Transmission Website refresh

[GaryElshaw]

It has been a significant amount of time since the Transmission website had a refresh. As one user put it today @shatteredsite

"Right now it needs a complete redesign and would do far more good with far fewer headaches or conflict. The site visually screams 'not maintained' and it has also been a while since a major release, compounding the issue further."

I couldn't agree more. I'm sticking my hand up to work on this if there are other fellow web professionals who would like to get involved.

[shatteredsite]

I couldn't agree more. I'm sticking my hand up to work on this if there are other fellow web professionals who would like to get involved.

Both hands up! I love this app and would love to contribute.

[shatteredsite]

I am unable to locate any vector format files of the Transmission logo(s) in the repos to use in design. @GScottElshaw you know where would I find those resources?

Please note that this is my first time directly contributing to a GitHub project, so please excuse me in advance for any missteps in procedure or method on my part.

[Pentaphon]

To whomever updates the website, can you make it more modern and have it work on all screen sizes from phones to 4K desktops?

[GaryElshaw]

I am unable to locate any vector format files of the Transmission logo(s) in the repos to use in design. @GScottElshaw you know where would I find those resources?

Please note that this is my first time directly contributing to a GitHub project, so please excuse me in advance for any missteps in procedure or method on my part.

I was going to start with this: https://github.com/transmission/transmission/blob/main/macosx/Images/Images.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/icon_512x512%402x.png

[GaryElshaw]

@shattered What were you thinking design-wise? I was thinking of something like these.

https://macroplant.com/adapter

https://netnewswire.com/

[ckerr]

Linking here for visibility, https://github.com/transmission/transmission.github.io is the website repo.

Note there is also https://github.com/transmission/transmission/blob/main/extras/transmission-1920.jpg

I don't think a high-quality svg exists. None of the maintainers are graphic artists :)

[shatteredsite]

@GScottElshaw I was originally thinking a more information dense version of the IINA Player website.
https://iina.io

After seeing the Adaptor site you posted, I think somewhere in-between those two would be great.

[shatteredsite]

I don't think a high-quality svg exists. None of the maintainers are graphic artists :)

If not vector, someone somewhere has got to have the photoshop/gimp source files somewhere. The high res jpg you linked to will certainly help me start though, thanks :)

[Pentaphon]

@GScottElshaw I was originally thinking a more information dense version of the IINA Player website.
https://iina.io

I like that because we have a lot of Mac users and that style of clean, light site layout really appeals to a lot of Windows users as well, who I think are the most untapped well of users that need to learn about Transmission.

We also need to update the addons section so people can see how many pieces of software out there work with Transmission.

[GaryElshaw]

I think somewhere in-between those two would be great.

Me too - Awesome!

[shatteredsite]

@GScottElshaw Do you have any CSS grid framework you like to use? I'm partial to a very slimmed down Bootstrap for just the layout. Simple, easy, mobile, and not bloated if you cut out the fat. Your thoughts?

I found a better working image for the logo via wiki.

[GaryElshaw]

I know of, but have never used it, but I was thinking of a much simpler approach of Wordpress + theme. Let's make some time for a zoom/skype and work out what we need to work out and divvy up how we're going to approach. And then the hard work, consensus from others ;-)

Yay! Working images are a great start!

Drop me a line: asituationist@ that google mail platform thingy.

[sweetppro]

AppIcon.tiff.zip
here's the new icon, taken directly from the AppIcon.icns file in the latest nightly

[Pentaphon]

And then the hard work, consensus from others ;-)

I think as long as you start simple, keep it clean and fast, you won't get much pushback from the people ITT.

The old site was getting stale and anything modern would be welcome as long as it has all the information of the old site.

Somebody may want to tell the Transmission forum about this revamp so we get more eyes and helping hands in here.

[shatteredsite]

I decided to take a swing at a draft.

Excuse the homepage of the domain, something went terribly wrong lol!

[shatteredsite]

I would like to translate the app speed tests into something more tangible for users. I'm not a math guy, but it would be great to say "transmission uses x% less resources" with a nice * at the bottom with a link to the table. It just has a few too many variables for me to distill down. If someone could do that, it would be a great selling point on the site.
Resource Use Data.xlsx

[GaryElshaw]

"transmission uses x% less resources"

Are there platform performance metrics available or have they ever been done, @ckerr @mikedld @livings124?

