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Posted to dev@roller.apache.org by Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com> on 2014/07/03 03:49:46 UTC
Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Hi Gaurav, I've been working heavily on the backend and am thankfully
getting to a point where I can look more at the frontend. We may need
to release Roller 5.1 just to get retire the 5.0.x series -- front-end
looks very similar, but back-end is much cleaner and faster to build,
lower maintenance, etc. So Roller 5.1 is at least standing on a good
foundation, even if the UI themes need some work.
Some of the UI things I'd like to see done (some may get into 5.1, some
may in a subsequent patch release), regardless of who does them, are as
follows:
1.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes OOTB say "here's the top 30 tags
for this blog", but that doesn't help a starting blogger who has just
one or two blog entries and next to no tags--the blog looks bad that
way. A blog theme should look good from day one even if the blogger has
just a few blog entries. I'd like to see the tag stuff removed and have
it replaced with either the blogroll, ATOM feeds, or something else.
One idea is to move the top horizontal menu line providing archives,
login, buttons to the side and include categories in the top horizontal
line instead.
2.) The fauxcoly theme uses YUI (Yahoo User Interface) stored in
webapp/roller-ui/yui, but the YUI is from 2009. I'd like to have it
replaced with the latest release YUI. The YUI we ship with Roller is
not just for fauxcoly, but for any YUI-based custom theme a user may
wish to create (by keeping it in roller-ui/yui a new theme creator
doesn't have to bother importing all the YUI files with his theme.)
Also, if the theme can be tweaked a bit to be responsive while using YUI
still that would be good.
3.) The gaurav theme of course uses Bootstrap and JQuery. Likewise,
rather than directly incorporate that stuff in the gaurav theme, I'd
like to have it placed under webapp/roller-ui/bootstrap and have the
gaurav theme reference those files from there. That way, again, anyone
can come up with their own Bootstrap-based theme without needing to
upload all the Bootstrap files.
4.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes duplicate an icons folder having
all the social media bitmaps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I'd
like to see those icons stored in one place, maybe roller-ui/icons or
/socialmedia or whatever, so themes can reference those icons without
needing to duplicate them into their themes.
5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog view
for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-element-issue-of1
. The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today (that blog entry at
that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had to make changes
basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even with those changes
I saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did was very nice circa 2010
(before Bootstrap existed) but might be frowned upon today, I think one
is expected to use a responsive theme today when you want to support all
types of devices, rather than have (antiquated?) "click here for mobile"
and "click here for standard" buttons. Unsure, but we may wish to pull
this out of the basic theme once fauxcoly and gaurav are better
established.
6.) Our website is old-fashioned, perhaps about 50% of Apache websites
are now using Bootstrap and I'd like Roller to be one of them. The
stuff that is on the Roller Wiki would remain there, so that doesn't
need converting, just the several relatively small pages making up
roller.apache.org.
7.) We eventually should have a sample theme (probably non-responsive as
this is a portal-type page) showing how to display Roller's Planet
functionality (it is very crude here:
http://rollerweblogger.org/project/page/planet, the CSS isn't working).
I haven't looked at this at all, and am unsure how well the backend
still supports it.
If any of this sounds interesting to you (or any other Roller
committer), just let us know so we're not duplicating effort and feel
free to jump into it!
Regards,
Glen
On 06/18/2014 03:18 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
> Hello Glen,
>
> Thanks for this informative reply. I was looking for some suggestions
> and you provided. :)
>
> I am interested in any UI work related to roller. I can handle all the
> UI work inside roller although there might not be as much but if you
> have any issues in JIRA known to you I would love to contribute
> towards them.
>
> I have been working on AngularJS, nodejs projects from last some time
> and also have vast expirience in CSS mainly how to perfectly use
> Bootstrap. I am focusing my future in client side with nodejs coming
> in scope we can have backend built with javascript.
>
> So, I love to contribute to any client side work (UI) to roller
> anytime. :)
>
> Thanks
> Gaurav
>
> On Sunday 15 June 2014 10:11 PM, Glen Mazza wrote:
>> Hi Gaurav, yes, I hope gaurav the theme (and Gaurav the person) gets
>> a lot *more* attention too... :)
>>
>> You are most welcome to submit a proposal for any Apache project, and
>> you don't need anybody's permission to do so. I've never given a
>> presentation at ApacheCon so I wouldn't know much more than what the
>> website would tell you. I'd be cautious though, I'm not certain they
>> will cover your formidable transportation and lodging costs if they
>> accepted your presentation (or may take that into account when
>> judging to accept your proposal, reducing the chances of its
>> acceptance). 'Course, at this early stage in your career, given the
>> amount of time and effort it would take to give a presentation in
>> Europe, it might be better for you to spend that time on gaining more
>> technical know-how anyway (say, by submitting more Roller patches :),
>> as substance is always better than show.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Glen
>>
>> On 06/13/2014 08:22 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>>> Hello Dave and Glen,
>>>
>>> I am really excited and interested in submitting a paper on Apache
>>> Roller.
>>> I have worked on roller and have contributed to roller some months
>>> back. I also have contributed the responsive theme for roller which
>>> is really gaining some attention.
>>>
>>> Glen, might be knowing me and remembering me. I can provide a
>>> hands-on tutorial or an introduction for beginners about Roller.
>>>
>>> Can anyone please guide me how I can go for this ? Is there anything
>>> specific anyone has idea for which I can prepare the paper. This is
>>> my first time and really looking forward for this conference.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Gaurav
>>>
>>> On Friday 13 June 2014 05:29 PM, Dave wrote:
>>>> Dear Roller fans,
>>>>
>>>> As you may be aware, ApacheCon will be held this year in Budapest, on
>>>> November 17-23. (See http://apachecon.eu for more info.)
