Digital Arts Service Corps - cms

Websites

Bill Brown — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:48:25 +0000

This area is for any and all resources related to Websites.

Mopeds and web stuffs

Colleen Beach — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:48:18 +0000

Whoops, it's been a while since I've done one of these things. So my car was unable to pass smog and I'm currently trying to get the guy who sold it to me to give me my money back and he's dodging my calls. Thankfully my boss knows someone in Marin (where I got it) who used to do lemon law stuff and now does legal aid, so hopefully she can put the fear of God in him. But now I have a moped, which is exciting and insurance is only $9 a month, so you can't beat that.

Project-wise things are still in early stages yet. I'm looking at applications to hire a programmer for one of our sites (californiavoices.org if you know anyone who's good at Ruby on Rails and wants a low paying job you can send them my way). And moving the rest of them around so that they all are on joomla instead of a mix of random CMSes.

It seems like up until this point there hasn't been much standardization in the way they do web things. Everything is in different languages, hosted by different people in different places. So it's a little crazy making, but I'm slowly trying to pull everything together.

Thankfully I haven't had the food stamps issues a lot of people seem to be. Other than my mail seems to be super super slow so I got a letter the other day saying that because I hadn't turned something in they were going to cut me off, but when I called they said they'd gotten the paper work.

Field Report for Marion Duignan - August 2009

Marion Duignan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:46:58 +0000

Time is flying so fast, I can't believe it!

New Mexico is absolutely beautiful and I love where I live and all the people I'm meeting and working with.

I'm working at the Media Literacy Project located in Albuquerque, New Mexico (the organization was formerly known as "New Mexico Media Literacy Project"). I've arrived at a very exciting time for the organization. They are in the midst of their organizational strategic planning and are in the process of creating a new mission, vision, and guiding principals. The plan also includes their organizational goals, objectives, and tactics (activities) for the next five years.

Part of the more immediate changes is/was their name change as mentioned above. As I'm here to update their existing main web site from plain HTML to a more efficient content management system (CMS)- the change in name meant a new logo had to be designed, which in turn will dictate the new look and feel to the site. For the last two weeks I've been in the process of designing their logo. We've had three meetings so far and the final logo review will be this Thursday, September 3rd. The final, FINAL okay will be left to the Director when she returns after the Labor Day holiday.

Prior to these last two weeks of logo consumption - I did training for Joomla! (My choice for CMS.) This took a good week to get through and I'm sure I'll have to go over sections again when I actually get started on the web site design itself next week. I highly recommend the Joomla! training dvds from lynda.com - there are a set of three that go together and for the most part seem to cover every aspect of how their version of CMS works and most important (for a designer)- how to customize the templates.

Last week I knew I had finally "really" settled in because I wrote postcards to friends and family and didn't go to Lowes, Target or the Big Lots store for apartment stuff : )

I feel very fortunate to be where I am for many reasons - not the least of which is working with my fellow VISTA Candelario Vazquez. He is so much fun and in the first couple of weeks here we really helped eachother make it to the first paycheck!!

So, by this time next month I hope to be telling you all about my trials, tribulations and triumphs working with our new logo on the new web site.

That's it for now. Peace.

Field Report #9: 3 Essential Drupal Modules

Morgan Sully — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:40:12 +0000

So this past month was pretty tedious and slow. As some of you may or may not know, I am currently migrating my org's current website into a new, Drupal-based web 2.0 friendly site. There were nearly 1500 pages from the old site to import,
and much of the (great) content on the old site also remained buried beneath many, many pages - there were no RSS feeds on anything, no bookmarking services built in, and no browsable tag clouds - basic characteristics of web 2.0 sites.

Luckily, most of pages were were outdated and were able to be deleted. However, there were still many tedious bits to the importing - where should they go? How should the specific pieces of content be categorized? Was there a space for them on the new site? What would those new spaces looks like? How can the content be easy to find? Do all the links on this page still work???

My goal was to make the content as easy to browse and share as possible, increase it's ambient findability .

