Launching our new website

Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello everyone,

(yes, yes, I am still alive…)

I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.

So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:

* Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.

* During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.

* One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.

* We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).

* We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.

* There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.

But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:

* First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.

* The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_

* IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…

* On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.

* Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.

* The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.

* Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…

* This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!

* But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.

* When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…

* Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.

* There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.

All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.

We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…

The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.

I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!

Best,
-Michael & Rico

Re: Launching our new website

[Adolf Belka]

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Hi Michael,

On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>
> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>
> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>
> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>
> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>
> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>
> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>
> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>
> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>
> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>
> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>
> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>
> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>
> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>
> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>
> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>
> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>
> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>
> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>
> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>
> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>
> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>
> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>
> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>
> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>
> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
Some relatively minor feedback.

In the section labelled Under The Hood,

It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so 
insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think 
we should have them as a focus point.

Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since 
OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even 
if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not 
mention it in this page.

My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.

Regards,
Adolf.
>
> Best,
> -Michael & Rico

-- 
Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Adolf,

> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>> 
>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>> 
>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>> 
>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>> 
>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>> 
>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>> 
>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>> 
>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>> 
>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>> 
>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>> 
>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>> 
>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>> 
>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>> 
>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>> 
>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>> 
>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>> 
>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>> 
>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>> 
>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>> 
>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>> 
>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>> 
>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>> 
>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>> 
>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>> 
>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>> 
>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
> Some relatively minor feedback.

That is probably very good at this point :)

> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
> 
> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
> 
> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.

I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.

Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though.

The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?

> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.

Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?

-Michael

> Regards,
> Adolf.
>> 
>> Best,
>> -Michael & Rico
> 
> -- 
> Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello,

> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael,
> 
> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>> 
>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>> 
>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>> 
>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>> 
>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>> 
>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>> 
>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>> 
>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>> 
>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>> 
>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>> 
>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>> 
>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>> 
>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>> 
>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>> 
>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>> 
>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>> 
>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>> 
>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>> 
>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>> 
>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>> 
>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>> 
>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>> 
>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>> 
>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>> 
>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>> 
>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
> Some relatively minor feedback.
> 
> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
> 
> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
> 
> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
> 
> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.

https://git.ipfire.org/?p=ipfire.org.git;a=commitdiff;h=6317802a1288a7aae20919abf4420bdd6615a5d1

This will be solved when we roll out the new web app :)

-Michael

> 
> Regards,
> Adolf.
>> 
>> Best,
>> -Michael & Rico
> 
> -- 
> Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Adolf Belka]

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Hi Michael & Rico,

On 06/01/2024 15:08, Michael Tremer wrote:
> Hello Adolf,
> 
>> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Michael,
>>
>> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>> Hello everyone,
>>>
>>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>>>
>>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>>>
>>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>>>
>>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>>>
>>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>>>
>>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>>>
>>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>>>
>>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>>>
>>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>>>
>>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>>>
>>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>>>
>>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>>>
>>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>>>
>>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>>>
>>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>>>
>>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>>>
>>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>>>
>>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>
>>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>>>
>>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>>>
>>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>>>
>>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>>>
>>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>>>
>>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>>>
>>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>>>
>>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>> Some relatively minor feedback.
> 
> That is probably very good at this point :)
> 
>> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
>>
>> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
>>
>> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
> 
> I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.
> 
> Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though. >
> The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?

I think a star against them is fine. It highlights them in a way and the 
details can be found in the wiki as the ciphers are mentioned there as 
being insecure.

For the LZO Compression, I have planned to go and update the wiki on 
that point so it makes it clear that no one is actually getting any 
compression if it is checked, just the compression headers added.

If links to the wiki can be made then that would work very well.

> 
>> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.
> 
> Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?

It has been fixed now. Last check my head was the right way round :-)

Other people have mentioned the red colour as being a bit too harsh/bright.

I never noticed that in my case.

Today I checked this out on my laptop with a 15" screen and on my 
desktop with a 32" screen.
I personally do not have a problem with the colour effect. I have tried 
switching between the Home and the About pages but it did not feel too 
bright to me at all.

If it is going to be toned down, then it should stay the same colour but 
reduce the brightness and not by too much.

One thing I noticed today when going through the website was that while 
the AWS site is showing the latest Core Update 182 as being an available 
image, on the Exoscale site it has the available version as Core Update 149.
Is that Exoscale or us that has to keep that image version up to date?
This is nothing to do with the new website but it just seemed peculiar 
when I noticed it so I thought I would mention it.

Regards,
Adolf.

> 
> -Michael
> 
>> Regards,
>> Adolf.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> -Michael & Rico
>>
>> -- 
>> Sent from my laptop
> 
> 

-- 
Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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> On 8 Jan 2024, at 13:17, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael & Rico,
> 
> On 06/01/2024 15:08, Michael Tremer wrote:
>> Hello Adolf,
>>> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Michael,
>>> 
>>> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>>>> 
>>>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>>>> 
>>>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>>>> 
>>>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>>>> 
>>>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>>>> 
>>>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>>>> 
>>>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>>>> 
>>>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>>>> 
>>>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>>>> 
>>>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>>>> 
>>>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>>>> 
>>>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>>>> 
>>>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>>>> 
>>>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>>>> 
>>>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>>>> 
>>>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>>>> 
>>>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>>>> 
>>>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>> 
>>>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>>>> 
>>>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>>>> 
>>>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>>>> 
>>>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>>>> 
>>>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>>>> 
>>>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>>>> 
>>>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>>>> 
>>>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>>> Some relatively minor feedback.
>> That is probably very good at this point :)
>>> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
>>> 
>>> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
>>> 
>>> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
>> I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.
>> Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though. >
>> The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?
> 
> I think a star against them is fine. It highlights them in a way and the details can be found in the wiki as the ciphers are mentioned there as being insecure.
> 
> For the LZO Compression, I have planned to go and update the wiki on that point so it makes it clear that no one is actually getting any compression if it is checked, just the compression headers added.
> 
> If links to the wiki can be made then that would work very well.
> 
>>> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.
>> Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?
> 
> It has been fixed now. Last check my head was the right way round :-)
> 
> Other people have mentioned the red colour as being a bit too harsh/bright.
> 
> I never noticed that in my case.

Thank you for this feedback. I think the colour is not really the problem.

I have my screen on full brightness all of the time; right now it is dark and I only have a small light on my desk; and if I open the login page in fullscreen mode on my 27” screen, I cannot under any circumstance call this a burning colour. It is a fun colour, but it does not in any way hurt my eyes. And I think that can only be because of the screen which represents a different colour to me than to other people.

> Today I checked this out on my laptop with a 15" screen and on my desktop with a 32" screen.
> I personally do not have a problem with the colour effect. I have tried switching between the Home and the About pages but it did not feel too bright to me at all.

The About page is a lot brighter because it has a white background. So it can only be down to some software in GPUs or screens that make certain colours more vivid.

> If it is going to be toned down, then it should stay the same colour but reduce the brightness and not by too much.
> 
> One thing I noticed today when going through the website was that while the AWS site is showing the latest Core Update 182 as being an available image, on the Exoscale site it has the available version as Core Update 149.

Exoscale does not have a process to update the image, and they tend to not react to emails.

I will put this on my list so that they update the image.

> Is that Exoscale or us that has to keep that image version up to date?

Well, it would be nice if they would do it… but you know how these companies work...

> This is nothing to do with the new website but it just seemed peculiar when I noticed it so I thought I would mention it.

-Michael

> 
> Regards,
> Adolf.
> 
>> -Michael
>>> Regards,
>>> Adolf.
>>>> 
>>>> Best,
>>>> -Michael & Rico
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Sent from my laptop
> 
> -- 
> Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Jon,

> On 9 Jan 2024, at 22:36, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Based on your reasoning, you don’t want red at all. It is not a colour that shows safety or calmness. That would be blue. Red shows danger and panic.
>> 
>> Yet it is the colour of choice for many firewalls and security products out there.
>> 
>> This colour was picked by someone who doesn’t do anything else but these things as their day job. I am just going with that expertise that is available to me.
> 
> 
> If I did not want red I would have stated it.  I was going for compromise and an elegant red would be great.
> 
> Earlier in these threads someone (maybe you) had mentioned they don't like maroon that it is depressing (I am paraphrasing).

This is pretty much what I said… looking at current trends of websites, fresh, bright and “fun” colours are in and the rather darker ones are disappearing.

> So does this mean the ipfire firewall (the local one I see at https://ipfire.localdomain:444) will be changing from maroon to red (to me, pink).

Originally I did not plan to do so, because I do not want to spend any time on IPFire 2 that isn’t strictly necessary. During this weeks video call I was asked to at least adapt the current design slightly so that it has some similarity with the new website.

> I am assuming it is since the Community just changed colors.

Ideally I would like everything to be one “corporate” design. That is however difficult to achieve because things are built in different ways and it is not worth to spend weeks on Bugzilla when not too many people use it on a daily basis. So some things will only do a small “nod” towards the theme.