>>>>
>>>> The Call For Papers for that conference is still open, but will be
>>>> closing soon. Now is your chance to tell the world about how you
>>>> use Roller. This could be any level of talk - a deep technical talk,
>>>> a hands-on tutorial, an introduction for beginners, or a case study
>>>> about the awesome stuff you're doing with Roller.
>>>>
>>>> Please consider submitting a proposal, at
>>>> http://events.linuxfoundation.org//events/apachecon-europe/program/cfp
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com>.
Hi Greg, I don't think the theme.xml needs to be altered for that, it
would be redundant...the presence of multiple theme definitions
automatically should mean that both templates are active, based on their
<type/> element. Below is part of the theme.xml for the basic theme:
<template action="weblog">
<name>Weblog</name>
<description>weblog</description>
<link></link>
<navbar>false</navbar>
<hidden>true</hidden>
<templateCode>
<templateLanguage>velocity</templateLanguage>
<contentType>text/html</contentType>
<contentsFile>weblog.vm</contentsFile>
<type>standard</type>
</templateCode>
<templateCode>
<templateLanguage>velocity</templateLanguage>
<contentType>text/html</contentType>
<contentsFile>weblog-mobile.vm</contentsFile>
<type>mobile</type>
</templateCode>
</template>
By virtue of the fact that one <templateCode> has a type of "standard"
and the other has "mobile" means they're both active for their
respective types. If the person doesn't want mobile he can just
comment-out the latter <templateCode> definition, that should suffice I
think. Otherwise you're gonna have people uncomment the second
<templateCode/> and get confused why it isn't activating, forgetting
that they also forgot to add in a new
<useMobileTheme>true</useMobileTheme> element.
> I think these edit programs use the YUI css tab. Are we sticking with YUI?
I think you mean the JSP pages that we use to edit blog entries
(EntryEdit.jsp for example), yes, I just noticed it uses YUI. YUI
should be fine, definitely for 5.1, if ain't broke don't fix it. Still,
I put in a JIRA (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ROL-2019) for us
to update our YUI library to a recent release of it (we're using a YUI
from 2009), as that YUI apparently is also used by themes wanting that
library, and I'd like theme customizers to have access to the latest and
greatest. Feel free to grab it if you wish.
Glen
On 07/04/2014 03:15 AM, Greg Huber wrote:
> What I could will do is add an element into the theme.xml to control
> whether there is a second theme available for the templating engine, and
> update the theme/stylesheet edit classes accordingly to not show the mobile
> tab.
>
> I think these edit programs use the YUI css tab. Are we sticking with YUI?
>
>
> On 4 July 2014 02:05, Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 07/03/2014 04:07 AM, Greg Huber wrote:
>>
>>> The mobile theme will switch automatically if you view with a mobile
>>> device, the button is there as a preview and example. Use an user agent
>>> switcher.
>>>
>>>
>> Thanks, I did not realize that, and it would be nice for Roller to
>> architecturally maintain that functionality for users who would that
>> capability. I also like how its theme.xml shows how multiple themes can be
>> bundled together.
>>
>> Glen
>>
>>
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Greg Huber <gr...@gmail.com>.
What I could will do is add an element into the theme.xml to control
whether there is a second theme available for the templating engine, and
update the theme/stylesheet edit classes accordingly to not show the mobile
tab.
I think these edit programs use the YUI css tab. Are we sticking with YUI?
On 4 July 2014 02:05, Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/03/2014 04:07 AM, Greg Huber wrote:
>
>> The mobile theme will switch automatically if you view with a mobile
>> device, the button is there as a preview and example. Use an user agent
>> switcher.
>>
>>
> Thanks, I did not realize that, and it would be nice for Roller to
> architecturally maintain that functionality for users who would that
> capability. I also like how its theme.xml shows how multiple themes can be
> bundled together.
>
> Glen
>
>
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com>.
On 07/03/2014 04:07 AM, Greg Huber wrote:
> The mobile theme will switch automatically if you view with a mobile
> device, the button is there as a preview and example. Use an user agent
> switcher.
>
Thanks, I did not realize that, and it would be nice for Roller to
architecturally maintain that functionality for users who would that
capability. I also like how its theme.xml shows how multiple themes can
be bundled together.
Glen
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Greg Huber <gr...@gmail.com>.
5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog view
for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-element-issue-of1
. The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today (that blog entry at
that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had to make changes
basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even with those changes I
saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did was very nice circa 2010
(before Bootstrap existed) but might be frowned upon today, I think one is
expected to use a responsive theme today when you want to support all types
of devices, rather than have (antiquated?) "click here for mobile" and
"click here for standard" buttons. Unsure, but we may wish to pull this
out of the basic theme once fauxcoly and gaurav are better established.
The mobile theme will switch automatically if you view with a mobile
device, the button is there as a preview and example. Use an user agent
switcher.
I guess mobile first will become the standard, but what I like about the
separate theme you can still use your investment in your existing design
(desktop) and then a responsive design for the mobile/tablets, where you
can target more the mobile devices rather than one fits all design (which
tend to be more mobile centric than desktop). Yes more work but for roller
the themes are quite simple.
Surfing an a mobile? hmm, think apps are the way to go as you get more
"lockin" and a much better user experience. ...a whole lot more work and
complexity however.
