[Mostly meant for discussion] What are the possibilities of integrating with `hugo-academic`?

[jmuchovej]

I'm cross-referencing this: gcushen/hugo-academic#1565

I love the styling of zzo! However, as a researcher, I find many of the features from hugo-academic quite desirable. (e.g. publications, posts, slides, talks, authors, and projects.)

I think there's some synthesis that might be mutually beneficial to both hugo-academic and zzo, but am unsure of what that kind of integration would look like. So figured I'd start a conversation between us.

What are your thoughts on this?

[zzossig]

The zzo theme already has publications, projects(showcase page), posts, slide(presentation page), talks page. https://zzodocs.netlify.com/docs/pages/

What do you mean integration. Since the two themes totally different code base so I don't think the two themes can mutually beneficial.

[jmuchovej]

NB: I think I should be clear about this – I'm not suggesting that you're the only participant in developing some sort of migration/synthesis/what-have-you. I'm mostly looking to see where you stand on the possibility of something like this and what constraints might exist.

So, I think this is an adequate summarization

zzo has many of the features in academic; however, zzo's implementations aren't quite as developed. I would attribute this lag to project age, as academic is going on 4 years old while zzo is about 4 months old.

What I mean by "integration"

Given the current state of both academic and zzo, I think most of the integration would involve:

• migrate zzo styling (assets/{js,scss}) to academic
• discern an optimal way to setup _layouts to support academic and zzo "skins"
• migrate academic to a grid-based CSS system, like zzo has

Certainly, this would not be a singular effort on your end. However, I think some components may start with you (as you're clearly the most knowledgeable of zzo).

My primarily rationale for proposing this transition is that while I prefer zzo's look-and-feel, academic's feature-set is quite thorough and very useful. While zzo could always reach this degree of capability, it's re-inventing the wheel, which seems like a sub-optimal use of time.

A note on hosting an open-source project

I totally get that zzo has a special place in your heart because you can point to it and say "I built this from nothing and it's helping X people." But I also see tremendous value in extending academic's platform with "skins," as the current layout creates a lot of bland websites.

Different code-bases

While it's true that the code bases are different, I'm skeptical to toss up hands just over that – without doing a proper investigation on how difficult adjusting academic and zzo to support each other might be.

A bit of a comparison

The zzo theme already has publications, projects(showcase page), posts, slide(presentation page), talks page.

Agreed. However, many of these lack the feature-set that academic provides, especially in terms of ready-to-use components that can be placed across the site.

Publications

Features in academic:

• Reference co-authors (requires a built-in author's layout) – this works on both personal and organization pages
• Different presentation layouts based on type of research publication
• Filtering is explicit. (I believe zzo's "search" could do this, but it's not as clear that one would strictly extract publications matching the query.)

Posts

Features in academic:

• Posts can be attached (analogous to how showcases categorize) to projects, publications, and talks.
• Posts may also have slides attached to them.
• Posts (and projects, publications, talks, etc.) can be cross-referenced across the site easily (and in some cases automatically).
• Multiple authors – specified globally with author profiles. (This also applies to projects, publications, etc.)

  NB: I haven't tested the full extent of cross-linking/reference in zzo. From what I've read in the documentation, though, this wouldn't be possible. As showcases are directory-based. series might be able to capture this, but that doesn't work well in the case that a project has multiple posts, publications, talks, and slides.

Slides

Can't comment on – haven't looked into this, but (as the documentation says, you're disinclined to use this, so it's likely not a first-class feature.)[https://zzodocs.netlify.com/docs/pages/presentation/]

Talks

Features from academic:

• Cross-linking/referencing I've mentioned earlier.

[zzossig]

I'm not suggesting that you're the only participant

In that case, I don't want to participate

what constraints might exist.

We can do anything if we want. But there is a significant amount of time and effort consumed.

however, zzo's implementations aren't quite as developed

No, My theme's implementation is better than Academic

What I mean by "integration"

For each project, development should be done independently. Since the Academic theme not designed dynamic color change, there will be a significant amount of time to do that. I can make PR regarding styling, but in that case, I insist that my name should be specified in the license file in the Academic repository which is I don't think Cushen will accept this.

without doing a proper investigation on how difficult adjusting academic and zzo

Academic theme using a 3-party library(bootstrap) for styling, And Zzo theme is not using any styling library. So, If there will be integration, Cushen may have to redesigns the styling.

Agreed. However, many of these lack the feature-set that academic provides, especially in terms of ready-to-use components that can be placed across the site.

I don't think Zzo theme lacks the feature-set that academic provides(Just the two theme has different concepts to provide contents). If you want to make change something in zzo theme, open a new issue in this repository. I'll make it better with your suggestions.

[jmuchovej]

I'm not suggesting that you're the only participant

In that case, I don't want to participate

What do you mean by this? Are you looking to be the sole contributor to something like this? I was stating that you wouldn't be the only person involved in a change like this.

I can make PR regarding styling, but in that case, I insist that my name should be specified in the license file in the Academic repository which is I don't think Cushen will accept this.

