Port to Next.js

[bfabio]

Jekyll is getting limiting and as a consequence we are accumulating technical debt because of it. This won't get better as the site grows in functionality.

We should move to something more powerful and featureful on the frontend side, like Next.js or Gatsby edit: we decided on Next.js.

General approach

We want to:

• port preserving the features / behaviour we have now
• do it in an incremental way, instead of a single final release
• do it section by section, so that ported sections live together with the old sections
• do it in a user-transparent way: the old and the new sections should not be noticeable by domain or different layout
• bonus: implement or fix current issue along the way, if it's reasonable to do it

Preparation work

• Have a minimal working skeleton based on Next.js #1473
• Port all the CI workflows to their Next.js equivalent #1474

Sections

We can look at the site as sections, with common characteristics, loosely ordered by effort required:

• Port the interoperability section to Next.js #1465
• Port the normal pages to Next.js #1466
• Port the Platforms section to Next.js #1469
• Port the contacts section to Next.js #1467
• Port the news articles to Next.js #1468
• Port the to-do section to Next.js #1470
• Port the home page to Next.js #1471
• Port the site search functionality to Next.js #1475
• Port the software catalog to Next.js #1472

Misc

• Port the miscellaneous resources to Next.js #1476

[bfabio]

Started https://github.com/italia/next.developers.italia.it, which will implement the new Interoperability section initially.

[smonolo]

@bfabio Thanks for setting up the issues and a very basic roadmap. I guess we'll have a discussion on the individual issues when it comes to figuring out the technical implementation.

[bfabio]

@smonolo yes, I'm going to add details to the issues, for now the empty ones act as placeholders