Diff for "CytoscapeWebSiteRenewal"

Design Idea Demo Site

http://chianti.ucsd.edu/~kono/cytoscape/

Shared Social Accounts

The following accounts will be used by the new web site:

• Tumblr: http://cytoscape.tumblr.com/

• Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cytoscape/

• Delicious: http://delicious.com/cytoscape

• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/cytoscapeconsortium

Proposal

Cytoscape web site is a bit old, both contents and design, and we need to modernize it for modern web browsers. Also, all of the web pages are build on PHP scripts and we should avoid it if they are replaceable by client side scripts (JavaScript).

Background

Cytoscape web site was renewed few years ago. Since then a lot of new technologies and concepts have been introduced to the web, including light-weight JavaScript-based UI libraries and social web. Many open source projects start using tose tools and concepts to their web sites and we should take advantage of it for better user experience.

Implementation Plan

Overall Web Site Structure

The new web sites will have the following structure:

• Top Page
  • Link to Download Page (Custom Button)
  • Short introduction
  • News feed
    • Recent publications using Cytoscape
• Introduction
• Gallery
  • Screenshots
  • Demo Video
• User Documentation
• Developer Documentation
• Plugins
• Community
  • Google Groups
  • Twitter - short announcements

  • YouTube - Video Tutorials

  • Flickr - user-generated images
  • Blog?
• About Page
  • Cytoscape Consortium information
  • Developer Team

Key Components

• Links to Social Web Media - Twitter, and maybe a blog?
• RSS feed from Google Group
• Screenshots - use jQuery library
• Video introduction / tutorials

Project Management

Project Timeline

Provide a timeline for implementation. Insert a graphic if you can. Try this free online tool for making project timelines -> Help-u-Plan (create a new chart; modify; right-click to save gif; then attach to this page)

Tasks and Milestones

Outline the major milestones and tasks involved in implementation.

1. Milestone 1: …

   1. Task 1: ...
   2. Task 2: ...

2. Milestone 2: …

Project Dependencies

Outline and projects that depend on this project, link to relevant RFC's and note at what point dependent projects could be started.

Related RFCs

Link to other related RFCs

Issues

List any issues, conflict, or dependencies raised by this proposal

Comments

• Gary: are there any features on the cytoscape web homepage that we should copy? - http://cytoscapeweb.cytoscape.org/

• Gary: Why avoid PHP?
  • Samad:
    • JavaScript/AJAX gives us all the nice, fancy UI tricks while still giving us the necessary functionality of retrieving data from an SQL server.

    • JavaScript reduces the server load, since much of the scripts are running on the client browser instead.

• Gary: We should integrate the wiki more closely into the website so it is easier to update pages that have text that needs to be updated over time.
• Allan: It would be nice it there were clear entry points on main page for different kinds of people, e.g. 'for Biologists...', 'for Developers', etc.
• Brian: Perhaps Cytoscapeweb and Cytoscape should have the same starting page so the website is a root to all cytoscape projects. The url cytoscapeweb.cytoscape.org is confusing and ugly.
  • Gary: The main reason for this is that Cytoscape web is on a different server, but I agree, it would be better if it was all integrated.
• Samad: a major improvement on the previous web site! I have some suggestions on how the site is organized:
  • I think Home and Introduction should be collapsed into one button, since I don't see a difference between the home page and "What is Cytoscape?" page.
  • Gallery should probably be put under the Introduction button.
  • Because of the increase in real estate due to the prior suggestions, perhaps the "For Users" and "For Developers" should be put in the top level menu bar.

  • A major problem is that people don't understand how Cytoscape is organized and that Cytoscape is a consortium--not a single lab running it--which is open to others to join. I strongly feel that there should be a "Who Are We?" page that describes:

    • What is the organizational layout of the Cytoscape Consortium
    • Who is involved in the Cytoscape Consortium
    • How people can get involved with the Consortium

    • It must emphasize that Cytoscape is open for others to contribute

• Gary: should we better integrate the wiki into the website at the URL level e.g. www.cytoscape.org/wiki/pageX, or wiki.cytoscape.org? This would make it easier for us to maintain stable URLs, no matter where the wiki is actually hosted. We could also apply a style sheet to the wiki so that it is better integrated into the main site.

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