Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[William Manire]

Patrick's idea sounds appealing. There are lots of Python projects with
Pygame's size that don't have much more than a wiki on github or docs
published on readthedocs.org. Perhaps a lib agnostic, python game hacking
community website would be the right thing. Based on what Patrick said, and
the problem that Thomas described, the best solution might be to do some
combination of the following:

   1. Strip the pygame.org website down to a barebones website that just
   hosts documentation.
   2. Build a new python oriented community site as an aggregate of
   existing technologies
  1. Start with something like Drupal or Wordpress
  2. Move community discussion to a sub-reddit on reddit.com. (
  reddit.com/r/pygame
  3. Require projects to be committed to github, bitbucket or similar
  to be indexed on the community site (no need to host and pay for
bandwidth
  to serve project files)
  3. Add appropriate links on the homepage of the new, simplified
   pygame.org website to redirect to the community portals on reddit and
   the new community project index website

Some benefits you gain from doing this:

   1. You alleviate the pygame.org maintainers from doing any further web
   dev work. 99% of the site is generated when pygame is built and its
   documentation is generated.
   2. Since the pygame.org website no longer aims to own the concept of the
   pygame community,  the pressure from the community to have the ability to
   change the site is greatly reduced, or entirely eliminated.
   3. There will never be a reason for pygame maintainers to respond to a
   user request for account creation.
   4. No additional work would have to be done to build features on the
   pygame.org or new community website to accommodate user discussion.
   There already is a pygame subreddit that is moderated and full of user.
   This is also a more familiar technology for newer users than old-fashioned
   mailing lists so I would suspect greater adoption.
   5. You avoid building a new, from-scratch website that requires heavy
   development and maintenance.
   6. The only features that need to be built on the new site are features
   that are specific to the community website.

This is just a seed for a plan. I'm probably missing some requirements
here, but hopefully this spurs more conversation.

Regards,
Kevin Manire

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 2:27 PM Thomas Kluyver  wrote:

> There's a really frustrating disconnect over pygame, and especially the
> website: there are lots of people who are clearly have the time and ability
> to improve things, but they are not the ones with access to the website.
> The people who do have access evidently have very little time to devote to
> either working on it themselves, or to facilitate other people working on
> it. The domain name does matter - you can launch alternative sites, but as
> long as pygame.org exists, we're going to care about what's on it.
>
> I have been trying to persuade René to publish the code of the existing
> website (
> https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/issues/263/make-pygame-website-codes-public
> ) so other people can work on it, but so far the only bit available are
> some database models, which we can't do much with. I think it's fallen into
> the classic trap of "I'll release this when I've cleaned it up", meaning it
> never gets released at all.
>
> I think the new 'hifi' front page is an interesting experiment in novel
> site layout, but as things stand I think it is less fit for purpose than
> the conventional if antiquated site it replaced. With a lot of thought and
> effort, I think it could be the basis of something good, but it seems
> unlikely that it will get that reworking in the near future.
>
> René, if you're reading this: what would it take to connect the website
> with the people with time and enthusiasm to work on it? If you're willing
> to give me SSH access to the server it's on - or even just send me a
> tarball of the directory it runs from now - I'll try to figure out how it
> fits together and how we can allow people to make changes.
>
> Thanks,
> Thomas
>
> On 27 September 2016 at 19:58, Al Sweigart 
> wrote:
>
>> It's been a while since I've looked at the state of Pygame, and although
>> I'd say Pygame is dying, it's (Monty Python voice) "not dead yet." And I'm
>> still not convinced the alternatives are much better than Pygame.
>>
>> But it really will take a committed person to take the lead on this.
>> Unfortunately, without the Pygame name and pygame.org domain behind such
>> new leadership, then Pygame will indeed slowly keep sinking. If you fork
>> with a new name, it'll end up as just yet another Pygame alternative.
>>
>> I will say that the old pygame.org site wasn't perfect but is far better
>> than the current site. The current site is a huge step backwards in
>> usability.
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Patrick Mullen 

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Thomas Kluyver]

There's a really frustrating disconnect over pygame, and especially the
website: there are lots of people who are clearly have the time and ability
to improve things, but they are not the ones with access to the website.
The people who do have access evidently have very little time to devote to
either working on it themselves, or to facilitate other people working on
it. The domain name does matter - you can launch alternative sites, but as
long as pygame.org exists, we're going to care about what's on it.

