CUNY Graduate Center - Project Tracking System: Issueshttps://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/favicon.ico2017-05-30T16:07:25ZCUNY Graduate Center - Project Tracking System
Redmine CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #8211 (New): Theme Suggestions: Material Design-Inspired Themeshttps://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/82112017-05-30T16:07:25ZMargaret Galvan
<p>As part of my Theme Assessment (<a class="external" href="https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/7828">https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/7828</a>), I am identifying and suggesting new themes for the Commons to adopt.</p>
<p>In this thread, I am suggesting recently updated themes found in the WordPress.org repository that are built off of Google's Material Design: <a class="external" href="https://material.io/guidelines/">https://material.io/guidelines/</a><br />To note, all of these themes are responsive, and Material Design thoughtfully approaches accessibility, which Luke wanted me to prioritize: <a class="external" href="https://material.io/guidelines/usability/accessibility.html">https://material.io/guidelines/usability/accessibility.html</a></p>
<p>The first definite suggestion is <strong>Materialize</strong>, which DH scholar Anastasia Salter has adopted for a web project, as she discusses here: <a class="external" href="http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/thinking-digital-with-external-review-materials/64127">http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/thinking-digital-with-external-review-materials/64127</a><br />Here's the theme info: <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/materialize/">https://wordpress.org/themes/materialize/</a></p>
<p>Some other potential suggestions:<br /><strong>Teslata</strong> <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/teslata/">https://wordpress.org/themes/teslata/</a><br /><strong>Sirius Lite</strong> <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/sirius-lite/">https://wordpress.org/themes/sirius-lite/</a><br /><strong>SEO WP</strong> <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/seo-wp/">https://wordpress.org/themes/seo-wp/</a><br /><strong>CPMmagz</strong> <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/cpmmagz/">https://wordpress.org/themes/cpmmagz/</a><br /><strong>Hestia</strong> <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/hestia/">https://wordpress.org/themes/hestia/</a></p> CUNY Academic Commons - System Upgrade #8078 (Assigned): CommentPress Updateshttps://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/80782017-05-02T16:59:09ZMargaret Galvan
<p>It looks like we need to do some housekeeping regarding CommentPress as we have, in effect, multiple versions activated because of how the theme/plugin has grown and changed its name along with updates.</p>
<p>In the past, you would activate the CommentPress theme and then also activate certain CommentPress plugins to make CommentPress work. Now, you simply activate the CommentPress Core plugin (<a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/commentpress-core/">https://wordpress.org/plugins/commentpress-core/</a>), which has a theme embedded. That means that we need to remove the out-of-date CommentPress theme, as well as these two CommentPress plugins: Commentpress Ajaxified, CommentPress</p>
<p>I have looked into these two CommentPress plugins on our GitHub install and verified that both were updated 6 years ago (cp-ajax-comments, commentpress), which verifies that they are just as outdated as the CommentPress theme (also updated 6 years ago). <a class="external" href="https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/tree/1.10.x/wp-content/plugins">https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/tree/1.10.x/wp-content/plugins</a></p>
<p>Additionally, we should update the CommentPress Core plugin. We are at version 3.9.3, but the most recent version is 3.4: <a class="external" href="http://futureofthebook.org/commentpress/download/">http://futureofthebook.org/commentpress/download/</a></p> CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #8076 (Resolved): Network Activating TwentyFifteen and TwentySixt...https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/80762017-05-02T16:50:47ZMargaret Galvan
<p>According to the GitHub list of themes on the Commons, we have TwentyFifteen and TwentySixteen on the Commons, but neither are network activated. I would advocate for us network activating them, as well as installing and network activating Twenty Seventeen: <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/twentyseventeen/">https://wordpress.org/themes/twentyseventeen/</a></p> CUNY Academic Commons - Feature #7828 (Assigned): Theme Assessment 2017https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/78282017-03-24T14:03:37ZMargaret Galvan
<p>I am performing an assessment of the network enabled themes on the Commons, building off previous work by Laura Kane--who started a spreadsheet on this topic in 2014--and Kelly Josephs--who made edits/additions to this spreadsheet last year, which resulted in this thread and the acquisition of some new themes: <a class="external" href="https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/5838">https://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/5838</a></p>
<p>In looking at the themes on the Commons, I am comparing them against network enabled theme lists for OpenLab, Blogs@Baruch, Macaulay ePortfolio, OpenCUNY, and NYU WP (<a class="external" href="https://wp.nyu.edu/">https://wp.nyu.edu/</a>). I asked for and received a list of themes active on OpenLab and Blogs@Baruch in late January, and I gathered the remaining information for the other three installations myself since I am an active participant on these systems. Later in the process, I'll be looking to the themes lists from these platforms for suggestions for new themes, but here's a quick bit of information right now. Macaulay ePortfolio has 211 network enabled themes (includes some child themes), Blogs@Baruch has 99, the Commons has 85, OpenCUNY has 59, NYU WP has 47, and OpenLab has 14.</p>
<p>In assessing our themes, I'm going to be paying close attention to when the themes were last updated on WP.org because out-of-date themes can stop working well and won't be taking into account recent trends in theme development towards responsiveness, multiple platforms, and accessibility. As I do this, I'll also be paying attention to accessibility and making sure we have or consider acquiring a healthy set of accessible themes. I will be digging into information and contacts that Luke provided when I near this step. At the end, I'm hoping to produce a white paper with suggestions that will be useful to the Commons, but which I hope to share with the other platforms as a way of saying thanks for sharing their information.</p>
<p>I will also be making documentation on the Help site for new users about how to choose a theme, likely once the theme assessment is farther along. I am considering drafting from this post that I wrote for OpenCUNY: <a class="external" href="http://opencuny.info/2015/08/27/how-to-choose-a-theme-5-tips/">http://opencuny.info/2015/08/27/how-to-choose-a-theme-5-tips/</a> I welcome comments and suggestions about how to adapt this information for the Commons, in addition to changing the names of the theme suggestions once the assessment nears completion.</p>
<p>At this stage, I am performing a sweep through our theme list. 60 of the 85 are not actively searchable through the WordPress.org theme interface <a class="external" href="https://wordpress.org/themes/">https://wordpress.org/themes/</a>. That means that either they were acquired outside of this repository or that they haven't been updated in 2 years and have been removed from being searchable. I'm working right now on determining what the situation is for each of these unsearchable themes, working in part from the spreadsheet mentioned at the beginning of this post alongside resources like this list of themes retired on WordPress.com (note sometimes these themes continue to be developed on WordPress.org, but often not): <a class="external" href="https://theme.wordpress.com/all-retired/">https://theme.wordpress.com/all-retired/</a></p>
<p>Some questions at this juncture:<br />1. What is the process for updating themes acquired outside of the WordPress.org framework? I'm thinking here of themes from places like Elegant Themes and Woo Themes.<br />2. Would there be a way to get dates for when these themes were last updated on our system? To my knowledge, this information doesn't exist within the WordPress interface--even at the network admin level--but it would be easy to acquire by, for example, looking at the dates that the folders of the theme files were last updated through an FTP interface.</p>