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digitalmars.D - Re: Polishing D - suggestions and comments

reply Dan <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Unknown W. Brackets Wrote:


 Aha, I thought that was somewhere... but couldn't find it.  I touched on this
briefly.  It also represents problems as far as SEO (something that could be
improved on D's pages.)
 
 For example, the fact that these two, entirely separate in Google's eyes, URLs
work is bad:
 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/changelog.html
 http://digitalmars.com/d/changelog.html
 
 In addition, really, all the pages within d/ should 301 redirect to 2.0/ so
that 1.0 and 2.0 are each present in their pages' URLs.  This would make
searching for documentation on a specific tree simpler and most likely improve
relevancy.
 
 But, this is more specific than I really wanted to get with the website's
needs.  The important thing is making the decision to get the changes done, and
taking the time to review who to work with on it.  Maybe an internal team of
volunteers, maybe an outside agency.  This can't happen until responsibility is
better dispersed...
 
 As a side note, I work for a web company, and we use PHP primarily - which
language I do like.  But it would be cool to see D eat its own dogfood here,
and host the website on its own, lightweight webserver with D-coded dynamic
pages.  This wouldn't be hard to write at all, and would really show the
versatility of D (as well as efficiency, assuming it handled load well.)  Maybe
not practically the best, though.
 
 -[Unknown]



Yeah, for server choices I'd argue for either Chilisoft, a DMDScript as JScript
ASP 3.0, or a Linux/Lighttpd+D/Walnut 1.x

I know PHP, and to be frank, I think the language is annoying.  To avoid
sounding off a page-long rant and debate I shall avoid describing why.

I have a project now from the boss' boss, so I'll be busy for a couple hours.

Regards,
Dan
Jan 21 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Unknown W. Brackets Wrote:

 As a side note, I work for a web company, and we use PHP primarily
 - which language I do like.  But it would be cool to see D eat its
 own dogfood here, and host the website on its own, lightweight
 webserver with D-coded dynamic pages.  This wouldn't be hard to
 write at all, and would really show the versatility of D (as well
 as efficiency, assuming it handled load well.)  Maybe not
 practically the best, though.



The web pages are all static. Not that they have to be, but doing a 
dynamically generated site the size of digitalmars.com would probably be 
a full time job in itself.
Jan 22 2008
parent reply "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
Speaking as a professional at what you're talking about, there's not a 
chance it would.

I will say that the company I work for would ask no less than $40k to do 
a site like digitalmars.com/d, but that's still only 400 hours of work 
(give or take.)  After that you're normally talking about it reading a 
database, files or protocols from other softwares, or even flat files 
for those who like that.... and that is something anyone can do.

Even if it did require a part time, or even full time, position in 
itself - if that's what D needs, why is that a problem?  I can guarantee 
you that you'll find enough volunteers if you're worried about cost.

If you're worried about efficiency, I've worked on stuff that've gone on 
ABC's website etc., and I can promise you this is a solved problem as 
well.  Sure, it has to be done right, but this is true of anything.

Just my opinion.

-[Unknown]


Walter Bright wrote:

 Unknown W. Brackets Wrote:

 As a side note, I work for a web company, and we use PHP primarily
 - which language I do like.  But it would be cool to see D eat its
 own dogfood here, and host the website on its own, lightweight
 webserver with D-coded dynamic pages.  This wouldn't be hard to
 write at all, and would really show the versatility of D (as well
 as efficiency, assuming it handled load well.)  Maybe not
 practically the best, though.



 The web pages are all static. Not that they have to be, but doing a 
 dynamically generated site the size of digitalmars.com would probably be 
 a full time job in itself.
Jan 22 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
I'm sure it is easy for someone who has done a lot of this stuff. But 
it's all new to me.

Right now, the pages are all generated from Ddoc source files according 
to macros. Redoing the macros and style sheets would transform the site 
without needing to rewrite any of the content.

Putting user content on there is another problem, though, because 
someone would have to regularly cull the spam and vandalism from it.

The "archives" pages are all generated by a custom D program that reads 
the newsgroup files and generates the corresponding html page.

Unknown W. Brackets wrote:

 Speaking as a professional at what you're talking about, there's not a 
 chance it would.
 
 I will say that the company I work for would ask no less than $40k to do 
 a site like digitalmars.com/d, but that's still only 400 hours of work 
 (give or take.)  After that you're normally talking about it reading a 
 database, files or protocols from other softwares, or even flat files 
 for those who like that.... and that is something anyone can do.
 
