[IPython-dev] The site needs an update... Web team, anyone?

[Fernando Perez]

Hi folks,

We've had a bunch of new stuff lately that isn't even linked
*anywhere* on the site, the two major ones being the awesome nbviewer
by Matthias and notebookcloud by Carl.  These are both services that
make ipython better for everyone, and we're not even linking them!
But rather than just throw yet two more links on the front page, I was
thinking it would be really nice to have a bit of a redesign there, so
that key items are easier to find.  Some ideas:

- the main description should perhaps be a set of links to a short,
single page with a screenshot and a small amount of text about each
major feature.  I'm thinking that the terminal, qt console, notebook,
etc bullets should each be links (or perhaps a visual grid of
thumbnails/icons?) to concise but visually clean descriptions of each.
 Maybe short pages, maybe even clean JS popups that show a screenshot
and a small amount of text?

- the news section should be a lot easier to update... Right now it
takes a full build of the site.  Rolling twitter feeds? Should we make
an account that several people can control?

- our 'projects using IPython' page
(http://wiki.ipython.org/Projects_using_IPython) is great as a
resource and should be kept, modulo a move to the new wiki on GH when
that happens.  But for key related projects that directly expose to
general users ipython functionality, such as nbviewer and nbcloud, I
think more prominent and visible links should be available.

I'm not sure how to best go about the layout, not being a web designer
*at all* myself.  If anyone wants to pitch in on this, keep in mind
that our website is a nice, small and separate repo on github
(https://github.com/ipython/ipython-website) so we can put interested
contributors on the website team and you don't need to worry about
having to touch the core code repos.

Any takers?

Cheers,

f