shoesrb.com
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shoes
Total Overhaul of shoesrb.com
I'm proposing a serious overhaul to shoesrb.com.
The current version of the website uses an old default Bootstrap layout that just looks ugly. With Shoes 4 well along its way, I think that we should start work on a new and improved http://shoesrb.com. There are a bunch of issues that could be fixed with a new design.
A few things I'd like to add/improve:
- Design Overhaul - Get rid of this version of Bootstrap. I would also be on board with getting rid of Bootstrap entirely. Just, you know, making it all :lipstick:.
- Fix the Download System - Still under discussion: #41, #34, etc.
- Organize the Code - Issues and pull requests for this site make the code harder to read and keep organized. We will need to make sure that the new site is organized.
- Documentation - The documentation for Shoes 4 will need to be a part of the new design.
I think that this would be a great addition to the impending release of Shoes 4. I would be happy to work on this extensively. Let me know what you all think.
Good morning!
Thanks for your interest and suggestions :-)
Ah if only the release was impending... sure there will be an alpha release but we already got tons of rc1 issues lined up that's not even counting the ones that hopefully will be reported with the alpha :) The shoes4 docs aren't ready yet as well (planned for rc1) - we could make a new & better layout for the manual though.
I wouldn't want to feature the alpha release as the primary thing on the website. A blog post sure. A link on the download page to try new stuff out? Yeah sure as well :) But not the main thing. Dunno how the others feel.
I full heatedly agree that sorting the issues out before the new release would be great/needed! As for the design yes some sub pages need some work although for instance I really like the landing page. Things could always be approved upon though :)
I don't think that the old bootstrap looks ugly - I like it. Plus I don't know if I have a screenshot around of what we had before :o
I'd love to get the responsive style sheet working. Also a new version of bootstrap or something else would be cool. Personally a bit pro on bootstrap as it's the only css something framework I know and know its responsive features pretty well - open to anything though :)
cc: @wpp @wasnotrice @jasonrclark
So thanks so much for opening this up and offering to work on it :heart: :+1:
@JesseHerrick thanks for bringing this up. I'm on board with the idea and had something similar brew in my mind every time I visit one of these (I just don't have the design skills):
- http://pow.cx
- http://jekyllrb.com
- http://brew.sh
Design Overhaul - Get rid of this version of Bootstrap. I would also be on board with getting rid of Bootstrap entirely. Just, you know, making it all :lipstick:.
Do you want to replace Bootstrap with another framework (such as foundation) or just write all the css by hand? I'm all for the :lipstick: but as far as I remember @steveklabnik is the judge of whats hot or not :smile:
Organize the Code - Issues and pull requests for this site make the code harder to read and keep organized. We will need to make sure that the new site is organised.
Not sure what you mean by that.
Documentation - The documentation for Shoes 4 will need to be a part of the new design.
Like @PragTob said: "The shoes4 docs aren't ready yet as well (planned for rc1)"
So in general I'm :+1: maybe you should fork the existing project and start with ripping out bootstrap and making a new design. Then make a post about your progress?
Unfortunately I don't have the time to really help out with this. But it seems like @JesseHerrick is motivated enough to pull this off.
@PragTob @wpp I'm a big advocate of hand coding websites rather than using a framework. I feel that it looks nicer (given that it is designed nicely) and seems less cookie-cuttery. For responsive grids, I use gridism.
I also understand that the docs and Shoes 4 are nowhere near ready, however I'd like to build a design that can accommodate them when they're ready. I understand that I am proposing a major change that not many people have time to work on, so I'll fork this project and begin work like @wpp said.
Sounds like a fine idea to me. The current version was a big improvement over the previous version...if we can make it any better, that's great.
One weakness of the current site is that the backend is written in a not-very-accessible framework, which makes it less likely for folks to get involved. I'd vote for keeping things as simple as possible in terms of tools used.
@wasnotrice backend? Afaik we don't have any backend, it's just jekyll generated static pages or am I missing something?
I am happy to let however actually does the work do it in the way that they prefer.
@pragtob I'm thinking of the event machine backend. Apparently I haven't contributed to the site for a while :/.