-Michael

> 
>> On Jan 9, 2024, at 5:33 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 21:40, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hy Michael,
>>> 
>>> Comments below...
>>> 
>>>> On Jan 8, 2024, at 12:33 PM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hello Jon,
>>>> 
>>>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 17:35, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Over all I like what was created.  Lots of good stuff!
>>>>> 
>>>>>> This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>>> 
>>>>> YES!  I do like change buttons across the top!  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Can Community also be added?  Community should be a "one click" to find since it is highly used/access.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Please add a site search to the top.  It did take me a few clicks to find Community.
>>>> 
>>>> I don’t think that it belongs there…
>>>> 
>>>> * I don’t see the community portal as a tier one destination for a) new users, b) returning users. Instead we have multiple places that kind of do a similar thing: The wiki, Discourse, and the bug tracker. All of them don’t fit, which is why there is a page that helps people to decide which one they want: https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/help
>>>> 
>>>> * On the sitemap (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/sitemap), Discourse comes after the documentation (LWL is in the middle because of the colour and creating symmetry).
>>>> 
>>>> * I toyed around with a drop down menu, but that because even more cluttered and does not work well on mobile.
>>> 
>>> In my opinion, with the removal of the individual sub-domains (e.g., blog, wiki, etc) it seems to be signaling a one-stop for all items IPFire.   Something like a landing zone.  And people that want to learn more would go to that landing zone and then start their journey from there.
>>> 
>>> To me, for that landing zone to be effective, you’d want people to be able to easily access Support or the Community.  
>> 
>> Yes, the website is basically a place to direct people to the place they want to go to. The website itself does not carry a lot of static information in our case.
>> 
>> But support isn’t the first priority that people are looking for...
>> 
>>> And keeping the "Support" thought in mind for what seems to be a landing zone — now people see a LWL banner stating Support goes to LWL.
>> 
>> This is a standard business model that we are running here and I can assure you that I do not get support tickets at LWL that were supposed to be a post on community.ipfire.org <http://community.ipfire.org/>. People don’t confuse those two things.
>> 
>>> To me, these are mixed messages.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> LWL
>>>>> ——
>>>>> I truly feel there should be a little more separation between IPFire and LWL (i.e., non-profit vs. profit).  I realize you are highly invested in LWL’s health and well-being.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would like to see the Professional Support and the "BUY" type items move to another page.  Maybe the HELP page and something softer like, "need even more help?  Let the professionals at LWL assist!". 
>>>>> 
>>>>> I realize these comments might be maddening and I apologize for that.  I just feel like there should be more separations between "church and state" or non-profit and profit.
>>>> 
>>>> The difference is very clear by using a different colour and the advertising is *that* obvious because I am still talking to people who tell me that they are unaware that support is available and don’t use IPFire because they want support. I KNOW. I could barely make it any bigger.
>>> 
>>> If this is a big number, then new/existing Community users could easily get an email stating that point as part of LWL sales or marketing.  To me, IPFire is a volunteer organization for the benefit of any user, group, etc. and for the benefit of the open source project for a really good firewall.
>> 
>> Yes, but we need to pay for the fun of having this volunteer organisation.
>> 
>>> More comments below.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> More comments below.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> PS - Once again, sorry for the "kiss" and "kick".
>>>> 
>>>> I am happy to listen to both, positive and negative feedback. Very often things are not ideal, but they are the result of a long process and something the results are the best that we could come up with in the given time.
>>>> 
>>>>>> On Jan 8, 2024, at 11:11 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 13:17, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi Michael & Rico,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 06/01/2024 15:08, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>>>>> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> It would be great to have an "official logo".  Especially for coffee mugs and t-shirts.  I do like the IPFire_ !
>>>> 
>>>> IPFire_ will become the logo. This is 1000 times easier to print on things instead of heading the tux with all its gradients, a background and some writing on its belly that becomes impossible to read.
>>>> 
>>>>> Maybe make the underscore blink every one in a random (long) time.  Just to keep users on guard!
>>>> 
>>>> Lol, that would actually be funny.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>>>>>>>>> Some relatively minor feedback.
>>>>>>>> That is probably very good at this point :)
>>>>>>>>> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
>>>>>>>> I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.
>>>>>>>> Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though. >
>>>>>>>> The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think a star against them is fine. It highlights them in a way and the details can be found in the wiki as the ciphers are mentioned there as being insecure.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> For the LZO Compression, I have planned to go and update the wiki on that point so it makes it clear that no one is actually getting any compression if it is checked, just the compression headers added.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If links to the wiki can be made then that would work very well.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.
>>>>>>>> Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> It has been fixed now. Last check my head was the right way round :-)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Other people have mentioned the red colour as being a bit too harsh/bright.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I never noticed that in my case.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you for this feedback. I think the colour is not really the problem.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I have my screen on full brightness all of the time; right now it is dark and I only have a small light on my desk; and if I open the login page in fullscreen mode on my 27” screen, I cannot under any circumstance call this a burning colour. It is a fun colour, but it does not in any way hurt my eyes. And I think that can only be because of the screen which represents a different colour to me than to other people.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The idea of brighter is good, but the red/pink is too pink.  Sorry to be mean, but barbie pink is a lot (and I’ve looked at it on a few different screens/browsers).  Maybe a few shades closer to red.  In my opinion the red (like on the old blog) was a more "elegant red".
>>>> 
>>>> This colour is very far away from a barbie pink...
>>> 
>>> Yes, I agree it is far from barbie pink.  But, that wasn’t really my point.
>>> 
>>> So throughout this thread I’ve seen comments about staying away from Raspberry Pi things and pushing more to office/company things.  I agree.  But I strongly suggest keeping to colors that suggest security and integrity.  
>>> 
>>> Bright red (pink in my mind) is not a color that you’ll find when thinking about those words.  
>>> 
>>> I am guessing there are a hundred web-sites discussing the philosophy of colors.  And I am guessing most of them relate bright red (to me, pink) to something sexy.  And I’d rather have someone think smart, intelligent, secure -  rather than sexy.
>>> 
>>> Please pick an elegant, strong red.
>> 
>> Based on your reasoning, you don’t want red at all. It is not a colour that shows safety or calmness. That would be blue. Red shows danger and panic.
>> 
>> Yet it is the colour of choice for many firewalls and security products out there.
>> 
>> This colour was picked by someone who doesn’t do anything else but these things as their day job. I am just going with that expertise that is available to me.
>> 
>> -Michael
>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> <Screen Shot 2024-01-04 at 5.14.37 PM.png>  
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Today I checked this out on my laptop with a 15" screen and on my desktop with a 32" screen.
>>>>>>> I personally do not have a problem with the colour effect. I have tried switching between the Home and the About pages but it did not feel too bright to me at all.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The About page is a lot brighter because it has a white background. So it can only be down to some software in GPUs or screens that make certain colours more vivid.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If it is going to be toned down, then it should stay the same colour but reduce the brightness and not by too much.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> One thing I noticed today when going through the website was that while the AWS site is showing the latest Core Update 182 as being an available image, on the Exoscale site it has the available version as Core Update 149.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Exoscale does not have a process to update the image, and they tend to not react to emails.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I will put this on my list so that they update the image.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Is that Exoscale or us that has to keep that image version up to date?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Well, it would be nice if they would do it… but you know how these companies work...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> This is nothing to do with the new website but it just seemed peculiar when I noticed it so I thought I would mention it.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>>>>> -Michael & Rico
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>>>>> Sent from my laptop
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>>> Sent from my laptop
>> 
>> 
> 

