Website Platform Discussion

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at gmail.com
Fri Jun 16 11:30:59 EDT 2017


> On Jun 16, 2017, at 2:47 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> 
> My (limited) experience is with drupal as well.
> 
> Regarding your first question (how to map version management on a cms driven 
> website): usually only the cms code, modules and themes are version managed. 
> The data resides in a database which is not well suited for version 
> management. So code, module and theme updates would be done in much the same 
> way as is done for the current website. One clones the git repository holding 
> all the website code, make changes, create a PR/push upstream. The only 
> additional step would be to run db updates right after this. Perhaps even that 
> could be scripted.
> The actual content needs something else, just like we need something else for 
> our wiki pages. Both mediawiki (for our wiki pages) and drupal support "page 
> revisions". So just as in the wiki we could follow the history of changes made 
> to each page.
> 
> A side effect of the content being in a db rather than in git is it is no 
> longer stored in a distributed way. So it will be important to implement a 
> backup plan for the data.

The site host should provide a facility for this either through cPanel/Plex, or you can set a cron job via SSH. Many have options to schedule backups to an offsite FTP server.

You’d need to regularly back up both the db and the site structure.


> 
> That goes for the current wiki as well by the way. Do we have a backup in 
> place there ?
> 
> For your second question: translations are handled pretty well in drupal. I 
> have played with multilingual websites and from my experience this worked 
> well.
> 
> One additional note: dynamic websites frequently need security updates 
> applied. So switching to a cms (any non-static one) would require more 
> maintenance work than we did so far on the website. Someone will have to take 
> this time.
> 
> However all things considered, this is yet another project I had queued for 
> "when I will have some spare time", which I never seem to have any more. So 
> I'm quite pleased there are several people already willing to help out on 
> this!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Geert
> 
> On vrijdag 16 juni 2017 03:55:59 CEST Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> I’ve used Drupal in the past but haven’t touched it in any meaningful way
>> for about 5 years. From what I understand, it has been abstracted from a
>> CMS to a framework for building a CMS.
>> 
>> I presently develop Wordpress sites. Not sure what the present host offers,
>> but some like SiteGround offer staging tools using sub-domains or
>> sub-folders. (that can all be set up manually of course, but some offer it
>> in a few clicks) You can use Git for edits and updates. But that’s really
>> only necessary for the site structure itself like themes, plugins, etc.
>> 
>> Actual content can easily be saved as drafts that can then be later approved
>> and published.
>> 
>> There are plenty of options for user roles with editing and publishing
>> rights.
>> 
>> I haven’t looked, but I would be surprised to not find translation plugins.
>> 
>> You could also integrate a web store really easy using the Woocommerce
>> plugin for donations, developer support, swag, etc.
>> 
>> There are also calendar and project management plugins. Not sure if ya’ll
>> are using any online project management tools yet, but that’s a definite
>> option.
>> 
>> I’d be happy to assist with the build if needed.
>> 
>> -Adrien
>> 
>>> On Jun 15, 2017, at 2:05 PM, Eric Theise <erictheise at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> My trajectory with site-building is somewhat similar to David's except
>>> that
>>> I ended up building less sites through CMSs and more using frameworks such
>>> as Rails, Django, and Express. But lately I've taken a few steps back and
>>> I've found Jekyll to be an excellent way to get the job done. I'll
>>> advocate
>>> for it here because of its tight integration with GitHub. Updating a site
>>> is a git push, and content updates can go through the same evaluation as
>>> any other pull request.
>>> 
>>> Perhaps not immediately obvious is Jekyll's use of yaml objects to
>>> replace/simulate database reads and I've found this incredibly useful in
>>> situations where updates are infrequent.
>>> 
>>> http://jekyllrb.com/
>>> 
>>> Eric
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jun 15, 2017 at 10:57 AM, David T. via gnucash-devel <
>>> 
>>> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> wrote:
>>>> 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
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> gnucash-devel mailing list
>>>> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
>>>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
>>> 
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>> 
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