GD.ie Overhaul

[Jamie Mc]

Hi all,

Thanks for Mark, Dave, and Aphra, we’ve put some things in place to give GameDevelopers.ie a much overdue upgrade.

We need a few volunteers who will help us do a few things.

1. Graphics and Design
2. CSS and HTML
3. Social Media Skins etc
4. An app?

We also need some people power to help port across content into the new CMS, tag it after reading through, and doing a good SEO description and title. There are several hundred of these pages. These consist of news articles, feature articles, events (you can only see forward on site, but DB has all the historical ones since 2003 so would look cool on a timeline), information on courses, companies etc.

We’re not going to touch profiles, jobs, or the forums though, as that’s phase 2 or 3. So I’m hoping to organise a venue, once a week for the next six weeks, where people can come together with their laptopss, we’ll go through the content, divvy it out based on who we have, and then get started physically porting things, hopefully in time for GD.ie’s 11th birthday this year.

So if you have time to attend the events (either in person, or via a Skype call), and can volunteer an evening or a day a week to transfer information from one site to the other, please make yourself known to Aphra or me, via PM, Twitter, or email.

PS
If you have a college group that regularly uses GD.ie as a resource, and would like to contribute by throwing a couple of classes at it (and learn about a content management system at the same time), it would really help get through the initial few hundred pages.

Cheers

Jamie

[Anonymous]

Awesoooome!

I’d be more than happy to help out.
I’m a front-end dev, so I can tackle some HTML & CSS if needs be.
Wouldn’t put faith in my own design skills, but I’d happily take someone else’s designs and code them up ;)

I’d also be up for in-person meetups or via Skype.

What are the thoughts on creating the new GD.ie as a Git(hub) repository? It would open it up to anybody that wants to contribute to it and also gives you things like Bug Tracker and a Wiki for the codebase.

Anyways! I’d be happy to volunteer some of my time.

You can hit me up on Twitter @coog_ie
Or you can email me: hello[at]coog.ie

[Anonymous]

Well I’ve been fairly inactive for a while due to swampage at work but this seems like a good thing to throw my hat in for. I’d be on the same boat as Coog.

Whats the new CMS? Language? Domain name staying the same?

Primarily a Rails developer so not much help if we’re sticking with PHP but I’m pretty good at the CSS, HTML, Javascript side of things.

1. Graphics and Design
I can definitely pitch in some design topics but graphics would be a tricky one for me to do.

2. CSS and HTML
Oh yeah. I can help with this :)

3. Social Media Skins etc
I’m actually not sure what this means. A quick Google search for Social Media Skins doesn’t reveal much. If you mean like and share buttons etc then thats doable. Just depends on how complex you want to make it.

4. An App?
I know Android pretty well but I’m not sure an App would really give any value to the site. The site is mainly informative rather than function based (EG Hailo, Games, Skype) so it might be better to take a different approach.

If we’re talking redesign then from the ground up we should be thinking about responsiveness. This means
– It scales down well to mobile phones.
– Better managed CSS
– No need for an App while keeping the user experience solid.

Lastly. BIG +1 on the Github idea. GD could be a really cool project. Anyone could open pull requests for different features, patches etc.

[Anonymous]

The site is mainly informative rather than function based (EG Hailo, Games, Skype) so it might be better to take a different approach.

If we’re talking redesign then from the ground up we should be thinking about responsiveness. This means
– It scales down well to mobile phones.
– Better managed CSS
– No need for an App while keeping the user experience solid.
[/quote:5af64524a7]

+1 for responsive. I don’t see much of a point in developing a native app for a website primarily focused on content. I think it’s a safe assumption that any non-regulars visiting this site would arrive from external URLs that would open in their default browser.

I also vaguely remember reading an article some time ago in which it stated that people are more likely to create shortcuts for websites they frequent than installing apps, but I’m not able to find it anywhere… I may be clouding my memory with my own hopes :p

To go back to the Github idea, a GD.ie organisation could be set up and would give better control over any repos created.

[Aphra K]

Thanks all,

This has been coming for a while but such is the nature of voluntary activities, people get pulled into the day jobs or are working multiple jobs etc.

Anyway it is back to the top of the agenda and it would be good to first take advice on how to proceed and then put together a group or look at the best way to achieve it.

Thanks Jamie for kickstarting this.

Aphra

[Jamie Mc]

Hi all,

We’re using ip content and a couple of related software, which mark had recommended.

So I’ll be playing with this over the next couple of days to see what we can do, and we’ll sort out roles etc fairly soon.

It’ll be working to mod what we have though, as opposed to building something from scratch.

I’ve also asked Dave about getting it on an alpha address, which we can password protect and use for the moment while we’re getting the initial stuff ready.

But anyone who has time from February would be really appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Will this forum topic be the main place for updates?

+1 for using github for the repo as well. I suppose the issue tracker can be used for anyone who want to pick up tasks to do, and also report anything that is wrong or missing.

Put my name down, I will try and help with porting content as that is a huge task and drafting as many to help out where one can makes a difference.

[Aphra K]

thanks everyone…this is progressing….honestly!

we will update here and under news..

Aphra

[Author]

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