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Robin,

> On 9 Jan 2024, at 15:43, Robin Roevens <robin.roevens(a)disroot.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Michael
> 
> Michael Tremer schreef op ma 08-01-2024 om 17:07 [+0000]:
>> Hello Robin,
>> 
>>> On 7 Jan 2024, at 23:19, Robin Roevens <robin.roevens(a)disroot.org>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hello Michael, all
>>> 
>>> Overall I like the new layout and contents of the new site. The
>>> front
>>> page is attractive, compact and I think informs one just enough to
>>> push
>>> them to click on that Learn more button.
>> 
>> I find it almost too empty...
>> 
>>> The latest release notice on top of the page is also nice.
>>> And I really like the new logo with the red "_". It does hurt a bit
>>> somewhere deep to see the nostalgic tux go, but I admit that it
>>> does
>>> look a bit too 90s. :-)
>> 
>> Indeed. A little bit bittersweet :)
>> 
>>> The new about page also looks nice and is not too verbose at first,
>>> but
>>> I do like the full feature list at the bottom of the page. This is
>>> information that may not be too important for a manager, but a nice
>>> feature for anyone with a more technical background that is
>>> scouting
>>> for a new/replacement firewall product and doesn't want to spend
>>> time
>>> diving into documentation to find out what IPFire is technically
>>> capable off. Here it is now nicely summarized.
>> 
>> Very good! This is what we wanted.
>> 
>>> I do have to note that in the upper part I have a few problems with
>>> the
>>> wording in:
>>> "We securely connect your employees to their desks at home, your
>>> global
>>> business partners and the infrastructure in your data centre,
>>> giving
>>> you maximum flexibility so that you can focus on what really
>>> matters."
>>> I had to re-read the sentence a few times and I'm still not sure
>>> what
>>> you exactly mean?
>> 
>> Maybe I should have used ChatGPT for this :)
>> 
>> The intention is to explain that people can connect to their office
>> from wherever they are in the world so that they can work as if they
>> were sat at their desks. And on top comes that this works for
>> businesses of all sizes.
>> 
>>> Are we connecting employees working at home to their office desk?
>>> or
>>> employees working at the office to their home desk (which I don't
>>> think
>>> is a big pro for many bosses, at least not the ones I worked for)
>>> And are we connecting your global business partners to the
>>> infractructure in your data centre, or are we connecting employees
>>> to
>>> global business partners, and to the infrastructure ?
>> 
>> All of the above?! :)
>> 
>>> (I know that all is possible with IPFire, but the current wording
>>> strikes me as too vague or unclear as it can be interpreted in many
>>> ways (at least to me :-)))
>> 
>> Sometimes I spent a long time getting these things right. After many
>> versions, it happens that the result is simply crap. Sorry.
> 
> I have the same problem..:-)
> 
>> 
>> Let’s put this on the list for some rewording, but if there is no
>> time before the launch, this isn’t severe enough to stop the launch.
>> It is at least better than what we had before.
> 
> I agree.
> 
>> 
>>> And at last, I miss any mention of "the home user"; only "the
>>> employee"
>>> is addressed explicitly giving the impression that it is an
>>> enterprise
>>> only product or at least focused especially to enterprises. Which
>>> is
>>> not the case, I think? So, I think, if the employee is addressed,
>>> the
>>> home user should be mentioned also or neither should be.
>> 
>> No, we don’t focus only on one group, but I generally avoid talking
>> about “home users” when possible. The reason simply is that people
>> misunderstand this and I get emails that say “Is it already possible
>> to use IPFire in a business? Is it stable enough?”.
>> 
>> The media also likes to write articles like “IPFire on Raspberry Pi
>> X” and so people tend to think this is a toy project only.
> 
> The nostalgic tux logo probably didn't help either. :-)
> 
>> 
>> Emphasising more on enterprise is my way to compensate for it.
> 
> I understand. I was not aware of it being perceived as a toy project by
> some. 
> 
>> 
>>> Also on the Easy to use part, as a technical user I would like to
>>> also
>>> read that access to the Linux shell (or "CLI" is maybe more
>>> attractive
>>> to more Microsoft-minded users) for the "power user" is only a
>>> click
>>> away. (Referencing to the "enable SSH" setting in the WUI, but
>>> adding a
>>> SSH console in the WUI is maybe also an idea worth exploring
>>> sometime
>>> :-))
>> 
>> Is that not on the long feature list?
>> 
>>> The latest Release notes on the download page is also a really nice
>>> addition. Maybe a link "Older release notes..." which redirects to
>>> the
>>> blog would also be nice as I wouldn't intuitively go for the blog
>>> link
>>> in the main menu when looking for an overview of older release
>>> notes.
>>> But I think the current blog does mostly cover for an older release
>>> notes overview page? 
>> 
>> I thought about this: A button to go to a previous release. But then
>> I threw this away, because people tend to install old versions,
>> because “that is the one that we tested and we now use it for all our
>> customers”. And I don’t have to say how stupid that is.
>> 
>> Sometimes people send me emails asking for an older download link.
> 
> I agree with not making it too obvious where to find older versions. 
> 
> But not everyone keeps it's instance always up-to-date, even I have
> skipped a version or two due to circumstances; And then I obviously
> like to check the release notes of all versions I missed up until the
> last. So those previous release notes (and not the downloads
> themselves) should be easily found from the latest release notes, as I
> wouldn't intuitively go to the blog for that. (I don't associate blog
> automatically with release announcements. In the end I would most
> probably find them, but it wouldn't be my first idea to go search for
> them there.)
> 
> I think it might be better to separate the release notes and the
> download links to the related versions. Instead just provide a link to
> "the" download page which just or at least prominently offers you to
> download the latest version. 
> And an "archive" page somewhere more "hidden", with a big fat warning
> on top, that it is insecure and totally not recommended to use an older
> version, and just a clean (unattractive) list of links to downloads of
> older versions.
> The links in the blog posts would hence always point to the download
> page offering the latest version prominently, and serve better as an
> archive of release notes than as an archive of older versions as it
> currently is.
> Or something like that...?

The download button on the release announcements will always lead you to that release, and not the latest one.

I agree that the blog is not the first place to look, but people will find it I am sure.

We used to have a “news” section on the page before we merged that and the “planet” into a new blog. I suppose any version that we go with has its downsides.

>> 
>>> The blog page also looks nice and clean.
>> 
>> I find it too clean. Maybe even too empty?! There is a lot of white.
>> 
>>> An idea maybe, if easily implemented, is to add tags to blog posts
>>> "release", "stable", "testing", "feature", "general", ... and the
>>> ability to filter on those tags.
>> 
>> The blog has this functionality and I threw it away. We didn’t use it
>> and we don’t have that many posts that its too easy to lose track.
> 
> Agreed, it was just an idea to be able to easily implement an overview
> of older release notes for that "older release notes" links I suggested
> earlier :-)
> 
> Regards
> Robin
> 
>> 
>>> This way you could set a filter on
>>> "stable" and "release" tags when clicked on the above proposed
>>> "Older
>>> release notes" link on the download page :-).
>>> 
>>> See below for my findings about to red color usage...
>>> 
>>> Michael Tremer schreef op zo 07-01-2024 om 14:29 [+0000]:
>>>> Hello Tom,
>>>> 
>>>>> On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer
>>>>>> <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Hello Tom,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you for your feedback!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I really like it at first glance, though the red used in
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I
>>>>>>> just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes.
>>>>>>> It’s
>>>>>>> bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it
>>>>>>> clashes a
>>>>>>> bit with the fire video on the homepage).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color
>>>>> that
>>>>> clashed, in my opinion.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load
>>>>> the
>>>>> homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right
>>>>> where
>>>>> the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in
>>>>> a
>>>>> way.
>>>> 
>>>> Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking
>>>> next.
>>>> 
>>>>>> What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> have generally good colour representation and this feedback
>>>>>> came
>>>>>> from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> contrast up all the way)
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My
>>>>> observation
>>>>> was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors.
>>>>> Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it
>>>>> shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of
>>>>> screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!
>>>> 
>>>> On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.
>>> 
>>> I do have to concur that the current red is too bright for my eyes.
>>> It
>>> is acceptable on the buttons and as text highlight color and such.
>>> But
>>> the big banners do hurt my eyes. 
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the
>>>> error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels
>>>> alright to
>>>> me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going
>>>> for.
>>> 
>>> This is too much. I really can't even watch this page without
>>> keeping
>>> my eyes half closed.
>>> 
>>> I do have to note that it is currently night-time, it is dark, the
>>> light is dim and my desktop theme has switched to dark mode. So the
>>> contrast with the bright red may be too much.
>>> But my monitor brightness adjusts automatically to environmental
>>> light
>>> and is also quite dim at this moment and also has auto
>>> 'intelligent'
>>> color correction (I checked if it made much difference to the red
>>> with
>>> that setting off, but it didn't).
>>> I also checked with "nighttime colors" (very warm colors, white is
>>> almost yellow.) But the red login page stays too bright for me to
>>> look
>>> at.
>>> Maybe I can look at it with my eyes fully open at daytime. But I'm
>>> not
>>> sure we want a website that is only comfortable to visit during
>>> daytime.
>>> 
>>> Generally I do like darker colors, like the previous maroon, and I
>>> may
>>> be a bit too sensitive for brightness/color intensity (had my eyes
>>> lasered in the past, which can be a factor to that). But I assume
>>> there
>>> are people that are more sensitive to these things than me. So I'm
>>> far
>>> from convinced that this color is a good choice.
>>> 
>>> On my mobile phone the color on the banners is not as disturbing as
>>> on
>>> my desktop. It would not be my favorite, but I could live with it.
>>> But
>>> also here the login page is too much; I don't have to squeeze my
>>> eyes
>>> yet, but it is still very intense for me to look at.
>> 
>> Noted.
>> 
>>> Robin
>>> 
>>>> -Michael
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Tom
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Dit bericht is gescanned op virussen en andere gevaarlijke
>>> inhoud door MailScanner en lijkt schoon te zijn.
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Dit bericht is gescanned op virussen en andere gevaarlijke
> inhoud door MailScanner en lijkt schoon te zijn.

