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Topic: State of the Step document

check out http://litestep.info/stateofthestep.php

It's an attempt at documenting our current status, what is still active, what needs to be done, and what questions we have. It is our starting point.

Check it out and let us know if you have any thoughts, suggestions, answers, questions, etc.

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

2 (edited by the-golem 2011-09-27 03:08:57 am)

Re: State of the Step document

UPDATE:
Okay, I figured out what I was doing wrong. As of right now, when logging into the forum, you are automatically logged into the wiki.

However, the login from the wiki doesn't exactly work right, as it still tries to tell my that my user doesn't exist. Also, once logged in to the wiki (after using the forums login page) the logout script doesn't seem to work either.

Either way, we went from not-working to mostly-working.

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OLD:
Dokuwiki has what looks to be a user-management extension class that lets the wiki not just use the punbb for authentication, but it also shares sessions.

I haven't gotten it quite working yet locally, but here's the relevant link:
http://www.dokuwiki.org/auth:punbb

If I can get this working, I'd lean heavily towards DokuWiki as the one to use.

PS: Please add this to the State of the Step page.

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Re: State of the Step document

you still think it's important that the user accounts be the same for both the forum & wiki/docs? I think that more people will edit docs over time than what Anomareh thought, but I also don't think we'll see more than a couple of people ever editing docs at once.

curious about your thoughts..

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

I'd rather not have a completely open (free edit) wiki.
If the wiki and the forum look like they're part of the same website, it would be ludicrous to expect them to create ANOTHER login for something on the exact same site.

I know that if I went to a website which had a forum and a wiki, I would expect and hope that I wouldn't have to create multiple logins.

A login is better than none, IMO, and one uniform login is better than two.

For me, it's not even a question.

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Re: State of the Step document

makes sense..

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

I'm totally with the-golem on this one. And I also think it's important (but maybe not at prio 1 importance) that the forum, the wiki and the rest of the site shares a common look and feel

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Re: State of the Step document

I think we can do that.. although integrating the forum in with the rest of the site (beyond using links to go between the two) might be more difficult

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

updated the State of the Step page with my write-up for what I've seen so far. Read through it, and then check out what we've done so far. Any help that can be provided will be great.

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

added a "things we can use help with right now" section to the document. We'll be updating the list often. Let us know if you can help, or if you have anything to add to the list.

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

We use dokuwiki on lsdev.org - it works well enough.  At some point we intended to integrate the bug tracker and wiki accounts, but never got around to it.  It'll be easier to have the community only to have to learn one wiki style, so good to see you are using dokuwiki as well.

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Re: State of the Step document

the themes: some may not be familiar with deviantart or is not their style, etc. It is now huge with a lot of activity, competitions, and all sorts of community stuff going on. There are numerous pixel/customisation/shell/interface groups on there (yes, there's an LS group). It would probably be wise to use all this (as well as the other theme site, sorry forgot it's name) rather than expending limited work time on a custom theme site (at least for the moment).

Working with deviantart could also include running theming competitions or other community events.

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Re: State of the Step document

djbarney wrote:

the themes: some may not be familiar with deviantart or is not their style, etc. It is now huge with a lot of activity, competitions, and all sorts of community stuff going on. There are numerous pixel/customisation/shell/interface groups on there (yes, there's an LS group). It would probably be wise to use all this (as well as the other theme site, sorry forgot it's name) rather than expending limited work time on a custom theme site (at least for the moment).

While I have no explicit problem with dA per se, blindly directing people to themes off-site goes against the "one-site one-login" philosophy that I'm yearning/pushing for. I distinctly remember when I was a new LS user that I didn't know where to go. There were at least two themesites and two forumsites (with one site actually having both themes and forums). In fact, I actually discovered LiteStep via WinCustomize, and for a full week or two I mistakingly thought LS was a Stardock product.

The whole point of this project, at least for me, is for new users to have a solid, singular place to go.

djbarney wrote:

Working with deviantart could also include running theming competitions or other community events.

This is a good idea, even with my reticence towards dA. The same idea can be applied to customize.org, and is something I'd like to see in the future

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Re: State of the Step document

my thinking with themes, right now, is leaning more toward having a few group reviewed themes that we know have good functionality, work well, are stable, etc. on the core site, and then sending people to the other sites for the rest of the themes. I've never really been a fan of the idea of "official themes", but I do think it would be a good way to get new users into LS quickly. The other negative is that people would have to go back and check out the old 'reviewed' themes to make sure they're still a good choice as other things change (the OS, LS core, modules, etc.). If things get too stale then the whole point of the idea is lost.

thoughts?