 Even if it did require a part time, or even full time, position in 
 itself - if that's what D needs, why is that a problem?  I can guarantee 
 you that you'll find enough volunteers if you're worried about cost.
 
 If you're worried about efficiency, I've worked on stuff that've gone on 
 ABC's website etc., and I can promise you this is a solved problem as 
 well.  Sure, it has to be done right, but this is true of anything.
 
 Just my opinion.
 
 -[Unknown]
 
 
 Walter Bright wrote:

 Unknown W. Brackets Wrote:

 As a side note, I work for a web company, and we use PHP primarily
 - which language I do like.  But it would be cool to see D eat its
 own dogfood here, and host the website on its own, lightweight
 webserver with D-coded dynamic pages.  This wouldn't be hard to
 write at all, and would really show the versatility of D (as well
 as efficiency, assuming it handled load well.)  Maybe not
 practically the best, though.



 The web pages are all static. Not that they have to be, but doing a 
 dynamically generated site the size of digitalmars.com would probably 
 be a full time job in itself.
Jan 23 2008
parent reply "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
Yes, of course.... but that's what specialization is all about!  I may 
know a thing or two about the web, but I could never begin to write a 
programming language.  Closest I can get is a low-end scripting 
language.  Growing a project is all about getting people with good 
skills together.

To add user comments to the site, the Ddoc-generated files could be 
output to template files (read: no differently), which might then be 
used by a system which would interpolate those with user-comments.

There's no reason you would need to change your process.  There's no 
reason the documentation has to be dynamic any differently than it 
already is (Ddoc is a part of D, after all, and a good one at that.)

Vandalism can be handled by moderators.  Likely, with a situation like 
this, comments would not become public until they were approved.  Also, 
with the right server- and client-side coding, spam can be minimized. 
It really would only take maybe three people checking each once a day 
and that would probably be well-sufficient for the time being.

I am by no means suggesting you need to throw everything out the window 
and start doing things some strange way.  After all, I wouldn't do that. 
  But a little interactivity can go a long way.

-[Unknown]


Walter Bright wrote:

 I'm sure it is easy for someone who has done a lot of this stuff. But 
 it's all new to me.
 
 Right now, the pages are all generated from Ddoc source files according 
 to macros. Redoing the macros and style sheets would transform the site 
 without needing to rewrite any of the content.
 
 Putting user content on there is another problem, though, because 
 someone would have to regularly cull the spam and vandalism from it.
 
 The "archives" pages are all generated by a custom D program that reads 
 the newsgroup files and generates the corresponding html page.
 
 Unknown W. Brackets wrote:

 Speaking as a professional at what you're talking about, there's not a 
 chance it would.

 I will say that the company I work for would ask no less than $40k to 
 do a site like digitalmars.com/d, but that's still only 400 hours of 
 work (give or take.)  After that you're normally talking about it 
 reading a database, files or protocols from other softwares, or even 
 flat files for those who like that.... and that is something anyone 
 can do.

 Even if it did require a part time, or even full time, position in 
 itself - if that's what D needs, why is that a problem?  I can 
 guarantee you that you'll find enough volunteers if you're worried 
 about cost.

 If you're worried about efficiency, I've worked on stuff that've gone 
 on ABC's website etc., and I can promise you this is a solved problem 
 as well.  Sure, it has to be done right, but this is true of anything.

 Just my opinion.

 -[Unknown]


 Walter Bright wrote:

 Unknown W. Brackets Wrote:

 As a side note, I work for a web company, and we use PHP primarily
 - which language I do like.  But it would be cool to see D eat its
 own dogfood here, and host the website on its own, lightweight
 webserver with D-coded dynamic pages.  This wouldn't be hard to
 write at all, and would really show the versatility of D (as well
 as efficiency, assuming it handled load well.)  Maybe not
 practically the best, though.



 The web pages are all static. Not that they have to be, but doing a 
 dynamically generated site the size of digitalmars.com would probably 
 be a full time job in itself.
Jan 23 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Unknown W. Brackets wrote:

 Yes, of course.... but that's what specialization is all about!  I may 
 know a thing or two about the web, but I could never begin to write a 
 programming language.  Closest I can get is a low-end scripting 
 language.  Growing a project is all about getting people with good 
 skills together.



I agree.


 To add user comments to the site, the Ddoc-generated files could be 
 output to template files (read: no differently), which might then be 
 used by a system which would interpolate those with user-comments.



