[Charter-Com] web site prototype ready

[Tony Becker]

All:

I meant to have this ready on Monday for you to review before tonight's meeting...  I should know better, after working with technology so many years, to assume that everything will work right the first time.

You can view a PDF with sample pages at <http://jeffcocharter.org/2008-02-06_website-prototype.pdf>, or view the actual prototype running from my development server at <http://extranet01.custominsuranceserv.com:8080>.  I will keep the development server running through the end of the week so you can see what's been done.

Graphically, it is not the prettiest web site I've ever built, but it does work.  If you find that it doesn't, give me a call ASAP and I'll look into it.  (The test environment is more brittle than the production environment; once it's been approved and is up at jeffcocharter.org, it can be relied upon.)

It's my hope that we can open up our process considerably, and possibly work a bit more efficiently ourselves, by making use of the web site and mailing list tools.


FRONT PAGE
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The front page shows the current date (mostly to indicate that the content of the page changes as we update things), the next confirmed meeting (as of right now, tonight's meeting) with the address of the meeting location, and a link to Google Maps for directions if needed.  It lists two main items, "Frequently Asked Questions" and "Members," just under the next meeting.  At the bottom of the page it lists the five most recently uploaded documents.

A sidebar has links to the discussion list archives, a full list of all meetings, a "history" article, the FAQ, the list of members, and the mailing list signup form.  This sidebar is consistent throughout the site, except that it does not have a link to the page you're currently viewing.

HISTORY, FAQ, MEMBERS
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I wrote these articles myself and would like to have them approved by the commission before they go live.  The FAQ in particular probably needs changes.  Member listings are alphabetical by last name, include party affiliation and city, and the only contact information listed at this time is the forwarding email address that I set up for each one of us.

MEETING LIST
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The list of meetings shows our full schedule, including date, time and location.  Opening up the details of a meeting lists any documents that have been uploaded relating to that meeting.

DOCUMENTS
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Each document has a title, a short summary, a meeting that it relates to, and a binary file attachment.  Any binary file will work properly, but so far I have limited posted documents to ONLY PDFs.  This has two benefits: one, the PDF viewer software is freely available and most people have it, which is not always true for the Microsoft Office formats; and two, it is difficult for a non-technical person to modify a PDF document to say something that it wasn't meant to say.

ADMINISTRATION
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A full administrative interface is available and accounts have been created for Dennis, Derrick and Fran in addition to myself.  I can make one for everyone if necessary, but my feeling is that too many cooks spoil the soup.

MAILING LIST SIGNUP AND COMMENT FORM
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These don't work yet, I'm having a small problem getting the form data for both of these to save to the database properly.  I wanted to get as much of the completed work in front of you as possible before tonight's meeting.




Enjoy, I hope,
Tony