Q Light Controller+

Hey,

My Name ist Marc, iam a German Webdeveloper and LJ. I love the QLC + program and would like to do my part. I have seen that the website and the documentation can handle a new look well. Would I offer to rebuild the website, including documentation. So that the website and documentation on the smartphone is readable and again looks really modern. Furthermore, I can also offer my root server to host the site (data center in Germany). SSL would also be possible. In return, I would like to have the Raspberry Pi version of QLC +;)

If you are interested, get in touch

Greetings Marc

Hello Marc, thanks for your offer.
The current hosting seems to work fine, so I don't see a reason to change it (again :S)

Can you please explain the motivations you have in mind so that the current website should be rewritten ?
Or better, what improvement can we achieve with a new website ?

A major advancement would be supporting mobile phones. I'd also appreciate having the site open source, so that everybody can improve it (even if it's just a tiny CSS tweak).

But do we have to rewrite the whole site? Refactoring some parts over time may be better than doing a complete relaunch.

The Pros of hole new Website are

- Mobile Optimization
- Better Usablity (Blog, Downloads)
- future-proof
- Multi-language Support
- Better Look for the Documentation
- Search in Docs
- Docs with Github sync (for contribution)
- SSL everywhere (for better privacy and this: https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/a-sec ... -stay.html)

A Good Light Controller Software should be good presented in the web

Greetings Marc

Hi Marc

- Mobile Optimization
OK
- Better Usablity (Blog, Downloads)
Please explain. Keep in mind I don't want to handle the blog outside the forum. That would mean a separate database.
- future-proof
Please explain what you mean with this. I hardly believe one future technology can be predicted...
- Multi-language Support
If you mean the website could be multi language...no thanks. I don't really see a possibility to involve translators at this level.
- Better Look for the Documentation
A mockup would help to see what you have in mind
- Search in Docs
This would be great, but I don't get how this could be possible without a database underneath
- Docs with Github sync (for contribution)
This would save a lot of time. Can you please point me to an example or documentation where this is explained ?
- SSL everywhere (for better privacy and this: https://blog.chromium.org/2018/02/a-sec ... -stay.html)
Yep, I'm aware of this

A Good Light Controller Software should be good presented in the web
Not sure what this means (as if the current website sucks) but thanks for the "good software"

@mcallegari: Is the website implemented via plain HTML, or using a build tool or a CMS?

Most parts of the website are static pages, except of the forum. One could use a static site generator (like Jekyll) that produces just static HTML code that will be shown by the server, and let the forum live separately in a subdirectory. No extra database / server software needed, but the source code could be hosted on GitHub, many parts of the code could be reused and the maintainability increased. Searching can be done one the client-side with JavaScript.

Just to say it again: The most important step is to make the current website code open source. I don't know how easy this is regarding server-specific configuration and other limitations/difficulties. But once the code is online, Marc and anybody else can (gradually) improve the site's mobile optimization, design, docs integration and so on ...

For a better understanding, I have just built a few examples

1.Main Website

Demosite: https://qlcplus.marcdev.xyz

Here you can see that a new page has a much more modern and simpler design. The whole page happens on the PHP framework "CakePHP" and can easily be extended with additional functions.

2. Dokumentation

Demosite: https://demodocs.marcdev.xyz

Now this is a framework called "Grav" that converts Github hosted files into a web page. There is also a search, a clear design and the possibility to view the page offline. This page does not require a database at all.The Site also support Multilanguage nativly.

2. Forums

Demosite: https://demoforum.marcdev.xyz

This ist a Modern Forum Software called "Flarum" It is much more modern and advanced than old forum software.

All This Sites are Encrypten with Let's Encrypt Certificates and hosted on the Dedicaded Server in German (not a shared hosting like HostGator ). My offer is to set up these pages on request and to transfer all data (documentation, forum, blog, etc.)

And @Fxedel yes we can make it Open Source on Github

Hi Marc, I've had a look at the examples you shared (thanks for that !) and had a thought about each one of them.

The problem here is that theory is one thing, while practice is another. Please let me explain.

1.Main Website
Indeed the layout you've shown is modern and perfectly in line with most of the websites nowadays.

• I don't personally like those sites where you have to scroll 10000 pixels to get the 3 information you're looking for. I prefer to have all the essential things immediately available on the screen space without scrolling anything. But this is just my opinion.
• I am mostly interested in how news are organized. Can you please explain with a bit of details how that is implemented ? I'd like to know if there is a database holding news and how I will write a new news. Right now I use a plain text editor for everything and adding a news is prone to human errors.
• In a flow design, where do I place useful links like Fixture validator, WEB API test page, Technology concepts, PayPal donation button, etc ?

By the way the name of the software is "Q Light Controller+", not "Quick Light Controller+"

2. Documentation
Again, theory is very different from practice.
Right now the docs are in HTML format, for the simple reason that they are bundled together with QLC+ and are available offline from within the software.
The solution you're proposing would force us to convert everything to markdown. Meaning A LOT of work and meaning to say goodbye to offline documentation inside QLC+. If you Google "Qt markdown" you will find only custom solutions. Nothing usable with the current Qt version.
On the other hand I see the advantage of syncing with GitHub and handling translations.
However this has to be evaluated really carefully before taking any action.