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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> On 9 Jan 2024, at 16:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 9, 2024, at 3:29 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Tom,
>> 
>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 23:31, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> FWIW, I also think the community sections of the site should be as prominent as possible. Users go to the site looking to either download or get support. Everything else is probably a rounding error, IMHO.
>> 
>> I agree and it is. It just isn’t part of the main navigation which is used to its maximum:
>> 
>> <Screenshot 2024-01-09 at 11.25.57.png>
>> 
>> We cannot remove About, Download, Blog and Help because that would bring us back to have different pages with different navigations and it would be hard to switch from one to another.
>> 
>> We cannot remove the Donate button because we are funded by those.
>> 
>> We could find a different place for the avatar, but that would be confusing as this is a standard location, and if we found another place, we would not get enough space to add a Community link.
>> 
>> The only candidate there is is Documentation, but I think Documentation outranks the Community portal. We don’t want people to ask the same questions again. We want them to read the documentation.
>> 
>> -Michael
> 
> 
> Perhaps the “Search Documentation” field could be placed on the documentation page and not in the header?

We tried that and it did not work. We would loose too much space on the actual page and distract from the content.

Rather unsurprisingly, people don’t use the search that much, and so it makes sense to have it in the top navigation where pretty much every website has their search boxes.

> Tom

Re: Launching our new website

[Tom Rymes]

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> On Jan 9, 2024, at 3:29 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello Tom,
> 
>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 23:31, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>> 
>> FWIW, I also think the community sections of the site should be as prominent as possible. Users go to the site looking to either download or get support. Everything else is probably a rounding error, IMHO.
> 
> I agree and it is. It just isn’t part of the main navigation which is used to its maximum:
> 
> <Screenshot 2024-01-09 at 11.25.57.png>
> 
> We cannot remove About, Download, Blog and Help because that would bring us back to have different pages with different navigations and it would be hard to switch from one to another.
> 
> We cannot remove the Donate button because we are funded by those.
> 
> We could find a different place for the avatar, but that would be confusing as this is a standard location, and if we found another place, we would not get enough space to add a Community link.
> 
> The only candidate there is is Documentation, but I think Documentation outranks the Community portal. We don’t want people to ask the same questions again. We want them to read the documentation.
> 
> -Michael


Perhaps the “Search Documentation” field could be placed on the documentation page and not in the header?

Tom

Re: Launching our new website

[Robin Roevens]

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Hi Michael

Michael Tremer schreef op ma 08-01-2024 om 17:07 [+0000]:
> Hello Robin,
> 
> > On 7 Jan 2024, at 23:19, Robin Roevens <robin.roevens(a)disroot.org>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > Hello Michael, all
> > 
> > Overall I like the new layout and contents of the new site. The
> > front
> > page is attractive, compact and I think informs one just enough to
> > push
> > them to click on that Learn more button.
> 
> I find it almost too empty...
> 
> > The latest release notice on top of the page is also nice.
> > And I really like the new logo with the red "_". It does hurt a bit
> > somewhere deep to see the nostalgic tux go, but I admit that it
> > does
> > look a bit too 90s. :-)
> 
> Indeed. A little bit bittersweet :)
> 
> > The new about page also looks nice and is not too verbose at first,
> > but
> > I do like the full feature list at the bottom of the page. This is
> > information that may not be too important for a manager, but a nice
> > feature for anyone with a more technical background that is
> > scouting
> > for a new/replacement firewall product and doesn't want to spend
> > time
> > diving into documentation to find out what IPFire is technically
> > capable off. Here it is now nicely summarized.
> 
> Very good! This is what we wanted.
> 
> > I do have to note that in the upper part I have a few problems with
> > the
> > wording in:
> > "We securely connect your employees to their desks at home, your
> > global
> > business partners and the infrastructure in your data centre,
> > giving
> > you maximum flexibility so that you can focus on what really
> > matters."
> > I had to re-read the sentence a few times and I'm still not sure
> > what
> > you exactly mean?
> 
> Maybe I should have used ChatGPT for this :)
> 
> The intention is to explain that people can connect to their office
> from wherever they are in the world so that they can work as if they
> were sat at their desks. And on top comes that this works for
> businesses of all sizes.
> 
> > Are we connecting employees working at home to their office desk?
> > or
> > employees working at the office to their home desk (which I don't
> > think
> > is a big pro for many bosses, at least not the ones I worked for)
> > And are we connecting your global business partners to the
> > infractructure in your data centre, or are we connecting employees
> > to
> > global business partners, and to the infrastructure ?
> 
> All of the above?! :)
> 
> > (I know that all is possible with IPFire, but the current wording
> > strikes me as too vague or unclear as it can be interpreted in many
> > ways (at least to me :-)))
> 
> Sometimes I spent a long time getting these things right. After many
> versions, it happens that the result is simply crap. Sorry.

I have the same problem..:-)

> 
> Let’s put this on the list for some rewording, but if there is no
> time before the launch, this isn’t severe enough to stop the launch.
> It is at least better than what we had before.

I agree.

> 
> > And at last, I miss any mention of "the home user"; only "the
> > employee"
> > is addressed explicitly giving the impression that it is an
> > enterprise
> > only product or at least focused especially to enterprises. Which
> > is
> > not the case, I think? So, I think, if the employee is addressed,
> > the
> > home user should be mentioned also or neither should be.
> 
> No, we don’t focus only on one group, but I generally avoid talking
> about “home users” when possible. The reason simply is that people
> misunderstand this and I get emails that say “Is it already possible
> to use IPFire in a business? Is it stable enough?”.
> 
> The media also likes to write articles like “IPFire on Raspberry Pi
> X” and so people tend to think this is a toy project only.

The nostalgic tux logo probably didn't help either. :-)

> 
> Emphasising more on enterprise is my way to compensate for it.

I understand. I was not aware of it being perceived as a toy project by
some. 

> 
> > Also on the Easy to use part, as a technical user I would like to
> > also
> > read that access to the Linux shell (or "CLI" is maybe more
> > attractive
> > to more Microsoft-minded users) for the "power user" is only a
> > click
> > away. (Referencing to the "enable SSH" setting in the WUI, but
> > adding a
> > SSH console in the WUI is maybe also an idea worth exploring
> > sometime
> > :-))
> 
> Is that not on the long feature list?
> 
> > The latest Release notes on the download page is also a really nice
> > addition. Maybe a link "Older release notes..." which redirects to
> > the
> > blog would also be nice as I wouldn't intuitively go for the blog
> > link
> > in the main menu when looking for an overview of older release
> > notes.
> > But I think the current blog does mostly cover for an older release
> > notes overview page? 
> 
> I thought about this: A button to go to a previous release. But then
> I threw this away, because people tend to install old versions,
> because “that is the one that we tested and we now use it for all our
> customers”. And I don’t have to say how stupid that is.
> 
> Sometimes people send me emails asking for an older download link.

I agree with not making it too obvious where to find older versions. 

But not everyone keeps it's instance always up-to-date, even I have
skipped a version or two due to circumstances; And then I obviously
like to check the release notes of all versions I missed up until the
last. So those previous release notes (and not the downloads
themselves) should be easily found from the latest release notes, as I
wouldn't intuitively go to the blog for that. (I don't associate blog
automatically with release announcements. In the end I would most
probably find them, but it wouldn't be my first idea to go search for
them there.)

I think it might be better to separate the release notes and the
download links to the related versions. Instead just provide a link to
"the" download page which just or at least prominently offers you to
download the latest version. 
And an "archive" page somewhere more "hidden", with a big fat warning
on top, that it is insecure and totally not recommended to use an older
version, and just a clean (unattractive) list of links to downloads of
older versions.
The links in the blog posts would hence always point to the download
page offering the latest version prominently, and serve better as an
archive of release notes than as an archive of older versions as it
currently is.
Or something like that...?


> 
> > The blog page also looks nice and clean.
> 
> I find it too clean. Maybe even too empty?! There is a lot of white.
> 
> > An idea maybe, if easily implemented, is to add tags to blog posts
> > "release", "stable", "testing", "feature", "general", ... and the
> > ability to filter on those tags.
> 
> The blog has this functionality and I threw it away. We didn’t use it
> and we don’t have that many posts that its too easy to lose track.

