ixmaps.ca website

Structure

Website structures is as follows:

Home Page (index.php)
[Header]
├── Map (map.php)
├── Learn (learn/)
│   │── Issues (issues.php)
│   │── FAQ (faq.php)
│   │── Glossary (glossary.php)
│   │── Resources (resource.php)
│   └── Supporting Links (supporting-links.php)
├── Contribute
├── Transparency (transparency/)
│   │── 2014 Report (2014-report.php)
│   └── 2013 Report (2013-report.php)
[Footer]
├── About (about.php)
├── Research (research.php)
├── News (news.php)
└── Privacy Policy (privacy.php)

Directory structures is as follows:

/ (document root)
├── _assets
│   ├── __build
│   │   ├── bower_components
│   │   └── node_modules
│   ├── __src
│   │   ├── img
│   │   ├── js
│   │   ├── sass
│   │   └── semantic-ui
│   ├── __styleguide
│   ├── css
│   ├── img
│   └── js
├── _includes
├── learn
└── transparency

Website pages are in /. Global header, nav, and footer as well as page-specific components are in _includes. Papers, presentations, and reports are located in docs/. _assets has two key purposes: 1) to provide a single location for all front-end assets to reside (styles, images, and scripts in _assets/css, _assets/img, and _assets/js respectively), and 2) to house the build tooling automating the development process.

_assets/__build and _assets/__src directories work in tandem to generate the content for the front-end asset directories. Assets ideally should not be added to the core _assets subdirectories, but instead should be added to _assets/__src in order to be included in the build process resulting in optimized and/or combined files for better deployment.

In most cases, whatever is included in the subdirectories of _assets/__src will be replicated in the core _assets subdirectories (i.e., subdirectories will be retained and created in the destination). Of special consideration is the changes that occur during the build process:

Contents of the img and js directories will be optimized (minified and/or compressed) during build, but should be otherwise unchanged.
Styles that end up in the scss directory are written in Sass and located in __src/sass, and compiled to CSS during build. The grunt build process also includes some elements of cross-browser compatibility by running the Autoprefixer task against the generated stylesheets. This uses the list of browsers from the _assets/__build/browserlist file to determine what additional styles can be automatically added to increase browser version compatibility. For more information on the list of browsers, please see https://github.com/ai/browserslist

Directories that begin with two underscores (e.g., __src) are for development and do not need to be deployed to the live site.

Development

The site is built with PHP and a Grunt task to combine the grunt watch task and a PHP server.

Dependencies

Getting set up

Install npm and Node.js or make sure you have newer versions already set up:

$ npm install npm@latest -g
$ node -v
v7.2.1
$ npm -v
4.3.0

Install Grunt and Bower globally:

$ sudo npm install -g grunt-cli bower

Clone and work in this repo to make changes:

$ git clone https://github.com/ixmaps/website2017.git /srv/www/website
$ cd /srv/www/website

You'll need to use the example config to avoid errors:

$ sudo cp config.example.json config.json

(note that you'll need to modify the config.json to include eg the Google Maps API key

The first time you should install all the packages used:

$ cd _assets/__build/
$ npm install
$ bower install
$ grunt

Ongoing Development

In general you should be able to use Grunt's phpwatch to test changes in your browser:

$ grunt phpwatch

Running grunt with no arguments will run a complete build and preparation -- including copying fresh versions of assets from bower_components (e.g., jQuery) and regenerating the custom version of Modernizr.
grunt build will run a full build without coping the external assets (but will try optimising and copying all assets from the _assets/__src directory).
grunt watch runs the same tasks as build but does so continuously watching for file changes.
grunt phpwatch is the same build process and file change monitoring as the watch task, but also runs a PHP server for local testing and development.

Note: running grunt --help will give a list of these tasks, but will also include the subtasks that make them up, the use of which may have unexpected results and is not recommended unless you really know what you're doing.

An example development workflow:

run grunt build in the __build directory
make changes in the __src folder in your preferred text editor
run grunt phpwatch to can see a live preview

Git practices

Please commit to master only (prod should be locked). Master will act as the staging branch, to be merged to prod and pulled to server as required.

Issues lifecycle is fairly hands off - start your own issues, close your own issues, complete and close other's issues (with encouragement to reopen) are all acceptable practices. If resolving another user's more complex issue, preferred practice is to @mention the issuer to request closure if uncertain

License

Copyright (C) 2022 IXmaps. This website and the repository github.com/ixmaps/website2017 are licensed under a GNU AGPL v3.0 license. This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 3 of the License.

These files are distributed in the hope that they will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details gnu.org/licenses.

ixmaps / website2017

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