The current typo3.org was launched in April 2012. It’s about time to renew the most important site for our community. Here is a status report (and a call for help!) from the newly formed relaunch team.
A few weeks ago, the new <link https: typo3.com>
typo3.com website has been launched. It has the purpose of showing the benefits of TYPO3 from a more commercial point of view, whereas the main audience of <link https: typo3.org>
typo3.org are developers and people who are interested in becoming a member of the TYPO3 community. That includes downloads, news, events, extensions, and more.
While typo3.com has got a new design and is built upon modern technologies, typo3.org is visually and also technically outdated.
One major experience of the current typo3.org website is that complex and huge projects take a lot of time and contain many risks. This has stopped us for a long time to add any major improvements to the website. Today the typo3.org website is still developed by a very small team whose main focus are bugfixes only.
After a lot of discussion within the typo3.org development team, the server team and the TYPO3 Association, we have together come to the conclusion that a relaunch is the best option to move forward from here. For this, we have formed a group which currently consists of Thomas Löffler (Project Leader), Stefan Busemann (Product Owner) and Michael Stucki.
As some of you may know, the last relaunch in 2012 needed a strong effort to finally get done. Our approach today is to move away the complex parts and to make things as simple as possible. For this, we defined four steps:
Move required parts of the current website away from typo3.org. Create dedicated websites for the Single Signon functionality and the extension repository (TER). Link to them from typo3.org.
Move the current website to a new domain. The current website will be moved to a new subdomain of typo3.org where it can still be accessed.
Create the new website. A new start page on typo3.org will welcome our visitors with a fresh and responsive design. In the beginning, the website will probably contain just news and events, whereas other content will be linked to the archived website.
Move content and functions: Rebuild features and content for the new website and replace old stuff step by step.
This approach will help us to release often and early, instead of trying to ship the whole website at one time.
A roadmap for the first three steps is currently being finalized and will be published in a separate news soon. Meanwhile, we’re asking for your help:
Let us know your feedback about typo3.org. We have created a survey to receive feedback about requirements & priorities for the new website from the community.
The survey is available at <link https: goo.gl forms fy376drygqkfltza2>
goo.gl/forms/fy376DryGQKflTZA2 and will be open until October 19, 2016.
If you are willing to help, here are a few more opportunities to do that:
Join the project team. We want to build a small group of users from various interest groups who can be asked for feedback. You will participate in online meetings and are also willing to help with taking over certain tasks of the project. Effort needed: 1-2 hours per week (weekly meeting) plus additional time depending on the tasks you're taking.
Support the project. We intend to organize a few sprints. For this, we need people who organize them. We need agencies who invite their most talented employees (designers, frontend developers, extension developers, etc.) to join these sprints.
Support us. Lastly, we need people who support us through valuable feedback, motivating people to participate, and to spread the word. Coding skills are not required for this…
If you are interested or like to know more, please get in touch with <link>Stefan Busemann. Thanks in advance!
Michael Stucki