On 3 July 2014 02:49, Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Gaurav, I've been working heavily on the backend and am thankfully
> getting to a point where I can look more at the frontend. We may need to
> release Roller 5.1 just to get retire the 5.0.x series -- front-end looks
> very similar, but back-end is much cleaner and faster to build, lower
> maintenance, etc. So Roller 5.1 is at least standing on a good foundation,
> even if the UI themes need some work.
>
> Some of the UI things I'd like to see done (some may get into 5.1, some
> may in a subsequent patch release), regardless of who does them, are as
> follows:
>
> 1.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes OOTB say "here's the top 30 tags
> for this blog", but that doesn't help a starting blogger who has just one
> or two blog entries and next to no tags--the blog looks bad that way. A
> blog theme should look good from day one even if the blogger has just a few
> blog entries. I'd like to see the tag stuff removed and have it replaced
> with either the blogroll, ATOM feeds, or something else. One idea is to
> move the top horizontal menu line providing archives, login, buttons to the
> side and include categories in the top horizontal line instead.
>
> 2.) The fauxcoly theme uses YUI (Yahoo User Interface) stored in
> webapp/roller-ui/yui, but the YUI is from 2009. I'd like to have it
> replaced with the latest release YUI. The YUI we ship with Roller is not
> just for fauxcoly, but for any YUI-based custom theme a user may wish to
> create (by keeping it in roller-ui/yui a new theme creator doesn't have to
> bother importing all the YUI files with his theme.) Also, if the theme can
> be tweaked a bit to be responsive while using YUI still that would be good.
>
> 3.) The gaurav theme of course uses Bootstrap and JQuery. Likewise,
> rather than directly incorporate that stuff in the gaurav theme, I'd like
> to have it placed under webapp/roller-ui/bootstrap and have the gaurav
> theme reference those files from there. That way, again, anyone can come
> up with their own Bootstrap-based theme without needing to upload all the
> Bootstrap files.
>
> 4.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes duplicate an icons folder having
> all the social media bitmaps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I'd
> like to see those icons stored in one place, maybe roller-ui/icons or
> /socialmedia or whatever, so themes can reference those icons without
> needing to duplicate them into their themes.
>
> 5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog view
> for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
> http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-
> element-issue-of1 . The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today
> (that blog entry at that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had
> to make changes basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even with
> those changes I saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did was very nice
> circa 2010 (before Bootstrap existed) but might be frowned upon today, I
> think one is expected to use a responsive theme today when you want to
> support all types of devices, rather than have (antiquated?) "click here
> for mobile" and "click here for standard" buttons. Unsure, but we may wish
> to pull this out of the basic theme once fauxcoly and gaurav are better
> established.
>
> 6.) Our website is old-fashioned, perhaps about 50% of Apache websites are
> now using Bootstrap and I'd like Roller to be one of them. The stuff that
> is on the Roller Wiki would remain there, so that doesn't need converting,
> just the several relatively small pages making up roller.apache.org.
>
> 7.) We eventually should have a sample theme (probably non-responsive as
> this is a portal-type page) showing how to display Roller's Planet
> functionality (it is very crude here: http://rollerweblogger.org/
> project/page/planet, the CSS isn't working). I haven't looked at this at
> all, and am unsure how well the backend still supports it.
>
> If any of this sounds interesting to you (or any other Roller committer),
> just let us know so we're not duplicating effort and feel free to jump into
> it!
>
> Regards,
> Glen
>
> On 06/18/2014 03:18 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>
>> Hello Glen,
>>
>> Thanks for this informative reply. I was looking for some suggestions and
>> you provided. :)
>>
>> I am interested in any UI work related to roller. I can handle all the UI
>> work inside roller although there might not be as much but if you have any
>> issues in JIRA known to you I would love to contribute towards them.
>>
>> I have been working on AngularJS, nodejs projects from last some time and
>> also have vast expirience in CSS mainly how to perfectly use Bootstrap. I
>> am focusing my future in client side with nodejs coming in scope we can
>> have backend built with javascript.
>>
>> So, I love to contribute to any client side work (UI) to roller anytime.
>> :)
>>
>> Thanks
>> Gaurav
>>
>> On Sunday 15 June 2014 10:11 PM, Glen Mazza wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Gaurav, yes, I hope gaurav the theme (and Gaurav the person) gets a
>>> lot *more* attention too... :)
>>>
>>> You are most welcome to submit a proposal for any Apache project, and
>>> you don't need anybody's permission to do so. I've never given a
>>> presentation at ApacheCon so I wouldn't know much more than what the
>>> website would tell you. I'd be cautious though, I'm not certain they will
>>> cover your formidable transportation and lodging costs if they accepted
>>> your presentation (or may take that into account when judging to accept
>>> your proposal, reducing the chances of its acceptance). 'Course, at this
>>> early stage in your career, given the amount of time and effort it would
>>> take to give a presentation in Europe, it might be better for you to spend
>>> that time on gaining more technical know-how anyway (say, by submitting
>>> more Roller patches :), as substance is always better than show.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Glen
>>>
>>> On 06/13/2014 08:22 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello Dave and Glen,
>>>>
>>>> I am really excited and interested in submitting a paper on Apache
>>>> Roller.
>>>> I have worked on roller and have contributed to roller some months
>>>> back. I also have contributed the responsive theme for roller which is
>>>> really gaining some attention.
>>>>
>>>> Glen, might be knowing me and remembering me. I can provide a hands-on
>>>> tutorial or an introduction for beginners about Roller.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone please guide me how I can go for this ? Is there anything
>>>> specific anyone has idea for which I can prepare the paper. This is my
>>>> first time and really looking forward for this conference.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Gaurav
>>>>
>>>> On Friday 13 June 2014 05:29 PM, Dave wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Roller fans,
>>>>>
>>>>> As you may be aware, ApacheCon will be held this year in Budapest, on
>>>>> November 17-23. (See http://apachecon.eu for more info.)
