New website design

[QrchackOfficial]

So, people on #lmms told me to create an issue for that. I've just started doing a brand new website for LMMS. I'm running it on my private 24/7 server, it can serve as official website (+forum!) later, too. How about making it official later so we can abandon SourceForge definitely?

Here's the old website:

And the new one:

Feel free to look around at http://qrchack.insomnia247.nl/lmms/ just be aware I'm still changing stuff there, so it can be buggy while I edit.

PS: I am aware of those two logos at once look ugly, the one on menu bar is gonna be hidden while the top logo is visible. It's a draft.

[oeai]

"LMMS comes with a wide range of plugins" - picture is nice

/me think that 100mbit is not enough, you can be ddos'ed with each release, for forum maybe it's alright, but there's an issue with user/pass that should be managed carefully, maybe it's a real problem of migrating to any other host, sf most probably authorizes with own mechanisms, don't know if it is made for forum and lsp. also i don't know on how much users together really are using lmms-site, right now insomnia247 works fast. i've made also the google.site (https://sites.google.com/site/lmmsarts/home/openmusic) and comparing with sf.net it's longer, but there's embedded auth and actually i can share site editing with any google user and use google services as well. there's no php there and also i didn't care on design, just made few simple pages.

[diizy]

Looks very nice! I like how all the plugins are showcased there. Maybe that graphic could even be updated whenever we get new plugins...

One thing: we're officially no longer "Linux MultiMedia Studio", we're just "LMMS" now, with no real meaning to the abbreviation... so any mention of "Linux MultiMedia Studio" should be removed.

[Sti2nd]

Super! I see that (on my screen) the pictures are dragged out... Too bad I don't got any bigger size of the images :( I think the images should be clickable to see the whole of it, the view of the middle of the picture was a bit unfortunate. For you who haven't seen my latest masterpiece "LMMS comes with a wide range of plugins" http://linuxmultimediastudio.blogspot.no/2014/06/lmms-facebook-page-resources.html

[QrchackOfficial]

It's not actually mine server, the admin generously gave me free nearly unlimited account. He's FLOSS enthusiat (and a hacker, too) so he probably has already set up some stuff for DDoS. Anyway, he's aware of that I'm gonna host the website, and even created a second db account on MySQL specially for LMMS website.

[HDDigitizerMusic]

If we we're going to switch it, the domain LMMSOfficial.com is available. http://www.godaddy.com/domains/searchresults.aspx?ci=83269 :D

@diizy

One thing: we're officially no longer "Linux MultiMedia Studio", we're just "LMMS" now, with no real meaning to the abbreviation... so any mention of "Linux MultiMedia Studio" should be removed.

We should probably decide on something then. We wouldn't want someone to ask us and not be able to answer correctly. I think its been rumored in the comments on the FB page that is Libre MultiMedia Studio? We would have to start an issue for this.

[QrchackOfficial]

I'm gonna start one. In my opinion, LMMS needs complete rebranding

[HDDigitizerMusic]

@QrchackOfficial If we do that, we'll have to rebuild our name. LMMS isn't the most popular DAW but we do have an audience. It is possible if done right. Something more catchy would sound nice.

[oeai]

Then i\ll propose OMG - OpenMusicGroove just changed group to groove

[DeRobyJ]

I return with my name of "OpenTracks Studio" OpenMusicGroove sounds good too!

(are we really going to change the name? xD)

[oeai]

• (are we really going to change the name? xD)
• i guess just for fun ,') not really thinking about it
• The ohm (symbol: Ω) - looks familiar btw

[HDDigitizerMusic]

Maybe we should start a forum post and discuss it from there, looks like people are getting a little carried away from the topic on this one.

[diizy]

On 06/26/2014 07:28 PM, DeRobyJ wrote:

(are we really going to change the name? xD)

No we're not, because after months of discussions, we still couldn't come to any kind of agreement over the new name, so everyone basically just said "screw it, let's stick with LMMS".

[HDDigitizerMusic]

@diizy Maybe we should gather up some of our best names or abbreviations of Linux MultiMedia Studio and put a poll on our facebook page for the fans to decide?

