Re: Todo for 'portal', programmers perspective - Mailing list pgsql-www
From | Andreas Grabmüller |
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Subject | Re: Todo for 'portal', programmers perspective |
Date | |
Msg-id | 20040115162425.8670.qmail@osiris.gamecrashnet.de Whole thread Raw |
In response to | Todo for 'portal', programmers perspective (Alexey Borzov <borz_off@cs.msu.su>) |
Responses |
Re: Todo for 'portal', programmers perspective
|
List | pgsql-www |
Erm, where has my text gone? However. I personally like template systems. But how do you want to handle the translations with it? I don't think havingdifferent templates for different languages is a good idea as this would destroy all benefits of templates (we wouldhave to manage the same layout multiple times). Creating the static pages as pagename.html.lang is a good idea if we can be sure all mirrors use apache (and if we are surethat every apache installation supports that content negotiation). I think this is what the debian website does, isn'tit? Mit freundlichen Grüßen Andreas Grabmüller ----- Original-Nachricht ----- Von: "Alexey Borzov" <borz_off@cs.msu.su> An: pgsql-www@postgresql.org Datum: Thursday, January 15, 2004 04:33 PM Betreff: [pgsql-www] Todo for 'portal', programmers perspective > Greetings! > > After having a bit of discussion here and after getting acquainted with > the source code of the "next generation" postgresql.org in pgweb/portal > I want to give some ideas of mostly architectural and political nature. > > To prevent the questions like "who the f*ck is Alexey": I am a PHP > programmer, a member of the PEAR[1] community, with several opensource > packages released[2]. I also have experience programming the sites that > are more complex than postgresql.org. Unfortunately these are > Russian-only, so no real use giving links here. > > First of all, I'd like to thank Andreas Grabmüller for all the work he > did on portal module. The code *is* working and that means we only have > to tweak it a bit and not to write everything from scratch. > > > Now on to tweaking. > > What is IMO really needed right now is removing the obstacles and > bottlenecks of website development. Consider the following examples: > 1) If all the static content (i.e. the content that does not change > often) is stored in the database and is editable only through > web-interface then there is a bottleneck: the person who gives access to > web-interface. If the interface is not robust enough to let > not-quite-trusted people use it, then the bottleneck is even more > narrow. On the other hand, if the content is available in public CVS, > then every one may check it out and edit it and later submit for inclusion. > > 2) If some of the critical data --- DB schema, docs, ToDo lists --- is > missing from CVS then the person wishing to participate in the > development will not be able to do this without fishing for the > appropriate info somewhere. > > 3) If site's layout is kept in the spaghetti of PHP and HTML and even > duplicated in several files then the person wishing to tweak the design > or to contribute the completely new one will be unable to do this. The > bottleneck is again the person with the knowledge of this spaghetti. > > > * I18n and l10n issues > > There are separate internationalization tasks: > 1) Translating the framework itself and static content > > For the pages that are mostly the same in different languages and for > the PHP scripts themselves gettext extension or something like this can > be used. Current solution with {LNG_whatever} placeholders is extremely > fragile, as all translations should be updated manually in several places. > > Text-intensive pages with not much layout must be kept in CVS in all > availbale languages. > > The benefits of this approach: people wishing to translate website will > be able to checkout the current code and work on the website without > having to ask anyone. > > > 2) Making it possible to publish dynamic content in several languages > > This is mostly done, but not actually usable without robust admin interface. > > For Dave, on documentation: PostgreSQL documentation is being done in > DocBook[3] this is SGML (or XML) based format that does not have > presentation markup, unlike HTML. It is converted into other formats via > special stylesheets. This is how PostgreSQL's HTML and PDF docs are > being generated. If there is a need to translate the docs, then DocBook > source should be translated, and there are special tools for this. You > can consult PHP documentation HowTo[4], it is a good introduction for > beginners. > > * Separation of HTML from the actual code. > > This is quite simple: if someone wants to tweak the website's layout, he > must be able to do this without having to bother with the actual code. > Thus HTML-only templates (or with *minimal* PHP) are needed. > > Very few templates will be actually needed: one for the whole website > "frame" and one for each distinct page that is available now in "www" > module, of these some will be language specific. > > > > Now lets move to more technical issues > > * Static page generation > > This is working now, I suppose. I only want to suggest using > pagename.lang.html instead of lang/pagename.html to be able to use > Apache's content negotiation[5] on static website mirrors, as suggested > by Peter Eisentraut. > > * Administrative interface > > There is fair amount of work needed here. There should be builtin > authentication and access control system here, so that people having > access to e.g. German translation couldn't f*ck up anything else. > > > > I think to roll out a "new" website, the following should be done: > 1) Separate HTML from the code. > 2) Decide upon the translation infrastructure. > 3) Move all the static pages from "www" into "portal" in the form of > HTML-only templates. > > That's all, the site can be published. > > As soon as the people send in translations of static content we can add > them to the site. As soon as a more robust admin interface is in place, > people can be given rights to publish news, events and surveys in their > languages. > > As soon as someone can come up with a professional-looking design > (sorry, Dave) the current one can be easily replaced. > > > [1] http://pear.php.net/ > [2] http://pear.php.net/user/avb > [3] http://www.docbook.org/ > [4] http://www.php.net/manual/howto/ > [5] http://httpd.apache.org/docs/content-negotiation.html > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command > (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@postgresql.org) -- LetzPlay.de | Freemail: http://www.letzplay.de/mail | Forenhosting: http://www.letzplay.de/foren