>>>>>
>>>>> The Call For Papers for that conference is still open, but will be
>>>>> closing soon. Now is your chance to tell the world about how you
>>>>> use Roller. This could be any level of talk - a deep technical talk,
>>>>> a hands-on tutorial, an introduction for beginners, or a case study
>>>>> about the awesome stuff you're doing with Roller.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please consider submitting a proposal, at
>>>>> http://events.linuxfoundation.org//events/apachecon-europe/program/cfp
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Gaurav Saini <ga...@gmail.com>.
Hello Glen,
I like the idea of support a 2nd UI library in Roller. Foundation is
another which we can have in roller (http://foundation.zurb.com/). There
are also a lot of people using these library. I can build another Roller
Theme in future using foundation, so that way we will be having
Bootstrap, YUI and foundation themes.
Also, as you mentioned about 6 theme types, that also seems great as
this way user will have a lot of choices to choose from.
I am now taking up ROL-2022 now and waiting for my credentials so I can
have a go with SVN. I have gone with the other JIRA you mentioned. I can
easily grab them as I will be familiar to the SVN.
Thanks
Gaurav
On Friday 04 July 2014 06:30 AM, Glen Mazza wrote:
>
> On 07/03/2014 02:17 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>>
>>> 2.) The fauxcoly theme uses YUI (Yahoo User Interface) stored in
>>> webapp/roller-ui/yui, but the YUI is from 2009. I'd like to have it
>>> replaced with the latest release YUI. The YUI we ship with Roller
>>> is not just for fauxcoly, but for any YUI-based custom theme a user
>>> may wish to create (by keeping it in roller-ui/yui a new theme
>>> creator doesn't have to bother importing all the YUI files with his
>>> theme.) Also, if the theme can be tweaked a bit to be responsive
>>> while using YUI still that would be good.
>>>
>> What I think is two option for this, we can replace YUI with
>> bootstrap themes (http://bootswatch.com/) and this is make it
>> responsive. Also with this we can upgrade the back-end UI also
>> through which it will be easier to create blogs from any screens
>> (mobiles and tabs on the go).
>> Another option is upgrading to YUI 2 to YUI 3, but YUI 3 might not
>> provide much features which bootstrap provides, although from docs it
>> seems it has responsiveness support.
>>
>> My Idea is to go with bootstrap as its easier to upgrade it and
>> active development is going at hight pace and will enhance the UI
>> very much.
>>
>
> If YUI is not part of your present research interests, no problem,
> leave #2 alone then -- I'll look into this one. I haven't looked at
> YUI much but if it's becoming obsolete, we can switch it to another
> up-and-coming competitor to Bootstrap. But I think it would be good
> for Roller to support a 2nd UI CSS & JavaScript library, even if it is
> not as good or as popular as Bootstrap, if only to demonstrate that
> Roller has a flexible architecture and hence isn't hardcoded to a
> specific UI technology.
>
> In earlier versions of Roller (for example JRoller hosted by DZone),
> new bloggers would get a choice of maybe 15 themes and would just
> choose whichever one they felt looks best. I'm trying to move to
> fewer but more functional themes -- i.e., (1) we have at least one
> jquery/bootstrap theme , (2) a YUI (or another technology) theme, (3)
> (apparently) a theme that can flip between mobile and standard (basic
> theme), (4) we have a front-page theme (which is just an accumulator
> of other blogs, looks like this one: http://www.jroller.com/), (5) a
> non-responsive theme for blogging software code (basic theme will do,
> but I like the Rolling theme I use on my blog), and (6) (future) a
> planet theme. Each theme would give users a starting point based on
> their desires that they can subsequently customize as they wish.
>
>
>>> 4.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes duplicate an icons folder
>>> having all the social media bitmaps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
>>> etc. I'd like to see those icons stored in one place, maybe
>>> roller-ui/icons or /socialmedia or whatever, so themes can reference
>>> those icons without needing to duplicate them into their themes.
>>>
>> +1. Another Idea is to add a share link with each blog similar to
>> this. (http://awesomescreenshot.com/021333r131). I think we can use
>> these share buttons, we can check other apache projects for any
>> licence issue if it have.
>
> All I care about here is just that the icons are centralized so the
> user doesn't have to import them with a new theme. Share links are
> already available via 3rd party tools (http://www.addthis.com/)--we
> can make our own, but it needs to look reasonably comparable in
> quality to the 3rd party alternatives; if it's not competitive it's
> not worth reinventing the wheel. Also, I haven't confirmed but would
> like to make sure that Roller supports the well respected Disqus
> comment management system that your blog uses. We must always avoid
> proprietary, LGPL, or GPL licenses. Most others (BSD, MIT, Apache of
> course) are fine.
>
>
>>
>>> 5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog
>>> view for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
>>> http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-element-issue-of1
>>> . The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today (that blog
>>> entry at that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had to
>>> make changes basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even
>>> with those changes I saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did
>>> was very nice circa 2010 (before Bootstrap existed) but might be
>>> frowned upon today, I think one is expected to use a responsive
>>> theme today when you want to support all types of devices, rather
>>> than have (antiquated?) "click here for mobile" and "click here for
>>> standard" buttons. Unsure, but we may wish to pull this out of the
>>> basic theme once fauxcoly and gaurav are better established.
