Website Platform Discussion

[David T.]

In Bug 783240, I made some suggestions about modifying the website structure to improve the new user experience. As the discussion has developed, the implications of some of the suggestions have become more substantial, and John Ralls suggested that we bring the discussion to the devel list for broader discussion. Most significantly, John raised the possibility of changing the website from being a hand-coded PHP site, to one that uses a content management system (CMS). 

I think a CMS would be a good idea, assuming that the GnuCash website’s look and feel can be reasonably approximated—or an alternative look and feel can be accepted as the new norm. Having built websites manually, then coding my own php sites, and finally using a CMS, I can vouch for the benefits of a CMS. Creating and managing content and features is much easier with an established CMS. Creating a new version in a CMS that is tightly locked down would allow the focus to be on the content but still allow a broader number of contributors to possibly add to the GnuCash web presence—something that the current system doesn’t do well. As I see it, the GnuCash website doesn’t offer any significant special formatting or whiz-bang web features, so I think its basic content could be ported without a herculean effort. 

Two major questions occur to me: 

How would the current version control method of website management port over to a CMS? and,
How would translations be handled in a CMS? 

I am sure there are other big questions as well...

There are numerous CMS platforms out there; I am personally familiar with Drupal, and know that it can quickly provide a robust and feature-laden website. It seems to have tools for managing page translations, although I admit to only a superficial glance at what’s there, and I am not sure how that issue would get handled for the GnuCash use case. It even has the potential for providing a wiki experience, which might allow these two pieces of the GnuCash web experience to become more closely linked.

I welcome your comments!

Best,
David