[diizy]

On 06/26/2014 08:27 PM, Digitizer wrote:

@diizy https://github.com/diizy Maybe we should gather up some of our best names or abbreviations of Linux MultiMedia Studio and put a poll on our facebook page for the fans to decide?

This was also suggested before. The responses included: what if those facebook people pick a really stupid name that we don't like? Then we're back at square one. Also, not everyone uses facebook, facebook is evil, etc... and the people who are most invested and dedicated to LMMS development are most likely people who already follow the mailing list and/or github, so if anywhere the poll should be held on the mailing list or github...

Then some also opined that we shouldn't make it into a popularity contest, but rather try to find a name that everyone is satisfied with, and then we went around circles trying to decide how the name should be decided...

[DeRobyJ]

That's true, we have to wait until we find a very impressive name, otherwise most of us won't be happy. And since that name doesn't want to come, there is nothing left but keeping this name we have. even if it has no meaning.

One day we'll find the best name ever. Maybe we aren't proud enought of the program to think of a interesting name, so feature after feature we will be hot of the program, and we will find a name.

[QrchackOfficial]

You know guys, I'd suggest trying something abstract as a name - notice Ableton, Bitwig, Ardour...

[QrchackOfficial]

Plus, for the domain I think using the word "official" isn't really needed. And .org fits better, I think.

[unfa]

We could however add the old full LMMS' name to the page's tags, so people searching for "linux multimedia studio" will find the new LMMS website. On 25 Jun 2014 20:35, "Vesa V" notifications@github.com wrote:

Looks very nice! I like how all the plugins are showcased there. Maybe that graphic could even be updated whenever we get new plugins...

One thing: we're officially no longer "Linux MultiMedia Studio", we're just "LMMS" now, with no real meaning to the abbreviation... so any mention of "Linux MultiMedia Studio" should be removed.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-47140952.

[tresf]

You should update your original post with an updated screenshot. The one you originally supplied it outdated and quite blurry.

As far as the design, the top banner is too tall on my screen and likely others'. I agree with @diizy, showcasing the plugins is cool and conceptually the design is clean and simple.

Now for the negatives....

As far as the technology, I vote no to Wordpress. Jonathan and I already did a mockup with Silverstripe and it sort of ended there. In addition, I've proposed the same thing with Drupal (which I find much better for coders like us to work with than Wordpress) but regardless the design can be tweaked and fall into place but I believe first we need to rewind and establish a sustainable hosting and domain provider with a team of people to help update it.

What I'd rather not see is yet another mockup of the front page because I feel it brings us no closer to the long term goals.

Some long term goals I've observed:

1. Rewrite of LSP (started by @Lukas-W)
2. Possible resurrection of user forums
3. Remove reliance on SF for downloads, hosting (8,000 dl/week = 200 GB / week bandwidth)
4. Migration or moving of wiki to new hosting

Some personal "wish list" items:

1. GitHub / Website integration - i.e. Newsfeed integration with some popular/tagged bug reports or popular/tagged pull requests, like an auto-RSS feed for stuff we deem site worthy.
2. LSP cloud support - Online samples/project/presets support using a cloud service such as Amazon Cloud Storage et. al.

Some team members that have shown worthy of maintaining the new site:

1. Toby for obvious reasons
2. Vesa (if he wishes) since he's a major contributor and good judge of direction
3. Stian because he's big on the new wiki stuff and helps lead the social media side of things.
4. LucasW because he has stepped up to help with our current site as well as other things
5. Jonathan because he knows CMS and web and helps with the current site
6. Myself because I can help pay monthly dues and can help with CMS, web, et. al. I also have pretty good hosting I've offered but so have many others.
7. At least one other person that can build our windows installers
8. Any other long time contributors that would like to help or show interest (sorry as I've left quite a few out).

That's my thought process. Something that puts us in a position to have a new site with enough maintainers to have frequent updates and truly leverage a CMS for access control, content and plenty of people to pay the hosting bill et. al when needed.

I also believe we should have a forwarding email address with a few of the above "webmasters" on copy for all site maintenance items (CMS updates, bill due, etc).

So yes, cool design, but I'm not sure it gets us any closer to a new site. I hope that's not too negative feedback. I'm a fan of moving this new site forward, I just want to see it done as a team. :)

[Umcaruje]

@tresf I would like to help out with the site too, I recently started updating the wiki and I can make the windows installers.

