Create public homepage based on "qx serve" startpage layout

[cboulanger]

With qooxdoo/qooxdoo-compiler#462, the generation of the qx server startpage has been made an API (qx.tool.utils.Website). It is based on the Metalsmith static website generator.

If we want, we could reuse this feature to create the public website as well. We can use a different set of templates, but reuse the layout and assets and replace the main part of the page which has the list of applications with texts and images that advertise qooxdoo. This website can then be published together with the domentation on the qooxdoo website.

This will allow to streamline the website generation and keep the code of the website with the rest of the code. It will also allow dynamic generation of website code.

[johnspackman]

The qx serve website is tiny and for a very specific purpose - it’s not unreasonable to want to change it in lots of ways that are all about improving the development process. The public website is for documentation, hosting demo apps, etc etc.

EG the worse case would be trying to make a minor alteration to the qx serve website but running into pages of code that is for the public website - or worse, accidentally breaking the public website just because of the qx serve changes.

Because of the drastic differences in purpose, I think it is a mistake to have one-size-fits-all website coding - not least because any changes to the qx serve website will have a potential impact on the public website and could easily make the public website unnecessarily fragile.

How about the styling, resources, and shared layouts come from the Qooxdoo Website and are simply used by the qxcompiler build process that generates the website for qx serve? If the website styling and resources are in an npm module, then it would be easy to reuse - but keeps the digital "style bible" within the remit of the website and allows the qx serve to override them as needed?

IMHO there is an argument where just styling and resources are copied, but provided qxcompiler can decide what to reuse, then that's not something we have to worry about now.

[johnspackman]

See also my comments in core-team: https://gitter.im/qooxdoo/core-team?at=5d109e6daafbc32629752b15

[cboulanger]

Your offer to (co-)sponsor a static website obliterates the need for this PR, thank you very much!

But I do want to note that I did not propose to make the public website templates dependent on the qx serve ones, just to reuse code / structure. qx.tool.utils.Website can be configured to use different source and target directories, so the building could be completely separated and still share partials and assets.

[johnspackman]

oh sorry, i think we've talked round each other i circles this morning, I got the wrong end of the stick! Perhaps we should keep this open for now though so that this is a discussion on how we implement the design, ie in files and git, rather than what it should look like as in #9709

[cboulanger]

Closing in favour of #9709

[cboulanger]

Ah sorry, did not see you last comment

[cboulanger]

I think this can be closed now.