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Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics

Added by looking_for freedom almost 10 years ago

Hi, I would like to give a suggestion for the home page of Replicant web: Add a widget with the topics (threads) of the forums.

I'm not an expert in web, but I have investigated a bit, and I think it can be done easily:

  • I see that the home page is generated by the "WordPress" software, and the forum is generated by the "Redmine" software.
  • I have found that "Wordpress" comes with a RSS Widget, that can show any RSS feed.
  • And I have found that "Redmine" comes with a "Atom/RSS feed" generator, that creates a link "Export to: Atom" in each page. We already can see the link in the bottom right corner of Replicant forum pages.

So, to show forum topics in the home page of Replicant, you only have to enable the "RSS Widget" that is already installed (it comes with the "Wordpress" software), and configure it with the following RSS feed URL:

http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/activity.atom?show_messages=1

An image of the "RSS Widget" setup is shown here:

http://en.support.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/rss_widget.png

The setup could be:

Showing forum topics will make the home page a more dinamic page, and more interesting to visit.


Replies (8)

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by Paul Kocialkowski almost 10 years ago

Great idea! I've just added that to the Wordpress site, it was very easy thanks to your instructions.

Thanks for helping :)

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by looking_for freedom almost 10 years ago

You are welcome :-)

And I have another idea :-). I see that the development activity is available at the following RSS URL:

http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/activity.atom

So you could add another instance of the "RSS widget" to the home page, with the following setup:

I have read that it is possible to have several instances of the same widget (specially with widgets that come with wordpress), so probably it is possible to drag&drop again the "RSS Widget" to the sidebar at the wordpress setup page. As shown in this image:

http://cdn2.wpbeginner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/wp-3-8-widget-chooser.jpg

it only requires to drag the "RSS widget" from the left area ("Available widgets") and drop it on the right area ("Sidebar").

I also would like to propose a new sorting of the widgets, in a more useful way. The current sorting is:

Categories
Archives
Meta
Forums
Development

and I propose the following:

Categories
Meta
Forums
Development
Archives

in order to have the most useful information first.

I'm not sure, but probably the way to change the sorting of widgets is by draging&dropping them at the "Sidebar" area of Wordpress setup (the right area of the image).

I hope it helps to make the home page more useful :-)

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by Paul Kocialkowski almost 10 years ago

And I have another idea :-). I see that the development activity is available

I don't think it's so relevant to have the bugs shown on the main page, so I'll keep it as it is now.

I also would like to propose a new sorting of the widgets, in a more useful way.

I think the most useful informations are already in the correct order. Meta is not useful to anyone except people who log in to the site (so mostly, just me), forums are nice but not directly relevant to the blog while categories and archives are.

Thanks for proposing new ideas though :)

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by looking_for freedom almost 10 years ago

Well, to be or not to be a blog is transparent for the visitors. What visitors are visiting is the home page of Replicant. The heart of a free software project is participation, so the home page of a free software project should be centered in participation.

In fact, the next proposal I was going to give consists of making the home page even more centered in participation:

  • Replace the current "twenty eleven" theme by the more modern "twenty fourteen" theme, that comes with Wordpress too, and allows 3 widget areas: Left, right and top.
  • At the top widget area, place the current "Forums" widget, since debating is the key of participation.
  • At the left widget area, place 2 new Text widgets :
    1. One with title "Participate", and with these links: "Give ideas", "Develop", "Spread" and "Donate".
    2. Other one with title "Try it", and with these links: "For my phone?", "Download", "Install" and "Apps".
      Below those 2 new widget, place the "Development" widget I proposed.
  • At the right widget area, keep current widgets (except the "Forums" widget).
  • In adition, I would compress current logo, that is consuming too much space, to a more compact logo at the left of the top widget area (for example, by using the Image widget ).