Like I was saying, the backend uses a pretty straightforward and popular framework. I like that, now that I know about it :)
Well, Jekyll just went 2.0.
On Wednesday, May 7, 2014, Eric Watson [email protected] wrote:
@pragtob https://github.com/pragtob I'm thinking of the event machine backend. Apparently I haven't contributed to the site for a while :/.
Like I was saying, the backend uses a pretty straightforward and popular framework. I like that, now that I know about it :)
— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/shoes/shoesrb.com/issues/52#issuecomment-42429441 .
@JesseHerrick just FYI there is gonna be a shoes4-pre1 release tomorrow-ish if nothing goes wrong, that's alpha and hardly stable, but still. No pressure just FYI :) Thanks for taking up this task, happy to see what you'll come up with. Also happy that jekyll 2.0 will support Sass.
Maybe relevant/interesting: https://github.com/blog/1833-github-pages-3 (new github pages features although that'd make it harder to move away from them as pointed out on twitter) :)
Hey, quick question. What would be a good description for the shoes website? I'm talking like SEO type stuff.
hm you mean like keywords? ruby, gui, simple, ease, fun, native applications, toolkit, gui toolkit, windows, mac, Linux, cross platform, app, beginner, packaging...
just off the top of my head
No, I meant like a tagline sort of thing. Like: Shoes is a tiny GUI kit that allows you to create Ruby desktop apps... (something like that)
Erm. Good question!
@wasnotrice @jasonrclark @jrgifford @plexus @steveklabnik @ashbb @ccoup @KCErb @pjfitzgibbons can you think of something clever here? :)
I turned to the good old Nobody Knows Shoes to see what our "spiritual father" might have to say about this.
On page 16 there is:
Shoes is for everyone.
Personally I'd go for something like:
Shoes is a GUI toolkit allowing you to easily write GUI programs in Ruby
or something along those lines as you already suggested.
Here is one sentence @jasonrclark cooked up which I like (slightly modified):
Shoes is a tiny GUI toolkit for writing fun, simple applications in Ruby
I like
Shoes is a tiny GUI toolkit for writing fun, simple applications in Ruby
I prefer the first one. It's simple and straight to the point.
Shoes is a GUI toolkit allowing you to easily write GUI programs in Ruby
Hey everyone! It's been a few months since this was last discussed, so I'd like to say that this has not been abandoned. I've been really busy, but I'll try to put more work into the new design.
Thanks sounds cool :+1: Please don't stress out over it or anything and let us know where you need help :)
@JesseHerrick are you still working on this? There is some talk in other PR's about upgrading Bootstrap and FontAwesome. I have a long weekend ahead of me but don't want start anything considering you are working on a new version.
@wpp I saw the PR. Those changes are fine with me. I don't have too much time on my hands to work on the new site.
@wpp @JesseHerrick my thought is to move things over to the newest version of Bootstrap to help facilitate implementing the new design.
If someone else is already working on that upgrade, I'm happy to pitch in if I can be useful. Otherwise, let me know and I'll get going on a PR. :thumbsup:
Hey everyone! This is a really early view of my work on the redesign. Let me know what you think? (colors? margins? whatever)
Also, I'm not sure on the large "Shoes" header's color, so tell me if you think another color would be better.
That looks really sharp! I agree that the red doesn't quite seem right to me, but not positive what to use instead. The plain black in the responsive shots looks like an easy option to me, but I don't know if we're looking to give Shoes a more identifiable look with some other color scheme.
Thanks for your work on this. Super awesome! :rocket: :sparkles:
@JesseHerrick I really like where this is headed! Nice job.
It feels like we could do more to make the design more unique to Shoes, though. I wonder if it's worth exploring incorporating some hand-drawn elements to tie it back to the book. It's also possible that once there's a strong logo in place, that'll do the trick.
I think a logo will definitely fix it @nathancarnes. I've flipped through the book and I see what you mean, but I don't really think they would fit on the home page. Maybe in the tutorial section. We'll see.
Wow @JesseHerrick this looks slick. I agree that a logo and some uniqueness might be nice. Very impressive! :100: