firebird-website — Everything about Firebird's web site

Re: [Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Jiri C. <di...@ci...>]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:40 PM, Dmitry Yemanov <fir...@ya...> wrote:
> All,
>
> Should we really discuss the visual design (which includes not only the
> colors/style but also the contents layout) without having an agreement

I think colors and "feeling" (shapes etc.) yes. The final cut, no.

> on the overall website structure (e.g. what should be exposed through

I was proposing getting some agreement on new/old structure as first
step. But it looks like, that everybody is happy with current state.
:)

-- 
Jiri {x2} Cincura (CTO x2develop.com)
http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/ | http://www.ID3renamer.com

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Milan B. <mi...@pa...>]

marius popa wrote:
> http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design1.jpg

design1 is my favorite. Looks nice, and has that 'corporate' feel to it ;)


> http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design2.jpg

I don't like design2 because of too much gray color.

> http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design3.jpg

design3 is nice, it has a kind of "Firebird" theme to it.


BTW, could you use the new FlameRobin icon? (Actually, it is not that 
new, it's two years old).

Thanks,

-- 
Milan Babuskov
http://www.flamerobin.org
http://www.guacosoft.com

Re: [Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

All,

Should we really discuss the visual design (which includes not only the 
colors/style but also the contents layout) without having an agreement 
on the overall website structure (e.g. what should be exposed through 
the main page)? Wouldn't it possibly imply a more complex layout than 
the current "sidebar plus the news track" one that Paul V. seems to like 
:-)? Or was there a decision to keep the current structure "as is" 
(without considering anything else) for the time being?


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Kevin R. <kev...@ya...>]

Of the three designs I favor design #3 because it has higher contrast.

Thanks

Re: [Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Martijn T. <m.t...@up...>]

Hello Marius,

> Bandean Lorand (one of our designers) proposed and worked on an few
> designs for the new firebirdsql.org website
> He asked for feedback and what should be done next

What the web-team needs and wants can be explained by Pavel, I think.

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com

Re: [Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Paul V. <pa...@vi...>]

Hi all,

> Bandean Lorand (one of our designers) proposed and worked on an few
> designs for the new firebirdsql.org website
> He asked for feedback and what should be done next

A first short reaction to the designs.

Orange is our trademark colour, but especially "our" strong kind of orange easily becomes overwhelming if used as a fill colour for large or even medium-sized areas. I therefore like the first design best. Even there, I think the orange selection bar with the grey letters is ugly. Maybe it would be possible to use two oranges: the strong orange for the logo and possibly some linings, and a softer, lighter orange for selections bars, fillings and the like.

Apart from the colours used, I think all three designs are far better than what we have now. I like 1 and 3 better than 2 because they have different background colors for the navigation bar and the main content area.

What I like about all three is that they look professional and serious (not "flashy" or "sexy" or with all kinds of bells, whistles and animations shouting loudly to get your attention) without getting dry or boring.

What I also like - in connection to the above - is the simple two-column layout. That's absolutely the best.

All that said, I'm not wildly enthusiastic about any one of the designs. But I take it there will be plenty of room to talk about the details yet. And then, a website is not something that you have to go "Ooooohhhh" and "Aaaaahhhh" about. It has to be useful, and clear, and the user should be able to find what he or she needs with relative ease. And if it's also beautiful, well, that's a plus, but 'nice' is fine too.

The most important thing now is that for the first time we seem to be really on our way to developing a better website. And that's something I *am* wildly enthusiastic about. And I want to thank Bandean Lorand and all the others involved for making this possible!


