Convert the ActivateHub.org wordpress site to Jekyll

[dhedlund]

Nobody is currently maintaining the wordpress site and it needs a makeover pretty badly. A decision was made to try migrating the content of the wordpress site over to Jekyll and host it in another git repository as part of GitHub Pages. This will make it easier for anyone in the community to help maintain the site, while also maintaining a peer review process.

The goal of this ticket is to take the essence of the wordpress site and re-architect it in whatever way makes sense to the person who decides to tackle the ticket (merging the general and development blogs together, etc). Once most of the content is in Jekyll and its own repository, we can decide where and how to improve on it from there with GitHub tickets attached to that project.

References to get you started:

• http://jekyllrb.com/docs/github-pages/
• https://help.github.com/articles/using-jekyll-with-pages
• http://pages.github.com/

[edrex]

Hi Daniel, it's good to see you making so much progress with the project,
awesome!

I set up a blog using Jekyll ( http://edrex.github.io/ ) and have a really
nice workflow going using http://prose.io. I'm in North Idaho right now but
I'd be willing to help with this in some way when I get back.

ps check out my article http://edrex.github.io/2013/07/16/jekyll-pages-prose/

[dhedlund]

You should show me your workflow when you get back (I'm out of time for a little while). Whatever the solution is, it has to be easy for Lindsay to fork the project in GitHub and make basic text changes or create a blog post via a template. It should also be possible for anyone else to work on a fork of the repo without requiring permission or special access in advance.

I should've mentioned that there is a time deadline for this ticket, which is about the 12th or 13th. We really need things cleaned up before we leave to do the Detroit and San Francisco launches.

[techieshark]

Eric!

You're in Northern Idaho right now? Me too, until about 5am tomorrow
(sunday) though.

I'd love to see your workflow as well (I've also tried Prose and I'm a fan
so far). I've done a bit of Jekyll and would be happy to see us move in
that direction. If you want to tackle this, I'd be down for some
co-hacking at some point soon.

Thanks,
~ P

[edrex]

I have a todo item to bundle up the workflow stuff I've set up for my own site into a starter repo for Jekyll + Prose sites on Github, and this is sufficient impetus to put it at the top.

The template will be ready to go with:

• a generated links.json, allowing Prose to display a page browser when creating internal links
• media directory for browse/upload/insert
• an "edit" link hidden in the footer of each page pointing at Prose
• a _config.yml with Prose customizations supporting the above
• bootstrap 3 linked from CDN (with instructions to switch to a local copy if you are keeping it)

@dhedlund to answer your questions about the workflow, Prose can edit files in any repo/branch one has access to after an initial OAuth exchange with Github. It is essentially a markdown/Jekyll focused replacement for the builtin Github editor, and can be used alongside it. Check out the article linked above for more about that.

@techieshark I am near Sandpoint, you?

[edrex]

Ok, this morning I took some time getting this to a point where Lindsay can start porting content.

• I spun off a new starter site repo (which my blog is now based off of).
• I forked it to activate/activate.github.io
• Anyone with write access to the Activate repos can edit the site on Prose directly or by clicking the edit links on each page.
• The site is available at http://activate.github.io/. Pages are cached for 10 minutes on first access, so you have to add ?some_random_string to URLs to see changes immediately. This is known as "cache busting" fyi.

Kick the tires and let me know if you run into any issues!
Cheers -- Eric

[edrex]

Also, once this is live we can have a staging copy where we make changes and then use a pull request to launch them.

[edrex]

One other thing: the starter site is missing some features still for a "1.0" release (tags/categories and default post metadata, mainly), which I'll be adding shortly. At that point I'll rebase the activate site on the new upstream and force push, which will require anyone with a checked out copy to do fancy Git stuff to get back in sync.

[techieshark]

Nice! Looks like we're ready for content and design. Eric, how much of that are you planning on working on?