Agreed, it was just an idea to be able to easily implement an overview
of older release notes for that "older release notes" links I suggested
earlier :-)

Regards
Robin

> 
> > This way you could set a filter on
> > "stable" and "release" tags when clicked on the above proposed
> > "Older
> > release notes" link on the download page :-).
> > 
> > See below for my findings about to red color usage...
> > 
> > Michael Tremer schreef op zo 07-01-2024 om 14:29 [+0000]:
> > > Hello Tom,
> > > 
> > > > On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > > On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer
> > > > > <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Hello Tom,
> > > > > 
> > > > > Thank you for your feedback!
> > > > > 
> > > > > > On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > I really like it at first glance, though the red used in
> > > > > > the
> > > > > > banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I
> > > > > > just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes.
> > > > > > It’s
> > > > > > bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it
> > > > > > clashes a
> > > > > > bit with the fire video on the homepage).
> > > > > 
> > > > > Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?
> > > > 
> > > > Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color
> > > > that
> > > > clashed, in my opinion.
> > > > 
> > > > The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load
> > > > the
> > > > homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right
> > > > where
> > > > the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in
> > > > a
> > > > way.
> > > 
> > > Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking
> > > next.
> > > 
> > > > > What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red
> > > > > is
> > > > > quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices
> > > > > which
> > > > > have generally good colour representation and this feedback
> > > > > came
> > > > > from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness
> > > > > and
> > > > > contrast up all the way)
> > > > 
> > > > This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My
> > > > observation
> > > > was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors.
> > > > Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it
> > > > shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of
> > > > screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!
> > > 
> > > On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.
> > 
> > I do have to concur that the current red is too bright for my eyes.
> > It
> > is acceptable on the buttons and as text highlight color and such.
> > But
> > the big banners do hurt my eyes. 
> > 
> > > 
> > > The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the
> > > error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels
> > > alright to
> > > me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going
> > > for.
> > 
> > This is too much. I really can't even watch this page without
> > keeping
> > my eyes half closed.
> > 
> > I do have to note that it is currently night-time, it is dark, the
> > light is dim and my desktop theme has switched to dark mode. So the
> > contrast with the bright red may be too much.
> > But my monitor brightness adjusts automatically to environmental
> > light
> > and is also quite dim at this moment and also has auto
> > 'intelligent'
> > color correction (I checked if it made much difference to the red
> > with
> > that setting off, but it didn't).
> > I also checked with "nighttime colors" (very warm colors, white is
> > almost yellow.) But the red login page stays too bright for me to
> > look
> > at.
> > Maybe I can look at it with my eyes fully open at daytime. But I'm
> > not
> > sure we want a website that is only comfortable to visit during
> > daytime.
> > 
> > Generally I do like darker colors, like the previous maroon, and I
> > may
> > be a bit too sensitive for brightness/color intensity (had my eyes
> > lasered in the past, which can be a factor to that). But I assume
> > there
> > are people that are more sensitive to these things than me. So I'm
> > far
> > from convinced that this color is a good choice.
> > 
> > On my mobile phone the color on the banners is not as disturbing as
> > on
> > my desktop. It would not be my favorite, but I could live with it.
> > But
> > also here the login page is too much; I don't have to squeeze my
> > eyes
> > yet, but it is still very intense for me to look at.
> 
> Noted.
> 
> > Robin
> > 
> > > -Michael
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Tom
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Dit bericht is gescanned op virussen en andere gevaarlijke
> > inhoud door MailScanner en lijkt schoon te zijn.
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Dit bericht is gescanned op virussen en andere gevaarlijke
inhoud door MailScanner en lijkt schoon te zijn.

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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> On 8 Jan 2024, at 21:40, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hy Michael,
> 
> Comments below...
> 
>> On Jan 8, 2024, at 12:33 PM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Jon,
>> 
>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 17:35, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Over all I like what was created.  Lots of good stuff!
>>> 
>>>> This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>> 
>>> YES!  I do like change buttons across the top!  
>>> 
>>> Can Community also be added?  Community should be a "one click" to find since it is highly used/access.
>>> 
>>> Please add a site search to the top.  It did take me a few clicks to find Community.
>> 
>> I don’t think that it belongs there…
>> 
>> * I don’t see the community portal as a tier one destination for a) new users, b) returning users. Instead we have multiple places that kind of do a similar thing: The wiki, Discourse, and the bug tracker. All of them don’t fit, which is why there is a page that helps people to decide which one they want: https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/help
>> 
>> * On the sitemap (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/sitemap), Discourse comes after the documentation (LWL is in the middle because of the colour and creating symmetry).
>> 
>> * I toyed around with a drop down menu, but that because even more cluttered and does not work well on mobile.
> 
> In my opinion, with the removal of the individual sub-domains (e.g., blog, wiki, etc) it seems to be signaling a one-stop for all items IPFire.   Something like a landing zone.  And people that want to learn more would go to that landing zone and then start their journey from there.
> 
> To me, for that landing zone to be effective, you’d want people to be able to easily access Support or the Community.  

Yes, the website is basically a place to direct people to the place they want to go to. The website itself does not carry a lot of static information in our case.

But support isn’t the first priority that people are looking for...

> And keeping the "Support" thought in mind for what seems to be a landing zone — now people see a LWL banner stating Support goes to LWL.

This is a standard business model that we are running here and I can assure you that I do not get support tickets at LWL that were supposed to be a post on community.ipfire.org <http://community.ipfire.org/>. People don’t confuse those two things.

> To me, these are mixed messages.
> 
> 
>> 
>>> LWL
>>> ——
>>> I truly feel there should be a little more separation between IPFire and LWL (i.e., non-profit vs. profit).  I realize you are highly invested in LWL’s health and well-being.
>>> 
>>> I would like to see the Professional Support and the "BUY" type items move to another page.  Maybe the HELP page and something softer like, "need even more help?  Let the professionals at LWL assist!". 
>>> 
>>> I realize these comments might be maddening and I apologize for that.  I just feel like there should be more separations between "church and state" or non-profit and profit.
>> 
>> The difference is very clear by using a different colour and the advertising is *that* obvious because I am still talking to people who tell me that they are unaware that support is available and don’t use IPFire because they want support. I KNOW. I could barely make it any bigger.
> 
> If this is a big number, then new/existing Community users could easily get an email stating that point as part of LWL sales or marketing.  To me, IPFire is a volunteer organization for the benefit of any user, group, etc. and for the benefit of the open source project for a really good firewall.

Yes, but we need to pay for the fun of having this volunteer organisation.

> More comments below.
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>>> More comments below.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> PS - Once again, sorry for the "kiss" and "kick".
>> 
>> I am happy to listen to both, positive and negative feedback. Very often things are not ideal, but they are the result of a long process and something the results are the best that we could come up with in the given time.
>> 
>>>> On Jan 8, 2024, at 11:11 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 13:17, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Michael & Rico,
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 06/01/2024 15:08, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>>>> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>>>>>>>> 
>>> 
>>> It would be great to have an "official logo".  Especially for coffee mugs and t-shirts.  I do like the IPFire_ !
>> 
>> IPFire_ will become the logo. This is 1000 times easier to print on things instead of heading the tux with all its gradients, a background and some writing on its belly that becomes impossible to read.
>> 
>>> Maybe make the underscore blink every one in a random (long) time.  Just to keep users on guard!
>> 
>> Lol, that would actually be funny.
>> 
>>> 
>>>>>>>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>>>>>>> Some relatively minor feedback.
>>>>>> That is probably very good at this point :)
>>>>>>> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
>>>>>> I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.
>>>>>> Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though. >
>>>>>> The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think a star against them is fine. It highlights them in a way and the details can be found in the wiki as the ciphers are mentioned there as being insecure.
>>>>> 
>>>>> For the LZO Compression, I have planned to go and update the wiki on that point so it makes it clear that no one is actually getting any compression if it is checked, just the compression headers added.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If links to the wiki can be made then that would work very well.
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.
>>>>>> Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?
>>>>> 
>>>>> It has been fixed now. Last check my head was the right way round :-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Other people have mentioned the red colour as being a bit too harsh/bright.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I never noticed that in my case.
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you for this feedback. I think the colour is not really the problem.
>>>> 
>>>> I have my screen on full brightness all of the time; right now it is dark and I only have a small light on my desk; and if I open the login page in fullscreen mode on my 27” screen, I cannot under any circumstance call this a burning colour. It is a fun colour, but it does not in any way hurt my eyes. And I think that can only be because of the screen which represents a different colour to me than to other people.
>>> 
>>> The idea of brighter is good, but the red/pink is too pink.  Sorry to be mean, but barbie pink is a lot (and I’ve looked at it on a few different screens/browsers).  Maybe a few shades closer to red.  In my opinion the red (like on the old blog) was a more "elegant red". 
>> 
>> This colour is very far away from a barbie pink...
> 
> Yes, I agree it is far from barbie pink.  But, that wasn’t really my point.
> 
> So throughout this thread I’ve seen comments about staying away from Raspberry Pi things and pushing more to office/company things.  I agree.  But I strongly suggest keeping to colors that suggest security and integrity.  
> 
> Bright red (pink in my mind) is not a color that you’ll find when thinking about those words.  
> 
> I am guessing there are a hundred web-sites discussing the philosophy of colors.  And I am guessing most of them relate bright red (to me, pink) to something sexy.  And I’d rather have someone think smart, intelligent, secure -  rather than sexy.
> 
> Please pick an elegant, strong red.

Based on your reasoning, you don’t want red at all. It is not a colour that shows safety or calmness. That would be blue. Red shows danger and panic.

Yet it is the colour of choice for many firewalls and security products out there.

This colour was picked by someone who doesn’t do anything else but these things as their day job. I am just going with that expertise that is available to me.

-Michael

> 
> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> <Screen Shot 2024-01-04 at 5.14.37 PM.png>  
>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Today I checked this out on my laptop with a 15" screen and on my desktop with a 32" screen.
>>>>> I personally do not have a problem with the colour effect. I have tried switching between the Home and the About pages but it did not feel too bright to me at all.
>>>> 
>>>> The About page is a lot brighter because it has a white background. So it can only be down to some software in GPUs or screens that make certain colours more vivid.
>>>> 
>>>>> If it is going to be toned down, then it should stay the same colour but reduce the brightness and not by too much.
>>>>> 
>>>>> One thing I noticed today when going through the website was that while the AWS site is showing the latest Core Update 182 as being an available image, on the Exoscale site it has the available version as Core Update 149.
>>>> 
>>>> Exoscale does not have a process to update the image, and they tend to not react to emails.
>>>> 
>>>> I will put this on my list so that they update the image.
>>>> 
>>>>> Is that Exoscale or us that has to keep that image version up to date?
>>>> 
>>>> Well, it would be nice if they would do it… but you know how these companies work...
>>>> 
>>>>> This is nothing to do with the new website but it just seemed peculiar when I noticed it so I thought I would mention it.
>>>> 
>>>> -Michael
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> -Michael
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>>>> -Michael & Rico
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>>> Sent from my laptop
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Jon,

> On 8 Jan 2024, at 17:35, jon <jon.murphy(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Over all I like what was created.  Lots of good stuff!
> 
>> This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
> 
> YES!  I do like change buttons across the top!  
> 
> Can Community also be added?  Community should be a "one click" to find since it is highly used/access.
> 
> Please add a site search to the top.  It did take me a few clicks to find Community.

I don’t think that it belongs there…

* I don’t see the community portal as a tier one destination for a) new users, b) returning users. Instead we have multiple places that kind of do a similar thing: The wiki, Discourse, and the bug tracker. All of them don’t fit, which is why there is a page that helps people to decide which one they want: https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/help

* On the sitemap (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/sitemap), Discourse comes after the documentation (LWL is in the middle because of the colour and creating symmetry).

* I toyed around with a drop down menu, but that because even more cluttered and does not work well on mobile.

> LWL
> ——
> I truly feel there should be a little more separation between IPFire and LWL (i.e., non-profit vs. profit).  I realize you are highly invested in LWL’s health and well-being.
> 
> I would like to see the Professional Support and the "BUY" type items move to another page.  Maybe the HELP page and something softer like, "need even more help?  Let the professionals at LWL assist!". 
> 
> I realize these comments might be maddening and I apologize for that.  I just feel like there should be more separations between "church and state" or non-profit and profit.

The difference is very clear by using a different colour and the advertising is *that* obvious because I am still talking to people who tell me that they are unaware that support is available and don’t use IPFire because they want support. I KNOW. I could barely make it any bigger.

> More comments below.
> 
> 
> PS - Once again, sorry for the "kiss" and "kick".

I am happy to listen to both, positive and negative feedback. Very often things are not ideal, but they are the result of a long process and something the results are the best that we could come up with in the given time.

>> On Jan 8, 2024, at 11:11 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 8 Jan 2024, at 13:17, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi Michael & Rico,
>>> 
>>> On 06/01/2024 15:08, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>> Hello Adolf,
>>>>> On 5 Jan 2024, at 14:43, Adolf Belka <adolf.belka(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 04/01/2024 17:44, Michael Tremer wrote:
>>>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>>>>>> 
> 
>  It would be great to have an "official logo".  Especially for coffee mugs and t-shirts.  I do like the IPFire_ !

IPFire_ will become the logo. This is 1000 times easier to print on things instead of heading the tux with all its gradients, a background and some writing on its belly that becomes impossible to read.

> Maybe make the underscore blink every one in a random (long) time.  Just to keep users on guard!

Lol, that would actually be funny.

> 
>>>>>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>>>>> Some relatively minor feedback.
>>>> That is probably very good at this point :)
>>>>> In the section labelled Under The Hood,
>>>>> 
>>>>> It mentions the ciphers Blowfish, DES/3DES and CAST5. As these are so insecure, and hopefully in the near future will disappear, I don't think we should have them as a focus point.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Similar thing with LZO Compression. The function was insecure so since OpenVPN2.5 the option no longer does any compression on the server, even if the LZO Compression checkbox is checked. So I think best to not mention it in this page.
>>>> I did stop a moment when I wrote it down initially, but then decided to include it, because we actually do support this. And I thought that the page should simply have an almost complete list of all features that IPFire supports.
>>>> Thoughts I had before were to add a little (Deprecated) tag, but that makes the page too long and complicated. It will also become a nightmare to keep up to date. I could settle on something like a star though. >
>>>> The preferred option would be that these bullet points become links to the wiki pages and there we have a lot of space to explain. Would that work for you, too?
>>> 
>>> I think a star against them is fine. It highlights them in a way and the details can be found in the wiki as the ciphers are mentioned there as being insecure.
>>> 
>>> For the LZO Compression, I have planned to go and update the wiki on that point so it makes it clear that no one is actually getting any compression if it is checked, just the compression headers added.
>>> 
>>> If links to the wiki can be made then that would work very well.
>>> 
>>>>> My photo is still rotated 90 degrees in the Meet The Team section.
>>>> Yes, I noticed. Did you try to upload it again or did this happen when I tried to upload it?
>>> 
>>> It has been fixed now. Last check my head was the right way round :-)
>>> 
>>> Other people have mentioned the red colour as being a bit too harsh/bright.
>>> 
>>> I never noticed that in my case.
>> 
>> Thank you for this feedback. I think the colour is not really the problem.
>> 
>> I have my screen on full brightness all of the time; right now it is dark and I only have a small light on my desk; and if I open the login page in fullscreen mode on my 27” screen, I cannot under any circumstance call this a burning colour. It is a fun colour, but it does not in any way hurt my eyes. And I think that can only be because of the screen which represents a different colour to me than to other people.
> 
> The idea of brighter is good, but the red/pink is too pink.  Sorry to be mean, but barbie pink is a lot (and I’ve looked at it on a few different screens/browsers).  Maybe a few shades closer to red.  In my opinion the red (like on the old blog) was a more "elegant red". 

This colour is very far away from a barbie pink...

> 
> <Screen Shot 2024-01-04 at 5.14.37 PM.png>  
> 
>> 
>>> Today I checked this out on my laptop with a 15" screen and on my desktop with a 32" screen.
>>> I personally do not have a problem with the colour effect. I have tried switching between the Home and the About pages but it did not feel too bright to me at all.
>> 
>> The About page is a lot brighter because it has a white background. So it can only be down to some software in GPUs or screens that make certain colours more vivid.
>> 
>>> If it is going to be toned down, then it should stay the same colour but reduce the brightness and not by too much.
>>> 
>>> One thing I noticed today when going through the website was that while the AWS site is showing the latest Core Update 182 as being an available image, on the Exoscale site it has the available version as Core Update 149.
>> 
>> Exoscale does not have a process to update the image, and they tend to not react to emails.
>> 
>> I will put this on my list so that they update the image.
>> 
>>> Is that Exoscale or us that has to keep that image version up to date?
>> 
>> Well, it would be nice if they would do it… but you know how these companies work...
>> 
>>> This is nothing to do with the new website but it just seemed peculiar when I noticed it so I thought I would mention it.
>> 
>> -Michael
>> 
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Adolf.
>>> 
>>>> -Michael
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Adolf.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Best,
>>>>>> -Michael & Rico
>>>>> 
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Sent from my laptop
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Sent from my laptop

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Robin,

> On 7 Jan 2024, at 23:19, Robin Roevens <robin.roevens(a)disroot.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello Michael, all
> 
> Overall I like the new layout and contents of the new site. The front
> page is attractive, compact and I think informs one just enough to push
> them to click on that Learn more button.

I find it almost too empty...

> The latest release notice on top of the page is also nice.
> And I really like the new logo with the red "_". It does hurt a bit
> somewhere deep to see the nostalgic tux go, but I admit that it does
> look a bit too 90s. :-)

Indeed. A little bit bittersweet :)

> The new about page also looks nice and is not too verbose at first, but
> I do like the full feature list at the bottom of the page. This is
> information that may not be too important for a manager, but a nice
> feature for anyone with a more technical background that is scouting
> for a new/replacement firewall product and doesn't want to spend time
> diving into documentation to find out what IPFire is technically
> capable off. Here it is now nicely summarized.

Very good! This is what we wanted.

> I do have to note that in the upper part I have a few problems with the
> wording in:
> "We securely connect your employees to their desks at home, your global
> business partners and the infrastructure in your data centre, giving
> you maximum flexibility so that you can focus on what really matters."
> I had to re-read the sentence a few times and I'm still not sure what
> you exactly mean?