Ok. I've always been a bit unhappy with the [Comments] thing because the 
comments get put on a different page. If the comments could be appended 
to the page (after moderation), that would be a big improvement.


 There's no reason you would need to change your process.  There's no 
 reason the documentation has to be dynamic any differently than it 
 already is (Ddoc is a part of D, after all, and a good one at that.)



Converting the site to Ddoc was a huge productivity booster for me, and 
also made the site much more consistent. Ddoc for phobos probably 
produced well over an order of magnitude improvement in the quality of 
the phobos documentation.


 Vandalism can be handled by moderators.  Likely, with a situation like 
 this, comments would not become public until they were approved.  Also, 
 with the right server- and client-side coding, spam can be minimized. It 
 really would only take maybe three people checking each once a day and 
 that would probably be well-sufficient for the time being.



I like that idea better than logins, captcha's, and other impediments.


 I am by no means suggesting you need to throw everything out the window 
 and start doing things some strange way.  After all, I wouldn't do that. 
  But a little interactivity can go a long way.



I sent the source to the site to Daniel. Let's see what he can do with 
it! The look is controlled by just two files - style.css and doc.ddoc 
(which has all the macro text).
Jan 23 2008
next sibling parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2008-01-23 06:09:54 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:


 Converting the site to Ddoc was a huge productivity booster for me, and 
 also made the site much more consistent. Ddoc for phobos probably 
 produced well over an order of magnitude improvement in the quality of 
 the phobos documentation.



Have you thought about publishing all these pages in Ddoc format too? 
If one could replace the overview.html file in the URL with overview.d 
to get the Ddoc source, it'd be a great way to learn about Ddoc. 
Perhaps there could be a link to that source file beside "Page 
generated by Ddoc" in the footer of Ddoc-generated pages.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Jan 23 2008
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2008-01-23 06:09:54 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:
 

 Converting the site to Ddoc was a huge productivity booster for me, 
 and also made the site much more consistent. Ddoc for phobos probably 
 produced well over an order of magnitude improvement in the quality of 
 the phobos documentation.



 Have you thought about publishing all these pages in Ddoc format too?



Yes, I've just never gotten around to it.
Jan 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Daniel <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:

 I sent the source to the site to Daniel. Let's see what he can do with 
 it! The look is controlled by just two files - style.css and doc.ddoc 
 (which has all the macro text).



I'll certainly take a look when I get home.  At the moment, it's 11:38 am and
I'm at work.  : p  I'm currently in need of a breather to work out more theory
behind my parser/interpreter; so this just might do it.

After I've read the files, I shall focus on first things first; getting the
comments inlined into the documentation page, collapsable and clearly indicated
as just comments, and then writing a comment post form generator in javascript
(which hides it from spam web trawler scripts)

Ideally, comments should be visible both on the page and in a centralized
place, and possibly with an RSS feed.  Who disagrees?  Preferences?  Other
features?

Regards,
Dan
Jan 23 2008
next sibling parent "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
My suggestions would be (obviously just my opinion):

1. Before writing any backend, verify with Walter what the server supports.

2. Make sure it supports moderation (frontend should emphasize this.)

3. Moderation would probably be presented with the author, date, 
comment, and page commented for approval - one big list, I'm sure.

4. An rss feed with an optional filter for the page, would definitely be 
useful.  Most likely it would have a flag for approved/unapproved.

5. Some way of highlighting D code within comments would be nice 
(possibly marked up with <code>?)

6. If you're going to use JavaScript, assuming you provide some sort of 
fallback (like a link) to people who have no JavaScript, it might be 
nice to allow the comments per-section in the specification pages.  I'm 
not sure how this would work, though.

For reference, I suggest looking at the PHP pages which have similar 
functionality:
http://us.php.net/array_rand
http://us.php.net/manual/add-note.php?sect=function.array-rand&redirect=http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.array-rand.php

But again, these are just my suggestions.  Hopefully if Walter or anyone 
else have any specific ideas they will say something.

-[Unknown]


Daniel wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:

 I sent the source to the site to Daniel. Let's see what he can do with 
 it! The look is controlled by just two files - style.css and doc.ddoc 
 (which has all the macro text).



 I'll certainly take a look when I get home.  At the moment, it's 11:38 am and
I'm at work.  : p  I'm currently in need of a breather to work out more theory
behind my parser/interpreter; so this just might do it.
 
