20:06:17 #startmeeting 20:06:17 Meeting started Mon Feb 28 20:06:17 2011 UTC. The chair is mchua. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 20:06:17 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 20:06:38 Emichan: and we'll have PM for anything that needs to be discussed off-channel. 20:06:57 Thanks for meeting on such short notice! I know you've got a ton of things going on. 20:07:10 #meetingname POSSE design 20:07:10 The meeting name has been set to 'posse_design' 20:10:04 * mchua scratches head 20:10:11 connectivity problems? :) 20:21:53 mchua, sorry - i just had a major desktop meltdown. but I'm back now :) 20:23:21 Emichan: No worries, I thought it might be something like that. 20:23:32 So! POSSE material design... 20:23:52 for context for those listening in, we realized that we're going to need some materials for POSSE and that we'd like 'em to look good :) 20:24:33 sdziallas and I were thinking first of the handouts/worksheets materials that actual POSSE folks will be getting, but also thinking about extending the design from that to things like flyers, etc. 20:24:55 and we're talking with Emily here about what could be done for that, as Emily is a freelance design ninja. :D 20:25:31 Emichan: I think the first question is, what medium - and this is where my design ignorance rears its head... should we be thinking about print and web very, very separately here? 20:25:52 not necessarily 20:25:56 because we were discussing all sorts of things like scribus, inkscape, etc. for print but I don't know if that goes out the window if we go "okay, css print stylesheet." 20:26:01 * mchua nods 20:26:23 Ok - how do folks usually make that sort of decision? 20:26:59 generally, you do web and print separately, there are different tools, etc, but there are definitely ways of integrating the two 20:29:01 you would generally make decisions like this based on your anticipated workflows; how important one medium is versus the other; and that sort of thing 20:30:05 also keep in mind how comfortable the people creating the materials are with the tools for print or web 20:31:32 so, if you're comfortable with latex or scribus, and it's okay to archive the materials on the web as pdf rather than html/css... 20:31:53 then that would suggest to me that it would be best to stay print-oriented 20:32:05 for example 20:32:15 Emichan: Ok, that makes sense. 20:33:06 Emichan: I think I would say that pdf is fine, and LaTeX/Scibus would be great. 20:34:05 Emichan: Do you have a preference/recommendation between the two? 20:34:15 Because we can always distribute sources afterwards as well, and they'll look nicer in print and such. 20:34:25 (although the text will be less searchable - that's the downside i can think of.) 20:34:57 yeah, the downside to archiving as pdf, is they won't be as easily searchable on the web, and they won't be accessible 20:37:04 and, keep in mind, that it'll be easier to build html/css integration or conversion into the process now, at the beginning 20:37:29 * mchua nods. 20:37:36 * mchua considers 20:37:59 Emichan: so, how would this sound (and I'm curious what your gauge on time/work estimates would be, roughly) 20:38:12 we'd like a web presence for POSSE that looks snazzy. 20:38:30 FOSS CMS, of course. :) I noticed you seem to be an old hand at Drupal - that's something sdziallas and I were both looking into. 20:39:02 Fairly basic Drupal skin and site flow, with a nice css print template, plus a LaTeX stylesheet for generating pretty-printable PDFs for worksheet materials? 20:39:14 (we're both LaTeX fluent) 20:39:52 I'm thinking that the "here, print this out on dead trees for the actual workshop" materials would then be LaTeX-generated PDFs, but the rest of the materials (how to use the worksheets, what's POSSE, etc) we could write up in the CMS. 20:39:57 EOF 20:40:56 i'm a huge drupal fan ;) and we can definitely make that work 20:41:49 would you be more comfortable creating/editing the materials directly in the cms? or would you prefer to be able to upload latex markup 20:42:41 Emichan: LaTeX markup into Drupal? 20:42:44 You... can do that? 20:43:17 honestly, i haven't tried it, but i don't see why not. 20:43:50 we'd have to store it internally for printing, and also convert it into html/css 20:44:21 Emichan: Also in terms of timing - I think a LaTeX stylesheet would probably be the first thing... not sure if it would be possible to get a first round of that out for March 7th (which I realize is really soon!) but if so then we could use it at the big CS edu conference coming up on the 8th. 20:44:38 Emichan: Ok, trying to get an idea of what you're visualizing here... 20:44:54 * mchua was thinking of a separate "generate stuff for print" workflow, but integration sounds potentially cool? 20:46:03 well, if we set up a nice integrated, automated workflow, it'll make things easier for you in the long run. You'll only have to create your materials once. 20:50:17 Emichan: Ok - would the LaTeX generate both web and print, then? 20:52:28 mchua, as I'm envisioning it, yes. we'd have to write or find a latex parser (i think there are some written in php), and convert the latex markup to valid html markup for the web. 20:53:28 then, we'd have a css stylesheet to take care of styling the markup for the web, and a latex stylesheet to style it for print 20:54:23 * mchua nods 20:54:30 That all sounds awesome. 