Observation

On the current CEE/Collabnet based site web content is stored on a CVS server. On Kenai the administrator can add a website feature to the project. The original kenai method to modify WebContent was historically to use WebDav. But not all webdav clients did work well with the kenai integrated webdav server in particular the WebDAV client for the File Explorer in Microsoft Windows XP did not work well with it. Details can be found on the kenai UploadWebSiteFiles HelpPage.

The new method to modify webcontent is via a Source Code Repository. This is done by first creating a Repository, eg. using SubVersion, for storing and modifying the webcontent of a project and than adding a WebSiteHook feature to the project binding the Repository to the webcontent of the project.

On CEE webpages are "decorated" with header, footer and navigational elements in sidebars. On the current OpenOffice.org website some native-language or special purpose projects use some very special CEE customization features which allow to influence this "decoration", eg. modifying or adding navigational elements disabling header, footer or sidebars etc.

Kenai first has a theme engine which can be used for customization the "decoration" of kenai specfic webpages and also to modify kenai specific content. This is based on overlaying some ruby on rails files of a kenai instance with theme specific versions. This can only be used to define a site wide look and feel and not to customize a project wide look and feel only. On Kenai themes are part of the kenai-app source code, there is no access to webcontent developers to the theme ruby on rails files as this would be a security problem because access to rails would offer the possibility to trigger execution of arbitrary commands on the server.

Additionally there is a new Custom Layout feature on kenai. This feature allows to define basic look&feels where parts of the layout can be added or overiden by web content developers on a per project basis. The general layouts to choose from are defined in the kenai database and can not be modified by web content developers as this again would mean direct access to the ruby on rails engine.

On CEE Web content developers can modify almost all of the customization because it is part of the web content. WebContent from a "website" feature added to a project on kenai.com is not "decorated" but that is only because this feature is currently not enabled on kenai.com.

Customization on CEE is basically based on providing project specific project_tools.html and project_tools.js files which will be included if present and override default behaviour. For localizing the header for native language projects javascript variables are available which can be modified in these project_tools files. This is described in the Website/Localization OpenOffice.org Wiki page.

On kenai projects can have a WikiHomePage feature enabled which will redirect the HomePage of the project to a WikiPage.

There is a search feature on CEE prominent on almost every OpenOffice.org page which allows to search inside the current project or on the whole website. There is nothing similar on kenai.

Sample pages showing different types of current customizations on current OOo CEE site

Standard project page (with decoration, no customization): http://ui.openoffice.org/index.html

Project with customized left-hand toolbox: http://api.openoffice.org/SDK/example_collection.html

Pages without decoration (note the "nonav"): http://ui.openoffice.org/nonav/VisualDesign/OOo_brand.html; http://api.openoffice.org/nonav/docs/java/ref/help-doc.html

Pages without decoration(by overriding styles): http://why.openoffice.org/

Projects with no left-hand tools navbar, no bread crumbs: http://about.openoffice.org/index.html

Projects without navigation bar: http://support.openoffice.org/; http://www.openoffice.org/

Pages with localized header: http://de.openoffice.org/; http://fr.openoffice.org/about-information.html

Pages with localized TopTabs: http://sv.openoffice.org/; If you realy believe, they have localized tabs. I don't. The only thing what they do is to "overwrite" tab bar with a localized one. The international tabs are still in the source. ugly hack.

Migration

We would like to keep the possibility to have the website content in a source code management system The following solution will be used: We will move the web content to a webcontent SubVersion repository in each project. The new WebHook kenai feature will than be configured for each project to use the content of that repository as it´s webcontent. Only the www subdirectory of current CVS archives will be moved into the new SubVersion webcontent repositories.

The current search feature will be replaced by using Google Search.

Two new basic layouts for the new Custom Layout kenai Feature have been created which provide the general OOo look&feel and define some html fragments which can be configured per project as part of the webcontent to allow project specific customization. Additionally a feature to define localization for strings in the OpenOffice.org header on a per project basis has been introduced. Details on this can be found on the LayoutCustomizationforOOoOnKenai Wiki page. The customization features offered should be able to recreate most of the Customization currently done on the OOo CEE site.

Some redirection from old IssueZilla URLs to new BugZilla URLs will have to be established. By doing this old links in Mail Archives will stay intact. We would like to have a page in between which notifies the user about the redirection.

Document & files

In addition to regular web content CEE projects do have a "documents & files" section which can be used to store files for the project. Kenai has a similar "Download" Feature which can be enabled for a project.

Document & files will also be migrated.

Technical Details

Themes are in the kenai~app/junction2/themes subdirectory. To enable an OpenOffice.org theme create a components.yml file in the kenai~app/junction2/nbproject/private subdirectory with the following content:

 development:
     junction:
       theme: openoffice.org

The dot in the theme name will be replaced by an underscore when searching for the theme directory in kenai~app/junction2/themes.

OpenOffice.org CSS stylesheets and kenai stylesheets do not seem to conflict very much in terms of which elements they configure. They can likely be used together for an OpenOffice.org kenai theme with just some modifications.

The default ruby on rails file that is responsible for the mypage content uses a global setting which configures whether the "Create Project" Button is being shown on the page. For OpenOffice.org we will disable this button.

The help content on kenai.com is a kenai specific project and not part of the default content of a kenai deployment.

Open Questions

The WikiHomePage could be interesting for some projects which already only have a link to a wiki page on their homepage left. Question would be if this can be configured to also work with an non Kenai / external Wiki like the OpenOffice.org Wiki.

Open ToDos

Change of bugtracking system must be reflected in web content
resolve CSS conflicts
get new content for privacy policy text and new link to reflect sun->oracle change
integrate parts of kenai.com online help into OOo kenai instance

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