 After I've read the files, I shall focus on first things first; getting the
comments inlined into the documentation page, collapsable and clearly indicated
as just comments, and then writing a comment post form generator in javascript
(which hides it from spam web trawler scripts)
 
 Ideally, comments should be visible both on the page and in a centralized
place, and possibly with an RSS feed.  Who disagrees?  Preferences?  Other
features?
 
 Regards,
 Dan
Jan 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Daniel wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:

 I sent the source to the site to Daniel. Let's see what he can do
 with it! The look is controlled by just two files - style.css and
 doc.ddoc (which has all the macro text).



 I'll certainly take a look when I get home.  At the moment, it's
 11:38 am and I'm at work.  : p  I'm currently in need of a breather
 to work out more theory behind my parser/interpreter; so this just
 might do it.
 
 After I've read the files, I shall focus on first things first;
 getting the comments inlined into the documentation page, collapsable
 and clearly indicated as just comments, and then writing a comment
 post form generator in javascript (which hides it from spam web
 trawler scripts)
 
 Ideally, comments should be visible both on the page and in a
 centralized place, and possibly with an RSS feed.  Who disagrees?
 Preferences?  Other features?



The whole look of the site is controlled by two files, doc.ddoc and 
style.css. Can we start with something more modest and just update them 
to give the site a better look?
Jan 24 2008
parent reply Dan <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Daniel wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:

 I sent the source to the site to Daniel. Let's see what he can do
 with it! The look is controlled by just two files - style.css and
 doc.ddoc (which has all the macro text).



 I'll certainly take a look when I get home.  At the moment, it's
 11:38 am and I'm at work.  : p  I'm currently in need of a breather
 to work out more theory behind my parser/interpreter; so this just
 might do it.
 
 After I've read the files, I shall focus on first things first;
 getting the comments inlined into the documentation page, collapsable
 and clearly indicated as just comments, and then writing a comment
 post form generator in javascript (which hides it from spam web
 trawler scripts)
 
 Ideally, comments should be visible both on the page and in a
 centralized place, and possibly with an RSS feed.  Who disagrees?
 Preferences?  Other features?



 The whole look of the site is controlled by two files, doc.ddoc and 
 style.css. Can we start with something more modest and just update them 
 to give the site a better look?



Walter, I've read the code you have to generate the website.  I'm usually quite
blunt, so please excuse my saying that you've used an axe to pound in a nail. 
You're welcome to say the same about my interpreter as long as you offer to
help.  ; )

I shall endeavor to use your existing system and see what I can do about the
look.  I'll send that to you and we shall progress from there.

Regards,
Dan
Jan 24 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Dan wrote:

 Walter, I've read the code you have to generate the website.  I'm
 usually quite blunt, so please excuse my saying that you've used an
 axe to pound in a nail.  You're welcome to say the same about my
 interpreter as long as you offer to help.  ; )



No problem! I don't claim any particular expertise in html, CSS, or web 
site design. In fact, I have a lot of trouble with CSS, as you can tell 
by trying to click on the tabs in the upper right corner under Explorer 
(it works under Ubuntu). I spent a lot of time trying to figure that 
out, and finally gave up.


 I shall endeavor to use your existing system and see what I can do
 about the look.  I'll send that to you and we shall progress from
 there.



Thank-you.

P.S. One of the reasons for the extensive use of macros is the dream of 
one day being able to generate pdf files directly from the doc source 
pages via LaTeX (and not have them look like crappy converted html).
Jan 24 2008
next sibling parent reply Dan <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:

Dan Wrote:

 I shall endeavor to use your existing system and see what I can do
 about the look.  I'll send that to you and we shall progress from
 there.



 Thank-you.



Just so nobody shoots me, I was *asked* to do the look first.  : )

The first layout/imagery iteration has been sent to Walter and looks uncannily
like forums.aw8.net because I was trying to.  The imagery *is* all from-scratch.

I want more feedback from Walter before investing more time in any direction.

I'm thinking to:

- possibly making it feel less glowy/fuzzy/round
- get it from blue to carbon-pattern dark-grey, white, orange and red.  
- trimming the 18kb image size
- adding white square tabs/drop downs at the top, each containing one of the
left sidebar sections.
- integrate it into Walter's macro system.  : )

More importantly, what is Walter thinking?
Off to bed, it's now 11pm.
Jan 24 2008
parent Dan <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Dan Wrote:


 Walter Bright Wrote:

Dan Wrote:

 I shall endeavor to use your existing system and see what I can do
 about the look.  I'll send that to you and we shall progress from
 there.