What do you mean by this? Are you saying that your name should be present in: https://github.com/gcushen/hugo-academic/blob/master/LICENSE.md 🤔

Would you making further contributions to hugo-academic with style updates that would be made to zzo?

[zzossig]

What do you mean by this? Are you looking to be the sole contributor to something like this? I was stating that you wouldn't be the only person involved in a change like this.

If you want to use an academic theme and want to change the color theme dynamically like zzo theme, ask about it to Cushen(the owner of the academic theme). If you want to use zzo theme, you can make an issue here.

What you said is not a trivial job to do. The two themes have a different concept and not designed to benefit each other.

Even if I'm not the only contributor to your suggestion, the CSS part is the most time-consuming job. And this project more than half is CSS

What do you mean by this? Are you saying that your name should be present in:

Yes, when If I contribute to the hugo-academic repository.

Would you making further contributions to hugo-academic with style updates that would be made to zzo?

I didn't contribute anything to hugo-academic. Don't have a plan to contribute in the future. But the hugo-academic theme owner accept my name specified the license file, I'll make some contributions

[jmuchovej]

What you said is not a trivial job to do. The two themes have a different concept and not designed to benefit each other.

I'm quite aware of what kind of ask this is... I did web development for about 6 years. I'm not sure what you mean by "... not designed to benefit each other." – the defining line between zzo and academic seems to be zzo's visual styling. Otherwise the intended audiences seem to overlap quite a bit.

If you want to use an academic theme and want to change the color theme dynamically like zzo theme, ask about it to Cushen(the owner of the academic theme). If you want to use zzo theme, you can make an issue here.

Personally, I have minimal preference on the ability to allow users to change the color scheme. The main use zzo has, for me, is the visual layout.

I didn't contribute anything to hugo-academic. Don't have a plan to contribute in the future. But the hugo-academic theme owner accept my name specified the license file, I'll make some contributions

So, I'm not insinuating you contribute or anything of the sort. I'm mostly getting a feel for what your "terms" might be, in the case George is interested in expanding academic's support for alternate themes.

[zzossig]

not designed to benefit each other

I think I select the wrong word because of language. I mean, It will take plenty of time to do this ->What I mean by "integration"

I'll wait other people's opinion(mostly George)

[nisrulz]

Just my 2 cents on this topic. I use zzo theme already.

Merging two projects would be good chunk of work. Anyone who has done web development would agree "just changing layout/visual styling" is not as easy as said.

If still that is something someone wants to do, the project is open sourced and anyone is free to make the changes. I think the maintainer here has made it quite vocal they don't want to take on the huge task of "integrating" two themes.

What started as a "discussion" issue is now turning into "demanding" extra free work.

Please open a PR to bring parity on either side of the platform or even kick of what you wish to have in the project with a subset PR.

This project is built by the maintainer and is supported by contributions from the community. If someone requires a functionality they open an issue, discuss feasibility as well as provide possible solutions. Then eventually either tries to help by opening a PR or asking for directions from the maintainer itself.

[jmuchovej]

@nisrulz I'm well aware something like this is not simple. To the best of my knowledge, I've not proposed it was simple to begin with – anything that conveyed otherwise was a printed misstep.

I've opened this as a question largely because there's already significant overlap between both projects. The largest distinctions are the support and utilities that academic already has, and the styling that zzo offers.

What started as a "discussion" issue is now turning into "demanding" extra free work.

I'm not sure where you got that idea. I have no intent of demanding work of anyone on open-source. For my own adjustment/self-improvement, can you point out where you see that?

[nisrulz]

@ionlights Well this can be seen in this thread, the maintainer has voiced that he doesn't see the work done in the direction of merging two projects, citing time and effort. At the same time also mentioned that if there is any possibility of doing some work directly on the academic theme they would want to be cited for their work in the academic theme (be it just license file, its their choice).

Your statements on the other hand have been on the lines of "can you do it?". You have not once suggested a possible solution around how to even hit the problem from the technical side of things. It is pretty much known that there is a lot of work required, yes. But please give something more than an "ask" of doing the work.

However, many of these lack the feature-set that academic provides, especially in terms of ready-to-use components that can be placed across the site.

Would you making further contributions to hugo-academic with style updates that would be made to zzo?

So, I'm not insinuating you contribute or anything of the sort. I'm mostly getting a feel for what your "terms" might be, in the case George is interested in expanding academic's support for alternate themes.

Your constant emphasis on pushing for the maintainer to commit to contributing is disturbing here.

What is really bad that someone made a negative statement and you decided to dump it here:

however, zzo's implementations aren't quite as developed.

In whatever state it is, it is what it is. It is open sourced, Free as in Freedom, piece of code. Respect that. Be empathetic about other people effort and time spent. Some of us do open source work in our free time after work hours. You don't like something, then don't use it. However please stop spreading negative statements made elsewhere within the open source community.

For the most part, the maintainer is not entitled to service your feature request. They are the maintainer of this project, you can make a request and they can decline your request. If you don't like it, fork it and build on your own.