[shatteredsite]

Are there platform performance metrics available or have they ever been done

@GScottElshaw There have been. I translated it into the excel file for ease. I posted it the last post.
https://pastehtml.com/view/5tx16jw.html

[GaryElshaw]

@shatteredsite I was meaning something more, this decade :-) With the new site, I think a 3.0 vs. 4.0 comparison would be great.

[shatteredsite]

Everyone's thoughts on my draft are very welcome. I thrive on brutal feedback! If people are not happy with the direction, I'm happy to go another direction entirely.

I would love to use MODX as a cms to make updating simple. It's easy to use, not very plugin-dependent (especially for a simple site), and I can integrate it fully in a couple hours tops. I have used it for over a decade with only one security hiccup, and that was fixed quickly. This is a bigger question I pose as bringing in third party open-source software is not as simple a decision as design.

@ckerr @sweetppro @Pentaphon @GScottElshaw

[GaryElshaw]

First things first. A few questions: Can someone tell us what the current hosting and billing arrangements are? What is the current CMS? What other mediums need to be incorporated into a new site? Does the project still require the forum, or has GitHub superseded that need?

[sweetppro]

@shatteredsite I think it looks great. nice and clean
👍

Heres a couple of small things I have noticed (some of which are clearly because its a draft):

• the icon is the older v2 icon
• the screens are also from v2
• the icon in the header looks blurry on my retina Mac
• The font under the images, has maybe too little contrast
• theres a small typo on the bottom Github button.
  :)

[shatteredsite]

@sweetppro Thanks for the feedback! Yes I used existing screenshots as placeholders till I really can spend time on that. If someone else could grab a few screenshots with torrents going at really good speeds, that would be great. I fixed the typo and updated the logos.

I could use help on font selection, there are so many it's mind boggling.

@GScottElshaw Some of the reasons why the CMS is more complex a subject. I agree, that is vital information to have, but I am not the best one to find out. @ckerr would you be able to?

It's 04:20 here, so will be back on it in 6-8 hours.

[ckerr]

First things first. A few questions: Can someone tell us what the current hosting and billing arrangements are?

Hosted on github, so static content is a hard requirement.

This fits my personal preference too: I don't want to have to do any sysadmin or troubleshooting. The fewer places in the pipeline where things can go wrong, the better.

Does the project still require the forum, or has GitHub superseded that need?

Hmmmmm there's not a clean answer for that. There's still some community in the forums and IDK if it would make sense to pull the plug on it. But it's definitely not the place to report bugs or ask questions that would fit in GitHub discussions, so I'd prefer GH links on transmissionbt.com.

[shatteredsite]

@ckerr Thanks for the clarification. I forgot completely about the repo and how much harder a full CMS install would complicate things. GOOD point. The functionality of the site is so simple that I don't think it will pose much of any issue to just swap files out, copy and paste come existing HTML/JS, and it should be fine.

EDIT: I switched out the jquery includes for PHP. Since it seems PHP files were part of the original site, it should run no problem. It is just two tags a page and will simplify things. It also will help with SEO a bit.

[GaryElshaw]

There's still some community in the forums

Thanks for this and the flat-file requirements information @ckerr. I'm wondering if it might be worth looking at the forums after the website changes. I think it might be worth deactivating/archiving certain sections and to refocus the community between here and there where the conversations can reach the right eyeballs; and The thing i am most concerned about, always, is the appropriate web properties have to reflect the amount of human resource available to monitor and engage with them.

Charles, do you or any of the contributors, or Transmission community members, have software that can produce speed tests? One of the things I would like to do is provide some decent benchmarking between 3.0 and what will be 4.0 clients. If you know of anything on the Mac side that serves that purpose, that is preferably free or cheap, please let me know.

@shatteredsite Afraid i couldn't access the test site :-( Initially i could without the CSS and then I couldn't at all.

What are you thinking? Are you thinking of flat-file html, some css and js files? Is this something you think needs to be coded from whole cloth or do we simply, ahem, 'co-opt' some css and javascript from elsewhere? https://iina.io/

[shatteredsite]

All the functions of the original site have been moved over and these are the changes:
http://shatteredsite.com/transmissiontest/

• Links on Downloads page are all functional. Missing the embedded systems downloads as they seem wildly out of date (2009!). I have no idea if it makes sense to include them till someone more knowledgable tells me one way or another.
• Added "Source Code" and "SHA256 Hashes" to Downloads page. I found the logo for the Source Code here, but I am not 100% sure if we are ok to use it. Would like someone to double check!
• Donate page is now fully functional.
• Added a 404 page.
• Utilizing 'constants.js' for versioning info that will populate throughout the site. This includes the Download page, buttons, links etc. This is an original site feature, and makes perfect sense.
• HTML includes are now done via simple PHP. Javascript was unreliable and slowed browsers while affecting SEO.
• Switched Fonts to BakbakOne. It is a Google font which is not ideal, but I am open to alternatives! Typeface is not my strength, and I'm sure it could be improved upon.
• Favicon of new logo added
• Link hover color updated to a deep red.
• Download button added to footer.
• Gradient dark background added to section on homepage. A ripoff of the IINA Player site, but I'm personally terrible with creating very subtle gradients. It always looks garish if I do it myself.