Cheers,
Paul Vinkenoog

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[Jiri C. <di...@ci...>]

Hello,

if I have to choose one, I prefer the third. But none of these is
"WoW" ;) for me. :(

-- 
Jiri {x2} Cincura (CTO x2develop.com)
http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/ | http://www.ID3renamer.com

[Firebird-website] A few mockups for firebirdsql.org website

[marius p. <ma...@gm...>]

Bandean Lorand (one of our designers) proposed and worked on an few
designs for the new firebirdsql.org website
He asked for feedback and what should be done next

Please to send the feedback on firebird-website mailing list
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website

http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design1.jpg
http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design2.jpg
http://reea.net/clients/firebirdfoundation/design3.jpg



-- 
developer flamerobin.org

[Firebird-website] test

[Martijn T. <m.t...@up...>]

Martijn Tonies
Database Workbench - tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL, NexusDB, Oracle &
MS SQL Server
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com
My thoughts:
http://blog.upscene.com/martijn/
Database development questions? Check the forum!
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com

[Firebird-website] SVN URLs in tracker

[Jiri C. <di...@ci...>]

Hello *,

now, when you look at tracker tab "Subversion Commits", the URL for
changed file(s) is i.e.
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/firebird//NETProvider/trunk/NETProvider/source/FirebirdSql/Data/FirebirdClient/ClientFactory.cs/&r1=677&r2=676&p1=/NETProvider/trunk/NETProvider/source/FirebirdSql/Data/FirebirdClient/ClientFactory.cs&p2=/NETProvider/trunk/NETProvider/source/FirebirdSql/Data/FirebirdClient/ClientFactory.cs
which is wrong (you got 404 in fact). It's enough to generate:
http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/firebird//NETProvider/trunk/NETProvider/source/FirebirdSql/Data/FirebirdClient/ClientFactory.cs&r1=677&r2=676
.

I don't know, whether it's completely configurable. If so, maybe it
will be worth to change it during some long night. :)

-- 
Jiri {x2} Cincura (CTO x2develop.com)
http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/ | http://www.ID3renamer.com

[Firebird-website] WEB presence overview

[Lester C. <le...@ls...>]

Having been involved with various aspects of Firebird on the web for some time 
now, I feel I do have a good grasp of some of the problems. Since MOST of my 
income is now generated via web based applications, a professional INTEGRATED 
presence of Firebird on the web would at least support that activity. The 
current missmash of web SITES does not create a good impression :(

The one thing I've been striving for personally is a SINGLE system that covers 
all of the web based requirements. The first aspect of that is the simple 
distinction between control, content and style.

HOW a site looks is important, and changes to that style from time to time 
does make sense. I get the impression that the current discussion *IS* only 
about the style of the site? Which misses some other fundamental points. What 
about all the other requirements?

I don't know how many different sites I'm currently linking to for parts of 
the Firebird 'experience' but all are different, and have different styles.

We are here on the SF list, and being told to use the tracker for tracking 
this debate, we have yahoo groups, sf presence for cvs and distribution, third 
party newsgroups, various blogs - oh and a wiki ;) There is a range of 
applications providing the presence, but with little interaction between the 
content and often conflicting opinions on where a discussion should take place.

I still don't have an over night fix to offer. I've been banging my head 
against a brick wall over the wiki for a long time, but 'other opinions' 
prevail on the directions SECTIONS of the project are taken and this is 
fragmenting things. My own target, and one which a number of my customers are 
now subscribing to directly, is for a 'framework' that provides the base for 
an integrated web presence. With Firebird at the core of the package.

A single logon for accessing everything.
eMail OR web viewed lists/forum/discussion.
Topics which can be tided to a particular content item.
Online access to control all aspects of the site ( admin, moderate, edit ...)
Content that internally can be XML so the 'documentation' project - online
News list online or distributed
Blogs
Tracker
On-line CVS browsing
RSS feeds
USER selectable style - visually impaired can actually view the content!

... no mention of 'wiki' because every element of the above uses the same 
editor to handle input of content. An XML editor would be nice to add at some 
point! But a number of on-line editors can currently be selected.

And of cause it MUST all run on Firebird :)

None of the existing frameworks provide a total solution, and *I* would be 
happy if the existing tracker could be expanded - if it used Firebird. But 
MANY of the web based projects roll themselves into a little hole and ignore 
the big picture. I've been working with bitweaver for 4 years now and it IS 
providing a large section of the above list AS WELL as side areas such as 
commerce and other application specific tools. tikiwiki from which it was 
originally ported is finally discussing an internal restructure that currently 
looks as if it will mirror EXACTLY that undertaken to create 
tikipro->bitweaver in the first place, and also options for an XML editor.