20:55:55 I'm proposing latex since you're familiar with it, but we could also use xml for the basic documents, and use xsl-fo to format it for both web and printing 21:00:10 Emichan: I think I'd prefer LaTeX since it's more standard academia. 21:00:23 Emichan: What sort of info do you need to be able to pull together a proposal/quote? 21:00:42 Emichan: And would it be possible to start out with the latex stylesheet as the first milestone (is 3/7 too soon?) 21:00:48 just that alone, no web stuff yet. 21:01:57 mchua, yeah, we can go ahead and start with latex and then work on the converting-to-html and the other web parts of it later. that shouldn't be a problem. 21:02:28 Do you want me to work up a quote for the project as a whole? just for this milestone? 21:04:20 Emichan: both, but definitely at least for this milestone first. :) 21:04:38 Emichan: Oh! also, are you okay with stuff made for this being CC-licensed? 21:04:58 * mchua wants to make it all remixable-happy 21:05:48 mchua, i have no problem with cc. This is work-for-hire, so you guys will be the copyright holders anyway. :) 21:05:57 w00t! 21:06:02 * mchua is a newbie to this 21:06:24 Emichan: What sort of info do you need from us to spin up a quote? 21:07:30 mchua, i'll make an estimate based on how many hours I think it will take me to complete it. So, mostly i need information about the documents you plan to make. 21:07:58 * mchua nods. Ask away! 21:08:38 what kind of content will they contain; do you need tables, figures, graphics, lists, mathematical formulas, or any other specialized structures? 21:08:58 Emichan: The ones intended for print/binding in book-ish form are going to be largely like http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/IRC_and_wiki_introduction_exercise 21:09:20 basically, step-by-step instructions... imagine them as cookbook recipes or textbook chapters. 21:09:29 Being able to incorporate graphics (screenshots) with captions cleanly would be excellent. 21:09:32 And code snippets. 21:09:37 And terminal input. 21:09:52 (if there's a way to distinguish code snips from "this is what your terminal will look like" that would be great.) 21:10:12 okay, good to know 21:10:40 Not much in the way of mathematical formulas - or if so, the default LaTeX rendering is going to be fine. 21:10:47 Lists and bullets, though, yes. 21:11:08 The best example I have is Mo's Inkscape worksheets, http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/inkscape-class-day-1/ 21:11:12 of what we're thinking of. 21:11:25 Emichan: Another feature that would be extremely nice to have is the ability to do little call-out sidebars 21:11:42 (the kind that usually have text like "Did you know?" "Penguins like cheese.") 21:11:58 (to tuck away as a small sidebar or in a corner.) 21:12:11 asides :) 21:12:50 asides! yes. 21:13:11 * mchua worries that this might all be too vague 21:13:17 mchua, would it be possible for you to create example latex markup with all the various structures for me to use as a reference? 21:13:32 Emichan: Absolutely, let me see if I can get that to you tonight. 21:13:41 It'll be incredibly basic LaTeX - I'm a syntax minimalist. :) 21:14:44 mchua, the best thing will be for it to be as similar to a typical document as possible. so if that's how you'll normally want to markup the documents, that's what I want! 21:14:49 * mchua nods 21:14:59 Okay, will see what I can get you tonight then. :) 21:15:10 So milestone one for us would be a latex-->pdf stylesheet by march 7th 21:15:21 (we leave for the conference march 8th) 21:15:31 (so "before Mel wakes up march 7th" worksforme) 21:15:35 mchau, okay, I'll write up a quote for this milestone and get it to you asap! 21:15:39 and then figuring out drupal/web stuff afterwards. 21:15:42 yup yup! 21:15:56 milestones for the rest are far less urgent - we're talking june for the rest, or so. :) 21:16:01 * mchua nods 21:16:12 Thanks, Emichan - I think that covers all the q's from my side. Anything else I can do for you? 21:16:22 * mchua apologizes for this conversation taking so long! 21:16:51 mchua, it's no problem at all! it's better to get this stuff right from the beginning (as much as is possible anyway ;)) 21:17:16 i think I'm good. The example document will be a big help! :) 21:17:25 ok, thanks! 21:17:32 i'll email you if I have any other questions, and please do the same! 21:17:35 I'll get to work on that later tonight after some emails I need to hack up now. 21:17:38 * mchua nods 21:17:39 Thanks, Emichan! 21:17:46 * mchua will close logging now and send out notes 21:18:17 #endmeeting