Hello Ian, 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.
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. -Michael On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Ian Clarke <ian at 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 <freenet at > 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. >> -Michael >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Devl mailing list >> Devl at freenetproject.org >> http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl >> > > > > -- > Ian Clarke > Founder, The Freenet Project > Email: ian at freenetproject.org > > _______________________________________________ > Devl mailing list > Devl at freenetproject.org > http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devl > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/devl/attachments/20110121/a150a809/attachment.html>