I have been trying to persuade René to publish the code of the existing
website (
https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/issues/263/make-pygame-website-codes-public
) so other people can work on it, but so far the only bit available are
some database models, which we can't do much with. I think it's fallen into
the classic trap of "I'll release this when I've cleaned it up", meaning it
never gets released at all.

I think the new 'hifi' front page is an interesting experiment in novel
site layout, but as things stand I think it is less fit for purpose than
the conventional if antiquated site it replaced. With a lot of thought and
effort, I think it could be the basis of something good, but it seems
unlikely that it will get that reworking in the near future.

René, if you're reading this: what would it take to connect the website
with the people with time and enthusiasm to work on it? If you're willing
to give me SSH access to the server it's on - or even just send me a
tarball of the directory it runs from now - I'll try to figure out how it
fits together and how we can allow people to make changes.

Thanks,
Thomas

On 27 September 2016 at 19:58, Al Sweigart  wrote:

> It's been a while since I've looked at the state of Pygame, and although
> I'd say Pygame is dying, it's (Monty Python voice) "not dead yet." And I'm
> still not convinced the alternatives are much better than Pygame.
>
> But it really will take a committed person to take the lead on this.
> Unfortunately, without the Pygame name and pygame.org domain behind such
> new leadership, then Pygame will indeed slowly keep sinking. If you fork
> with a new name, it'll end up as just yet another Pygame alternative.
>
> I will say that the old pygame.org site wasn't perfect but is far better
> than the current site. The current site is a huge step backwards in
> usability.
>
> On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Patrick Mullen 
> wrote:
>
>> Pygame is dead. Still a very capable library, but it isn't really going
>> anywhere from what I can see, and I have little faith that the website will
>> go anywhere no matter who tries to help out. You posted yourself all of the
>> failed efforts in this area, what makes you think you will succeed? I
>> recommend making a wider python-related game development website that does
>> not focus only on pygame. There are many other options out there - pysdl2,
>> pygame2, python-sfml, pyopengl, pyglet, and more that I have played with in
>> the past but cannot remember right now. Having a project repository focused
>> around python, and with information about various libraries, but NOT
>> focused on a specific library would be the best approach forward in my
>> opinion. A good example of what I would like to see is haxe.io. It
>> highlights cool mostly game related things being done with haxe, and you
>> can find out about new libraries. There are various good blogs in the
>> python world that focus on web development, but not many that highlight
>> games. And each python game library has it's own little corner (in pygame's
>> case, a very old and broken corner that new visitors walk or run away from
>> very quickly) without much crossover.
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 5:18 AM, DiliupG  wrote:
>>
>>> Why don't you start working on the site and open it in a separate place
>>> and call it pygame 2016 something? Else we will end up going round and
>>> round with these long dialogs with nothing really happening. It could be
>>> www.pygame2016.blogspot.com or something similar.
>>>
>>> Diliup Gabadamudalige
>>>
>>> On 21 Sep 2016 4:08 p.m., "Alex Z."  wrote:
>>>
 > These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were
 able to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live
 data that could be commented on and iterated on by the community.
 See this: > - a complete redesign that never got launched (11-2009):
 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-
 google-groups/rUC5CrroA3U/TzWTWL5cFOUJ
 There was an approach like this. As the site maintainers didn't like
 the site, it never got launched, that's why I didn't come up with a
 solution.
 Although I might do some prototypical views.

 > Pygame needs a site where a community can form around and share our
 works (like right now!), and where new people can understand how to get
 going and 

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Al Sweigart]

It's been a while since I've looked at the state of Pygame, and although
I'd say Pygame is dying, it's (Monty Python voice) "not dead yet." And I'm
still not convinced the alternatives are much better than Pygame.

But it really will take a committed person to take the lead on this.
Unfortunately, without the Pygame name and pygame.org domain behind such
new leadership, then Pygame will indeed slowly keep sinking. If you fork
with a new name, it'll end up as just yet another Pygame alternative.

I will say that the old pygame.org site wasn't perfect but is far better
than the current site. The current site is a huge step backwards in
usability.

