New Testing Instance & Re-Design Infrastructure Notes

[anna]

Determine the best method for implementing the EngageMedia.org re-design as a layer on top of Plumi and produce a brief outline of how this should work - what the designer needs to provide, what EngageMedia need to provide, delineation of front-end development roles, which infrastructure should be used (Diazo / Deliverance) and an estimate of development hours.

This will help us understand what is required in the re-design milestone, how much time it will take for programming, design and implementation, and what resources EM will need to provide.

Perhaps a version of this document could be made available in the Plumi manual as a guide to theming Plumi 4.x

Could be a brief explanation covering the essentials (a page?).

Also set up a new testing instance that does not use plumi.skin so we can try out Sunburst theme.

[anna]

From Christos:  http://lessframework.com/

Mike recommends Diazo

[anna]

As per our meeting today, we can close this off with a one or two page doc that outlines the technologies Unweb recommend us using, an explanation of how these layers operate with each other (Plone / Plumi skin / Plumi theme / Diazo / HTML) what the designer needs to provide Unweb. Basically a run down of how this should work (including two different options for basing on Sunburst, or using Diazo), and any advice or things we need to keep in mind to make the process easier.

This will be a very valuable reference for the EngageMedia staff member who undertakes the re-design process.

As Unweb have indicated - its may not really possible to indicate development hours - though if it was possible to give a very rough indication of Sunburst-based vs. Diazo-based options that would be really great (even if this means delineating Unweb's role in each case in order to make these estimates).

[anna]

Bumping this to the final release, as this can be done at this stage.

[anna]

so could this form part of the Plumi manual?

you have to register for Booki and edit THIS VERSION ONLY (4.0)  http://booki.flossmanuals.net/plumi/_v/4.0/edit/

there are already some notes and links in there, but to have a really clear articulated vision for the different major options for re-theming Plumi here would be great.

anything that was EM-specific could be put into another doc

[and]

Pushing this into the redesign milestone.

[anna]

From our recent meeting, Unweb advised to use the Less Framework and Diazo to create our new theme based on a responsive / adaptive design for different screen sizes.

Our web designer will just need good HTML & CSS (and English) skills, and a familiarity with designing concurrently for varying screen sizes. Experience using similar javascript frameworks would be advantageous, but not required.

This ticket seems to be an ongoing discussion rather than a report for now. I will add notes to the redesign project plan as we go.

I'll just change this to reflect setting up a new testing instance - testing.engagemedia.org

If Unweb do want to create a simple how-to / list of recommendations for theming Plumi as part of this, I'm sure that would be really useful for EngageMedia and other site implementors.

[anna]

We have a new testing instance for the new EM skin here:  http://new.engagemedia.org.