Future plans for the Ubuntu Developer Portal

Registered by Michael Hall

Discuss the current needs of the Ubuntu Developer Portal, what can be done with Wordpress and what alternative software frameworks could be used isntead.

Blueprint information

Status:
Not started
Approver:
Jono Bacon
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Michael Hall
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
Michael Hall
Definition:
New
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

== Wants ==

    Multi-language support

    Easy staging to production

    Easy management of page content

    Easy management of site navigation

== Pros/Cons ==
Stick with Wordpress: (0 hours)

    PRO: No change in framework required

    PRO: Good at controlling spam?

    CON: Mutli-language support is lacking or unavailable

    CON: Staging to production is difficult and unreliable

    CON: Not great security-wise

    CON: Would be nice to develop content in bzr branches

    PRO/CON: WSIWYG editor <- You can't control what the users are putting in the content(html tags, css & even js)

    PRO: Schedulable blog publishing

    PRO: Navigation is automatic

    CON: Navigation is inflexible

    PRO: Does blog functionality quite well.

Re-write in Django:

    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-api-website/+bug/1275954

    https://github.com/html5rocks/www.html5rocks.com

    https://github.com/mozilla/kuma/tree/master/apps/wiki

    PRO: Cloud portal already does this: https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~cloud-portal-dev/ubuntu-cloud-portal/portal/files/head:/cloud_portal/apps/

    PRO: Familiar to devs both internally and in the community

    PRO: Can tie in the API website directly

    CON: Would require development time

    PRO: Existing CMS apps can provide multi-language support

Use static-site generator:

    PRO: having content available in branches would

    make it more open to contributions from engineers

    Easy merging from staging to production

    Easy to track changes

    Easy to link to bugs

    We can do merge proposals and code review

    We can hook the project up with CI

    (sphinx) Translations can very easily be done in LP.

    PRO (sphinx): we can also generate PDF, EPUB, single HTML and other formats

    PRO (sphinx): Translations never get out of date

    PRO (sphinx): we will know about broken links

    PRO (sphinx): docs can very easily be packaged

    PRO (sphinx): machinery exists for packaging and deployment

    CON: transition of links (rewrite map)

    CON (sphinx): transition to reStructuredText might take us some time

    CON (sphinx): navigation is a bit cumbersome

    CON: No search functionnality

    dholbach: http://packaging.ubuntu.com/html/search.html?q=auto+pkg+test - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-packaging-guide/+bug/1160897 - so we have search functionality, but it's not super-clever

    CON: No dynamic or interactive content

    Relies on a variety of external services

    which services?

    PRO (fenchurch): Translations handled by Django templates

    CON: Need theme porting

    CON (sphinx): Need to convert content to RST

Work estimate:

    sphinx solution

    ???: massage HTML into RST

    3-4 days: prototype navigation + directory structure + translations

    1 day: hook up with jenkins

    1 day: set up rewrite map for URLs

    1 day + X: get everything deployed

(?)

Work Items

Work items:
[dholbach] investigate what sphinx' options are wrt navigation: POSTPONED
[dholbach] investigate what sphinx' options are wrt directory trees + translations: POSTPONED
[dholbach] find out if we can use direct HTML in the markup: POSTPONED
[dholbach] find out if we can convert html2rst easily: POSTPONED
[mhall119] Create prototype of full Django replacement: INPROGRESS
[mhall119] Estimate time to convert to Django replacement: TODO
[ya-bo-ng] Estimate time to convert to static django: TODO

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