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Patrick Mullen 
wrote:

> Pygame is dead. Still a very capable library, but it isn't really going
> anywhere from what I can see, and I have little faith that the website will
> go anywhere no matter who tries to help out. You posted yourself all of the
> failed efforts in this area, what makes you think you will succeed? I
> recommend making a wider python-related game development website that does
> not focus only on pygame. There are many other options out there - pysdl2,
> pygame2, python-sfml, pyopengl, pyglet, and more that I have played with in
> the past but cannot remember right now. Having a project repository focused
> around python, and with information about various libraries, but NOT
> focused on a specific library would be the best approach forward in my
> opinion. A good example of what I would like to see is haxe.io. It
> highlights cool mostly game related things being done with haxe, and you
> can find out about new libraries. There are various good blogs in the
> python world that focus on web development, but not many that highlight
> games. And each python game library has it's own little corner (in pygame's
> case, a very old and broken corner that new visitors walk or run away from
> very quickly) without much crossover.
>
> On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 5:18 AM, DiliupG  wrote:
>
>> Why don't you start working on the site and open it in a separate place
>> and call it pygame 2016 something? Else we will end up going round and
>> round with these long dialogs with nothing really happening. It could be
>> www.pygame2016.blogspot.com or something similar.
>>
>> Diliup Gabadamudalige
>>
>> On 21 Sep 2016 4:08 p.m., "Alex Z."  wrote:
>>
>>> > These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were
>>> able to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live
>>> data that could be commented on and iterated on by the community.
>>> See this: > - a complete redesign that never got launched (11-2009):
>>> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-
>>> google-groups/rUC5CrroA3U/TzWTWL5cFOUJ
>>> There was an approach like this. As the site maintainers didn't like the
>>> site, it never got launched, that's why I didn't come up with a solution.
>>> Although I might do some prototypical views.
>>>
>>> > Pygame needs a site where a community can form around and share our
>>> works (like right now!), and where new people can understand how to get
>>> going and discover Pygame at their speed, using the OS that happens to be
>>> in front of them. On that last point, I speak for kids who want to make
>>> games and who don’t get a choice of their OS, in contrast to us adult
>>> engineers.
>>> I agree, that's the main reason why I want a page redesign. Of course
>>> it's nice to have a good looking website, but what's *always *more
>>> important than appearance is content and ease of use. As an experienced dev
>>> you can handle poorly designed websites and still find what you are looking
>>> for (mostly), but a beginner (children / young students) will just be like:
>>> "screw it, then I'll just go back doing whatever". So I really feel the
>>> need to make the site "child-friendly" (why not just do a second site for
>>> that? --> read below). Nevertheless as a designer I got a fable for
>>> good-looking aesthetics.
>>>
>>> > leave the old pygame site alone and build any amount of new ones. We
>>> will all visit everyone according to our need. Aren't there hundreds of
>>> Python sites?
>>> Yes, there are hundreds of Python sites, but often they got different
>>> topics to talk about. We are talking about a website for (more-or-less) a
>>> Python-library. I think if we had many sites that (in the worst case) are
>>> fighting a tough SEO battle about who is the better site, it will lead to
>>> more confusion than we already got with the single site. Even worse if
>>> these two sites offer similar functionality.
>>>
>>> > My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be built
>>> from scratch as a custom solution?
>>> In the head description of the form I state:
>>> > Whether the old site is updated or we do a complete redesign, how hard
>>> it will be to port the old data and who will maintain it is not important
>>> in this 

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Patrick Mullen]

Pygame is dead. Still a very capable library, but it isn't really going
anywhere from what I can see, and I have little faith that the website will
go anywhere no matter who tries to help out. You posted yourself all of the
failed efforts in this area, what makes you think you will succeed? I
recommend making a wider python-related game development website that does
not focus only on pygame. There are many other options out there - pysdl2,
pygame2, python-sfml, pyopengl, pyglet, and more that I have played with in
the past but cannot remember right now. Having a project repository focused
around python, and with information about various libraries, but NOT
focused on a specific library would be the best approach forward in my
opinion. A good example of what I would like to see is haxe.io. It
highlights cool mostly game related things being done with haxe, and you
can find out about new libraries. There are various good blogs in the
python world that focus on web development, but not many that highlight
games. And each python game library has it's own little corner (in pygame's
case, a very old and broken corner that new visitors walk or run away from
very quickly) without much crossover.