So to do my usual job of messing up things, can we discuss WHAT we want to 
achieve before arguing over how it should look?
ONCE AGAIN I reiterate that I am more than prepared to provide a server and 
bandwidth for testing, but http://wiki.firebirdsql.org/ simply needs bringing 
up to date and some of the other modules switched on ....

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/lsces/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

[Firebird-website] The Web Redevelopment initiative

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

This is an edited re-post of a message I sent today to the Foundation members' list.  I'm aware there is a lot of crossover but I do urge people to use the Tracker and this list for the discussions about requirements, as well as any other issues that could go missing due to being in fringe lists.

The committee has been a bit concerned about where Martijn and the initiating group for the Web redevelopment project wants to go next.  We have updated our page and made it available to others so that both Foundation members and others would be informed about what is happening so far.  Ideally Martijn and his group will join us here and keep things in one place. 

It was noted that, coincidentally, Marius Popa had come forward through unofficial channels, with an offer to have a web developer from his employer's company to redesign our web site.  From previous messages, it seems Marius is going to get his colleague to sign up here, which should be useful.

As you probably noticed earlier, Pavel has now channeled the Tracker notification email traffic to the firebird-website mail list.  Any progress can be published at the web workers web area (http://firebirdsql.org/index.php?op=devel&sub=web) as you firm up what you want to do. 

You can get to the updated page it by going to that URL and clicking on the graphic there. Note, this content is temporary and hence not "public" at the moment.  

To remind those who are confused about the responsibilities involved, the Firebird PROJECT website is not a responsibility of the Foundation.  Non-members are involved (or potentially involved) in various ways and it's unproductive to be posting mixed messages and threads in a variety of lists.  Ultimately, we want a website that serves everyone's purposes.  We're not going to get there by guesswork.  The Tracker has a few technical sins but its big advantage is that it gives us a central place where people wanting to take this task seriously can have their say.

Helen

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

Together with Artur comments, I would add that the site also needs a
complete restructure of its sections. Right now, users needs to "dig"
a lot to find what they are searching for. So, my opinion is that the
site needs a total rebuild of its sections, making it more simple to
find what is being searched.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
http://www.warmboot.com.br
FireBase - http://www.FireBase.com.br
Blog - http://blog.firebase.com.br

AAA> I think the tracker is not even an option for this.

AAA> For the majority of the people, the "problem" with the website is just a
AAA> cosmetic problem. Martjin's message is very clear about this.

AAA> There was never a problem with contents, and no one ever argue about. 
AAA> Contents are fine. Are good. Excelent.

AAA> What we need is some person that really knows about "web site harmony",
AAA> "artistic", "design", or whatever it's called in english to give it a 
AAA> good look, Charm and Presence.

AAA> This could be easy accomplished if the designer provides some draft 
AAA> templates for FF members (or FF community, or God, or whatever wants to
AAA> spend time with it) to choose.

AAA> As simple as that.

AAA> With a good design,


AAA> Artur

[Firebird-website] [FB-Tracker] Reopened: (WEB-1) Hyperlinks don't work on fb2 rc3 windows binaries

[Pavel C. (JIRA) <tr...@fi...>]

     [ http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/browse/WEB-1?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel ]

Pavel Cisar reopened WEB-1:
---------------------------


Just testing event notifications.

> Hyperlinks don't work on fb2 rc3 windows binaries
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: WEB-1
>                 URL: http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/browse/WEB-1
>             Project: Web site
>          Issue Type: Bug
>            Reporter: Guram Dukashvili
>            Assignee: Pavel Cisar
>


-- 
This message is automatically generated by JIRA.
-
If you think it was sent incorrectly contact one of the administrators: http://tracker.firebirdsql.org/secure/Administrators.jspa
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For more information on JIRA, see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

        

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Artur A. @ A. <ar...@ar...>]

I think the tracker is not even an option for this.

For the majority of the people, the "problem" with the website is just a 
cosmetic problem. Martjin's message is very clear about this.

