[Rhodes22-list] Website Development

[Peter Nyberg]

It being summertime, I’ve been busy with this and that (vegetable garden, tropical storms), and the subject of website development has slid to the back burner, but not entirely off the stove.

So, the pot is simmering on a low boil, and this is where I think we stand:

Luis (Guzmán) and I have have both said that we are willing to put in time to develop a new website for the Rhodes 22 community.  A few other people have volunteered to lend a hand, but I don’t recall anyone else offering to take a leadership role. (Please chime in if there’s someone I’ve overlooked.)

My experience with website development is limited to hand-coded HTML and CSS.  This is suitable for static content, like most of the existing Rhodes 22 website.  

Luis knows more sophisticated web development tools that would allow for the development of more interactive features.  There seems to be some demand among the membership for such features.

My approach would be relatively easy for a non-professional to maintain, but would have limited functionality.  The work that Luis might do could add a lot of nice bells and whistles to the website, but would likely take professional level skills to maintain.

The discussion we’ve had so far about this has to some extent been that we need to choose one path or the other.  But, perhaps that’s not the case.

Perhaps we can do both.  I can create static content using HTML and CSS (hopefully with some help from volunteers), Luis can create the wiz-bang features, and the two efforts can be integrated.

I have no idea how this integration might happen, so Luis would have to comment on that aspect.

And, while Mike has probably been reticent on purpose, it would be nice to get some commitment from him that he is willing to shephard this new creation onto the official Rhodes22.org <http://rhodes22.org/> website when the time comes.

I’ve continued my work of converting the old content of the website to a new format, recently working on the picture gallery.  The results can be seen at http://sunnybeeches.com/rhodes22

—Peter