On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 5:18 AM, DiliupG  wrote:

> Why don't you start working on the site and open it in a separate place
> and call it pygame 2016 something? Else we will end up going round and
> round with these long dialogs with nothing really happening. It could be
> www.pygame2016.blogspot.com or something similar.
>
> Diliup Gabadamudalige
>
> On 21 Sep 2016 4:08 p.m., "Alex Z."  wrote:
>
>> > These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were
>> able to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live
>> data that could be commented on and iterated on by the community.
>> See this: > - a complete redesign that never got launched (11-2009):
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-
>> google-groups/rUC5CrroA3U/TzWTWL5cFOUJ
>> There was an approach like this. As the site maintainers didn't like the
>> site, it never got launched, that's why I didn't come up with a solution.
>> Although I might do some prototypical views.
>>
>> > Pygame needs a site where a community can form around and share our
>> works (like right now!), and where new people can understand how to get
>> going and discover Pygame at their speed, using the OS that happens to be
>> in front of them. On that last point, I speak for kids who want to make
>> games and who don’t get a choice of their OS, in contrast to us adult
>> engineers.
>> I agree, that's the main reason why I want a page redesign. Of course
>> it's nice to have a good looking website, but what's *always *more
>> important than appearance is content and ease of use. As an experienced dev
>> you can handle poorly designed websites and still find what you are looking
>> for (mostly), but a beginner (children / young students) will just be like:
>> "screw it, then I'll just go back doing whatever". So I really feel the
>> need to make the site "child-friendly" (why not just do a second site for
>> that? --> read below). Nevertheless as a designer I got a fable for
>> good-looking aesthetics.
>>
>> > leave the old pygame site alone and build any amount of new ones. We
>> will all visit everyone according to our need. Aren't there hundreds of
>> Python sites?
>> Yes, there are hundreds of Python sites, but often they got different
>> topics to talk about. We are talking about a website for (more-or-less) a
>> Python-library. I think if we had many sites that (in the worst case) are
>> fighting a tough SEO battle about who is the better site, it will lead to
>> more confusion than we already got with the single site. Even worse if
>> these two sites offer similar functionality.
>>
>> > My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be built
>> from scratch as a custom solution?
>> In the head description of the form I state:
>> > Whether the old site is updated or we do a complete redesign, how hard
>> it will be to port the old data and who will maintain it is not important
>> in this first step.
>> Sorry that I didn't mention this in my post, I don't think that it is
>> impossible to gradually improve the old site, but to know if it's possible
>> we need to know, what needs to be improved. After that, I can talk to the
>> site owners if the desired features can be implemented by improvement, or
>> if we need a completely new site.
>> By the way: illumine stated (first link in my post):
>> > The current website is made with PHP and some website technology made
>> by Phil which he used to make dozens of websites professionaly.  This is
>> what Phil chose to use as the website maintainer in early 2005.
>> > [..] This time we decided it would be better to do it in python, and
>> also have a team of website maintainers.  Since not so many pygame
>> developers people know PHP, and that has meant 

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[DiliupG]

Why don't you start working on the site and open it in a separate place and
call it pygame 2016 something? Else we will end up going round and round
with these long dialogs with nothing really happening. It could be
www.pygame2016.blogspot.com or something similar.

Diliup Gabadamudalige

On 21 Sep 2016 4:08 p.m., "Alex Z."  wrote:

> > These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were able
> to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live data
> that could be commented on and iterated on by the community.
> See this: > - a complete redesign that never got launched (11-2009):
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-google-groups/
> rUC5CrroA3U/TzWTWL5cFOUJ
> There was an approach like this. As the site maintainers didn't like the
> site, it never got launched, that's why I didn't come up with a solution.
> Although I might do some prototypical views.
>
> > Pygame needs a site where a community can form around and share our
> works (like right now!), and where new people can understand how to get
> going and discover Pygame at their speed, using the OS that happens to be
> in front of them. On that last point, I speak for kids who want to make
> games and who don’t get a choice of their OS, in contrast to us adult
> engineers.
> I agree, that's the main reason why I want a page redesign. Of course it's
> nice to have a good looking website, but what's *always *more important
> than appearance is content and ease of use. As an experienced dev you can
> handle poorly designed websites and still find what you are looking for
> (mostly), but a beginner (children / young students) will just be like:
> "screw it, then I'll just go back doing whatever". So I really feel the
> need to make the site "child-friendly" (why not just do a second site for
> that? --> read below). Nevertheless as a designer I got a fable for
> good-looking aesthetics.
>
> > leave the old pygame site alone and build any amount of new ones. We
> will all visit everyone according to our need. Aren't there hundreds of
> Python sites?
> Yes, there are hundreds of Python sites, but often they got different
> topics to talk about. We are talking about a website for (more-or-less) a
> Python-library. I think if we had many sites that (in the worst case) are
> fighting a tough SEO battle about who is the better site, it will lead to
> more confusion than we already got with the single site. Even worse if
> these two sites offer similar functionality.
>
> > My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be built from
> scratch as a custom solution?
> In the head description of the form I state:
> > Whether the old site is updated or we do a complete redesign, how hard
> it will be to port the old data and who will maintain it is not important
> in this first step.
> Sorry that I didn't mention this in my post, I don't think that it is
> impossible to gradually improve the old site, but to know if it's possible
> we need to know, what needs to be improved. After that, I can talk to the
> site owners if the desired features can be implemented by improvement, or
> if we need a completely new site.
> By the way: illumine stated (first link in my post):
> > The current website is made with PHP and some website technology made by
> Phil which he used to make dozens of websites professionaly.  This is what
> Phil chose to use as the website maintainer in early 2005.
> > [..] This time we decided it would be better to do it in python, and
> also have a team of website maintainers.  Since not so many pygame
> developers people know PHP, and that has meant that it's been a bit
> difficult for us to make changes... we had to bother Phil mostly to change
> things.
> And at the moment 75% want to have a python based backend, so *at the
> moment* the chances are high, that a new (better) site should have a new
> backend.
>
>

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Miriam English]

I'm with Diliup here. The pygame site can link to informative sites.

There's nothing to stop someone just going ahead and doing it and others 
adding suggestions. Maybe an overwhelmingly superb site mught become the 
redirected, official site, but I guess that would depend on general 
consensus that it is worth doing. I've made official sites for 
organisations before and when the functionality desired doesn't match 
the functionality given there are bad feelings all around. It is better 
to just go ahead and do it then tell everyone about it, asking for 
input. If it suits then everybody will be happy.


I'd say go for it Alex. If you post here about it regularly I'm sure 
you'll get lots of cool material for it.


Best wishes,

- Miriam

DiliupG wrote:
leave the old pygame site alone and build any amount of new ones. We 
will all visit everyone according to our need. Aren't there hundreds 
of Python sites?


On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 10:15 PM, William Manire 
> wrote:


Personally, When I see this topic come up it's always a sort of
"Here's my idea! and then wait for approval to start?". What can
be done to empower motivated people like Alex to just do it?

These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex
were able to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning
demo using live data that could be commented on and iterated on by
the community.

My suggestion, is that the site maintainers make available some
portion of the live data and resources to anyone who wants to have
a crack at this. I can see that it has already been started to
some degree here: https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygameweb


Alex,

My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be
built from scratch as a custom solution? What features does it
have that are not provided by existing CMSes like Drupal? Would it
be better to start with a system like that and extend it to meet
the current use cases? Maybe this is a terrible idea, but if it
isn't I bet it could go a long way towards making it easier to
maintain the site and keep it up to date with modern trends.



On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 5:20 AM Wout B > wrote:

@Alex: I'm also a webdev, I can help you if you want…




--
Kalasuri Diliup Gabadamudalige

http://www.diliupg.com
http://soft.diliupg.com/

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Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Michael Lutinsky]

First of all, I want to praise you for your passion, persistence, and research. 
That already says you would be a good fit to implement a site that supports and 
grows our community.

> I got another approach. More slowly. More conceptual (hopefully).
> I don't know if this will work and I don't know if this will result in a
> (new) better website, but I'd really like to try it with this awesome
> community.

It’s a broad sketch, and it’s hard to undertstand how that will play out, but 
it could work. I admit that I’m not a professional web developer, so I don’t 
know the best way to build such a site, and then refine it.

I hope you aren’t dissuaded by those who feel that it’s not important, because 
I feel very definitely that it is. Pygame /needs/ a site where a community can 
form around and share our works (like right now!), and where new people can 
understand how to get going and discover Pygame at their speed, using the OS 
that happens to be in front of them. On that last point, I speak for kids who 
want to make games and who don’t get a choice of their OS, in contrast to us 
adult engineers.

I say, go for it. What do you need to begin?