>>>
>> +1. Rather than different mobile and standard buttons we can have
>> that same theme work on mobile, tablets and desktops. I think this
>> might also clean up a bit code in java and front-end themes as we do
>> not have to make specific templates for mobiles.
>
> Actually, reading Greg's email, apparently the theme will detect
> whether one is reading via smart phone or laptop, and switch to that
> theme directly. I guess that is useful functionality for Roller to
> support, even if there are problems with the current mobile theme that
> uses that. I.e., if we choose to retire the mobile theme from the
> basic template, it would be good for Roller to still have that
> functionality available for users who would want that, e.g., just
> mention it in our User's guide. (I'll be sending another email on
> this soon.)
>
> Keep in mind, not everything needs to be responsive today. My blog
> for example, almost everything I blog is Java code segments meant for
> developers sitting at their laptops who got to my blog by googling
> about a Java topic I wrote about -- for me I need wide columns that
> will fit Java code, I'm not trying to support smart phone readers.
> Among Apache projects, CXF and Camel don't bother with responsive
> themes because their readers are pure Java developers working at their
> workstations with large displays (also, they have a ton of detail they
> need to give.)
>
>>
>>
>>> 6.) Our website is old-fashioned, perhaps about 50% of Apache
>>> websites are now using Bootstrap and I'd like Roller to be one of
>>> them. The stuff that is on the Roller Wiki would remain there, so
>>> that doesn't need converting, just the several relatively small
>>> pages making up roller.apache.org.
>>>
>> Exicted to take this up :) We can definately use bootstrap on roller
>> website. Just want to know in which framework the current website is
>> in and have to check how easy to customize it.
>
> This will require a little bit of research. We use the "Apache CMS"
> explained pretty well here:
> http://roller.apache.org/getinvolved/edit_website.html. Before you
> try anything with bootstrap, I'd like to confirm the current process
> works for you--once you become committer, add yourself to our people
> page and publish it on the website.
>
> If we use bootstrap, I'm unsure but it may be an svn commit
> automatically updates the website instead of the "publish" button you
> first have to hit on the above link. The bootstrap sites hosted by
> Apache seem to be of two types: some are vanilla bootstrap committed
> manually (allows you to use the latest-and-greatest I guess), most
> seem to use the Maven Fluido Plugin
> (http://maven.apache.org/skins/maven-fluido-skin/) though and somehow
> incorporate website updates using Maven commands. We have an Apache
> Infrastructure (infra@apache.org) mailing list you can ask whatever
> technical questions you have (that we don't know. :)
>
> If you could bring in Bootstrap while keeping our current
> publish-button system, that would be great. Failing that, some way we
> can look at our changes locally and confirm they look good before
> publishing to the internet. Also, to update our edit_website page
> describing the new process so others will know what to do.
>
>>
>>> 7.) We eventually should have a sample theme (probably
>>> non-responsive as this is a portal-type page) showing how to display
>>> Roller's Planet functionality (it is very crude here:
>>> http://rollerweblogger.org/project/page/planet, the CSS isn't
>>> working). I haven't looked at this at all, and am unsure how well
>>> the backend still supports it.
>>>
>>
>> I am bit unclear about the planet concept. Can you please tell me a
>> bit what exactly it does.
>>
>
> The planet concept is meant to create a light dashboard to take care
> of mild accumulation needs (mailing list updates, list of bloggers
> you're subscribed to, changes to Wiki pages) so you don't have to
> immediately move to fuller CMS solutions unless you really need
> something more advanced (maybe Jetspeed or Lenya or Jackrabbit or
> whatever.) We're blogging software, there's other Apache projects
> handling other types of content management systems we're not here to
> duplicate. This is a later-off thing, perhaps, after we get the main
> blog themes working.
>
>
>>> If any of this sounds interesting to you (or any other Roller
>>> committer), just let us know so we're not duplicating effort and
>>> feel free to jump into it!
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Glen
>>>
>>
>> Just let me know priority wise which task to take first, then we can
>> move around all and complete it.
>>
>>
>
> My suggestions: ROL-2022 (good starter practice working with SVN at
> Apache), ROL-2020, ROL-2023. Then your choice of either working with
> the YUI stuff (ROL-2019, ROL-2021) or updating the website w/Bootstrap
> (ROL-2024). Just claim one at a time though on JIRA (others are
> welcome to grab others, I may take one or two myself), complete it
> before grabbing another. But we have to wait of course until Dave
> gets you write access.
>
> Regards,
> Glen
>
--
Regards,
Gaurav Saini
Developer and Internet Marketing
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com>.
On 07/03/2014 02:17 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>
>> 2.) The fauxcoly theme uses YUI (Yahoo User Interface) stored in
>> webapp/roller-ui/yui, but the YUI is from 2009. I'd like to have it
>> replaced with the latest release YUI. The YUI we ship with Roller is
>> not just for fauxcoly, but for any YUI-based custom theme a user may
>> wish to create (by keeping it in roller-ui/yui a new theme creator
>> doesn't have to bother importing all the YUI files with his theme.)
>> Also, if the theme can be tweaked a bit to be responsive while using
>> YUI still that would be good.
>>
> What I think is two option for this, we can replace YUI with bootstrap
> themes (http://bootswatch.com/) and this is make it responsive. Also
> with this we can upgrade the back-end UI also through which it will be
> easier to create blogs from any screens (mobiles and tabs on the go).
> Another option is upgrading to YUI 2 to YUI 3, but YUI 3 might not
> provide much features which bootstrap provides, although from docs it
> seems it has responsiveness support.