Maybe I should have used ChatGPT for this :)

The intention is to explain that people can connect to their office from wherever they are in the world so that they can work as if they were sat at their desks. And on top comes that this works for businesses of all sizes.

> Are we connecting employees working at home to their office desk? or
> employees working at the office to their home desk (which I don't think
> is a big pro for many bosses, at least not the ones I worked for)
> And are we connecting your global business partners to the
> infractructure in your data centre, or are we connecting employees to
> global business partners, and to the infrastructure ?

All of the above?! :)

> (I know that all is possible with IPFire, but the current wording
> strikes me as too vague or unclear as it can be interpreted in many
> ways (at least to me :-)))

Sometimes I spent a long time getting these things right. After many versions, it happens that the result is simply crap. Sorry.

Let’s put this on the list for some rewording, but if there is no time before the launch, this isn’t severe enough to stop the launch. It is at least better than what we had before.

> And at last, I miss any mention of "the home user"; only "the employee"
> is addressed explicitly giving the impression that it is an enterprise
> only product or at least focused especially to enterprises. Which is
> not the case, I think? So, I think, if the employee is addressed, the
> home user should be mentioned also or neither should be.

No, we don’t focus only on one group, but I generally avoid talking about “home users” when possible. The reason simply is that people misunderstand this and I get emails that say “Is it already possible to use IPFire in a business? Is it stable enough?”.

The media also likes to write articles like “IPFire on Raspberry Pi X” and so people tend to think this is a toy project only.

Emphasising more on enterprise is my way to compensate for it.

> Also on the Easy to use part, as a technical user I would like to also
> read that access to the Linux shell (or "CLI" is maybe more attractive
> to more Microsoft-minded users) for the "power user" is only a click
> away. (Referencing to the "enable SSH" setting in the WUI, but adding a
> SSH console in the WUI is maybe also an idea worth exploring sometime
> :-))

Is that not on the long feature list?

> The latest Release notes on the download page is also a really nice
> addition. Maybe a link "Older release notes..." which redirects to the
> blog would also be nice as I wouldn't intuitively go for the blog link
> in the main menu when looking for an overview of older release notes.
> But I think the current blog does mostly cover for an older release
> notes overview page? 

I thought about this: A button to go to a previous release. But then I threw this away, because people tend to install old versions, because “that is the one that we tested and we now use it for all our customers”. And I don’t have to say how stupid that is.

Sometimes people send me emails asking for an older download link.

> The blog page also looks nice and clean.

I find it too clean. Maybe even too empty?! There is a lot of white.

> An idea maybe, if easily implemented, is to add tags to blog posts
> "release", "stable", "testing", "feature", "general", ... and the
> ability to filter on those tags.

The blog has this functionality and I threw it away. We didn’t use it and we don’t have that many posts that its too easy to lose track.

> This way you could set a filter on
> "stable" and "release" tags when clicked on the above proposed "Older
> release notes" link on the download page :-).
> 
> See below for my findings about to red color usage...
> 
> Michael Tremer schreef op zo 07-01-2024 om 14:29 [+0000]:
>> Hello Tom,
>> 
>>> On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer
>>>> <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hello Tom,
>>>> 
>>>> Thank you for your feedback!
>>>> 
>>>>> On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the
>>>>> banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I
>>>>> just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s
>>>>> bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a
>>>>> bit with the fire video on the homepage).
>>>> 
>>>> Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?
>>> 
>>> Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color that
>>> clashed, in my opinion.
>>> 
>>> The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load the
>>> homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right where
>>> the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in a
>>> way.
>> 
>> Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking
>> next.
>> 
>>>> What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is
>>>> quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which
>>>> have generally good colour representation and this feedback came
>>>> from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and
>>>> contrast up all the way)
>>> 
>>> This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My observation
>>> was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors.
>>> Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it
>>> shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of
>>> screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!
>> 
>> On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.
> 
> I do have to concur that the current red is too bright for my eyes. It
> is acceptable on the buttons and as text highlight color and such. But
> the big banners do hurt my eyes. 
> 
>> 
>> The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the
>> error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels alright to
>> me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going for.
> 
> This is too much. I really can't even watch this page without keeping
> my eyes half closed.
> 
> I do have to note that it is currently night-time, it is dark, the
> light is dim and my desktop theme has switched to dark mode. So the
> contrast with the bright red may be too much.
> But my monitor brightness adjusts automatically to environmental light
> and is also quite dim at this moment and also has auto 'intelligent'
> color correction (I checked if it made much difference to the red with
> that setting off, but it didn't).
> I also checked with "nighttime colors" (very warm colors, white is
> almost yellow.) But the red login page stays too bright for me to look
> at.
> Maybe I can look at it with my eyes fully open at daytime. But I'm not
> sure we want a website that is only comfortable to visit during
> daytime.
> 
> Generally I do like darker colors, like the previous maroon, and I may
> be a bit too sensitive for brightness/color intensity (had my eyes
> lasered in the past, which can be a factor to that). But I assume there
> are people that are more sensitive to these things than me. So I'm far
> from convinced that this color is a good choice.
> 
> On my mobile phone the color on the banners is not as disturbing as on
> my desktop. It would not be my favorite, but I could live with it. But
> also here the login page is too much; I don't have to squeeze my eyes
> yet, but it is still very intense for me to look at.

Noted.

> Robin
> 
>> -Michael
>> 
>>> 
>>> Tom
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> -- 
> Dit bericht is gescanned op virussen en andere gevaarlijke
> inhoud door MailScanner en lijkt schoon te zijn.

Re: Launching our new website

[Robin Roevens]

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Hello Michael, all

Overall I like the new layout and contents of the new site. The front
page is attractive, compact and I think informs one just enough to push
them to click on that Learn more button.
The latest release notice on top of the page is also nice.
And I really like the new logo with the red "_". It does hurt a bit
somewhere deep to see the nostalgic tux go, but I admit that it does
look a bit too 90s. :-)

The new about page also looks nice and is not too verbose at first, but
I do like the full feature list at the bottom of the page. This is
information that may not be too important for a manager, but a nice
feature for anyone with a more technical background that is scouting
for a new/replacement firewall product and doesn't want to spend time
diving into documentation to find out what IPFire is technically
capable off. Here it is now nicely summarized.

I do have to note that in the upper part I have a few problems with the
wording in:
"We securely connect your employees to their desks at home, your global
business partners and the infrastructure in your data centre, giving
you maximum flexibility so that you can focus on what really matters."
I had to re-read the sentence a few times and I'm still not sure what
you exactly mean?
Are we connecting employees working at home to their office desk? or
employees working at the office to their home desk (which I don't think
is a big pro for many bosses, at least not the ones I worked for)
And are we connecting your global business partners to the
infractructure in your data centre, or are we connecting employees to
global business partners, and to the infrastructure ?
(I know that all is possible with IPFire, but the current wording
strikes me as too vague or unclear as it can be interpreted in many
ways (at least to me :-)))
And at last, I miss any mention of "the home user"; only "the employee"
is addressed explicitly giving the impression that it is an enterprise
only product or at least focused especially to enterprises. Which is
not the case, I think? So, I think, if the employee is addressed, the
home user should be mentioned also or neither should be.

Also on the Easy to use part, as a technical user I would like to also
read that access to the Linux shell (or "CLI" is maybe more attractive
to more Microsoft-minded users) for the "power user" is only a click
away. (Referencing to the "enable SSH" setting in the WUI, but adding a
SSH console in the WUI is maybe also an idea worth exploring sometime
:-))
  
The latest Release notes on the download page is also a really nice
addition. Maybe a link "Older release notes..." which redirects to the
blog would also be nice as I wouldn't intuitively go for the blog link
in the main menu when looking for an overview of older release notes.
But I think the current blog does mostly cover for an older release
notes overview page? 

The blog page also looks nice and clean.
An idea maybe, if easily implemented, is to add tags to blog posts
"release", "stable", "testing", "feature", "general", ... and the
ability to filter on those tags. This way you could set a filter on
"stable" and "release" tags when clicked on the above proposed "Older
release notes" link on the download page :-).

See below for my findings about to red color usage...

Michael Tremer schreef op zo 07-01-2024 om 14:29 [+0000]:
> Hello Tom,
> 
> > On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer
> > > <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Hello Tom,
> > > 
> > > Thank you for your feedback!
> > > 
> > > > On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the
> > > > banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I
> > > > just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s
> > > > bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a
> > > > bit with the fire video on the homepage).
> > > 
> > > Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?
> > 
> > Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color that
> > clashed, in my opinion.
> > 
> > The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load the
> > homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right where
> > the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in a
> > way.
> 
> Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking
> next.
> 
> > > What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is
> > > quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which
> > > have generally good colour representation and this feedback came
> > > from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and
> > > contrast up all the way)
> > 
> > This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My observation
> > was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors.
> > Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it
> > shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of
> > screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!
> 
> On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.