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

I agree with rootrider. Having some good stable themes will make it easier for us to help new people out. If they want other themes they can go somewhere else. I don't like the sound of "official/elite" themes either, but it will simplify things.

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Re: State of the Step document

rootrider wrote:

my thinking with themes, right now, is leaning more toward having a few group reviewed themes that we know have good functionality, work well, are stable, etc. on the core site, and then sending people to the other sites for the rest of the themes. I've never really been a fan of the idea of "official themes", but I do think it would be a good way to get new users into LS quickly. The other negative is that people would have to go back and check out the old 'reviewed' themes to make sure they're still a good choice as other things change (the OS, LS core, modules, etc.). If things get too stale then the whole point of the idea is lost.

thoughts?

I think it's a real divide on the community to force them to download themes somewhere else. Even if we don't try and rebuild the repository we had, we should still have a site that hosts user themes. I'd much rather have people come to us for themes than run off to some other site that's got zip to do with us.

That said, I don't like "official themes" either. However, I do like the idea of "beginner themes" as In "We've checked these out and these themes listed run well and are appropriate for new users. If you're looking for something more advanced or with more features, why not look, <here>, <here>, or <there>?"

Like I said, for now we can send them elsewhere, but IMO it defeats the whole purpose of uniting the community by spreading it apart.

As far as the theme reviews go, we could do something like weekly or monthly theme reviews, and review only one theme. Could be a new theme, or it could be an old theme.

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Re: State of the Step document

Yeah. That all sounds like a good balance between core/example themes and extra themes on other sites.

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Re: State of the Step document

Honestly, I think creating a new themes site would be a colossal failure. Not only would it be reinventing the wheel, it would be very barren and see very little activity. Not only is it hard enough to start a new desk custo site altogether (which right now would most likely fail), making one that is focused on LiteStep (which in the custo scene right now has a microscopic presence) is an even crazier idea.

The desk custo scene is NOTHING what it used to be. There aren't a billion sites to go find things anymore. There are 2. dA and PF. That's IT.

Problems you're going to run into with starting a new theme site, is people are now going to have to check yet another place, and (the very few) authors are going to have to submit to yet another place. There are no neatly wrapped up packages that you can just deploy like a forum for a themes site. Which means you'll be writing it from scratch, trying to mimic (practically a) site that already have active user bases.

In my opinion, it would be an utter waste of time that could be focused somewhere else in any of the other much needed aspects of rebooting LS.

I think the ideal solution would be to link to dA and PF and say hey you can get themes over there, and then on the news section every once in a while have a "Theme Spotlight" post to cherrypick themes for users.

Something like an integrated theme site should only come after there is enough activity that calls for it. I can literally count the active LS themers that make anything worthwhile on one hand.

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Re: State of the Step document

i agree with Anomareh for the theme hosting and theme spotlight, we should link to dA. (in my opinion)

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Re: State of the Step document

I have always been very negative of the win custo sites that hosts themes/skins for several different applications. But for now I think Anomareh is right - there are more important areas where we can focus our efforts. Writing a good themes site is a fairly big task.

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Re: State of the Step document

Tobbe wrote:

I have always been very negative of the win custo sites that hosts themes/skins for several different applications. But for now I think Anomareh is right - there are more important areas where we can focus our efforts. Writing a good themes site is a fairly big task.

agree on all points here..

using LS since 1998. Old FPN site operator, owner of ShellFront, keeper of other LS domains
State of the Step 2011

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Re: State of the Step document

Linking to Litestep category at DA is a good idea, people there are still spitting cool and innovative themes, albeit some with serious usability problems and using really outdated modules.
Also reaching to people is easier than ever, through various social sites ( I was pleasantly surprised finding litestep at fb).

22 (edited by Baron Bruce 2011-10-03 19:36:05 pm)

Re: State of the Step document

EDIT: Litestep.net appears to be down.

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Re: State of the Step document

sad That't too bad! I'll see if I can find out what's wrong with litestep.net

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Re: State of the Step document

looks like mybind lost(?) dns info for litestep.net/com.  However, I'm on an insecure wireless connection at the moment, so will have to wait to login to fix it.  For some reason mybind ssl is disabled.

I'll get litestep.net/com back online as soon as possible.

And speaking of ssl - could we at least get a self signed cert going for this site while logging in?

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Re: State of the Step document

Great to hear that you're both reading this forum, and that you're on top of this issue jugg!