[tresf]

@Umcaruje, absolutely. Since I'm not spearheading this site redesign my comments are only suggestions. I would like the one who spearheads it to take them into consideration as I feel a team effort will get much more accomplished.

First steps are to choose hosting and a domain name. Did anyone contact tuxfamily.org?

-Tres

[tresf]

Hmm.... http://lmms.tuxfamily.org/

[eagles051387]

I created the account on there for us On 30 Jun 2014 21:31, "Tres Finocchiaro" notifications@github.com wrote:

Hmm.... http://lmms.tuxfamily.org/

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-47575728.

[tresf]

I created the account on there for us

Great... want to talk about it?

[eagles051387]

Can we chat about it tomorrow as I have an early shift. What are your questions and concern s On 30 Jun 2014 22:07, "Tres Finocchiaro" notifications@github.com wrote:

I created the account on there for us

Great... want to talk about it?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-47580000.

[tresf]

I would prefer to talk about it right here in #891 as it directly pertains to a new site, right?

Edit: For some reason GitHub changed 891 to 829 so the email will link to the wrong bug report, sorry!

[eagles051387]

Ok this works as well.

On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 10:13 PM, Tres Finocchiaro <notifications@github.com

wrote:

I would prefer to talk about it right here in #829 https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/pull/829 as it directly pertains to a new site, right?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-47580682.

Jonathan Aquilina

[tresf]

Here is a mockup design based off of a Creative Commons template called "Plushiness":

With exception of the logo, the artwork, shapes and gliphs in this theme is pure css and html and use FontAwesome for rendering it to the browser.

Original: http://templated.co/plushiness

[eagles051387]

What cms is that for if any On 24 Jul 2014 20:28, "Tres Finocchiaro" notifications@github.com wrote:

Here is a mockup design based off of a Creative Commons template called "Plushiness": [image: image] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6345473/3692818/42d4d050-1360-11e4-9bbd-5876918b38de.png

Original: http://templated.co/plushiness

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50058154.

[tresf]

None. At the moment it is just a plain HTML page.

[eagles051387]

Thinking about a cms again I would avoid one all together. Coding from scratch imho offers better customization and wpild be easier to integrate lsp into it as well. On 24 Jul 2014 21:57, "Tres Finocchiaro" notifications@github.com wrote:

None. At the moment it is just a plain HTML page.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50069505.

[tresf]

Yes, it comes down to how much and how often. If we feed items from various parts of the site to the front page, custom might work best, but if we find ourselves reinventing wheels that have been tried and trued, then it may take too long or worse, never get done and have the consequence of loss of support (loss of support is a risk we wouldn't necessarily carry with a CMS).

The GitHub API makes coding our own a very attractive option as we can have the front page auto-update with our releases! Demo here (source here)

Perhaps something like the LSP and Forums use a single signon would be more possible when we write our own. Even something like openID would be nice. We're clearly torn on the subject of CMS which is why I'm still trying out different things to help us come to a decision as a community. Sometimes doing and showing is better than talking. :/

Personally, I'm not a web designer or web coder by trade so only bits and pieces of this stuff fall directly into my wheel house. This means I am always a fan of leveraging community themes and styles and I prefer to focus on re-using good code and instead dedicating my time to helping code for our LMMS software, not code a website.

I do invite people to put some more mock-ups on TuxFamily. I'd be happy to offer the signon to interested web developers, just send me an email. :)

-Tres

[eagles051387]

The coding for the site I can do. Another cool idea would be to have a rotating banner on the home page with featured projects samples etc take at random from lsp On 24 Jul 2014 22:19, "Tres Finocchiaro" notifications@github.com wrote:

Yes, it comes down to how much and how often. If we feed items from various parts of the site to the front page, custom might work best, but if we find ourselves reinventing wheels that have been tried and trued, then it may take too long or worse, never get done and have the consequence of loss of support (loss of support is a risk we wouldn't necessarily carry with a CMS).

Perhaps something like the LSP and Forums use a single signon would be more possible when we write our own. Even something like openID would be nice. We're clearly torn on the subject which is why I'm still trying out different things to help come to a decision.

