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#1 2017-12-03 16:15:00

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Hello everybody,

Back in 2014 we had started (with plg/mistic/flop/ddtddt) to think about creating a new piwigo.org website. We had listed needed pages and so on. Time has passed BUT we still need a new website. Even more today than in 2014!

Lisa, studying in a design school, applied to an internship at Piwigo.com in August 2017 and I immediately said I was OK, with the piwigo.org redesign in mind. Based on 2014 specs + my own thoughts, I have told her all what we needed on piwigo.org, the list of pages, the content on each page... she designed pages and Maxime has integrated mockups as HTML/CSS pages and is now integrating them as "templates" in PHP.

I have separated changes in 3 categories : design, content, under-the-hood.

A) Design

* much more "modern" design
* responsive (tested on giant screen, laptop screen, large tablet, small tablet, smartphones)

B) Content

* more information given
* more relevant in term of "who is Piwigo for?", we need to promote Piwigo for organisations and pros, not only individuals.
* more clarity for people discovering Piwigo about Self-hosting Vs Cloud Hosting (i.e. Piwigo.com)
* ability to make a recurring donation

C) Under the hood

* simpler management when it comes to publishing a new release
* single codebase for all languages : avoid having the italian website showing version 2.7.3 while latest version is 2.9.2
* easier to translate : a list of sentences instead of big texts to translate
* no longer a CMS, but code we commit and pull on production (I'll give more details later in this topic)

I also plan to have HTTPS soon.

So here it is, in preparation state : https://piwigo.us/dev/piwigo.org/index.php?porg=home

http://piwigo.org/forum/showimage.php?pid=169268&filename=20171203-screenshot-piwigo.org-full-height-500px.jpg

Coming soon :
* making all this multi language, page by page and start to translate it
* filling the testimonials section with genuine content
* filling the newsletter archive
* connecting the newsletter subscription form to the actual subscription engine
* filling the release notes
... as you can see, there is still a lot to do, but we're moving forward :-)

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#2 2017-12-03 16:19:36

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Let's talk a bit more about the technical side.

The current (2009-2017) piwigo.org "pages" (homepage, basics/*, hosting, releases/*) are managed by Drupal. It is quite painful to manage and I don't want to use a CMS anymore. I want to have a clear view of the code, version it, make it possible to commit/deploy to production and rollback in case of problem. That means pages managed in a version control system. I had several technical solutions in mind:

1) using a static generator. It is certainly the best solution for security (no possible attack) and performance (in case we have 1M visits a day). The drawback is we don't have any possibility to be "dynamic" (only in javascript)

2) using a framework, like Symfony/Laravel/FatFreeFramework : it would be an interesting "learning" solution. A "real life" implementation with an MVC framework. Unfortunately it also means "depending" on an evolving framework (which means the website might need complete rework in one or two years). It also means several weeks or months to be efficient with the framework. I'm also not sure using such frameworks is a recommended solution for a "simple website with only few pages".

3) using our own framework. Something we are already efficient with. We have two : piwigo.com (very simple set of pages, with i18n, very simple) and creating a Piwigo plugin. Yes, it took me some time to realize it could be a valid solution, because Piwigo was not designed for this. I have already created a dynamic website based on Piwigo. The advantage is that we know the Piwigo framework, we're comfortable with updates (at least, I am), performances are nice, we already have tools for translations, we have templates (Piwigo.com does not). One drawback is we don't have "routes" as in generic frameworks, which is maybe the most interesting feature. Maybe we can add a simple mechanism.

I have decided to go with a Piwigo plugin to manage piwigo.org pages. As you can see in the previous post, work has already started, Maxime is on it!

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#3 2017-12-03 16:20:41

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

And by the way, we're using Bootstrap as CSS framework. It makes life so easy when it comes to creating a responsive design :-)

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#4 2017-12-04 14:04:59

eliz82
Member
Romania
2016-04-27
281

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Some ideas for the new site

1. Problem:
I always felt like Piwigo have quite poor documentation for extensions developers and api users, especially for the noob ones who are trying to make their first extension.
I already complain about that with some specific examples: http://piwigo.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p … 92#p163192
Some supplementary examples on how to make plugins or use api are buried deep in the forum. Hard for new users to find.

I understand that peoples who develop Piwigo maybe don't have the time to write docs, but then at least let other people do.

Idea:
- automatically give the user accounts that are the authors of at least one extension rights to add new pages or edit existing ones on the Piwigo.org docs. in this way they can share with others what they have learn.

and

- moderator or admin should have the right to lock one doc page, or lock editing rights of a user.

-------------------
2. 
Problem:
At the moment you can write an author in he search form but it calls to index.php is using POST, so is not generating a public link.
When you are in extension page and you click an author name it takes you to his forum profile ... this is not necessarily wrong.

It will be nice if all users would have a link that generate a list of a certain user extensions:
I can only see extensions uploaded by myself at http://piwigo.org/ext/my.php

Idea:
-something like http://piwigo.org/ext/index.php?author=eliz82 should return something similar with my.php but publicly visible.

or

-show a list of extensions uploaded by the user in his forum profile or somewhere in the extension page

Last edited by eliz82 (2017-12-04 14:07:42)

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#5 2017-12-04 14:22:58

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Hi eliz82,

OK for your suggestions, but they are "out of the current scope". For now, we're redesigning the presentation page of Piwigo on Piwigo.org.

Improving the documentation is clearly an important task and we will work on it too. Maybe separate the documentation for users and for developers, we have some ideas :-) but that's not the right time and we can't do that many projects at once.