Overview of Modules Used
Central modules that I used on the site included Views, Panels and Taxonomy Node Operations - all three of these made for some fun and challenging work.

Taxonomy Node Operations:
This was a very helpful module. When i imported all of the content from the old site (which took about a week of tweaking to get just right - i was getting all sorts of odd characters and HTML showing up in posts) none of it was categorized. What this module does, is allow a 'mass categorization' of content from the content administration page in Drupal. I of course had to go in and create the categories first, but once done, categorizing the content was easy.

Views:
Views I used in order to create 'landing pages' for particular areas of the site (which were defined by the kinds of content appearing in each). For instance, there is a section of the site called 'Capacity Building' Capacity Building is a service that we offer and on the page that had info about this service(s), i wanted to have all articles having to do with 'fundraising' (synonymous with capacity building) appear there as well. So, all articles on the site which had to do with 'fundraising' I tagged/categorized as such and viola! they now appear on the landing page of our 'Capacity Building' section. I used this technique throughout the site for various sections...

Panels:
This is great module for configuring how you want a page to display. It's a bit like putting Drupal blocks and Views into specified sections (panels) of a page. The front page and the 'Policy and Advocacy Network' pages are both Panels.

I also started playing around the general look and feel of the site through a hacked Drupal theme (SEO Position).

Click on the images below to see before and after screenshots of what I've done so far:

art, technology and social justice in the south

Julia Taylor — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:51:23 +0000

Moving to rural Kentucky sure was an experience. But as the days pass I'm settling in more and getting more accustomed to living in such a small town. I'm really enjoying my work at Appalshop. I'm working specifically on the Thousand Kites Project, which is a relatively new initiative within Appalshop to promote dialogue around the criminal justice system. We do that through various forms of media: film, theatre, radio, and the internet. One of my big projects is to help develop the the web-based portion of the program. I'm working on creating a United States map through google maps that people can navigate to post their own stories, hear stories, see films clips, photos, etc. Through this site we'll be able to connect people on a national (for now) level to engage in conversation. We're also looking at other social networking sites such as Flikr and Facebook to be tools for access.

I'm also learning our content management system, which is exciting. I feel like I've become much more technologically savy working here!

I just got back from a fantastic five days at the Annual Meeting for Alternate ROOTS. ROOTS is a gathering of social justice artists from the south. It was incredible few days and I did a lot of great networking with people in this region. Technology is on the table and many in leadership there are looking to the younger people in ROOTS to guide the way in becoming a technologically efficient organization. We at Appalshop will be part of that process.

Now I'm looking forward to using what I've learned so far and really moving forward in a full and ready way.

A Little Markup Language

Jack Waugh — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:38:15 +0000

Up until yesterday, the design for CCTS's CMS called for using the Textile markup language for the contents of a "block" element (i. e., a paragraph, heading, list item, or table cell). And in fact that's implemented in our code. However, thinking about how to import documents exposed problems with using Textile. So we decided to have our own little markup language, and I took on to implement it.

*strong*
_emphatic_
[link text: link-URL]
\[\]\*\_\\ quoting of characters that would otherwise signify in the notation.

Field Report #10: Reconciling 'Capacity Building' with 'Fighting Poverty'

Morgan Sully — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 03:24:45 +0000

So the past few weeks have seen some pretty exciting things happening around the website I'm developing for NAMAC. We've had some good conversations around how we will build it out, what the different parts will look like and what benefit we will be able to offer our members. Building out our website with the new technologies (previously unavailable through our current site or to NAMAC as a whole) will certainly be a bit 'disruptive' at first and I'm a little nervous.

Our website has a national readership from people across the field of media arts and technically, has had quite a bit of extensive customization. It's development is coming along well, if a bit tedious at times. LOTS of technical tweaks, multiple module/theme installs, TONS of learning about even more intricacies of Drupal throughout. I've also done a few custom PHP hacks in the code of certain modules and am looking forward to learning more about PHP (which my org has offered to support via paying for classes - sweet!).