This is a draft for the participation-centered proposal:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|    Home    Wiki    Tracker    Forums    Donate          [ Search      ]    |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                    |                                                       |
|       _\\____      |  Forums                                               |
|      /      o\     |                                                       |
|     /      \__\    |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|     -----------    |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|   _/|       \_|_   |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|  |__|      \____|  |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|     |         |    |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|     \_____| |_/    |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|      /_/  | |      |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|           ooo      |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|                    |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|     Replicant      |  * Title of a thread posted at forums   by Someone    |
|                    |                                                       |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                    |                                  |                    |
|  Participate       |  Unveiling the Samsung Galaxy    |  Categories        |
|                    |  back-door                       |                    |
|  * Give ideas      |     Posted on date by PaulK      |  * F-Droid         |
|  * Develop         |                                  |  * New images      |
|  * Spread          |  Yesterday, we disclosed our     |  * Privacy         |
|  * Donate          |  findings about the Samsung      |  * Replicant       |
|                    |  Galaxy back-door, an            |  * SDK             |
|  Try it            |  anti-feature found in Samsung   |                    |
|                    |  Galaxy devices that lets the    |  Archives          |
|  * For my phone?   |  modem access the files stored   |                    |
|  * Download        |  on the device. For a complete   |  * Month year      |
|  * Install         |  statement about the issue,      |  * Month year      |
|  * Apps            |  you can refer to the article    |  * Month year      | 
|                    |  we published at the Free        |  * Month year      | 
|  Development       |  Software Foundation’s website.  |  * Month year      | 
|                    |  A technical description of      |  * Month year      | 
|  * Devel activity  |  the issue is available on a     |  * Month year      | 
|  * Devel activity  |  dedicated page of the           |  * Month year      | 
|  * Devel activity  |  Replicant wiki, along with      |  * Month year      | 
|  * Devel activity  |  more information regarding the  |  * Month year      | 
|  * Devel activity  |  back-door.                      |  * Month year      | 
|                    |                                  |                    |

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by looking_for freedom almost 10 years ago

You are right on the bug list point, I thought that they were development activities, not only bugs. After browsing a bit, I have discovered that there is a page for the Replicant development:

https://gitorious.org/replicant

and there is a rss feed for the development activities:

https://gitorious.org/replicant.atom

Why didn't you propose it? :-P

So the setup for the new instance of the RSS widget would be:

  • Enter the RSS feed URL here: https://gitorious.org/replicant.atom
  • Give the feed a title (optional): Development
  • Display item content: No
  • Display item author if available: yes
  • Display item date: No

It would be the "Development" section on the left column of the participation-centered proposal.

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 9 years ago

Apparently, what you are suggesting is something more or less like the Trisquel home page: http://www.trisquel.info, which is a home page and not a blog. Currently, www.replicant.us is mostly the Replicant blog and provides quick access to other relevant parts such as the bug tracker, etc. I don't think that it would fit well to keep using Wordpress for the purpose of a main page, but we might want to have a home page instead of a blog at some point in the future indeed.

I'll keep things the way they are currently, but we might move to something else for www.replicant.us and move the blog to blog.replicant.us then. Something like http://www.gta04.org/ also looks good as a home page, but I prefer to concept from Trisquel. What do you think?

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by looking_for freedom over 9 years ago

Well, I think we can reuse wordpress as the home page of replicant by making some little changes (basically by changinf the theme and by adding some widgets), so we can minimize the required effort. Moving to other web engine would probably require more effort than reusing what we already have.

Wordpress is good for blogs, but is also good for other types of web pages. In fact, in wordpress.org we can read:

"WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog"

In my opinion, we can keep the current page, and add some widgets arround (left, up, and right), keeping the core of the page in the center (the replicant news). I see a home page as a page that concentrates the most useful information for the visitor. If I were a visitor of the home page of replicant, I would like to see concentrated in the page:

  • Dynamic information for frequent visitors: Recent activity (news, forum posts, last code aditions, last wiki aditions, etc).
  • Static information for first-time visitors: What replicant is, how to use it, how to participate, etc.

I think wordpress can fit both requirements, by expanding current blog-based structure to a widget-based advanced structure.

If you agree, next days I will make a draft (in a free wordpress hosting) on how we can enrich the current replicant page to convert it into a real and useful home page. (it will also be useful for me, since I will learn wordpress)

RE: Suggestion for the web: Widget with forum topics - Added by Paul Kocialkowski over 9 years ago

Moving to other web engine would probably require more effort than reusing what we already have.

Yes, I agree.

If you agree, next days I will make a draft (in a free wordpress hosting) on how we can enrich the current replicant page to convert it into a real and useful home page. (it will also be useful for me, since I will learn wordpress)

Okay, that would be nice. I may not make the change in the very near future, but it's always good to have new ideas for the future. I would like it to look more or less like the Trisquel website, but only in one single page, with just a few others for very basic topics (About page, FAQ, Recommendations).

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