One known issue is the fonts glitching on load. I'm working on it, but having a bit of trouble. Bootstrap 5 is a bit confusing to me on that issue.

I could also use help with updating those screenshots for the homepage. If anyone could take a couple snapshots that would be great.

On the homepage there are 6 OS logos shown. I ask if anyone has any opinions as to whether those are the right distros to showcase. I hope official testing on Mint and ElementaryOS occurs soon, they are only increasing in popularity, especially for new users.

Let me know what y'all think!

[shatteredsite]

@GScottElshaw Sorry not to tag you in the last post, didn't see your previous post. The way I handled the site was to stick with html/php, CSS and JS files. It's about as simple as you can possibly get in that regards. The php is just a few tags here and there for includes, but that is it. The site is up now, A2 Hosting is my nemesis.

[sweetppro]

@shatteredsite this looks great!

a couple of things I noticed:

• Im not sure I like the font.... personally I prefer the system font you had previously
• the images are not centered as the rest of the site, this seems to fix it
  .align-items-center { align-items: center!important; justify-content: center; }

I can also take some macOS screens later today

[GaryElshaw]

Some notes!

@shatteredsite

Stunning and efficient!

Homepage

Font: I prefer sans vs serif fonts, but you know what they say about opinions. I'd have a look at Roboto, especially the 'Light 300' for some text. 'Medium 500' for 'Transmission' homepage Headers. There's a bunch of different styles available within it that should give some flexibility for titles and text. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Roboto

Body: Can we use a black and white GitHub logo? I'm thinking the contrast with the background would look better than the light blue on white.

Footer: I think the footer could reflect the nav. It might be nice to bookend the site so users can move on to other parts without scrolling back up.

News: Can we have a News navigation item at the top that gets anchored to after 'Light Weight & Lightening Quick' and before 'Open Source'.

Preliminary text:

			""[Of the website]...because I agree with you there that it needs a refresh." - Transmission developer, Feb 2022.

Welcome to the website refresh of Transmission that hopefully looks a little more 2022 than 2009; points you in the right direction, and helps get you started or tells you how to get there.

			is this project officially dead ?  - Transmission user, Sep 2021

Nope. Since the latter part of 2021 a lot of work has been happening but it has all been behind the scenes development that has included a complete rebase of the code and a bunch of features being included that have come from community contributors and the dedicated lead developers of the project. In a month or so, come back and join the progress as Transmission enters a beta phase to reach 4.0.

In the interim, there is progress across all platforms on an almost daily basis. For example, did you know "Nightly releases" (Link: https://build.transmissionbt.com/) have been working on Apple M1's and compatible with Monterey since last year?

[shatteredsite]

Oops, forgot to remove one line mentioning the beta on the downloads page below the macOS download.
transmission_site_07_21_2022.zip

[shatteredsite]

Sorry for the little nitpick changes, but I added the following under the heading for 'Linux Distros':

"Don't see your distro? Request to add it here"

I also ran the site by yet another friend who is big into linux, and he requested I add Pop!_OS to the downloads page since that is what his 12 year old son uses. I had completely forgotten about it as a distro. It is yet another Ubuntu based distro, but I figured it was worth the mention since it is an easy distro for new users.

[ckerr]

Just checking in for transparency: I've been kind of busy but will try and update the website this week

[shatteredsite]

Just checking in for transparency: I've been kind of busy but will try and update the website this week.

