What to expect between now and August 17th

[Erin Paseka]

I expect the more hard-core developers/planners will be hard at work with coding, usability testing, focus groups, etc. for a few more weeks.

But what about the rest of us--the general population of UNL web developers? At some point we'll have to do something. When and what? Last I heard, this was to be a "flip the switch"/"no stragglers" deployment on the morning of August 17th. How will that work? We'll need to test our pages with the new template, develop new sharedcode (navigation, etc.) components, and adjust a LOT of pages' maincontentarea layouts for the increase in width, but AFAIK there's not going to be a secondary server on which to set up beta versions of our sites.

Please give us as much advance warning as possible once you determine what we'll need to do. (Contrary to popular belief, summer is not a quiet, flexible, relaxed downtime for everybody.) Also, please convey all such information on the WDN BB or by email, since some of us are unable to attend WDN meetings.

[smeranda]

Erin:

The templates code will be released on June 9, in a beta stage. At this point you will have the opportunity to test and code/design your sites.

Any structure changes that need to be made will be documented on the wiki.

The fourth column will be pre-populated with default content. However, it is encouraged you customize this column (either by changing the feed sources, or expanding your content) to your users' needs.

While August 17 remains the go live date, you will have 2+ months to adapt as you see fit.

Announcements on the availability of the template files will be made on this bulletin board, the IIM blog, and the WDN meeting on June 9.

[Erin Paseka]

So for those of us with sites on Frontier, it sounds like we should plan to do something like this:

Any time between June 9 and August 17:
1. Make a subdirectory (something like http://www.unl.edu/mysite/2009beta), put a copy of your entire site in it, and define it as a separate site in Dreamweaver.
2. Get the latest beta templates and update templates across your whole beta site.
3. In your beta site, create your new sharedcode components (navigation, footer, etc.).
4. In your beta site, change every page for new width, new styles, etc.
5. If changing any content on live site, duplicate change on beta site.

Closer to August 17th:
1. Get the latest version of the templates; update across your beta site; make sure things still look OK.

On August 17th:
1. Wait for word from UComm, then cross your fingers and swap the contents of your live site with your beta site.

Does that sound about right?

[saltybeagle]

Does that sound about right?

Sounds like you could teach this.

Yes, excellent suggestions Erin.

[Erin Paseka]

Thanks, Brett!

After my earlier post, I stumbled across Bob's presentation video, and there was some mention of a testing server. Could that be a smarter way to do this, or should we just go ahead with the "site within a site" beta?

[saltybeagle]

CWIS does not currently provide a testing server to users on frontier, so the site within a site beta is probably the best option for those users.

One additional thing - when the sites go live, be sure to remove any references to /2009beta.

Once the files have been copied over to the local directory that contains the main Dreamweaver site, I would suggest a site-wide search and replace for '/2009beta' and replace that with nothing ''.

[rcrisler1]

Erin -

Mark Hiatt will be discussing this at tomorrow's WDN, with a hat tip to you for your 5/28 post.