Attention Web Developers: Help Needed!

Are you sick with code, such as html/php/css/js?

Are you a master in Wordpress front-end and back-end development?

Do you love migrating older sites to newer versions?

Are you meticulous enough to ensure that a migration and transition will ensure complete functionality of multiple modules in REAL TIME? (not required, the real time thing…)

Then we need you! We need your help as we embark on updating the OpenMRS website to a newer, more responsive version. This project won’t start immediately, but we want to get you involved!

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Hello Jeff:

Interested Web developer looking to contribute here!

Do you have any specifications on the scope of the project for contributors to grasp how much involvement we’re looking at? If not, when do you expect to know more details of the project?

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Hi Katherine!

Thanks for your interest; we’re really glad to have you on board! We’re looking to migrate our site over to an entirely new theme, while still using the same platform on Wordpress. Most of the work will be migrating content, and will also include maintaining permalink structure, database backup, UX and UI design, and SEO.

What sort of background to you have in HTML/CSS/PHP and Js? Feel free to email me at jeffneimanii[at]opemrs.org

Dear @jeffneiman

it has probably already been discussed but just out of interest: why not make a static site out of the openmrs.org ? Maybe I am missing something but do you need all that jazz of a DB, wordpress, … ? You would save yourself lots of maintenance troubles. There are lots of beautiful examples of serious sites: https://github.com/showcases/github-pages-examples

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@teleivo I am with you on this, all that is needed is write content in Markdown, and issue pull requests.

If GitHub pages is not powerful enough then go for Jekyll which is really the same thing, just that you can run it on your own server but again why do that with stretched infrastructure resources.

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To be honest, this isn’t a huge project. I also don’t think it’s the best idea to move platforms, especially since wordpress gives non-HTML/CSS savvy individuals the ability to post content very easily. So I think that setting up a new platform might be more difficult and ultimately achieve the same results.

I also know the platform like the back of my hand so I’m really biased to keep using it :slight_smile:

this shouldnt be the reason to stick with the same approach. it pays of also for small projects :slight_smile:

that might be an argument.

it is very very easy, since you need a dev anyway to do this, they should know how to use git/github and thats almost all you need to know. As a dev or admin I would devInitely prefer the static site to the wordpress solution.

also who will maintain that wordpress is always patched with the latest security fixes ? way more moving parts that need to be maintained.

no need for that on the static side of the world :wink:

That’s an interesting article. Can you elaborate on why you think OpenMRS should move platforms? Maybe then we could pitch your idea to the BoD!

I think you can save resources in terms of infrastructure (if you host the page on github pages and also if not since you dont need a DB), on people (no need to monitor/update servers/packages; if you host on github for example they’ll make sure the page is up). No need for a DB backup its all in git :wink: You can have the same workflow that devs are already used to make changes to the page/write tests (have continuous integration for example)/review the code. Maybe this way you also get more contributions, its transparent.

these are just some things that come to my mind, maybe somebody else can add things or also add some cons of course :slight_smile:

I don’t think this is exactly the process…if anything I would say that the community leadership team would make this call, based on what work the community is best able to support.

This is important. We definitely need non-devs on the community or website team to be able to regularly update content.

It’s possible (likely even) that there are good enough solutions to this that don’t involve wordpress; I wouldn’t know what they are. But whatever we do, let’s avoid introducing an unnecessary developer bottleneck for future website updates.

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@darius however getting access to the Wordpress site requires a Help Desk Ticket - GitHub provides an online editor which can be used to create new content pages (such as Readme) files. The beauty is that the website content creation can leverage the existing dev resources.

If the module documentation is also moved to GitHub then it builds a larger number of people who can support the website content update process (new content is added 5x a month) and fewer infrastructure points to manage.

I like all the creative thinking here about things we could do! I want to make sure to clarify that we aren’t talking about any documentation about openmrs, projects, modules, etc here. We are only thinking about the openmrs.org marketing website/content (About Us, Contact Us, etc.). Maybe that changes the discussion here a bit?

@janflowers There is some discussion on keeping module specific documentation with the code instead of the wiki We want your ideas to improve the Wiki! which currently has issues with spammers - looking at the website along with the rest of the documentation discussions leads to more creative options.

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Hello, SolDevelo can help. We understand your needs. We can also design your website. :slight_smile:

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