>
> My Idea is to go with bootstrap as its easier to upgrade it and active
> development is going at hight pace and will enhance the UI very much.
>
If YUI is not part of your present research interests, no problem, leave
#2 alone then -- I'll look into this one. I haven't looked at YUI much
but if it's becoming obsolete, we can switch it to another up-and-coming
competitor to Bootstrap. But I think it would be good for Roller to
support a 2nd UI CSS & JavaScript library, even if it is not as good or
as popular as Bootstrap, if only to demonstrate that Roller has a
flexible architecture and hence isn't hardcoded to a specific UI
technology.
In earlier versions of Roller (for example JRoller hosted by DZone), new
bloggers would get a choice of maybe 15 themes and would just choose
whichever one they felt looks best. I'm trying to move to fewer but
more functional themes -- i.e., (1) we have at least one
jquery/bootstrap theme , (2) a YUI (or another technology) theme, (3)
(apparently) a theme that can flip between mobile and standard (basic
theme), (4) we have a front-page theme (which is just an accumulator of
other blogs, looks like this one: http://www.jroller.com/), (5) a
non-responsive theme for blogging software code (basic theme will do,
but I like the Rolling theme I use on my blog), and (6) (future) a
planet theme. Each theme would give users a starting point based on
their desires that they can subsequently customize as they wish.
>> 4.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes duplicate an icons folder
>> having all the social media bitmaps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
>> etc. I'd like to see those icons stored in one place, maybe
>> roller-ui/icons or /socialmedia or whatever, so themes can reference
>> those icons without needing to duplicate them into their themes.
>>
> +1. Another Idea is to add a share link with each blog similar to
> this. (http://awesomescreenshot.com/021333r131). I think we can use
> these share buttons, we can check other apache projects for any
> licence issue if it have.
All I care about here is just that the icons are centralized so the user
doesn't have to import them with a new theme. Share links are already
available via 3rd party tools (http://www.addthis.com/)--we can make our
own, but it needs to look reasonably comparable in quality to the 3rd
party alternatives; if it's not competitive it's not worth reinventing
the wheel. Also, I haven't confirmed but would like to make sure that
Roller supports the well respected Disqus comment management system that
your blog uses. We must always avoid proprietary, LGPL, or GPL
licenses. Most others (BSD, MIT, Apache of course) are fine.
>
>> 5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog
>> view for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
>> http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-element-issue-of1
>> . The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today (that blog entry
>> at that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had to make
>> changes basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even with
>> those changes I saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did was
>> very nice circa 2010 (before Bootstrap existed) but might be frowned
>> upon today, I think one is expected to use a responsive theme today
>> when you want to support all types of devices, rather than have
>> (antiquated?) "click here for mobile" and "click here for standard"
>> buttons. Unsure, but we may wish to pull this out of the basic theme
>> once fauxcoly and gaurav are better established.
>>
> +1. Rather than different mobile and standard buttons we can have that
> same theme work on mobile, tablets and desktops. I think this might
> also clean up a bit code in java and front-end themes as we do not
> have to make specific templates for mobiles.
Actually, reading Greg's email, apparently the theme will detect whether
one is reading via smart phone or laptop, and switch to that theme
directly. I guess that is useful functionality for Roller to support,
even if there are problems with the current mobile theme that uses
that. I.e., if we choose to retire the mobile theme from the basic
template, it would be good for Roller to still have that functionality
available for users who would want that, e.g., just mention it in our
User's guide. (I'll be sending another email on this soon.)
Keep in mind, not everything needs to be responsive today. My blog for
example, almost everything I blog is Java code segments meant for
developers sitting at their laptops who got to my blog by googling about
a Java topic I wrote about -- for me I need wide columns that will fit
Java code, I'm not trying to support smart phone readers. Among Apache
projects, CXF and Camel don't bother with responsive themes because
their readers are pure Java developers working at their workstations
with large displays (also, they have a ton of detail they need to give.)
>
>
>> 6.) Our website is old-fashioned, perhaps about 50% of Apache
>> websites are now using Bootstrap and I'd like Roller to be one of
>> them. The stuff that is on the Roller Wiki would remain there, so
>> that doesn't need converting, just the several relatively small pages
>> making up roller.apache.org.
>>
> Exicted to take this up :) We can definately use bootstrap on roller
> website. Just want to know in which framework the current website is
> in and have to check how easy to customize it.
This will require a little bit of research. We use the "Apache CMS"
explained pretty well here:
http://roller.apache.org/getinvolved/edit_website.html. Before you try
anything with bootstrap, I'd like to confirm the current process works
for you--once you become committer, add yourself to our people page and
publish it on the website.
If we use bootstrap, I'm unsure but it may be an svn commit
automatically updates the website instead of the "publish" button you
first have to hit on the above link. The bootstrap sites hosted by
Apache seem to be of two types: some are vanilla bootstrap committed
manually (allows you to use the latest-and-greatest I guess), most seem
to use the Maven Fluido Plugin
(http://maven.apache.org/skins/maven-fluido-skin/) though and somehow
incorporate website updates using Maven commands. We have an Apache
Infrastructure (infra@apache.org) mailing list you can ask whatever
technical questions you have (that we don't know. :)
If you could bring in Bootstrap while keeping our current publish-button
system, that would be great. Failing that, some way we can look at our
changes locally and confirm they look good before publishing to the
internet. Also, to update our edit_website page describing the new
process so others will know what to do.
>
>> 7.) We eventually should have a sample theme (probably non-responsive
>> as this is a portal-type page) showing how to display Roller's Planet
>> functionality (it is very crude here:
>> http://rollerweblogger.org/project/page/planet, the CSS isn't
>> working). I haven't looked at this at all, and am unsure how well
>> the backend still supports it.