In all of this technical service though, sitting behind the computer screen and making sure all the various bugs are worked out of the system, making sure things appear and function correctly - I can't help but think I'm missing something important to my service as a VISTA - working to end poverty. This is a HUGE part of what it means to be a VISTA. This is part of our underlying mission in all of the work that we do and as VISTAs we are situated at the tail end of a long history of national public service through AmeriCorps. It is this idea, that I feel is at the core of being a VISTA.

Yet here I am, sitting in an office, looking at lines and lines of code, PHP and Excel spreadsheets - far removed from the people/communities who VISTA supposedly helps. I feel like I'm having a bit of VISTA 'mid-year crisis'. Is the work I am doing really helping people? Will it really help people?

I imagine that this is a common issue for other VISTAs who do a lot of 'capacity building' work - particularly the more 'technical' work, like database management, IT systems planning, etc. My work is certainly that, but the day to day interaction I've previously had with people in the computer labs, youth centers and drop-in centers - direct-service - is amiss. To see the immediate effect of things I did with people to help them along their way - whether helping a homeless kid write a resumé, taking a former speed addict to a college 'open house', or even showing someone how to register for an email address were so gratifying and I could take great pride in doing those things - it also kept me pretty humble to the things in life I was lucky to have or achieved.

Currently, the thing that keeps me going - and which guides most all decisions around the design and implementation of the new system - is an idea. The idea is to use the website as a member knowledge management platform for the field - a resource that people in the field of media arts can trust as a guide to galvanize field-wide development and innovation, an idea that people can rally around in support of NAMAC's own mission to "energize independent voices in the field of media arts". Luckily, it's a vision that many of our member orgs share and it also happens to tie in with my own aspirations in life.

Being here at NAMAC as a VISTA has put me on a good career path for professional development in the field of knowledge management and my org is certainly supportive of it, but I still have my occasional difficult patches along this path opening up as I imagine other VISTAs do on their own paths. And there's still the need to bring our communities out of poverty - our mission as VISTAs.

It's been said that "No one is free when others are oppressed". Challenges mean growth, right?

My question to anyone reading this, particularly CTC VISTAs is:

How do you reconcile not being able to see the immediate effects of what you do in your 'capacity building' as a CTC VISTA with the AmeriCorps mandate of 'helping to alleviate illiteracy and poverty'? Isn't that what most of us became VISTAs for? To serve our communities, fight the bad guys of poverty and illiteracy and perhaps, if we're lucky, get a good start to a sweet career path?

What are your thoughts?

Still Working on CMS

Jack Waugh — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:46:26 +0000

I am still working on the CMS.

I am investigating how we can accept uploads of Microsoft Word documents and extract the content from them to convert to our format.

Most recently I contributed some test cases to the tests that get run repeatedly to defend against breaking the code.

In my last report, I didn't say what areas of the code I was contributing on. Since the previous report to that one, I have worked on the editable pages. I also added code that lets an administrator compose their own menu, and code that generates a menu automatically based on the context of a page within an hierarchy of pages. I added the code that lets the administrator choose from among a few predefined layouts for a given page (this choice being inherited, by default, by the page's descendants in the hierarchy), and choose the menu and sidebar for a given layout to include.

I posted at http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/2606 a comparison of programming languages Smalltalk and Ruby.

Site Planning: Tips and Resources for Planning Your Site

Morgan Sully — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 23:44:05 +0000

I cannot emphasize enough, the importance of PLANNING OUT YOUR WEBSITE. Before you can even start thinking about what the colors will be, you need to have a few things in place. 3 i can readily think of are:

A Site Plan
A Site Map Diagram
A User Experience

Sustainability plays a large part in the success of the technology chosen and implemented. In fact, it shouldn't even be 'a part' of, it should be INTRINSIC to your site throughout it's development.

