Add more information about Backdrop CMS features on the website

[jenlampton]

On the home page there is a list of improvements. Let's explain these in more details. It would be super-awesome if we could do a little backdrop demo video to go with each one, too :)

[jenlampton]

@mikemccaffrey offered to help with this :)

[klonos]

I can also help with these. We mentioned at some point figuring out a way to allow some sort of authoring -> approving -> publishing workflow and allowing people to contribute. Perhaps it's high time we did that.

I envision this list to be a view with just the title fields of "feature" nodes linking to the actual nodes - sorta "read more" thing. It would also be good SEO if these had pretty paths like https://backdropcms.org/features/feature-title now with pathauto in core. People with bd.org authoring permissions could improve the description/summary and once approved, the new revisions could then be published by say @jenlampton or @quicksketch. That would take most of the load off of you guys.

The feature nodes could have (besides the obvious title and body)

• a file/video field (#130) that could as well be a URL field of videos hosted on YouTube.
• a Font Awesome icon
• an "internal" notes/todo field for the authors - could be just comments enabled for authors but hidden from public

Then, I don't know if you would like to keep the list as is with two variations of features: the ones with description & icon font vs the simple ones under the "improvements" umbrella feature.

My vacation starts on the 9th and I will be relatively available till Jan 3, 2016 and I would love to work on that if you agree with my rough plan of attack as explained above (create the feature content type, add the feature nodes and create the view page). Let me know.

[klonos]

...perhaps, if time permits, I can also create some introductory videos for some of these features. I do not know if I have an appealing voice though - never created screencasts before, but love the idea. Even if videos prove to be too much for me (or people hate my voice), I did have some pretty flattering comments about my screenshots and animated .gifs over the issue queues in d.org as well as here on GitHub. We can use these for starters :wink:

[quicksketch]

...perhaps, if time permits, I can also create some introductory videos for some of these features

That would be great @klonos! Don't worry about your voice. People have managed to listen to my nasally mumblings for hours. The content is key, but the narration still required in actually explaining what people are seeing.

[klonos]

OK, I can't promise anything though.

What about converting the list of features in the front page to a view?

[sutibun]

...perhaps, if time permits, I can also create some introductory videos for some of these features.

Do it! Monkey wanna see how you look like

I do not know if I have an appealing voice though

Oh, who cares about the voice. It's all about how pretty you are anyway...

[klonos]

:laughing:

Sorry to disappoint you but I wasn't planning to show my face on the video. It would be a screen capture of my monitor as I do things + voice to explain what I'm doing.

My avatar is actually a real drawing of myself back in 2003 if I remember correctly. I will try to show up in one of the weekly hangouts so to see me real-life.

[klonos]

...don't like selfies and photos much, but the one here is fairly recent: http://www.nearbynerd.com.au/nerds/gregory-netsas

[klonos]

...this is my twin brother Chris by the way: http://www.nearbynerd.com.au/nerds/chris-netsas-user-friendly-tech

[klonos]

All jokes aside though, @jenlampton @quicksketch how about my suggestion to turn these items to a view? ...or is @mikemccaffrey or anybody else already working on it?

[docwilmot]

All jokes aside, that @klonos is one good-looking dude!

[sutibun]

Chris is good-looking. He must be the twin with the looks :p

[mikemccaffrey]

@klonos: how about my suggestion to turn these items to a view

Well, I was imagining that we might just start with a single page with a bit more detail on each of the feature improvements over drupal.

[klonos]

@sutibun haha, a line we've always used on people that had only met one of us when we used to refer to the other: "I know the perfect guy for this job/task! He is a really good-looking, super-smart person and has a golden heart. ...did I mention he is my identical twin?" Feels good to flatter yourself in such an indirect way. :stuck_out_tongue:

@mikemccaffrey Sure, that is a good start till we get some actual content. But when wanting to add more to each of these items (think introductory videos or reference links etc), it would be good to not have it all there creating a huge, messy page, but instead link to it through a "find out more" link that leads to a separate section/page. That effectively calls for separate "feature" nodes.