I do have to concur that the current red is too bright for my eyes. It
is acceptable on the buttons and as text highlight color and such. But
the big banners do hurt my eyes. 

> 
> The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the
> error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels alright to
> me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going for.

This is too much. I really can't even watch this page without keeping
my eyes half closed.

I do have to note that it is currently night-time, it is dark, the
light is dim and my desktop theme has switched to dark mode. So the
contrast with the bright red may be too much.
But my monitor brightness adjusts automatically to environmental light
and is also quite dim at this moment and also has auto 'intelligent'
color correction (I checked if it made much difference to the red with
that setting off, but it didn't).
I also checked with "nighttime colors" (very warm colors, white is
almost yellow.) But the red login page stays too bright for me to look
at.
Maybe I can look at it with my eyes fully open at daytime. But I'm not
sure we want a website that is only comfortable to visit during
daytime.

Generally I do like darker colors, like the previous maroon, and I may
be a bit too sensitive for brightness/color intensity (had my eyes
lasered in the past, which can be a factor to that). But I assume there
are people that are more sensitive to these things than me. So I'm far
from convinced that this color is a good choice.

On my mobile phone the color on the banners is not as disturbing as on
my desktop. It would not be my favorite, but I could live with it. But
also here the login page is too much; I don't have to squeeze my eyes
yet, but it is still very intense for me to look at.

Robin

> -Michael
> 
> > 
> > Tom
> 
> 
> 

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Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Tom,

> On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Tom,
>> 
>> Thank you for your feedback!
>> 
>>> On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a bit with the fire video on the homepage).
>> 
>> Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?
> 
> Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color that clashed, in my opinion.
> 
> The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load the homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right where the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in a way.

Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking next.

>> What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which have generally good colour representation and this feedback came from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and contrast up all the way)
> 
> This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My observation was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors. Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!

On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.

The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels alright to me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going for.

-Michael

> 
> Tom

Re: Launching our new website

[Tom Rymes]

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> On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello Tom,
> 
> Thank you for your feedback!
> 
>> On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
>> 
>> I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a bit with the fire video on the homepage).
> 
> Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?

Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color that clashed, in my opinion.

The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load the homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right where the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in a way.


> What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which have generally good colour representation and this feedback came from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and contrast up all the way)

This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My observation was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors. Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!

Tom

Re: Launching our new website

[Michael Tremer]

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Hello Tom,

Thank you for your feedback!

> On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom(a)rymes.net> wrote:
> 
> I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a bit with the fire video on the homepage).

Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?

The colour is not meant to represent fire. It is just, that for a firewall, we are generally in the “red” section instead of blue or green. There are some companies that have tried it, and I don’t think it has worked well.

Then, people have done the “blood red” approach, and to distinguish ourselves we used to have a darker (kind of maroon) red. And since I found that depressing, I thought that we could rather go lighter… and this is the result.

The fire video didn’t come from the designer and he was slightly opposed to it :) The red should however never be right next to the video.

> https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/downloads/ipfire-2.27-core182

What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which have generally good colour representation and this feedback came from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and contrast up all the way).

-Michael

> 
> Tom
> 
>> On Jan 4, 2024, at 11:44 AM, Michael Tremer <michael.tremer(a)ipfire.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>> (yes, yes, I am still alive…)
>> 
>> I would like to pre-announce our new website which Rico and I have been working on over the last couple of months, and collect some final feedback before we roll it out as soon as possible.
>> 
>> So here is an outline of what has happened and what will happen next:
>> 
>> * Rico has helped me to implement a fresh design for our website which has been drafted by another friend. The goals were to get rid of the sad and grey website, which is also *way* too simplistic, and create something that is nice looking, memorable, and brings people in.
>> 
>> * During that journey, we have waved goodbye to Bootstrap which is hard to work with once you have discovered Bulma (https://bulma.io/), our new CSS framework of choice. We have also rewritten and refactored some parts of the backend code. There is now less Javascript and less CSS - and I am sure that we could actually still go and save a lot more.
>> 
>> * One of the biggest rewrites is fireinfo, as with a growing number of profiles, our PostgreSQL database started to suffer. We haven’t tested this in full production, yet, but I am sure this will be a lot faster than the older version. This all only affects how we store the data and nothing changes for the clients or users.
>> 
>> * We have upgraded the PostgreSQL driver from psycopg2 to psycopg3, and we use async programming a lot more where possible (these are all lessons learned from the build service).
>> 
>> * We have replaced memcached with redis. Not because memcache didn’t do its job well, but rather because of the reason that we have both in our infrastructure and it is a little bit easier to just deploy one.
>> 
>> * There is a new integration with Asterisk to see current calls - previously the phone stuff didn’t work at all any more since we replaced FreePBX with Asterisk.
>> 
>> But that is enough about the technical stuff… Let’s talk about what has visually changed, and why:
>> 
>> * First of all, we have brighter colours. Very bright! Because we are a fun project! The grey used to depress me slightly and if you ask a designer what would represent us as a community, you get this. I am a lot happier with that.
>> 
>> * The tux is gone. This is kind of a bitter sweet moment, but the old IPFire “logo” is gone with this. I am sure it will be found here or there in a couple of places, but there is no way to make something ancient like this work with something modern-looking. I spent days together with professionals to draft a new logo, and we got nothing, well, apart from the simple things that is: IPFire_
>> 
>> * IPFire_ is not supposed to replace the word “IPFire” in texts, but I think it is a nice way to highlight the nerdiness/console people/Linux things without becoming complex to understand, or confusing to the corporate people…
>> 
>> * On top of the front page, we finally have some mission statement: More Than A Firewall. We need to talk more about what we are and what we can do, and we need to explain (I don’t know why, but we do) to people what opportunities IPFire can open for them. This still needs a lot of work and I am happy to hear any ideas what is a nice way to communicate what IPFire is to new people using as few words as possible.
>> 
>> * Then, there are a couple of new pages: One of the bigger ones is the About page that explains in more detail what IPFire does (which is why it feels hard to repeat the same on the front page) and it has a large list of (hopefully) all features that IPFire can do/supports/etc. This needs to be updated with every core update, so please let me know if there is something missing in the future as I will probably miss them. Additionally, we have a section with us, the team. Being a faceless project is not very good to attract more people joining our missing, and here is now the place where people will see us for the first time - the people who make IPFire happen.
>> 
>> * The download page has mainly been made shorter and now includes the change log. Cloud providers have been added to an extra page. If you know of any cloud providers that support IPFire, please let me know. Torrent downloads are gone.
>> 
>> * Help: The help page has always been a hard one for me. This time it contains a sentence or two that explains what all those things are good for :) Let’s see how that is going to work out…
>> 
>> * This is a big one: We are getting rid of the thousand subdomains that we are having. There is no more wiki.ipfire.org <http://wiki.ipfire.org/>, blog.ipfire.org <http://blog.ipfire.org/>, people.ipfire.org <http://people.ipfire.org/>, location.ipfire.org <http://location.ipfire.org/>, and so on (exceptions do apply of course). Everything is now in one place: ipfire.org <http://ipfire.org/>. The blog is a subsection of the website, people register accounts on the main page, log in, the documentation has moved there as well. This should hopefully make everyone happy who for a long time wanted buttons to change from one thing to the next here. Here it finally is!
>> 
>> * But there isn’t enough space for everything on the main navigation bar. So at the bottom of the page, there is an extra link called “Sitemap” with all the other things that didn’t get a large link. There is a lot of development stuff on there, too.
>> 
>> * When logged in, the users area is a bit tidier and hopefully we are able to bring a couple more features to this in the future…
>> 
>> * Since users might also be logged in on the main page/the blog/etc. we show “join us now” and “subscribe to our newsletter” only when people have not already done so, which makes it a lot more obvious what the next step of action for users is and a lot less confusing for the people who have already done so.
>> 
>> * There has been a large list of bugs/feature requests submitted by a number of people who have been fixed in this. We might have introduced a couple of new ones, so please file a ticket in Bugzilla if something is broken and that needs fixing.
>> 
>> All in all we hope that this is a big first step to make IPFire appear the modern distribution that it is, instead of having the dark image of some coders in their basements. To summarise this all in one email feels very short for all the labour that we have put into this over the years, but I suppose it is a good sign to have simplicity in the end.
>> 
>> We would like to ask you now for your feedback on all of this. I know that many of you have seen this before, but please help us to double check, that a big launch does not become an embarrassment for some tiny reason :) We have taken some risky decisions and we are happy to see how they are turning out…
>> 
>> The new website is currently running at https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/ to get to things like fireinfo, just change the subdomain like so https://fireinfo.michael.dev.ipfire.org/. A couple of things like editing your own profile won’t work because the development instance can’t write to our LDAP system, but apart from that, things should be running just fine.
>> 
>> I am exciting to hear some feedback and hopefully we can build a small roadmap out of it for the future!
>> 
>> Best,
>> -Michael & Rico
>