>>
>
> I am bit unclear about the planet concept. Can you please tell me a
> bit what exactly it does.
>
The planet concept is meant to create a light dashboard to take care of
mild accumulation needs (mailing list updates, list of bloggers you're
subscribed to, changes to Wiki pages) so you don't have to immediately
move to fuller CMS solutions unless you really need something more
advanced (maybe Jetspeed or Lenya or Jackrabbit or whatever.) We're
blogging software, there's other Apache projects handling other types of
content management systems we're not here to duplicate. This is a
later-off thing, perhaps, after we get the main blog themes working.
>> If any of this sounds interesting to you (or any other Roller
>> committer), just let us know so we're not duplicating effort and feel
>> free to jump into it!
>>
>> Regards,
>> Glen
>>
>
> Just let me know priority wise which task to take first, then we can
> move around all and complete it.
>
>
My suggestions: ROL-2022 (good starter practice working with SVN at
Apache), ROL-2020, ROL-2023. Then your choice of either working with
the YUI stuff (ROL-2019, ROL-2021) or updating the website w/Bootstrap
(ROL-2024). Just claim one at a time though on JIRA (others are welcome
to grab others, I may take one or two myself), complete it before
grabbing another. But we have to wait of course until Dave gets you
write access.
Regards,
Glen
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Glen Mazza <gl...@gmail.com>.
On 07/03/2014 02:17 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
> Correct, it looks odd that for new blogger it will not show the tag
> cloud. Rather than removing we can put a condition that if more than 5
> tags comes than we can show that complete box/panel of hot tags.
Oh, I didn't realize a tag cloud will appear if there are enough tags.
Yes, great idea, show it as a unit--either desc+cloud or neither.
Please note, all of the open JIRAs are good to get fixed--feel free to
assign to yourself and then work on whichever ones interest you once you
get commit access. As we're nearing a release though, try to avoid
major commits (things that can't be tested well before committing but
we'd want to run with for a few weeks to make sure nothing fails) or
partial commits that would put the application in an unreleasable state.
Regards,
Glen
Re: Roller UI Ideas (Was Re: ApacheCon CFP closes June 25)
Posted by Gaurav Saini <ga...@gmail.com>.
Hello Glen,
Its great that we now have a good solid backend foundation for roller.
As, you said we can now improve the front-end side of roller with the
changes you mentioned below. I am sharing below my ideas about the
points you mentioned.
On Thursday 03 July 2014 07:19 AM, Glen Mazza wrote:
> Hi Gaurav, I've been working heavily on the backend and am thankfully
> getting to a point where I can look more at the frontend. We may need
> to release Roller 5.1 just to get retire the 5.0.x series -- front-end
> looks very similar, but back-end is much cleaner and faster to build,
> lower maintenance, etc. So Roller 5.1 is at least standing on a good
> foundation, even if the UI themes need some work.
>
> Some of the UI things I'd like to see done (some may get into 5.1,
> some may in a subsequent patch release), regardless of who does them,
> are as follows:
>
> 1.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes OOTB say "here's the top 30
> tags for this blog", but that doesn't help a starting blogger who has
> just one or two blog entries and next to no tags--the blog looks bad
> that way. A blog theme should look good from day one even if the
> blogger has just a few blog entries. I'd like to see the tag stuff
> removed and have it replaced with either the blogroll, ATOM feeds, or
> something else. One idea is to move the top horizontal menu line
> providing archives, login, buttons to the side and include categories
> in the top horizontal line instead.
>
Correct, it looks odd that for new blogger it will not show the tag
cloud. Rather than removing we can put a condition that if more than 5
tags comes than we can show that complete box/panel of hot tags.
Rather than moving the top horizontal menu we can just add another nav
element Categories (and then show all categories in dropdown when
someone hover over it) eg: http://awesomescreenshot.com/02f333os92
> 2.) The fauxcoly theme uses YUI (Yahoo User Interface) stored in
> webapp/roller-ui/yui, but the YUI is from 2009. I'd like to have it
> replaced with the latest release YUI. The YUI we ship with Roller is
> not just for fauxcoly, but for any YUI-based custom theme a user may
> wish to create (by keeping it in roller-ui/yui a new theme creator
> doesn't have to bother importing all the YUI files with his theme.)
> Also, if the theme can be tweaked a bit to be responsive while using
> YUI still that would be good.
>
What I think is two option for this, we can replace YUI with bootstrap
themes (http://bootswatch.com/) and this is make it responsive. Also
with this we can upgrade the back-end UI also through which it will be
easier to create blogs from any screens (mobiles and tabs on the go).
Another option is upgrading to YUI 2 to YUI 3, but YUI 3 might not
provide much features which bootstrap provides, although from docs it
seems it has responsiveness support.
My Idea is to go with bootstrap as its easier to upgrade it and active
development is going at hight pace and will enhance the UI very much.
> 3.) The gaurav theme of course uses Bootstrap and JQuery. Likewise,
> rather than directly incorporate that stuff in the gaurav theme, I'd
> like to have it placed under webapp/roller-ui/bootstrap and have the
> gaurav theme reference those files from there. That way, again,
> anyone can come up with their own Bootstrap-based theme without
> needing to upload all the Bootstrap files.
>
+1
> 4.) Both the gaurav and fauxcoly themes duplicate an icons folder
> having all the social media bitmaps for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
> etc. I'd like to see those icons stored in one place, maybe
> roller-ui/icons or /socialmedia or whatever, so themes can reference
> those icons without needing to duplicate them into their themes.