There was never a problem with contents, and no one ever argue about. 
Contents are fine. Are good. Excelent.

What we need is some person that really knows about "web site harmony", 
"artistic", "design", or whatever it's called in english to give it a 
good look, Charm and Presence.

This could be easy accomplished if the designer provides some draft 
templates for FF members (or FF community, or God, or whatever wants to 
spend time with it) to choose.

As simple as that.

With a good design,


Artur

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Paul V. <pa...@vi...>]

[retry:]

Helen Borrie wrote:

> Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

Boy, do I hate that tracker! And I believe the feeling is mutual. But that being said, if the majority of active contributors deems it better than the mailing list for this project, I'll go along with it. So no objection in the sense of "won't do it". Let's get this thing off the ground!


Cheers,
Paul Vinkenoog

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Jiri C. <di...@ci...>]

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Helen Borrie <he...@ii...> wrote:
> Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

I have no problem with it. But we need some people, at least for the
first couple of weeks/months, to make some decisions (i.e. about
design etc.). It's good that everybody can propose his/her ideas, but
we need also to pick some of them and do it. Else it will be just big
brainstorming.

-- 
Jiri {x2} Cincura (CTO x2develop.com)
http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/ | http://www.ID3renamer.com

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Jiri C. <di...@ci...>]

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Roman Rokytskyy <rro...@ac...> wrote:
> I see two aspects of the redesign. One is the visual representation,
> which can be done by the designer without any problem. But another side
> is the content itself, which, I suspect, cannot be task for the
> designer. And I am pretty sure that we should discuss the issues with
> the content before the we start the visual part.

I think, we should do this in simple and clear steps. IMO the new
website should be, in first, focused on "providing information". What
you need as a visitor? Get the Firebird, get some documentation, see
news and maybe where to ask. Are you interested in who is in core
engine team? No. And so on. If you work with Firebird, you will know
the site a little bit, so you will be able to find i.e. who's who in
core team ...

I propose to do it like:
1. Get some concensus on *structure* of web (this is IMO critical part
of success for this project).
2. Choice some design from preview or get some thoughts about it to designer.
3. Get some PHP (or something like that) code to make it working. It's
mainly static content (except documentation, download and news part),
so it's not so hard to do it. Three exceptions above can be done
easily too.

I also think, that using some CMS or blog-like SW isn't necessary
because only few people are changing site. Our web isn't huge or
difficult, the PHP background can be done in a few days (and I can do
it, if this project is interested).

-- 
Jiri {x2} Cincura (CTO x2develop.com)
http://blog.vyvojar.cz/jirka/ | http://www.ID3renamer.com

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Paul V. <pa...@vi...>]

Helen Borrie wrote:

> Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

Boy, do I hate that tracker! And I believe the feeling is mutual. But that being said, if the majority of active contributors deems it better than the mailing list for this project, I'll go along with it. So no objection in the sense of "won't do it". Let's get this thing off the ground!


Cheers,
Paul Vinkenoog

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

I wrote:
>> Just let's minimise the confusion!!

At 20:05 1/10/2008, Marius wrote:


>Ok i told him to join the web-devel-team and to ask here if he wants
>some directions and is better if he
>will get an web-site manager to coordinate him , or at least it should
>be appointed one .

In what way do you think this would minimise confusion?  It seems a bit fruitless for someone to start redeveloping before any organisation is in place or requirements collected.  Please feel free to ask questions if you don't understand what I'm trying to say here.

By all means have your chap subscribe to the list, to keep in touch and also in case he wants any kind of help with registering on the Tracker and using it.  But make it clear to him that we (meaning the project administrators and those FF Members interested) are still trying to get the point of knowing what we want.


>Also i think we don't need to go to an cms route we can handle and
>modify the code that exists now to
>an modern framework like cakephp with html code separated so the
>design can be translated easily  to it
>
>also for blogging we could use something like wordpress or there are
>another options
>But this is another thread and i will make some proposals on both
>firebird-general and firebird-website

Actually, that is exactly the kind of view that will get buried if expressed on lists.  That is why we need to pay attention to Roman's proposal to centralise and coordinate the redevelopment via the Tracker project.  Keep a copy of it by you for a day or two until the way is clear to start pumping your ideas into the Tracker.