Having separate nodes per feature would also allow us to better manage their revisions and approval process/workflow. Their summary (think title and a catch-phrase) could then be aggregated in a single summary page (the landing page) using Views. In the future we could perhaps even turn some of these feature nodes into a slideshow of key-features.

Another idea would be to hide the "find out more" section of each feature in accordion style fieldsets (point is to not have a very lengthy landing page). Anyways, the flexibility is better this way IMO.

[sutibun]

Currently on the homepage we have the following talking point:

Serve pages fast, even on shared hosting

Backdrop is lean and mean. Backdrop focuses on common problems and eliminates cruft. With a focus performance and optimizations for MySQL, Backdrop is significantly faster than Drupal 7.

To me, how this is executed doesn't do Bd justice. Why?

1. the way it's written doesn't make the necessary impact to a reader i.e. doesn't express the idea as well as it could.
2. this is "buried" in the list. The fact that Bd is meant to work on Shared Hosting is a key differentiator to Drupal 8, which, at least as I understand it, will require more expensive hosting plans. Higher hosting costs!
3. language geared too much to developers Because it is the homepage, all kinds of visitors will land here from Drupal users, WP users, and normal users. We can abstract it a lil' bit so everyone can understand the big idea.

Here is my suggestion:

Replace that with the following and move this item to the top

Reduces hosting costs and server requirements

With a focus on performance, Backdrop and Shared Hosting fit like a glove. This means you don't have to search for the perfect and most expensive private server to get things to work. Any cheap hosting will do and you'll still get faster served pages to boot, especially in comparison to CMS software like Drupal 7. See how exactly here

I relegated speed to the side a bit and instead emphasized cost and server requirements. (hmm... or maybe we can make this a separate bullet from speed?)

If that feature interests a visitor, they will click the 'read more' link below and that's when we can go into more details. We can still explain this feature on the homepage without going into technical details like MySQL which may throw off some visitors. Otherwise, by mentioning technical terms on the homepage we're automatically risking giving the impression Bd is "hard"

I think this is the pattern to go: on the homepage... keep most technical details from the homepage and move them into the explanation pages.

[Gormartsen]

@sutibun :+1: here. I like this way. It gives more info for non technical users. On a detail pages we can go dipper to explanation how exactly it reduce a cost and what is minimal server requirements. Also we can provide some Performance tests info.

[sutibun]

That's why Bd keeps a monkey around... ^_^

On a detail pages we can go dipper to explanation how exactly it reduce a cost and what is minimal server requirements.

You got it.

• The homepage should in a sense cater to normal users... give the gist.
• The details page gives you the full story... everything you ever wanted to know about the feature. Although I will say we should still try to explain it so a normal user can still follow along ... though once we go into the section explaining how Bd does this, we can go into technical details.

Also we can provide some Performance tests info.

I like that idea of backing up our claim.

[klonos]

:+1: from me too on the Monkey business :wink:

[klonos]

...just replace any "negative" words like cheap with affordable.

[klonos]

...and perfect with high-end.

[klonos]

Reduces hosting costs and server requirements

With a focus on performance, Backdrop and Shared Hosting fit like a glove. This means you don't have to go for the expensive, high-end private servers to get things to work. Any affordable hosting plan will do and you'll still get faster served pages to boot, especially in comparison to other CMS software like Drupal 7. See how exactly here

[sutibun]

@klonos ^^)b like the changes. Does sound better.

[klonos]

See now why we need a workflow/revision/publishing process established in BD.org. Everybody could come and chime in on improving text and how we articulate things for maximum impact.

[sutibun]

See now why we need a workflow/revision/publishing process established in BD.org

You make it sound like monkey against it ^_^

Monkey good with initial draft or idea but not so good with refining and polishing.

[sutibun]

I think we need to add a new "bullet" that focuses on Bd's philosophy and leadership, with a link to their respective pages. Here's something I put together.

Keeping the interests of the little guys in mind

Led by a community-driven group, Backdrop's focus is on serving those low on budget but high with aspirations and sensibilities. In fact, Backdrop's entire philosophy revolves around making your site easy to maintain with usability and backwards compatibility in mind. It's reassuring to know someone is keeping an eye out for you. Uncover our core beliefs from our philosophy and the leadership that drives us.