2. Forums
Right now there are 20485 posts in the phpBB forum, and god knows how many attachments.
Apparently there is a conversion script here: https://github.com/robrotheram/phpbb_to_flarum
However my blood runs cold if I think the pain in the ass I've had when moving away from Sourceforge.
If something goes wrong with that script, it means further effort to put things straight.
I like Flarum, but what they say in the website is not comforting at all:

Please keep in mind that Flarum is beta software. That means:
It still has some incomplete features and bugs and at some point – sooner or later – it will probably break!

phpBB OTOH is super tested and stable.

All This Sites are Encrypten with Let's Encrypt Certificates and hosted on the Dedicaded Server in German (not a shared hosting like HostGator ). My offer is to set up these pages on request and to transfer all data (documentation, forum, blog, etc.)

The QLC+ website is not just a bunch of HTML files. It's 1.3GB of data (downloads...remember?) and I won't move it just because of a certificate.

And @Fxedel yes we can make it Open Source on Github

I don't understand why you guys insist so much for open sourcing the website.
Turning something into open source makes sense if there is a community willing to help improving it.
It also means there has to be someone (me) receiving and reviewing the change proposals.
Thanks but no thanks. I already have a countless number of things to follow. This would be an extra one I'm not interested into.
@Fxedel: how many website contributions did you receive on OFL in the last year ? I checked: none.

I don't understand why you guys insist so much for open sourcing the website.
Turning something into open source makes sense if there is a community willing to help improving it.
It also means there has to be someone (me) receiving and reviewing the change proposals.
Thanks but no thanks. I already have a countless number of things to follow. This would be an extra one I'm not interested into.
@Fxedel: how many website contributions did you receive on OFL in the last year ? I checked: none.

I actually thought that this would reduce your amount of work by making it possible for volunteers to help you. I guess there are some people who want to contribute in some way, but don't know C++ or are afraid of changing the large codebase of QLC+; instead, they might be willing to edit a markdown file to improve/extend/translate the docs. On this topic, OFL is different in many aspects.

Hey,

The website is just a demonstration of what it might look like. Of course we can also use a completely different design.

Mainsite:

To your question with the news. I can build an administration interface where you can easily write your news with a WYSIWYG editor.
Everything is possible. I am a professional web developer I can build anything you want (Example: Github Release Sync, Software Licensing, Full Automated Donation System etc.)

Docs:

It would be better to convert the documentation into Markdown (yes there is a script for it) because this is easier to edit and manage. I can help you to convert all your 150+ pages. With Markdown and Grav it is very easy to convert the "new" documentation to a PDF or HTML version (for the Offline Docs). The github synchronization does not have to be public for starters. It's only enough to better edit the pages and as a backup. Later you can also allow contributiuon. And the topic of translations shifts backwards anyway

Forums:

this was just a suggestion, but has now done so: D

Documentation:

I would prefer AsciiDoctor:
- easy to create PDF, most probably it's possible to generate proper HTML for built-in QT Help
- epub exporter
- written in ruby
- the format is quite close to markdown
- asciidoc is recognized/rendered by github
- CON: beta/alpha stage

Other possible candidates are:
- github pages to render for web and something to render to QT Help
- github pages + jekyll
- readthedocs.io - lots of projects are using it; I don't like rst format

Note that pandoc can convert between most of these formats; however manual cleanup is almost always needed.
Some time ago I started to convert the help to asciidoc; I did a handful of pages and then got distracted. I may publish it somewhere if there's interest.

is this topic still up to date? `

Meanwhile, the GDPR came into force. And this website does not comply with these requirements

WHO CARES ... really?

TheLegendaryMarc wrote: ↑Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:51 pm is this topic still up to date? `
Meanwhile, the GDPR came into force. And this website does not comply with these requirements

Hi Marc, sorry, I've been buried with lots of other activites.
To recap:
- website: alright to redesign, but please, when you have some time, show us another mockup different from the flow layout you proposed initially
- hosting: I will stay on Hostgator. The QLC+ website does something like 130 to 200GB of traffic each month and I won't risk to fall into any limitation using another hosting
- SSL: no action for now just because Chrome shows evil messages
- forum: I will stay on phpBB cause I don't want to risk migration issues
- documentation: alright to move to markdown, but I also need all the tools to go to html and PDF. Question (I haven't checked): does MD allows to use hyperlinks to specific sections of another MD ? Like what HTML does with the old anchor "name" attribute.
- GDPR: the QLC+ website doesn't even use cookies, so I don't think it's involved in the regulation. OTOH the forum does and I believe the phpBB developers are in charge to provide an update that complies with GDPR. Or were you referring to something else ?

Thanks

Hey,

i create an Mockup and share it here.

Documentation:
Yes you can Use Hyperlinks to go to specified Sections. Here a little Demonstration https://github.com/botman/botman this ist the Botman Repo and this is https://github.com/botman/botman#documentation the Botman Documentation Section. Democode ist
GDPR:
Your Site use a lot's of Cookie's Like Google Analytics, Paypal and Histats.com

Although it is unlikely that something will happen to you, nevertheless I would recommend you to place a Cookie Note. Here in Germany, everything is a little stricter