Re: [Adonthell-general] Getting contributors (was Re: Kudos on [Adonthell-Devel])

[Kai Sterker]

On Jan 19, 2008 1:29 PM, James Nash <address@hidden> wrote:

> Thought I'd come out of the shadows and give my 2¢...

Great! I feel more comfortable to actually do stuff if there are more
opinions around.


> All good points, but I think the way we present our material needs an
> overhaul.
>
> I would imagine that for most people the main website will be the
> primary source of information.

Exactly. The main website is all what users should care to look at.
The Wiki and project page is meant almost exclusively for developers.


> However, it has been broken
> for a long time (IIRC Linuxgames disabled the server-side includes)
> so things like the screenshots and art gallery are not accessible.

SSI are still available. Perl/CGI is disabled, however. PHP would work, though.


> I know, that much of the new discussions now take place on the Wiki
> but it is has a totally different look and feel and, coming from the
> main Adonthell site, is a bit bard to find (it's not on the home page
> or amongst the navbar links).

Since it is supposed to replace the development section (and the
library and documentation), it should be linked directly from the
navbar. Customizing it to have a look & feel that matches the main
website would be nice, but a fairly low priority.

Cleaning up the main website to be less confusing, up-to-date and
working is far more important. The points Ingo mentioned could be part
of the website, but they should also find a prominent spot on the
Wiki.


> Furthermore, we seem to be a project on both Savannah and BerliOS and
> it's not immediately clear what info / docs / code reside on which
> location or if one is supposed to supersede the other.

That's a bit unfortunate, I know. BerliOS has the Wiki, Savannah all the rest.


> My suggestion would be that we spend some time overhauling our
> websites to do the following:

[...]

I would all be for a redesign, following the principle that less is
more :-). A lean site would be easier to keep up-to-date, easier to
navigate and generally give a more lifely impression than all the
stuff that accumulated over the years.


> I'm pretty good with PHP / XHTML / CSS so perhaps this is something I
> could help with.

Maybe it would make sense to use some sort of CMS instead of custom
code. I know that I am far more likely to update stuff if all I have
to do is log on and fill out a form on the web. Making changes
locally, then transferring them to the server is awkward at best. It
also leaves me with most of the work, whereas with a CMS, others could
get editing privileges too.

I believe we can get access to mysql and PHP at Linuxgames.com, so we
should be fine.


> As usual I don't have as much time as I did back in
> the good ol' days - I have a lot of commitments in meatspace - but I
> should be able to chip in a bit :-P

Just like everybody else ;-). But getting something done slowly (and
in small chunks) is still better than not getting it done at all!

Kai