[webdev] Re: Next steps

[Tom Hull <thull2@xxxxxxx>]

Dale W Hodge wrote:
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: webdev-bounce@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:webdev-bounce@xxxxxxxxx]On Behalf
>>Of Tom Hull
> 
>>I think the big
>>thing to do there is to come up with a plan for organizing
>>content, and secondly define a set of roles for updating the
>>website. Probably the best way to do that would be to get
>>a meeting together and do some brainstorming.
> 
> 
> Our next Monthly Aclug meeting on July 8 is currently scheduled to cover
> organizational 'stuff', so we could have some time to ask our members for
> input on what they want to see on the site. Otherwise, we need to schedule a
> meeting.

I think it's a good idea to try to use the regular meeting as a
sounding/input board. We've been able to work up pretty good
topic lists for presentations in those meetings, which is more/
less what we need. We could also schedule a follow-up webdev
meeting there.

>>One bug I found (haven't put into bugzilla but should) is
>>that the procedure that rounds up all of the static pages
>>doesn't follow symlinks, which is a problem given the way
>>the website files have been broken into openacs/aclug chunks
>>and stitched together using a symlink. I'm not sure whether
>>to just fix the tcl code, or rethink the way the website is
>>put together.
> 
> To me, that's a big bug, at least in the way I currently do my sites.
> Mostly, that's because I want some of the same content available across
> multiple virtual sites.

I agree that it should be able to follow symlinks, just on
general principles. The other question is whether my initial
approach of populating the webroot with a cvs checkout works
well enough. It may be that we should do the checkout into
a set of staging errors, then copy everything into webroot
(possibly munging some files along the way). I'm starting to
lean in that direction.

>>I'm not sure where we stand on backups;
>>the postgresql db is being dumped, bug we also need cvs and
>>bugzilla and probably /usr/local/aolserver and some other
>>odds and ends
> 
> Hum... I could probably figure out a script to tar them up and run it as a
> cron job. What files/directories need to be included, and where do you want
> them dumped?

See other mail for a list. There may be more system config
files that we want to capture, so poking around the system
may yield more candidates. Also, I'm inclined to have the
backup script populate a directory with separate .tar.gz
for each set of files (cvs, postgresql, mysql, etc.), then
use rsync to export the archives to backup machines.

>>also log rotation is a potential problem
>>with aolserver.

See other mail.

> How does RedHat handle log rotation?
> 
>>and setting up ssl.
> 
> It shouldn't be too hard to set up ssl. Just need to generate a key and set
> the options in the config file, IIRC.

I think the config file is already set up, but it doesn't
load the module if there is no key file. OTOH, there are
several module options for aolserver, and it may be that
the setup is for the wrong (i.e., the commercial) one. So
there is a bit of research and testing needed there.

>>The main page needs a bugzilla link in the developers
>>section, and the events notices connected. We need a
>>privacy statement, a copyright statement, a mail list
>>page. Some modules are probably easy to set up and
>>useful -- class ad is one that comes to mind.
> 
> Some of this we can pull from the current site, the rest we'll have to sit
> down and draft ourselves.

There are some openacs files that work as prototypes for some
of this (e.g., privacy statement).

>>We need a link from the old website to the new one. (I've
>>written John Goerzen about this, and suggested some wording
>>if he'd be kind enough to do it.) We need the activities and
>>presentations people to start using the events system.
> 
> I don't know if John has done this. If I can find the time, I'll sit down
> and figure out how to do it myself.  It isn't hard, it just tends to be a
> bit obscure.

Not done yet. What I wrote to John was:

   Actually, the only thing I want to do is to put a banner under
   the current "No events currently scheduled" that says:

     See also the new (beta)
     <a href="http://aclug.notwerk.net/";>ACLUG website</a>.

I imagine this as a second red bar above or below the events bar.
I imagine that it's easy to do if one can log in, which I've
forgotten how to do.

>>I'd like to see a spec for the RSS news feed thing -- this
>>was on Dale's request list and is something he's been looking
>>into. I'm more interested in how it would be used than just
>>how to do it.
> 
> The "how" is that it would allow us to be a portal, perhaps people's home
> page, somewhere they come first to learn about what is going on in the Linux
> world. While the links do lead off site, we get the opportunity to show them
> what we have to offer first.
> 
> --dwh

-- 
/*
  *  Tom Hull * thull2 at cox.net * http://www.tomhull.com/
  */