>
+1. Another Idea is to add a share link with each blog similar to this.
(http://awesomescreenshot.com/021333r131). I think we can use these
share buttons, we can check other apache projects for any licence issue
if it have.
> 5.) Shelan, another contributor around 2010 created a mobile weblog
> view for a blog, as you can see in the upper-right corner here:
> http://www.nailedtothex.org/roller/kyle/entry/nested-list-element-issue-of1
> . The mobile theme doesn't seem to work right today (that blog entry
> at that link shows the problems with it, the blogger had to make
> changes basically making it a standard blog anyway, and even with
> those changes I saw further errors with it.) What Shelan did was very
> nice circa 2010 (before Bootstrap existed) but might be frowned upon
> today, I think one is expected to use a responsive theme today when
> you want to support all types of devices, rather than have
> (antiquated?) "click here for mobile" and "click here for standard"
> buttons. Unsure, but we may wish to pull this out of the basic theme
> once fauxcoly and gaurav are better established.
>
+1. Rather than different mobile and standard buttons we can have that
same theme work on mobile, tablets and desktops. I think this might also
clean up a bit code in java and front-end themes as we do not have to
make specific templates for mobiles.
> 6.) Our website is old-fashioned, perhaps about 50% of Apache websites
> are now using Bootstrap and I'd like Roller to be one of them. The
> stuff that is on the Roller Wiki would remain there, so that doesn't
> need converting, just the several relatively small pages making up
> roller.apache.org.
>
Exicted to take this up :) We can definately use bootstrap on roller
website. Just want to know in which framework the current website is in
and have to check how easy to customize it.
> 7.) We eventually should have a sample theme (probably non-responsive
> as this is a portal-type page) showing how to display Roller's Planet
> functionality (it is very crude here:
> http://rollerweblogger.org/project/page/planet, the CSS isn't
> working). I haven't looked at this at all, and am unsure how well the
> backend still supports it.
>
I am bit unclear about the planet concept. Can you please tell me a bit
what exactly it does.
> If any of this sounds interesting to you (or any other Roller
> committer), just let us know so we're not duplicating effort and feel
> free to jump into it!
>
> Regards,
> Glen
>
Just let me know priority wise which task to take first, then we can
move around all and complete it.
Thanks
Gaurav
> On 06/18/2014 03:18 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>> Hello Glen,
>>
>> Thanks for this informative reply. I was looking for some suggestions
>> and you provided. :)
>>
>> I am interested in any UI work related to roller. I can handle all
>> the UI work inside roller although there might not be as much but if
>> you have any issues in JIRA known to you I would love to contribute
>> towards them.
>>
>> I have been working on AngularJS, nodejs projects from last some time
>> and also have vast expirience in CSS mainly how to perfectly use
>> Bootstrap. I am focusing my future in client side with nodejs coming
>> in scope we can have backend built with javascript.
>>
>> So, I love to contribute to any client side work (UI) to roller
>> anytime. :)
>>
>> Thanks
>> Gaurav
>>
>> On Sunday 15 June 2014 10:11 PM, Glen Mazza wrote:
>>> Hi Gaurav, yes, I hope gaurav the theme (and Gaurav the person) gets
>>> a lot *more* attention too... :)
>>>
>>> You are most welcome to submit a proposal for any Apache project,
>>> and you don't need anybody's permission to do so. I've never given a
>>> presentation at ApacheCon so I wouldn't know much more than what the
>>> website would tell you. I'd be cautious though, I'm not certain
>>> they will cover your formidable transportation and lodging costs if
>>> they accepted your presentation (or may take that into account when
>>> judging to accept your proposal, reducing the chances of its
>>> acceptance). 'Course, at this early stage in your career, given the
>>> amount of time and effort it would take to give a presentation in
>>> Europe, it might be better for you to spend that time on gaining
>>> more technical know-how anyway (say, by submitting more Roller
>>> patches :), as substance is always better than show.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Glen
>>>
>>> On 06/13/2014 08:22 AM, Gaurav Saini wrote:
>>>> Hello Dave and Glen,
>>>>
>>>> I am really excited and interested in submitting a paper on Apache
>>>> Roller.
>>>> I have worked on roller and have contributed to roller some months
>>>> back. I also have contributed the responsive theme for roller which
>>>> is really gaining some attention.
>>>>
>>>> Glen, might be knowing me and remembering me. I can provide a
>>>> hands-on tutorial or an introduction for beginners about Roller.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone please guide me how I can go for this ? Is there
>>>> anything specific anyone has idea for which I can prepare the
>>>> paper. This is my first time and really looking forward for this
>>>> conference.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>> Gaurav
>>>>
>>>> On Friday 13 June 2014 05:29 PM, Dave wrote:
>>>>> Dear Roller fans,
>>>>>
>>>>> As you may be aware, ApacheCon will be held this year in Budapest, on
>>>>> November 17-23. (See http://apachecon.eu for more info.)
>>>>>
>>>>> The Call For Papers for that conference is still open, but will be
>>>>> closing soon. Now is your chance to tell the world about how you
>>>>> use Roller. This could be any level of talk - a deep technical talk,
>>>>> a hands-on tutorial, an introduction for beginners, or a case study
>>>>> about the awesome stuff you're doing with Roller.
>>>>>
>>>>> Please consider submitting a proposal, at
>>>>> http://events.linuxfoundation.org//events/apachecon-europe/program/cfp
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
--
Regards,
Gaurav Saini
Developer and Internet Marketing