Personally, I'm not a web designer or web coder by trade so only bits and pieces of this stuff fall directly into my wheel house. This means I am always a fan of leveraging community themes and styles and I prefer to focus on helping code for the software, not for the site.

I do invite people to put some more mock-ups on TuxFamily. I'd be happy to offer the signon to interested web developers.

-Tres

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50072346.

[Sti2nd]

@eagles051387 can I see some of your work?

[eagles051387]

I have my own site I am working on using bootstrap which isnt uploaded anywhere but I can put it up for you to take a look if you are interested

On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 12:39 AM, Stian Jørgensrud <notifications@github.com

wrote:

@eagles051387 https://github.com/eagles051387 can I see some of your work?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50087769.

Jonathan Aquilina

[tresf]

I took a look at boostrap myself and it seems pretty nice.

I started using the CSS-only stuff (avoiding JavaScript by request :smile_cat:).

The downloads panel uses the counts.php file but it's been customized to inject boostrap styles to make the hyperlinks look like buttons, etc. http://lmms.tuxfamily.org/index.php

[eagles051387]

The only thing with bootstrap which you would need javascript for is if you want a carousel of rotating images etc on the home page for example. Another big plus its easy to take an example of something and adapt it for your needs in ones code.

Nice work on the prototype so far Tres. What can i help with code wise? Out of curiosity do you think it would be a good idea to have a website repository?

On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 10:55 PM, Tres Finocchiaro <notifications@github.com

wrote:

I took a look at boostrap myself and it seems pretty nice.

I started using the CSS-only stuff (avoiding JavaScript by request [image: :smile_cat:]).

The downloads area uses the counts.php file but it's been customized to inject boostrap styles to make the hyperlinks look like buttons, etc. http://lmms.tuxfamily.org/index.php

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50203252.

Jonathan Aquilina

[tresf]

Nice work on the prototype so far Tres. What can i help with code wise?

My biggest weakness in HTML is layout so any knowledge of the bootstrap layout methods would help a lot, but it's all just a proof of concept code right now.

I'm not sure how to cache the downloads JSON file since crontab is disabled on the server so when it's out of date it loads a new one which throws about 2 seconds of necessary latency into the page load (I could do an async request to the server, but that would require javascript).

I don't know... poke around, tell me how horrible my code is.. that would be a good start. :)

Out of curiosity do you think it would be a good idea to have a website repository?

If the server supports git, sure, but not until we have something worth checking in.

[eagles051387]

Will work tomorrow on putting my own prototype together :) or improving what you have. what i would suggest though is creating it as a netbeans project but then again that is just my preference.

On Fri, Jul 25, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Tres Finocchiaro <notifications@github.com

wrote:

Nice work on the prototype so far Tres. What can i help with code wise?

My biggest weakness in HTML is layout so any knowledge of the bootstrap layout methods would help a lot, but it's all just a proof of concept code right now.

I'm not sure how to cache the downloads JSON file since crontab is disabled on the server so when it's out of date it loads a new one which throws about 2 seconds of necessary latency into the page load (I could do an async request to the server, but that would require javascript).

I don't know... poke around, tell me how horrible my code is.. that would be a good start. :)

Out of curiosity do you think it would be a good idea to have a website repository? If the server supports git, sure, but not until we have something worth checking in.

[image: image] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6345473/3708270/b204ed3a-1440-11e4-8825-a9e3ad91534d.png

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50206066.

Jonathan Aquilina

[tresf]

Interested to hear your feedback. I appreciate the suggestion but I use NB7.1 daily and I won't use it for php/html. Have a blast with that one. I'll stick to vim for now. :)

[eagles051387]

I can use either a text editor or netbeans the latest version which is 7.4 last i checked. another perk is that once we get a git repos setup if we opt to set one up they have a plugin which pushes to git repos etc.

Another question do we have an lmms color scheme. Also for the background do we have a screen shot of lmms with windows open etc.

On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 2:44 AM, Tres Finocchiaro notifications@github.com wrote:

Interested to hear your feedback. I appreciate the suggestion but I use NB7.1 daily and I won't use it for php/html. Have a blast with that one. I'll stick to vim for now. :)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50218176.

