Learning' page needs to be a 'getting started' page i.e. a clear and concise explanation of how to get learning with Lojban, books, vocabulary, community, rememberize or stuff like that, how to contribute, etc. Same theme for books, enumerate all the books in a clear way ready to be compared. !Existing Ideas !!Similar sites Two web sites with similar navigation, and one which is also Wiki-based: * [http://haskell.org/|http://haskell.org/] * [http://python.org/|http://python.org/] These sites are good-ish, especially the Python one. The Haskell one could be simpler but it is generally a fine example of a wiki-based web site imo. Both of these web sites are worthy of having their ideas stolen, if any. !!Jim Dabell's implementation Imho it's a nice idea, but it's a lot harder than simply editing the existing Lojban web site as it is to our needs: * [http://lojban.jim.dabell.name/|http://lojban.jim.dabell.name/] Plus it looks like it'll never get done. I think it's better for someone like me to shout at people and tell them to get their shit together and start organising and using the wiki, for the community as a whole, rather than making a pretty web site which is incompatible with the rather large pre-existing wiki. !!Pin Stack, whoever that is [http://pinstack.blogspot.com/2008/07/lojban-needs-to-reorganize.html|http://pinstack.blogspot.com/2008/07/lojban-needs-to-reorganize.html] Has the right idea in general, make the wiki more organised, less cluttered, etc. But has unrealistic expectations about installing a new wiki and moving the site over to it. Isn't going to happen, imo (at least right now). !!Positive suggestions from alternjupiter [http://community.livejournal.com/lojban/36512.html|http://community.livejournal.com/lojban/36512.html] Again, doesn't seem, to ''me'', that a complete rewrite is needed at all. Mere sensible modifications are called for. Nice points, though. !!purpleposeidon's updated (1) thoughts * Have the menu items indented, and have the menus default to being collapsed. (And __''when a top-level menu is clicked, it should visit the link and expand the menu.''__) * lojban fortunes, slashdot style, would be nice, changed every eight hours or so. (There could be random/convoluted attitudinals, and one-liners from IRC, jbotcan, books... but that would be its own project.) I started a fortune file a while ago (I like fortune) - cmacis [http://www.lojban.org/tiki//tiki-pagehistory.php?page=fortune&source=0|fortune file] * Merge the live journal and last forum post feeds into one * Reduce the number of live journal/mailing list items on the home page, and have a "More News" page * Make the URLs pretty * lojban.org is powered by so many things, it's a wonder it doesn't explode. __What I really mean is... is it really neccessary to have all of those icons on the bottom?__ * That search bar seems kindof iffy. * Put the logout stuff on the top-right corner * __Put the logo at the top.__ In thenews.css (Arround line 315): ^#siteheader { ... padding-top: 0px; ... }^. (I've only tried this with firefox, but I doubt it would change much in other browsers * __Having a long wait (nearly 5 seconds!?!?) for the homepage to load is not acceptable. Maybe "latest forum posts" slows stuff down? In that case, three possibilities: Don't have it (sadness); use an iframe (flashback to 2003); ajax (more effort). Consider putting a caching/proxy server in front of the website. It would probably be the easiest way to try to speed things up. (You could have HTTP running on port 81, and the cache running on :80)__ --- * I agree. I've changed the default to collapsed and clicking the section visits a link, but I think the tiki software will have to be modified to support what is wanted. * No idea what fortunes are, will look at this later. * Live journal is blog software, I don't think it should be merged with the forum at all, in a feed. * Agreed, the news section isn't relevant for newbies who'll have feeds etc. anyway, it could be below a description of lojban, the lojban community and the web site. * Agreed, this is do-able with apache modrewrite. [http://lojban.org|http://lojban.org]instead of [http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Home+Page&bl=y|http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Home+Page&bl=y], and [http://lojban.org/wiki/Books|http://lojban.org/wiki/Books]instead of [http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Books.|http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Books.] * Nothing to say about that. * Agreed, the search inputs could be placed in the space not being used up on the top right (as is the usual custom for a search/login placement). * Agreed -- chrisdone !Cmacis' tuppence worth The site looks and feels like nothing else I've encountered, except maybe from my early days on the net. Lojban good, but this site is a mess. Sometimes someone will link something nice, but I've never a clue how they got to it. This editor looked daunting at first, but is quickly growing on me. I know that right now I'm whining without suggesting anything. I know that moving from the tiki is a big ouch, but has anyone considered more usual wiki software? People ''know'' this stuff. !On Killing the tiki .iunai I was just looking into the possibility of switching away from the tiki .iunai to something that actually merits use, and it doesn't seem like it would be that hard. Instructions for moving everything over to MediaWiki (what Wikipedia and everything else use) can be found at [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:TikiWiki_Conversion]; unfortunately, it requires admin access to the tiki .iunai, thus quashing my plans to mirror the site on wikia.com as proof-of-concept. On a related note, I would like to suggest changing the main lojban.org page back to the one viewable at [http://web.archive.org/web/20071221060755/http://www.lojban.org/en/]. (I swore, until recently it was still available at [http://www.lojban.org/en/], but apparently not anymore. MUST ALL GOOD LOJBAN RESOURCES BE DESTROYED?) The tiki .iunai could still be accessible via a link on that page, while showing newcomers actually user-friendly & navigable information. mu'omi'e .kamymecraijun. Yes, I think it would be better to have the lojban.org as a mediawiki site. It's far more user-friendly. mu'o mi'e omologos You can think what you like, but Tiki is the only system I know of that does decent forum<->email gatewaying besides Google Groups, which would mean losing control over the lists. As such, I will oppose any attempt to replace it. As far as the old web page goes, I got near constant complaints about it. Your single vote for it, I'm afraid, doesn't count for much. I moved it because many of the things it points to are on the tiki site now. However, I've put it back at http://lojban.org/old-style/ just for you. If you want admin access to the tiki for any purpose, just come find me on #lojban ; I'm helpful like that. mu'o mi'e camgusmis