Up to date 100%, assets zip file are images, photoshop files, etc.
transmission_site_07_27_2022.zip
transmission_site_assets_07_21_2022.zip

[shatteredsite]

@ckerr Sorry to keep uploading minor updates, but there were some substantial validation issues I hadn't caught.

transmission_site_07_30_2022.zip

[ckerr]

@shatteredsite no apologies necessary! You're doing me a favor; it's making me feel better about taking so long to go live with the updates 😆

[Oleg-Chashko]

• OK: transmission_site_07_27_2022

transmission_site_07_27_2022.mp4

---

• Regression: transmission_site_07_30_2022

transmission_site_07_30_2022.mp4

• Regression: http://shatteredsite.com/transmissiontest

ScreenFlow.mp4

[shatteredsite]

@Oleg-Chashko When I corrected the issues, lazzyload ended up enabled when it had been disabled by a typo. I did the right thing at first only by accident lol! Take a look now and confirm.

[Oleg-Chashko]

@shatteredsite
Excellent! 🎉

[shatteredsite]

transmission_site_07_31_2022.zip

[Petrprogs]

I decided to take a swing at a draft.

Excuse the homepage of the domain, something went terribly wrong lol!

Can I ask where this site is hosted now?

[shatteredsite]

I decided to take a swing at a draft.
Excuse the homepage of the domain, something went terribly wrong lol!

Can I ask where this site is hosted now?

That link just goes to my personal unused hosting account where I have been uploading the drafts as they were being edited. Is that what you meant?

[shatteredsite]

One last bit (I hope). The structured data on the site lists the applicationCategory as MultimediaApplication, but I doubt that is the right category. The list can be found here. Please let me know your thoughts as to which is best.
I also added the proper markup to list it as free software. It all validates properly.

I have no idea how much impact this will actually have on a project like this, but best to have all our bases covered.

      {
         "@context": "http://schema.org",
         "@type": "SoftwareApplication",
         "applicationCategory": "MultimediaApplication",
         "name": "Transmission",
         "description": "A Fast, Easy and Free Bittorrent Client For Mac, Windows and Linux",
         "image": "img/Transmission_icon.png",
         "screenshot": ["img/homepage/carousel_homepage/screenshot_mac_full_window.png", "img/homepage/carousel_homepage/screenshot_windows.png", "img/homepage/carousel_homepage/screenshot_linux.png"],
         "url": "transmissionbt.com",
         "operatingSystem": ["macOS", "Windows", "Linux", "Unix"],
         "softwareVersion": ["3.00"],
         "offers": {
            "@type": "Offer",
            "price": "0"
         }
      }

[GaryElshaw]

Out of the options listed, i think you chose the right one!

[shatteredsite]

@ckerr Any word on an update? I don't mean to be pushy, I know there is a lot of effort going into 4.0 beta.

[shatteredsite]

Oh and I modified a few margins on the homepage of the "Sleek & Feature Rich" and "News & Updates" section to narrow them. I think it makes for much easier reading. Let me know your thoughts.

[Oleg-Chashko]

Oh and I modified a few margins on the homepage of the "Sleek & Feature Rich" and "News & Updates" section to narrow them. I think it makes for much easier reading. Let me know your thoughts.

I like it. 👍🏻

The features you want from a BitTorrent client with an easy-to-use interface: privacy protection.

Can you tell me what "privacy protection" we're talking about?

[shatteredsite]

Can you tell me what "privacy protection" we're talking about?

I'm just working with what I'm given.

transmission_site_08_10_2022.zip

[bexnoss]

Please include a dark color scheme with @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) and optionally a toggle to switch between automatic (default), light, and dark.

[ckerr]

merged at #43

Thank you very much to everyone who helped on this, especially @shatteredsite 💚 for doing the site design, @Oleg-Chashko for all the feedback, and @GaryElshaw for both feedback and the initial suggestion!

[sweetppro]

so good to see this live,
fantastic work!

[Oleg-Chashko]

Update the icon in the URL transmission/transmission#44

[ivobonchev]

Wrong link in https://transmissionbt.com/download.html page. In particular the transmission-3.00-x64.msi.
The *.msi in the link is written with capital T, but should be transmission-3.00-x64.msi

[shatteredsite]

@ckerr The old site is technically up. If you go to the download page from Google page links directly, you end up on a page from the old site, not the new site. We need to have the pages be changed from .html to friendly urls and the old site removed completely. Links to the homepage go to index.html and need to be switched to just the domain.

[microchip8]

Please add Mageia Linux to the list. Thanks!

[Anton-Sagurov]

Please add Rocky Linux! Thanks.

[skynetpanda9]

Please add RHEL 9! Thanks

[mikedld]

@microchip8, @Anton-Sagurov, @skynetpanda9, this issue 1) was misplaced to begin with and 2) is closed as completed. If you want changes made to the website, please open a new one (or better yet, a PR) here in transmission/transmission.github.io. Thanks.