~ Michael 



> 
> >
> > Pygame's website shouldn't need to explain it in a lot of detail, but it 
> > should definitely give developers some information on where to get started. 
> > It's an attractive project for people new to Python who may not be familiar 
> > with package managers.
> >
> Yes, obviously it's not pygames job to explain package managers, but back 
> when I started I didn't know a darn about those, so it would be cool to 
> have a fairly easy start. 
> 
> >
> > We are pretty close to having 'pip install pygame' working on the three 
> > major platforms - it should already work today for Linux and Windows, but 
> > there are still a couple of hiccups to be sorted out on OSX.
> >
> That's awesome!
> Together with a link to a "how to install pip" this will make things really 
> easy.
> 
> Another question: As I don't know how often people visit the mailing list, 
> I'm not sure about how long I should wait before evaluating the form 
> results.
> How about a month? Or maybe two or three?
> 

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[DiliupG]

leave the old pygame site alone and build any amount of new ones. We will
all visit everyone according to our need. Aren't there hundreds of Python
sites?

On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 10:15 PM, William Manire 
wrote:

> Personally, When I see this topic come up it's always a sort of "Here's my
> idea! and then wait for approval to start?". What can be done to empower
> motivated people like Alex to just do it?
>
> These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were able
> to come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live data
> that could be commented on and iterated on by the community.
>
> My suggestion, is that the site maintainers make available some portion of
> the live data and resources to anyone who wants to have a crack at this. I
> can see that it has already been started to some degree here:
> https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygameweb
>
> Alex,
>
> My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be built from
> scratch as a custom solution? What features does it have that are not
> provided by existing CMSes like Drupal? Would it be better to start with a
> system like that and extend it to meet the current use cases? Maybe this is
> a terrible idea, but if it isn't I bet it could go a long way towards
> making it easier to maintain the site and keep it up to date with modern
> trends.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 5:20 AM Wout B  wrote:
>
>> @Alex: I'm also a webdev, I can help you if you want…
>>
>


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Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[William Manire]

Personally, When I see this topic come up it's always a sort of "Here's my
idea! and then wait for approval to start?". What can be done to empower
motivated people like Alex to just do it?

These kinds of proposals would be much more successful if Alex were able to
come to the mailing list with a fully functioning demo using live data that
could be commented on and iterated on by the community.

My suggestion, is that the site maintainers make available some portion of
the live data and resources to anyone who wants to have a crack at this. I
can see that it has already been started to some degree here:
https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygameweb

Alex,

My question to you is, why does the Pygame website have to be built from
scratch as a custom solution? What features does it have that are not
provided by existing CMSes like Drupal? Would it be better to start with a
system like that and extend it to meet the current use cases? Maybe this is
a terrible idea, but if it isn't I bet it could go a long way towards
making it easier to maintain the site and keep it up to date with modern
trends.



On Tue, Sep 20, 2016 at 5:20 AM Wout B  wrote:

> @Alex: I'm also a webdev, I can help you if you want…
>

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Wout B]

@Alex: I'm also a webdev, I can help you if you want…

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Alex Z.]

>
> Pygame's website shouldn't need to explain it in a lot of detail, but it 
> should definitely give developers some information on where to get started. 
> It's an attractive project for people new to Python who may not be familiar 
> with package managers.
>
Yes, obviously it's not pygames job to explain package managers, but back 
when I started I didn't know a darn about those, so it would be cool to 
have a fairly easy start. 

>
> We are pretty close to having 'pip install pygame' working on the three 
> major platforms - it should already work today for Linux and Windows, but 
> there are still a couple of hiccups to be sorted out on OSX.
>
That's awesome!
Together with a link to a "how to install pip" this will make things really 
easy.

Another question: As I don't know how often people visit the mailing list, 
I'm not sure about how long I should wait before evaluating the form 
results.
How about a month? Or maybe two or three?

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Martin Kühne]

That being said, I want in no way defend the current site's design. I
probably find it just as bad as the next guy, although with a big
screen I think I'd nearly be able to navigate it. I merely pointed out
that not everyone has the same need for a good-looking and
well-structured pygame website.

cheers!
mar77i

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Thomas Kluyver]

On 19 September 2016 at 10:39, Martin Kühne  wrote:

> This might sound a bit condescending, but explaining how to
> get along with an open source project in a general sense is not
> something that pygame needs to deliver.
>

Pygame's website shouldn't need to explain it in a lot of detail, but it
should definitely give developers some information on where to get started.
It's an attractive project for people new to Python who may not be familiar
with package managers.

