Gluster users - Apr 2015 - Gluster project site revamp update

On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Soumya Deb <deb at redhat.com>
wrote:
> Here's the staging page: http://code.debs.io/glusterweb/
This looks nice and is a good change from the current look-n-feel. I
wonder if you would consider figuring out how to include the "Try"
(ie. download and experience the functionality for yourself) link in a
manner that is immediately obvious. In other words, the landing page
would thus end up providing the following detail for various persona
of visitors - (a) how to download; install and set-up; (b) what is the
latest release and where is the project release timeline; (c) any
specific social media links relevant to the project; (d) how to get
involved; (e) where does the community get together.
> Here's the source code: https://github.com/debloper/glusterweb
>
> Here's some key-factors for the motivation to start anew:
> 1. This is a completely a static site - no server side, or static-site
generation involved
> 2. Which means, one only needs to know just about HTML/CSS/JS/Git to start
contributing in it
> 3. Which also means, the entry barrier is so low, even student community
easily can contribute
> 4. One just needs to fork, edit & push to get a live staging on
<username>.github.io/glusterweb
> 5. Managing/maintaining the site becomes trivially easy - so is the
code-review (Pull Requests)
I was wondering if you have a set of baseline requirements that you
are designing against. And whether those can also be referenced in
order to provide the commentary/narrative structure to the designs you
are putting up for feedback.
> The setup is such that it plays well with the new URLs to the
documentation, blog, code repos etc. makes contribution really easy for everyone
and doesn't require much overhead on the devop side as well - it's as
WYSIWYG as it gets.



-- 
sankarshan mukhopadhyay
<https://about.me/sankarshan.mukhopadhyay>

Hi all,

I've put together some more stuff on the site.
Staging URL: http://code.debs.io/glusterweb/

Bring on the suggestion on copy edits, colors & branding(-guides)!
P.S: may break on Safari. Right now all standards, no browser hacks.

Also, we probably can go on without the event-map - not much to show.

----- Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshan.mukhopadhyay at gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 30, 2015 at 5:28 PM, Soumya Deb <deb at redhat.com>
wrote:
> > Here's the staging page: http://code.debs.io/glusterweb/
> 
> This looks nice and is a good change from the current look-n-feel.
Thanks, glad that you liked the change.
> I wonder if you would consider figuring out how to include the
"Try"
> (ie. download and experience the functionality for yourself) link in a
> manner that is immediately obvious. In other words, the landing page
> would thus end up providing the following detail for various persona
> of visitors - (a) how to download; install and set-up; (b) what is the
> latest release and where is the project release timeline; (c) any
> specific social media links relevant to the project; (d) how to get
> involved; (e) where does the community get together.
a. how to download; install and set-up
Was thinking about something like TryStack, or an interactive sandboxed
temporary environment to showcase the features of Gluster FS to the user
could be a way to go. Spinning up couple of small VMs with Gluster FS
preinstalled (or better lxc/docker/rocket/container images) with preset
scripts/demos shouldn't be too expensive. But it does need a lot of work.
We can start with video tutorial serie, may be & go up from there. But
this is where we need to listen to more ideas from the rest of us.


b. what is the latest release and where is the project release timeline
Great that you asked; working on a timeline on the landing page itself.
Should be on the next update that I'll send.

c. any specific social media links relevant to the project
Please check out the brand new footer. It should serve for now.

d. how to get involved
For the time being, I was thinking of showing masthead from the landing
page & linking them to docs.gluster.org/contribute/<functionalArea>.
On the page, that section is after the event map, as "Be part of..."

Reading docs may not be 'cool' for newcomers now a days &
interactive
get-involved section featuring functional areas may work in future.

> > Here's the source code: https://github.com/debloper/glusterweb
> >
> > Here's some key-factors for the motivation to start anew:
> [snipped]
> 
> I was wondering if you have a set of baseline requirements that you
> are designing against. And whether those can also be referenced in
> order to provide the commentary/narrative structure to the designs you
> are putting up for feedback.
I've had written about the need of the change, but yes - I've missed out
mentioning the key requirements. // http://blog.debs.io/3

So the idea behind this gluster.org revamp project was to ensure:
1. It to have lower entry barrier for development contributions
2. It to have near zero technical debts or technolgy-lock-ins
3. It should be easy to fix, demonstrate/stage & reiterate
4. It should play well across platform and formfactors
5. It should not provide redundant/broken contents
6. It should help gain project participation
7. It should not look/feel 'off' in 2016

The very reason for choosing static HTML/CSS/JS, not abstracting the
codes with coffee script, less/sass etc, having compile/build/deploy
cycles, not loading it up with bootstrap, angular and all cool sounding
bower components, choosing GitHub to put the repo & using gh-pages to
publish the site as staging etc are to meet these goals.

I'd very much like to hear from y'all about this.
> > The setup is such that it plays well with the new URLs to the
documentation, blog, code repos etc. makes contribution really easy for everyone
and doesn't require much overhead on the devop side as well - it's as
WYSIWYG as it gets.