[sutibun]

I found an interesting features page. Just an idea. Maybe we can do something similar to fully explain Bd's advantages while at the same time always providing bite sized info:

• features overview (I liken it to the big picture)
• if you check out the blue nav, you'll see they break down and group all their features
  • design
  • content
  • etc
• At the end they have a page which lists all their features.

We can still have each feature blurb linking out to a more detailed page as mentioned before.

[jenlampton]

I love what I'm reading in this issue, thank you all for participating. To address the age-old question from @klonos:

All jokes aside though how about my suggestion to turn these items to a view?

Yes, I love this idea, and @sutibun's idea of having a "Features" page that could include more information than we show on the home page. Home page view could be "promoted features" but every new release we could add a few more features highlighting the latest additions!

A also love the idea of producing videos about each feature, we can promote those on other various places as well.

[jenlampton]

I've created a new content type on backdropcms.org for features. We can switch over the home page to a view as soon as the existing items are all entered. (We can go back and add screenshots, videos, or longer explanations for each later on.)

[klonos]

@jenlampton perhaps I'll find some time during this weekend to get those feature items created.

[klonos]

...oh, I can't resist. I might as well go ahead and do an initial copy-paste now 😄

I've configured the URL pattern for these nodes to features/[node:title]. Feel free to change.

[klonos]

...done with copy-pasting the major features. Stuck with the "Enjoy tons of other improvements, including:" section. I am certainly not in a creative mode (💤) in order to come up with catchy "blurbs" and they are a required field.

[klonos]

...created the view with a page (it's a start 😄 ): https://backdropcms.org/features

[klonos]

Notes/to-dos:

• perhaps a couple of tags ("merged in core" could be one - for Drupal contrib modules that were merged / "annoyance fixed" could be another one).
• version field (drop-down list) to indicate the version when the feature was added.
• need a way to add font icons next to title.
• need a way to be able to (re)order them (did we port https://www.drupal.org/project/draggableviews ??)
• ???

...calling it a night 😪

[klonos]

...if we wanted to make the website a bit more "commercial", we could turn these nodes to a slider with screenshots and the title + blurb text as overlay.

[jenlampton]

from a UX standpoint, people don't really read sliders. I like having them in a scrollable list that clicks through to more info. If we add a slider it should be full of pretty pictures - something that sets the mood but doesn't contain such important information :)

perhaps a couple of tags

added

version field (drop-down list)

done

need a way to add font icons

I checked out both fontawesome and icon modules for Drupal and neither really does what we want (yet). Icon API has a field, but the select list is still a bunch of strings (no icons) so no significant advantage over a plain text field asking for classes. The fontawesome module, which I would prefer anyway, doesn't do anything but add the CSS. I've asked if @RobLoach would be willing to support an icon field for the fontawesome module, and if so I will write one (and then port it to Backdrop). For now, I have added a class-name plaintext field.

need a way to be able to (re)order them

long term yes, short term we can just hack the dates to get them in the correct order.

[klonos]

Remember this issue? 😄 ...

• I've copied all the current items from the home page list either creating new or updating existing "Product feature" nodes.
• I've added the proper fa-* class field to them.
• I've updated the view that generates https://backdropcms.org/features ...it now has the icon class field added to it (hidden from display) and the title field is rewritten to include that as a class.

This produces this:

[klonos]

...to bad we don't have https://github.com/backdrop/backdrop-issues/issues/479 in core

[klonos]

Would also be great if we had https://www.drupal.org/project/draggableviews ported (any takers?) so that we could be setting the order of these in an easy way.

I think that we can set that as the home page mostly as is. We can disable the feature titles linking to the respective nodes until we have actually added more information and images.

[klonos]

So, the idea here basically is that with each release of Backdrop, we can be adding "Product feature" nodes that basically include an icon, a title, and a short description (or "blurb"). We can then improve these by adding screenshots/videos and detailed descriptions. Some of these can be marked as "key features" (checkbox field to be added to the "Product feature" content type) in which case, they become part of the home page slideshow.

[jenlampton]

I just saw a great example of a OSS project features page, and wanted to put it here for future reference.

[jenlampton]

Also a good example: Wagtail