We are pretty close to having 'pip install pygame' working on the three
major platforms - it should already work today for Linux and Windows, but
there are still a couple of hiccups to be sorted out on OSX.

Thomas

Re: [pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Martin Kühne]

On Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 11:04 AM, Alex Z.  wrote:
> Hi, I'm Alex.

Hi Alex

> And until today I still remember how I saw the website and I thought that it
> was just a little students project that couldn't really do much,
> as I needed like an eternity to find the download package I needed, not to
> speak about finding a good tutorial.
>

With many operating systems these days, pygame is just a "repository
package". I know Microsoft Windows is kind of an exception in these
regards, but I really encourage you to use one which... is built to
serve your own interests.

With this topic out of the way, open up a terminal, fire up a python
shell and you can discover all of pygame by typing "import pygame" and
using help() and dir(). If you build pygame from source you also have
the option to generate the whole of the pygame documentation locally
which also saves you internet traffic. That can be used in better ways
indeed. This might sound a bit condescending, but explaining how to
get along with an open source project in a general sense is not
something that pygame needs to deliver. Making your bed is a good
start for sleeping well in it.

cheers!
mar77i

[pygame][website] A different approach to a new website

[Alex Z.]

Hi, I'm Alex.
I know this topic pops up every now and then, always going through more or 
less the same process,
but I want to try a (hopefully) different approach.

About seven years ago I learned python in my school and after finishing a 
two year course in programming
with a handmade graphics module by my teacher that was really easy to learn 
but not very rich in performance, 
I wanted to get to the next level of game development. So my teacher told 
me about pygame and sent me the URL.

And until today I still remember how I saw the website and I thought that 
it was just a little students project that couldn't really do much,
as I needed like an eternity to find the download package I needed, not to 
speak about finding a good tutorial.

Till then I red a lot more about pygame, I got to know the API and found 
tutorials, I got more experience in programming overall,
but I had such a hard start, that it took me like 3 or 4 years to really 
like pygame and to find out that it is the framework-to-go-for 
if you want to do game development in python.

And all that just because of a not up-to-date website?
Well, of cause there were many different factors, but the website is to a 
project what the first impression is to a person:
it is what stays in the peoples minds forever and is hard to change.
--

By now Python and game-development are "just" a hobby while Web Design and 
branding is my main discipline.

And because of all that I wanted to suggest a redesign of the pygame 
homepage, thinking that nobody ever thought of that.
And just to get a bit into the heads and thoughts of pygame developers, how 
they'd love their website to be, I started reading.

I red through a lot of mails in this list and on various sites in which 
various people discuss
- about what is good and bad about the current and the old website
- about features the website must and could have in the future
- what framework(s) should be used by a python-community driven website
- and, most important: If the old site should gradually be changed to fit 
the new needs,
or rather be abandoned and replaced by a new one

The more stuff I red, the more things I discovered:
- A huge statement from a leading developer about what this site is all 
about (04/2009): 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-google-groups/hy8HUXKcgXY/kdhwVG6WiiAJ
- a complete redesign that never got launched (11-2009): 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-google-groups/rUC5CrroA3U/TzWTWL5cFOUJ
- another redesign with an API-doc lost by students (08-2015): 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-google-groups/1PzFkrIXBFA/cqa6PmEIAQAJ
- how much people "hate" the new hifi version (08-2015): 
https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/issues/268/an-honest-opinion-about-the-new-site
- the importance of the pygame history and that it should be present online 
(03-2016): 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/pygame-mirror-on-google-groups/1PzFkrIXBFA/Po7R5qaMHwAJ
- quite emotional game-developers talking about how "broken" the website is 
(08-2016): http://pygame.org/project/3003/
- a feature whishlist for a new website: 
http://www.pygame.org/wiki/todo#Website

As you can see, all these things are kinda spread over the whole internet,
the oldest one (I mentioned) being over 7 years old and the website being 
under development for 11 years.

I got another approach. More slowly. More conceptual (hopefully).
I don't know if this will work and I don't know if this will result in a 
(new) better website, but I'd really like to try it with this awesome 
community.

--

TL;DR:
I'd like to collect visions for "the perfect pygame.org". If you want to 
contribute, you cann fill out this form:
https://goo.gl/forms/VBg9dofx33Dyflcw1