Release New Fun

GCD Web Site Release: New Fun

This is the main page for the first release of the new GCD Web Site, code-named New Fun. This page will holds general release-specific information plus links to documents on specific aspects of the release.

[back to the Web Site Project Page]

Release Goals

• To implement the minimum set of functionality required to deploy to production:
  • Display capabilities no more limited than what we have now.
  • Modification capabilities similar to what we have now, but with as much as possible subject to an approval workflow.
  • Full edit access restricted by user permissions for anything that is not yet under an approval workflow.
• To support the existing data and schema, with only the following minimal modifications:
  • Drop unused columns.
  • Migrate user management to Django's authorization framework.
  • Additional tables/columns needed to implement the full workflow.
• To lay the groundwork for a new look-and-feel (including navigation and search capabilities) of the site which will support our growth into the new schema.
• To thoroughly support internationalization.
  • UTF-8 support throughout the code and display.
  • Localization for all countries/languages currently involved in the GCD which have native speakers available to provide text.
• To ship with a test suite that will support rapid but reliable future growth.

Release Timeline

Note that this list implies a rather strict separation between phases (such as feature specification and coding, for instance). It is likely that these will actually overlap in various ways, and this section will be updated to reflect that.

• Detailed Requirements: 2008-11-02
• Features Specified in Bugzilla: 2008-11-16
• Test Plans: TBD
• Test Data: TBD
• Code Complete (includes automated tests): TBD
• Deployment: TBD

Detailed Requirements

Django Middleware

The following Django Middleware functionality needs to be integrated:

• Authentication
• Sessions

Look and Feel

Colors

• Color scheme will be adjustable through default and user-contributed style sheets.
  • Support for user-contributed style sheets is not part of this release, but internal code should allow it.
• Default colors:
  • Must work well with common forms of color-blindness.
  • Background: TBD
  • [other color roles TBD]

Search

Narrowing Results

• Code structure must support adding functionality of this sort.
• This release may not implement any such features (TBD).

Advanced Search

• Support searching every field to some degree.
• Complex searches along the lines of Bugzilla's Boolean charts should be deferred to a later release.

Internationalization

• Layouts friendly to LTR and RTL languages / bi-directional display
  • Bi-directional display will be needed if, for instance, the overall page is localized to an RTL language, but the user is viewing a record with data in an LTR language. Or vice versa.
  • CSS relating to any non-default justification / alignment must reside in a separate document that may be replaced in order to switch layout [TBD: Is this the correct way to handle this? Find examples.]
• Layouts robust to character / word / phrase size changes.
  • Parts of the existing "new" layout rely on a specific width of text to avoid overflowing an area of the page. These assumptions should be removed.
• All label text should be set up for localization.
• [TBD: Front page strategy]
• [TBD: Strategy for possible future article pages- not an issue for this release, though]

Localization

• Need list of locales to be supported in this release.

Accessibility

• Must support screen readers (alt text, labels, etc.)
• Must render decently on an 80-column text browser.
• See also mobile browser support.

User Profiles and Preferences

User profile support will be minimal in this release, but the structure for supporting them should be in place.

Migration Tools

• SQL script to drop unused colums and migrate user data in to Django tables.
• Python script to migrate passwords from plain text to encrypted.
• Reprint parsing will be off by default *unless* it can be enabled in such a way that Action Comics #1 loads within the performance requirements.
  • Users logged in with Editor or Administrator privileges will be able to turn on reprint parsing on a page-by-page basis.
  • Opportunistically: Users with Editor or Administrator privileges may be able to turn on the faster version of reprint parsing globally through a preference, which will be set to off by default.

Browser Support

Desktop Browsers

Desktop browsers are the initial primary audience.

• IE >= 6.0 (Windows)
• Firefox >= 2.0 (Windows, Mac OS, Linux)
• Safari >= ? (Windows, Mac OS)

Mobile Browsers

Mobile browsers must be kept in mind, but full / optimal support may be deferred to follow-on release.

• Opera ?
• [TBD: What is on iPhone, Blackberry, Treo?]

Performance

• Comparable to the current site when it seems snappy? TBD.

Feature Specifications

Detailed feature specifications will be recorded in Bugzilla under the New Fun milestone so that they may be assigned to developers and tracked.