Written By Will Strohl
2024-01-09
If you're coming here for the first time in a while, you may already feel like something is different. As the old saying goes, you may be feeling a bit disoriented even before beginning to read this blog post. Something is different... If you're feeling a bit like, "Who moved my cheese?" you're not alone.
New DNN Community Theme!
Only moments ago, a subset of the DNN Community Awareness Group finished applying the final touches to a laundry list of tasks to roll out a new theme to the community websites. This effort literally required months of development, testing, and planning - across multiple people, modules, design templates, content templates, content updates, and the shiny new theme you've just noticed.
The original theme was never meant to stick around. It was merely the best we could do with the time we had available in the weeks leading up to DNN-Connect 2019, when we launched this (official) DNN Community website. We always intended to replace it with something that was more flushed out, and the current theme has been under development for about a year or so. (Remember, volunteer hours take longer.)
The theme was originally conceptualized and designed by the good folks at Foremost Media, led by Jon Ballard. Since then, the theme development has since been taken over and led by Timo Bruemelhof of 40 Fingers. Some testing and other assistance was provided by John Henley, Tycho de Waard, and myself, Will Strohl.
The Launch: An Update
The launch/relaunch today went very smoothly. So smooth, in fact, that part of our allocated meeting time, all but one of us was just clicking around trying to find more to do and fix. Well, if you're web-savvy at all, you know that such a list of things to do is never-ending, but here's what we know needs to be done still.
- The white papers page is hidden at the moment, as some updates are applied to make it function again as it did before the theme was launched. (This should be fixed and available again by tomorrow, most likely.)
- The DNN History page has a known issue where we believe that the timeline component needs to be completely replaced, requiring that the content template be rewritten. We could use your help to fix this, if you're willing. (This was an issue before the theme was launched.)
- Update the main DNN Community Theme repo with the new theme source code. (The relevant PR should be submitted sometime tomorrow.)
- Resolve a display issue with the blog module detail view (versus the main view).
- Ongoing Efforts:
- We need more content, everywhere. (This includes the text, and the design in some cases.)
- We need to update all of the page metadata, everywhere.
- We need proofreaders, all of the time.
How Can You Help?
Now, while the theme looks like it's probably almost done, anyone who builds any website will know that the theme will never be "done," nor will the website be "done." We'll continue to need your help.
We're always looking for people to help do all kinds of things here, and off of this website.
It really depends on what you want to do, but you DON'T need to be a developer to help.
We're always looking for people to test various modules and DNN itself, create content, moderate the forums, write documentation, create videos, and everything else. Is there something you're good at that can help the DNN ecosystem? Let us know!
Start a Conversation to Find a Way to Help