 Thank-you.



 Just so nobody shoots me, I was *asked* to do the look first.  : )
 
 The first layout/imagery iteration has been sent to Walter and looks uncannily
like forums.aw8.net because I was trying to.  The imagery *is* all from-scratch.
 
 I want more feedback from Walter before investing more time in any direction.
 
 I'm thinking to:
 
 - possibly making it feel less glowy/fuzzy/round
 - get it from blue to carbon-pattern dark-grey, white, orange and red.  
 - trimming the 18kb image size
 - adding white square tabs/drop downs at the top, each containing one of the
left sidebar sections.
 - integrate it into Walter's macro system.  : )
 
 More importantly, what is Walter thinking?
 Off to bed, it's now 11pm.



I couldn't sleep.  The thought crossed my mind that I had entirely the wrong
idea - that I should just be making some small stylesheet changes to make the
current site look a little prettier, not a complete freakin' redesign.

That and my wife started snoring.

So, I'll be back with a few more trivial changes to the existing site instead;
and I'll stop posting to the forums every time I have anything at all to say. 
: p
Jan 24 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
This is because the containers are floating.  IE loves being funny.

Add height: 28px; to the div#headingNav rule, then add float: left; to 
the div#lastupdate rule.  Also, I suggest adding clear: both; to the 
div#navigation rule.

After that, reverse the order of "lastupdate" and "headingNav" by 
putting "lastupdate" first in the HTML.

This should fix it afaict.  It will make IE6 give the full block as a 
link, and IE7 will no longer limit the link inside the containing ul 
(which had a useless 4px padding rule on it btw since it had no 
effective height.)

-[Unknown]


Walter Bright wrote:

 No problem! I don't claim any particular expertise in html, CSS, or web 
 site design. In fact, I have a lot of trouble with CSS, as you can tell 
 by trying to click on the tabs in the upper right corner under Explorer 
 (it works under Ubuntu). I spent a lot of time trying to figure that 
 out, and finally gave up.
Jan 24 2008
prev sibling parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright, el 24 de enero a las 02:38 me escribiste:

 Dan wrote:

Walter, I've read the code you have to generate the website.  I'm
usually quite blunt, so please excuse my saying that you've used an
axe to pound in a nail.  You're welcome to say the same about my
interpreter as long as you offer to help.  ; )



 No problem! I don't claim any particular expertise in html, CSS, or web site
design. In fact, I have a lot of trouble with CSS, as you can tell by trying to 
 click on the tabs in the upper right corner under Explorer (it works under
Ubuntu). I spent a lot of time trying to figure that out, and finally gave up.
 

I shall endeavor to use your existing system and see what I can do
about the look.  I'll send that to you and we shall progress from
there.



 Thank-you.
 
 P.S. One of the reasons for the extensive use of macros is the dream of one
day being able to generate pdf files directly from the doc source pages via
LaTeX 
 (and not have them look like crappy converted html).



I don't know what are your specific needs, but maybe you should consider
using RestructuredText[1]. Is easy to write, powerful and, if needed,
extensible.

[1] http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (luca) | Blog colectivo: http://www.mazziblog.com.ar/blog/
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En ese preciso instante ella con un leve gemido nos dice: "Ponla, Tito!
Ponla!".
	-- Sidharta Kiwi
Jan 24 2008
parent Dan <murpsoft hotmail.com> writes:
Leandro Lucarella Wrote:

 
 I don't know what are your specific needs, but maybe you should consider
 using RestructuredText[1]. Is easy to write, powerful and, if needed,
 extensible.
 
 [1] http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html



I visited their website.  It doesn't look like it helped them very much.  : p

I do tend to think that a template mechanism would server Walter Bright's
objectives better than the macro scheme.  Each page outside the template ought
to only have the content section.  Having only a minimal set of directives
would be more maintainable, and easier to parse towards pdf or any other format.

I would think <h1-5>,<p>,<code>,<q>,<img>, and <a href> ought to do it; but
there might be a couple others.

Walter Bright wanted me to touch up the look first, so I submitted several
small changes to the css that ought to make the site look a little more refined
without improving functionality much. 

I didn't notice that post about the IE7 bug before submitting the patch to
Walter though; and the comments/rss mechanism hasn't been touched.

Next go round?  : p
Jan 24 2008