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!