Web maintenance is a pretty big one - for instance, what happens if you've coordinated a bright, fresh and dynamic team to help out on your site, but one of them gets hired off someplace else? What if your graphic designer (for banners, buttons, etc.) is having more difficulty than originally anticipated or they simpy can't finish the work? These instances are particularly taxing if your team is a group of VOLUNTEERS. Volunteers can be notorious (through no fault of their own) at 'dropping off' a project. Will you, as the sole coordinator have the strategy, skills and time in place to 'fill in'? This can often happen (as I've been taken to task to many a time). Nothing is more taxing then if a website or listserv goes down RIGHT before a critical fundraising campaign (which will happen). Have a plan for this. Have back up documentation of what they were doing, and when? How far a long were they? What did the develop/what did they NOT develop?

A key thing that can help off set these things (and empower YOU as a web team coordinator) is to have a Site Plan - any designer should be able to have this on hand and have it transparent and viewable by ALL interested parties - executive board, support staff, consultants (if you're not fortunate enough to have in-house web staff), funder$...

I'm currently developing the site for NAMAC, but it is a HUGE undertaking with A LOT of planning that's going into it - discussion, visioning, functionality, user roles, modules needed, interaction workflow, meeting with each staff member individually, pre-launch steps, live launch monitoring, sustainability and optimization - and we haven't even gotten to the design aesthetics yet.

Without further ado and blathering, here's a few notes on some things that I think are pretty basic and key to web development. This is by no mean exhaustive, but you can certainly search for other web development tips on our site...

A Site Plan:
http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dw5pg78_5cmp6ts

This is my General Plan for the current site. I've made sure to have it public so interested parties (org directors, staff, consultants) can see it and comment on it. I asked each person what they'd like to see, asked them how and if they would interact with a particular functionality and then composed a report with all of their input in it. I am in CONSTANT communication with them about how the new site will function, how the planning is going, what purpose the site/functionality will serve, and IF a certain functionality they'll want is doable and/or necessary - this part is huge - the more functionality, the more troubleshooting down the road.

A general rule of thumb when developing is the 3 T's of Site Building (or any other tech project for that matter).

Tell them what you are planning on doing (when you're planning it)
Tell them you are doing it (when you are doing it)
Tell them that you did (when you are done)

That way there's no 'What? I didn't okay this!' from a frustrated laissez-faire client/director or 'But we had talked about it before' from an equall frustrated and head-strong developer. I'd add that keeping up an online document that EVERYONE can see will also make sure that everyone is on the same page - as well as help YOU as a designer/planner be able to refer back to and track your work.

***NOTE: as a VISTA, an online accessible/public document gives your directors/supervisors a way to reference the great work that you, as a VISTA are doing - mine are sending the link above to funders to show them what we are up to***

A Site Map Diagram:
http://www.michelinag.com/agx/en-US/images/sitemap/sitemap.gif
An example of a site map diagram.

http://www.gliffy.com/
You can draw out a diagram map of your site with this tool (NOT to be confused with an XML SITEMAP by the way). This is GREAT for working with distributed teams.

A User Experience Workflow:
http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements.pdf
The above provides a great visual of the user design experience process.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1254/899914294_ab6745ac73_o.jpg
This (i like this one even better) provides another view of the design process).

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you VISTAs out there. Like i said, this is by no means an exhaustive resource of planning tips, but hopefully it's enough to get you started on your way to website planning nirvana.

peace,
m

What is A Content Management System?

Colleen Kelly — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 15:06:50 +0000

An OS content management system (CMS) allows you to manage website text and images through a database. This typically means:
Quicker website setup
Completely flexible graphic design
Tools to easily update pages and navigation
Support for rule-based content (like events or news)
Community support and plug-ins

Comparing Open Source Content Management Systems:
- Joomla
- Drupal
- Plone
(see attached presentation)

Drupal is a content management system (CMS). It seems to be pretty popular in this crowd. It is implemented in PHP. There are many useful plugins for it. Is the present site based on Drupal?

Joomla is another CMS implemented in PHP.

Plone is a CMS implemented in Python.

For someone's listing of CMS implemented in Ruby on Rails, see Top 20 Ruby CMS. A search on Google for mentions of "Ruby" and "CMS" in the same article produced about 2.8 million hits.