On Friday 21 January 2011 21:50:16 Michael Niles wrote: > Hello Ian, Welcome Michael! Let me know if there's anything specific you need. > > I'm familiar with front-end languages, HTML/CSS/JS/PHP, am learning OOPHP > and MVC frameworks, and have a lot of experience in designing for the web. I > am gaining a familiarity with GIT.
PHP is more or less out of the question, but whatever we do will need JS on the front end. There is a very strong view in the community that it will need to function both with and without JS. > > I took a look at the Play Framework and Wicket - having no previous > experience in Java, Play is nice as it's very similar to OOPHP frameworks > like CodeIgniter. > > I recognize that I'm coming from a complete novice standpoint and no > familiarity with the Freenet codebase, however I think that redesigning the > interface to something a little more attractive and welcoming, while > improving user orientation would help drive more attention and long-term > users to Freenet. > > Personally I think I'd be more effective on the design front than > developement; working on bringing UI/UX concepts to the table. If this is of > interest, I'll begin getting my hands dirty. You may want to talk to Dieppe who has done some work in the same area. Working on the pure design / mockup level is very valuable. Producing actual HTML/CSS that looks better is even more valuable, and can likely be slotted in without requiring huge amounts of work by us on the backend. JS-based interactivity is IMHO necessary, and brings up some more difficult issues such as frameworks and fallbacks - but there are a thousand ways to deal with that; a PHP-based working mockup, for instance, could probably be adapted for our usage without huge difficulties. Go ahead and build one if that's what's easiest for you. > > -Michael > > > > On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Ian Clarke <i...@freenetproject.org> wrote: > > > Hey Michael, > > > > We definitely need your help. Can you let us know what kind of tools / > > languages you are familiar with? > > > > Freenet is implemented in Java, and our web interface is a home-grown > > template-based framework we call "fproxy". Our code is hosted on Github, so > > a familiarity with Git will be useful. > > > > A good way to communicate with the dev team in realtime is to join the IRC > > channel #freenet on irc.freenode.net. Matthew "Toad" Toseland is our one > > full-time developer, and is most familiar with the codebase, but there are > > others. > > > > My personal opinion is that what we really need is a ground-up redesign of > > our UI, possibly replacing fproxy with a specialized web framework, maybe > > GWT, Play Framework, Wicket, or something else. I've been toying with Play > > recently, and its fairly impressive. I've also advocated for GWT, but a lot > > of people were concerned about that because it will only work if the browser > > supports Javascript. > > > > Of course, replacing Freenet's entire UI is a daunting task, and I'd > > understand if you didn't have the stomach for that. > > > > Less ambitious would be to do some usability testing to identify and fix > > the most serious usability problems with our current UI. > > > > You can see the current code that pertains to the web UI here: > > > > > > https://github.com/freenet/fred-official/tree/master/src/freenet/clients/http > > > > I haven't touched the code in quite a while so I'll need to leave it to > > others to provide guidance, but its mostly based around "Toadlets": > > > > > > https://github.com/freenet/fred-official/blob/master/src/freenet/clients/http/Toadlet.java > > > > Freenet's general style is that people need to be quite self-motivated due > > to the decentralized nature of our development process. You really need to > > actively seek out areas you can contribute, then just announce what you > > intend to do, and do it. > > > > I hope that is helpful, please let me know if there is anything further I > > can do to help you to help Freenet :-) > > > > Ian. > > > > On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Michael Niles > > <free...@blindmikey.com>wrote: > > > >> Hey, I'm not sure if I'm doing this right, but hopefully this gets seen. > >> > >> I'm a front-end developer/designer and read that Freenet might be looking > >> for UI/UX designers, and am very interested in helping this movement. > >> > >> Let me know how best I can be of service.
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