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#6 2017-12-05 01:45:19

samwilson
Member
Fremantle, Western Australia
2014-02-06
42

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

I think a general URL routing system would be pretty cool. :-)

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#7 2017-12-06 10:31:01

teekay
Member
2013-06-12
427

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Wooo, I do like the design overall so far. Just the orange on white text has a very low contrast ratio of 2.7...

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#8 2017-12-06 13:10:25

mistic100
Former Piwigo Team
Lyon (FR)
2008-09-27
3277

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Nice job ! It's really clean and easy to read. And of course the responsiveness is a must-have.

I am just not sure about the redesign of PEM, this blue is quite strange and I never was a big fan of the cards/buttons with just a big shadow (aka material design). But I see it's just a static wireframe for now.

Random thoughts :

The link to the forum should be directly visible, not inside a submenu, even though it makes to place it under "Support".

I would remove the submenu for "News" and place the link to the newsletter inside the news page

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#9 2017-12-06 23:32:00

erAck
Only trying to help
2015-09-06
1995

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

Too much orange for my taste. Specifically the get-started page causes eye cancer ;-)


Running Piwigo at https://erack.net/gallery/

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#10 2017-12-07 15:35:55

flop25
Piwigo Team
2006-07-06
7037

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

hahaha
it begins
too blue, too orange, ... for instance I'm the exact opposite of mistic100 about links etc

About the colorimetry that's a huge issue that laptop and smartphone screens comes with high saturation/vibrance, because you got great picture on your phone but the colour fades on proper screen
Were your tests based on your photo workstation @erAck ?

Bug for the design on the forum:

DIV.postleft {
    margin-top: -35px; -> to remove !
}

(for url http://piwigo.org/forum/post.php?tid=xxx when answering)


To get a better help : Politeness like Hello-A link-Your past actions precisely described
Check my extensions : more than 30 available
who I am and what I do : http://fr.gravatar.com/flop25
My gallery : an illustration of how to integrate Piwigo in your website

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#11 2017-12-08 01:42:07

erAck
Only trying to help
2015-09-06
1995

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

flop25 wrote:

Were your tests based on your photo workstation @erAck ?

I wouldn't call it a photo workstation.. a laptop with an admittedly quite brilliant screen.


Running Piwigo at https://erack.net/gallery/

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#12 2017-12-08 09:41:36

flop25
Piwigo Team
2006-07-06
7037

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

erAck wrote:

flop25 wrote:

Were your tests based on your photo workstation @erAck ?

I wouldn't call it a photo workstation.. a laptop with an admittedly quite brilliant screen.

ok thx, I had the same situation: I tested the new design on my Pc then on a recently acquired laptop from work, and gosh! what a difference! That's what make me change the display settings on the laptop.


To get a better help : Politeness like Hello-A link-Your past actions precisely described
Check my extensions : more than 30 available
who I am and what I do : http://fr.gravatar.com/flop25
My gallery : an illustration of how to integrate Piwigo in your website

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#13 2017-12-08 13:20:06

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

teekay wrote:

Wooo, I do like the design overall so far.

So do I. I even like it "very much" :-)

teekay wrote:

Just the orange on white text has a very low contrast ratio of 2.7...

Trust me, we have had much less contrast in the past (when the text was dark grey on black background). I understand your concern but for now I think we'll keep these colors on "buttons". If it's too much of a problem, we can also make the font bolder on buttons.

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#14 2017-12-08 13:43:56

plg
Piwigo Team
Nantes, France, Europe
2002-04-05
13786

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

mistic100 wrote:

Nice job ! It's really clean and easy to read. And of course the responsiveness is a must-have.

Thank you. Kudos to Lisa for design, and Maxime for responsiveness :-)

mistic100 wrote:

I am just not sure about the redesign of PEM, this blue is quite strange and I never was a big fan of the cards/buttons with just a big shadow (aka material design). But I see it's just a static wireframe for now.

That's right, this page is just a mockup for now. It won't be implemented for now.

Besides the redesign of PEM itself, it doesn't mean we won't use the "blue banner". Actually, in design the blue is one of the best complementary color to orange. Which is certainly why Lisa chose it :-) Personnaly, I like the blue+orange combination. I also like the fact to have several colors on banners, depending on the section.

mistic100 wrote:

The link to the forum should be directly visible, not inside a submenu, even though it makes to place it under "Support".

Difficult choice I agree. The problem is all about available space in the top menu. We inspired from Piwik, Wordpress or Drupal. They all have first a "Support" menu with several options, including the forum.

mistic100 wrote:

I would remove the submenu for "News" and place the link to the newsletter inside the news page

OK, so on the "News" page we would have 2 links in the banner : [Newsletter] and [Coding Activity].

Another thing that I find disturbing: all top menu links doesn't have the same behavior. Some of them {Home, Extensions} directly open a page, others {Discover, Support, About, News} open a sub-menu. I'll try to add a "v" icon (down arrow), there is a sub-menu.

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#15 2017-12-08 15:34:17

flop25
Piwigo Team
2006-07-06
7037

Re: New piwigo.org website, work in progress

plg wrote:

Another thing that I find disturbing: all top menu links doesn't have the same behavior. Some of them {Home, Extensions} directly open a page, others {Discover, Support, About, News} open a sub-menu. I'll try to add a "v" icon (down arrow), there is a sub-menu.

yes indeed! That's a very good idea


To get a better help : Politeness like Hello-A link-Your past actions precisely described
Check my extensions : more than 30 available
who I am and what I do : http://fr.gravatar.com/flop25
My gallery : an illustration of how to integrate Piwigo in your website

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