Gentoo Archives: www-redesign

From: Michael Curtis Napier <curtis119@×××××.com>
To: www-redesign@l.g.o
Subject: [www-redesign] site map
Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 20:54:22
Message-Id: 20050525205426.47713.qmail@web81103.mail.yahoo.com
1 Sven Vermeulen wrote:
2
3 >On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 09:27:21PM -0700, Michael Curtis Napier wrote:
4 >
5 >>The Site Map is an index to the entire gentoo site.
6 >
7 >
8 >I don't think we need to link each page in the site map (for instance
9 for
10 >documentation guides) but rather the structure of the site.
11 >
12 >So, for documentation, more than the index page and the listing page
13 >shouldn't be necessary.
14 >
15 >Imho, of course.
16 >
17 >Wkr,
18 > Sven Vermeulen
19 >
20
21 I was under the impression (not sure why) that we were making the Site
22 Map a comprehensive Index of the entire site. I was actually starting
23 to think of ways to make it auto-generated based on the contents of the
24 site. Drop in a new file and it gets added to the Site Map
25 automatically. If we only want it to be a top level index then I will
26 stop pursuing this and put my efforts else where. Damn I'm glad - that
27 was going to be a bitch to figure out :)
28
29 @Aaron, When you come back to the project on a regular basis (after
30 school is out?) we can start addressing all of your concerns. Glad to
31 see you back on the list, I was getting a little worried about you.
32
33 Everything I have done so far is just preliminary. Part of the Roadmap
34 is ensuring that the layout will fit into the existing XSL backend. My
35 live test site is a proof of concept for that as well as a way to
36 generate test layouts for each page on-the-fly instead of doing it
37 manually in HTML. It's also becoming a solid base for us to build this
38 new site on.
39
40 Part of the Roadmap is to clean up the XSL and make it easier to
41 maintain the site. As it stands now there is a lot of code duplication
42 in one major XSL file with a few sub-templates in seperate files. That
43 main file is huge and hard to understand/navigate making debugging much
44 more difficult than it has to be.
45
46 I have a great start on breaking the GuideXSL templates down into
47 manageable parts and making all of the code re-useable so a simple
48 change can be done in one place instead of 2 or 3 as it is now (like
49 headers, footers, ads and menus). Commenting heavily as I go so anyone
50 who maintains this site will be able to open any XSL page and know
51 exactly what it does, how it links to the other templates and how to
52 change it without introducing bugs.
53
54 Another item on the Roadmap is reorganizing the site into logical
55 groups. I am hesitantly moving files around based on the Site Map
56 structure and building a menu system that will follow that structure
57 (Breadcrumbs - I'm experimenting so if you visit and the menu is broke
58 I already know). This will make it easier for visitors to navigate and
59 it will also make it easier for devs to organize their projects and
60 have the documentation follow that organization. This applies to all
61 the Gentoo documentation; user, dev and project.
62
63 This is why I need a LOT of input on the Site Map, I redid it to
64 reflect swift's comments. We really need to finalize it so if anyone
65 sees any glaring ommisions or has thoughts/comments/ideas about what
66 should/should not be a top level or second level category please start
67 posting to the list. We need to really hash this out and get a final
68 approval from swift et al.
69
70 Thanks
71 M Curtis Napier
72 curtis119@×××××.com
73 --
74 www-redesign@g.o mailing list