Jonathan Aquilina

[lukas-w]

Err… You guys know that, a few months ago, I already started working on a new website, using Bootstrap, Markdown and Django? I think I wrote about that. The idea of this architecture was to have the articles written in Markdown and version controlled on GitHub, so that anyone, no matter how experienced in web development they are, can help improving the website's contents. Anyone could file a pull request and have the website automatically updated and deployed via Travis. If we are going to require Python/Django for the LSP, shouldn't we as well take advantage of it in the rest of the website?

[diizy]

Ok Yeah, we need to seriously consolidate this whole website stuff into one project. Things are getting a bit too disorganized here... too many approaches, not enough direction.

Is anyone actually coordinating this? Do we need to appoint someone as head coordinator of website-related development? Or have we already done so? (I can't remember.)

[eagles051387]

Currently I am working with Tres and his demo at the moment. Lukas we can then integrate any django stuff into this html/css we have so do not worry if need be we can integrate it into the lsp once that is sorted out and vice versa.

@Lukas How is the LSP looking thus far?

On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 4:19 PM, Vesa V notifications@github.com wrote:

Ok Yeah, we need to seriously consolidate this whole website stuff into one project. Things are getting a bit too disorganized here... too many approaches, not enough direction.

Is anyone actually coordinating this? Do we need to appoint someone as head coordinator of website-related development? Or have we already done so? (I can't remember.)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50235339.

Jonathan Aquilina

[lukas-w]

@eagles051387 We can't use both PHP and Django.

I haven't had time to continue working on the LSP (and still don't have the knowledge to do it on my own). Just look at the last repo's commits, you'll see what's going on (or what's not). I have one or two local commits that are not pushed to GitHub yet. I called out for a help in the mailing list two months ago, nevertheless I am still the only one who has worked on it.

[eagles051387]

I think this is where we need to structure this into a two phase operation. I think first would be revamping the website and then from there we can integrate that into what you have done as well as continue working on the new LSP while keeping the look identical to the new site.

On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Lukas W notifications@github.com wrote:

@eagles051387 https://github.com/eagles051387 We can't use both PHP and Django.

I haven't had time to continue working on the LSP (and still don't have the knowledge to do it on my own). Just look at the last repo's commits, you'll see what's going on (or what's not). I have one or two local commits that are not pushed to GitHub yet. I called out for a help in the mailing list two months ago, nevertheless I am still the only one who has worked on it.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50235823.

Jonathan Aquilina

[tresf]

@Lukas-W, I'd be happy to clear this up in email. It's just a prototype and I'm trying to learn bootstrap (hence why lmms.tuxfamily.org still points to index.html -> forums, not index.php).

[tresf]

Sorry for airing my frustrations on the tracker.

In terms of the new homepage design and content, I would be willing to spearhead and organize it if its OK with the team.

My goal is to get the homepage refreshed with modern CSS, basic content feeding and convert the LSP over (adding basic CSS to that where sensible for branding purposes).

I would not be doing all of the work but rather coordinating our efforts. I also don't want this to cloud the LSP2 initiatives, as a new home page would be a short-term goal to introduce a fresh page with some basic auto - feed items.

I would like help from anyone comfortable with CSS, HTML, php and bootstrap (assuming we stick with bootstrap)

Does that sound reasonable? I can put a timeline on this as well if needed.

[Sti2nd]

Tresf can do it, everyone, he has knowledge and time. I know CSS/HTML worse than you Tres. @QrchackOfficial is natural member, if he still lives. You should also tell on the mailing list that you want to coordinate, to gather up the scattered forces

[eagles051387]

If we are going to rope in the community I would recommend a git repository approach. I also received the email about python3. The concern is more with performance as we can only use cgi with django amd not the alternative wsgi. On 27 Jul 2014 18:03, "Stian Jørgensrud" notifications@github.com wrote:

Tresf can do it, everyone, he has knowledge and time. I know CSS/HTML worse than you Tres. @QrchackOfficial https://github.com/QrchackOfficial is natural member, if he still lives. You should also tell on the mailing list that you want to coordinate, to gather up the scattered forces

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/issues/891#issuecomment-50277554.