If you wants an example of another pre-existing site ported to Jekyll, here's one:

• http://techieshark.github.io/strongly-typed-jekylled
• code: http://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled

(Eric, I was in Cour d'Alene, but just for the weekend. Hope you had a good trip!)

[edrex]

Is the idea just to do a straight-across port of the existing Wordpress *
content* + look and feel as a start? If so, I could take a first pass at
it.

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Peter W notifications@github.com wrote:

Nice! Looks like we're ready for content and design. Eric, how much of
that are you planning on working on?

If you wants an example of another pre-existing site ported to Jekyll,
here's one:

• http://techieshark.github.io/strongly-typed-jekylled
• code: http://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylledhttps://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled

(Eric, I was in Cour d'Alene, but just for the weekend. Hope you had a
good trip!)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/34#issuecomment-22293642
.

[dhedlund]

Use your best judgement as far as what content gets copied across and how
it's structured. The same applies to the layout. Ideally, it should
contain enough of the branding to be identified as ActivateHub and not feel
too out of place from the calendar:

"If we replaced the wordpress site with this right now, does this feel as
good as what's there now" - if you can answer "yes" and there are some
basic instructions on how Lindsay can change text on one of the pages then
this ticket is complete.

Thanks!
On Aug 7, 2013 9:37 PM, "Eric Drechsel" notifications@github.com wrote:

Is the idea just to do a straight-across port of the existing Wordpress *
content* + look and feel as a start? If so, I could take a first pass at
it.

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Peter W notifications@github.com wrote:

Nice! Looks like we're ready for content and design. Eric, how much of
that are you planning on working on?

If you wants an example of another pre-existing site ported to Jekyll,
here's one:

• http://techieshark.github.io/strongly-typed-jekylled
• code: http://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled<
  https://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled>

(Eric, I was in Cour d'Alene, but just for the weekend. Hope you had a
good trip!)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub<
https://github.com/activate/ActivateHub/issues/34#issuecomment-22293642>
.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/34#issuecomment-22301470
.

[lindsaycaron]

Yes, mostly.... Certainly like the general look & feel of existing site,
but here's what needs to change:

1. *Team Page! * We need a real team page where everyone can show their
   beautiful faces and (ideally) a bio will appear when you hover over said
   face. We should be able to fit at least 3, at most 6 team member faces in
   each horizontal row. Big priority!

2. Portland (activism, arts) SF Bay (activism, tech, arts) Detroit
   (Activism)
   Somehow, in some logo-rific way, these options need to be displayed.
   Preferably, when I hover my cursor over a CIty Logo, the calendar options
   for that city will appear. If we're going with just the existing logos, it
   needs to be obvious they are live links.

3. Blog. Anyone on the team should be able to add a blog post. Maybe, just
   maybe, separate tech from biz dev.... but I doubt it. Currently blog
   function is totally inadequate - can't see list of old posts, etc.

#2 is exciting and interesting. I would love to see a mock-up wireframe on
ideas prior to developing that. Thanks!!

Lindsay Caron Epstein
Dreamer & Doer, ActivateHub.org http://activatehub.org/
About.Me / Lindsay Caron http://about.me/lindsaycaron
@ActivateLinds http://twitter.com/activatelinds
513-518-1438

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Eric Drechsel notifications@github.comwrote:

Is the idea just to do a straight-across port of the existing Wordpress *
content* + look and feel as a start? If so, I could take a first pass at
it.

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Peter W notifications@github.com wrote:

Nice! Looks like we're ready for content and design. Eric, how much of
that are you planning on working on?

If you wants an example of another pre-existing site ported to Jekyll,
here's one:

• http://techieshark.github.io/strongly-typed-jekylled
• code: http://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled<
  https://github.com/techieshark/strongly-typed-jekylled>

(Eric, I was in Cour d'Alene, but just for the weekend. Hope you had a
good trip!)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub<
https://github.com/activate/ActivateHub/issues/34#issuecomment-22293642>
.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/34#issuecomment-22301470
.

[lindsaycaron]

By which I mean, yes? Just migrate existing look + feel + content!