Again, if it is not clear to you what this means, please ask.

Helen

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[marius p. <ma...@gm...>]

On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:51 AM, Helen Borrie <he...@ii...> wrote:
> At 07:28 1/10/2008, you wrote:
>>On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Helen Borrie <he...@ii...> wrote:
>>> At 02:34 1/10/2008, Roman Rokytskyy wrote:
>>>
>>>>Herewith I, as Committee member, ask whether you, Firebird Project Web
>>>>Team, accept the idea of placing all feature requests into our tracker
>>>>in the "Web site" Project (Key: WEB)?
>>>
>>> Excellent idea.
>>Ok so i guess i should send here the designer ?
>>Or who will he talk with directly ?
>
> Marius,
>
> Some people have been jumping the gun around this topic so it will be helpful to explain to non-members of the FF what the background is...
>
> Earlier in the year, in the FFMembers forum, Martijn Tonies came up with the idea that the website needed redesigning professionally.  He put forward the idea of collecting money to pay someone to do it.  Some other FF members supported the idea of a fund-raising campaign to get some money in hand to pay for it.
>
> It is not a FF project.  The committee simply agreed to accept money on behalf of whatever group would become "the web redevelopment group", let's refer to it as WRG to save typing.  Martijn stated his intention to "take it public" once a "WRG" was formed.
>
> Here is the text of Martijn's original suggestion:
>
> =============
> Every now and again the Firebird website topic is being brought forward again. Despite all the good work put into it, we know that the people behind it are not graphical or website designers.
>
> The general consensus in Firebird Project Admin group and the Firebird Foundation, is that the money currently on the Foundation account should be used for the development, testing processes, etc of the Firebird engine and Firebird drivers. I agree.
>
> However, to move the Firebird website forward, I would like to propose...that we chip in money for a fund to commission a professional web redevelopment project. With the money gathered AND the agreement of the Project Admins, I would like to start to formulate a "project description" that includes designing a new look for the website and a way to implement it by trying to use one of the well-known portal systems in PHP, preferably one that supports Firebird (are there any?)
>
> With this project description, I would post an item to "rent-a-coder" or similar website to see if there are any takers. From the takers, we would select one and go forward.
> =====================
>
> Various FF members sent money to get the thing started.  At the moment the FF is holding around $1650 - $1700 USD on behalf of these donors.  It is in a variety of currencies - hence the imprecision.
>
> Martijn asked for advice on how to proceed.  Remember, this isn't a FF project so it's not FF business.  The Firebird *Project* owns the website, not the Foundation, and maintaining the website is not in the objectives of the FF.
>
> However, at Martijn's request for recommendations on how to proceed with forming a project and publicising it, the committee discussed it at its June meeting and sent some recommendations to him.  It was suggested that a project in the Tracker be used to centralise the wish-list and to conduct the project generally.  Martijn has not responded to that message so far.
>
> The committee at its latest meeting (started end of August, still going on) set out to get some resolution of this initiative - hence Roman's message initially to this list.
>
> In reality, the list members here are mostly just lurkers and tyre-kickers.  Other than Paul Vinkenoog, Jiri Cincura and myself, and occasionally Dmitry Yemanov, nobody bothers with the actual task of contributing content for the website.  Pavel Cisar is officially the webmaster, although his involvement since 2005 has been limited to keeping the webserver running.
>
> To put it bluntly, our web presence is fairly pathetic.  The things that change regularly are knowledgebase (documentation), project news and downloads and, irregularly, the Foundation pages.  Once in a blue moon, Dmitry publishes a roadmap somewhere and I try to get it onto the site.  The developers' blog has not been updated since April, meaning that interesting development stuff remains buried in the firebird-devel and firebird-architect archives.  External sites vie with one another to be first with any Firebird-related news and totally neglect our own website.
>
> Marius, the present burst of life is not a response to your company's expression of interest in various email forums - which is welcome.  It's an attempt by the committee to get someone to take responsibility for the "WRG" initiative.  The committee wants to raise it with the FF members who pumped in the money, and get them to say what they want to do next.
>
> Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.
>
> So, let's do what it takes to put some order into all of it - both WRG and the Marius Popa initiative - so that a properly coordinated and publicised PROJECT comes into existence and can move forward in a properly coordinated fashion.
>
> If your developer wants to join this list, he is more than welcome.  Assuming the WRG initiative wakes up and moves forward and nobody here objects to using the Tracker project for developing requirements, the Firebird Project should be able to reach the position where it can accept or decline your company's fortuitous offer to help out.
>
> Just let's minimise the confusion!!

Ok i told him to join the web-devel-team and to ask here if he wants
some directions and is better if he
will get an web-site manager to coordinate him , or at least it should
be appointed one .

Also i think we don't need to go to an cms route we can handle and
modify the code that exists now to
an modern framework like cakephp with html code separated so the
design can be translated easily  to it

also for blogging we could use something like wordpress or there are
another options
But this is another thread and i will make some proposals on both
firebird-general and firebird-website


>
> Helen
>
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-- 
developer flamerobin.org

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Helen Borrie napsal(a):
> 
> Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active
> website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to
> centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul
> Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

1) I don't think the tracker is the best place to get it started. It's
not good to collect ideas, as it's intended to keep track of progress on
items. we can move to the tracker once individual tasks would be
defined. Meanwhile we could use this list or create page(s) on firebird
wiki at http://wiki.firebirdsql.org/ (if Paul R. would keep it going, it
worked during the conference but it seem that it's not working at the
moment).

2) What we really need for the website is:
 a) Rethink the site structure.
 b) Style sheets (CSS).
 c) New core layout (based o new structure and style sheets).
 d) Good/professional graphics.

So we should start with a) that would allow professional web designer to
create the rest. We can handle it from there and move the content to new
structure and style sheets and adapt the PHP code (or whatever we'll
decide to use).

Unfortunately, I have a full plate right now and wouldn't have time to
work on this or participate much till end of the week.

best regards
Pavel Cisar
IBPhoenix

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

At 07:28 1/10/2008, you wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Helen Borrie <he...@ii...> wrote:
>> At 02:34 1/10/2008, Roman Rokytskyy wrote:
>>
>>>Herewith I, as Committee member, ask whether you, Firebird Project Web
>>>Team, accept the idea of placing all feature requests into our tracker
>>>in the "Web site" Project (Key: WEB)?
>>
>> Excellent idea.
>Ok so i guess i should send here the designer ?
>Or who will he talk with directly ?

Marius,

Some people have been jumping the gun around this topic so it will be helpful to explain to non-members of the FF what the background is...

Earlier in the year, in the FFMembers forum, Martijn Tonies came up with the idea that the website needed redesigning professionally.  He put forward the idea of collecting money to pay someone to do it.  Some other FF members supported the idea of a fund-raising campaign to get some money in hand to pay for it. 

It is not a FF project.  The committee simply agreed to accept money on behalf of whatever group would become "the web redevelopment group", let's refer to it as WRG to save typing.  Martijn stated his intention to "take it public" once a "WRG" was formed.  

Here is the text of Martijn's original suggestion:

=============
Every now and again the Firebird website topic is being brought forward again. Despite all the good work put into it, we know that the people behind it are not graphical or website designers. 

The general consensus in Firebird Project Admin group and the Firebird Foundation, is that the money currently on the Foundation account should be used for the development, testing processes, etc of the Firebird engine and Firebird drivers. I agree. 

However, to move the Firebird website forward, I would like to propose...that we chip in money for a fund to commission a professional web redevelopment project. With the money gathered AND the agreement of the Project Admins, I would like to start to formulate a "project description" that includes designing a new look for the website and a way to implement it by trying to use one of the well-known portal systems in PHP, preferably one that supports Firebird (are there any?) 

With this project description, I would post an item to "rent-a-coder" or similar website to see if there are any takers. From the takers, we would select one and go forward. 
=====================

Various FF members sent money to get the thing started.  At the moment the FF is holding around $1650 - $1700 USD on behalf of these donors.  It is in a variety of currencies - hence the imprecision. 

Martijn asked for advice on how to proceed.  Remember, this isn't a FF project so it's not FF business.  The Firebird *Project* owns the website, not the Foundation, and maintaining the website is not in the objectives of the FF.  

However, at Martijn's request for recommendations on how to proceed with forming a project and publicising it, the committee discussed it at its June meeting and sent some recommendations to him.  It was suggested that a project in the Tracker be used to centralise the wish-list and to conduct the project generally.  Martijn has not responded to that message so far.

The committee at its latest meeting (started end of August, still going on) set out to get some resolution of this initiative - hence Roman's message initially to this list.  

In reality, the list members here are mostly just lurkers and tyre-kickers.  Other than Paul Vinkenoog, Jiri Cincura and myself, and occasionally Dmitry Yemanov, nobody bothers with the actual task of contributing content for the website.  Pavel Cisar is officially the webmaster, although his involvement since 2005 has been limited to keeping the webserver running.  

To put it bluntly, our web presence is fairly pathetic.  The things that change regularly are knowledgebase (documentation), project news and downloads and, irregularly, the Foundation pages.  Once in a blue moon, Dmitry publishes a roadmap somewhere and I try to get it onto the site.  The developers' blog has not been updated since April, meaning that interesting development stuff remains buried in the firebird-devel and firebird-architect archives.  External sites vie with one another to be first with any Firebird-related news and totally neglect our own website.  

Marius, the present burst of life is not a response to your company's expression of interest in various email forums - which is welcome.  It's an attempt by the committee to get someone to take responsibility for the "WRG" initiative.  The committee wants to raise it with the FF members who pumped in the money, and get them to say what they want to do next.  

Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

So, let's do what it takes to put some order into all of it - both WRG and the Marius Popa initiative - so that a properly coordinated and publicised PROJECT comes into existence and can move forward in a properly coordinated fashion.  

If your developer wants to join this list, he is more than welcome.  Assuming the WRG initiative wakes up and moves forward and nobody here objects to using the Tracker project for developing requirements, the Firebird Project should be able to reach the position where it can accept or decline your company's fortuitous offer to help out.  

Just let's minimise the confusion!!

Helen

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Roman R. <rro...@ac...>]

Marius,

> Ok so i guess i should send here the designer ?
> Or who will he talk with directly ?

I do not know... This activity was started by Martijn, so he would be 
the right contact person. However FF Secretary sent him email re. next 
steps, but no reply was received.

So, at the moment we are in situation where FF Committee has collected 
the money, but does not have concrete suggestions of how to redesign the 
site. That is why we try to collect ideas from others.

I see two aspects of the redesign. One is the visual representation, 
which can be done by the designer without any problem. But another side 
is the content itself, which, I suspect, cannot be task for the 
designer. And I am pretty sure that we should discuss the issues with 
the content before the we start the visual part.

And this is exactly where the tracker comes - people that have 
suggestions how to improve the content of the site should put their 
suggestions in the tracker.

But so far we have no feature requests in the tracker, so there's pretty 
nothing for the designer to look for there. And to discuss the visual 
representation ideas, I think this list has too small audience. Inviting 
all people here would kill the list.

So, at the moment I would either start a thread in fb-general or in 
ffmembers lists, and later, maybe, start a separate group in Yahoo for this.

But before starting that discussion in fb-general or ffmembers, I would 
wait few days till Secretary finishes a page where we would describe 
what we have and what we need. (That is unless Martijn comes back and 
takes the lead - then FF would do exactly that what it was supposed to 
do - to collect the money).

Roman

Re: [Firebird-website] Redesign of our website - feature requests in tracker

[Helen B. <he...@ii...>]

At 07:28 1/10/2008, you wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Helen Borrie <he...@ii...> wrote:
>> At 02:34 1/10/2008, Roman Rokytskyy wrote:
>>
>>>Herewith I, as Committee member, ask whether you, Firebird Project Web
>>>Team, accept the idea of placing all feature requests into our tracker
>>>in the "Web site" Project (Key: WEB)?
>>
>> Excellent idea.
>Ok so i guess i should send here the designer ?
>Or who will he talk with directly ?

Marius,

Some people have been jumping the gun around this topic so it will be helpful to explain to non-members of the FF what the background is...

Earlier in the year, in the FFMembers forum, Martijn Tonies came up with the idea that the website needed redesigning professionally.  He put forward the idea of collecting money to pay someone to do it.  Some other FF members supported the idea of a fund-raising campaign to get some money in hand to pay for it. 

It is not a FF project.  The committee simply agreed to accept money on behalf of whatever group would become "the web redevelopment group", let's refer to it as WRG to save typing.  Martijn stated his intention to "take it public" once a "WRG" was formed.  

Here is the text of Martijn's original suggestion:

=============
Every now and again the Firebird website topic is being brought forward again. Despite all the good work put into it, we know that the people behind it are not graphical or website designers. 

The general consensus in Firebird Project Admin group and the Firebird Foundation, is that the money currently on the Foundation account should be used for the development, testing processes, etc of the Firebird engine and Firebird drivers. I agree. 

However, to move the Firebird website forward, I would like to propose...that we chip in money for a fund to commission a professional web redevelopment project. With the money gathered AND the agreement of the Project Admins, I would like to start to formulate a "project description" that includes designing a new look for the website and a way to implement it by trying to use one of the well-known portal systems in PHP, preferably one that supports Firebird (are there any?) 

With this project description, I would post an item to "rent-a-coder" or similar website to see if there are any takers. From the takers, we would select one and go forward. 
=====================

Various FF members sent money to get the thing started.  At the moment the FF is holding around $1650 - $1700 USD on behalf of these donors.  It is in a variety of currencies - hence the imprecision. 

Martijn asked for advice on how to proceed.  Remember, this isn't a FF project so it's not FF business.  The Firebird *Project* owns the website, not the Foundation, and maintaining the website is not in the objectives of the FF.  

However, at Martijn's request for recommendations on how to proceed with forming a project and publicising it, the committee discussed it at its June meeting and sent some recommendations to him.  It was suggested that a project in the Tracker be used to centralise the wish-list and to conduct the project generally.  Martijn has not responded to that message so far.

The committee at its latest meeting (started end of August, still going on) set out to get some resolution of this initiative - hence Roman's message initially to this list.  

In reality, the list members here are mostly just lurkers and tyre-kickers.  Other than Paul Vinkenoog, Jiri Cincura and myself, and occasionally Dmitry Yemanov, nobody bothers with the actual task of contributing content for the website.  Pavel Cisar is officially the webmaster, although his involvement since 2005 has been limited to keeping the webserver running.  

To put it bluntly, our web presence is fairly pathetic.  The things that change regularly are knowledgebase (documentation), project news and downloads and, irregularly, the Foundation pages.  Once in a blue moon, Dmitry publishes a roadmap somewhere and I try to get it onto the site.  The developers' blog has not been updated since April, meaning that interesting development stuff remains buried in the firebird-devel and firebird-architect archives.  External sites vie with one another to be first with any Firebird-related news and totally neglect our own website.  

Marius, the present burst of life is not a response to your company's expression of interest in various email forums - which is welcome.  It's an attempt by the committee to get someone to take responsibility for the "WRG" initiative.  The committee wants to raise it with the FF members who pumped in the money, and get them to say what they want to do next.  

Roman's question was a precursor to that - formally, do active website developers object to the WEB Tracker project being used to centralise the WRG initiative? That means we want answers from Paul Vinkenoog, Pavel, Jiri, Dmitry and me.

So, let's do what it takes to put some order into all of it - both WRG and the Marius Popa initiative - so that a properly coordinated and publicised PROJECT comes into existence and can move forward in a properly coordinated fashion.  

If your developer wants to join this list, he is more than welcome.  Assuming the WRG initiative wakes up and moves forward and nobody here objects to using the Tracker project for developing requirements, the Firebird Project should be able to reach the position where it can accept or decline your company's fortuitous offer to help out.  

Just let's minimise the confusion!!

Helen