Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

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bperet
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by bperet »

Djchrismac wrote: Sun Dec 30, 2018 10:00 am Definitely keep it as a read-only archive, I found the older style website much easier to read. There is probably no point in having logins and comments enabled though, maybe a note or link to the new site could be added so anyone that does find the old site will have a route to the new one and be able to ask questions there.
The old site will be gone shortly and all the links that used to point to it will be redirected to the new site. Testing the redirects now--so far, so good. (I/we've built some 758 redirects from the old site to the new.)

Why is the old site easier to read? I found the navigation there to be terrible... all sorts of hidden links within links.

I haven't started on doing any kind of theme/style for the new site, so suggestions?
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bperet
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by bperet »

The transfer of reciprocalsystem.com to the RSRS server is now under way. It normally takes DNS a few days to update to the new location so in the meantime, it is sort of "pot luck" as to which site will show up. After this move is finished, I'll move rstheory.org (content already moved; just need to build the redirection list).
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Djchrismac
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by Djchrismac »

bperet wrote: Sun Dec 30, 2018 5:17 pm Why is the old site easier to read? I found the navigation there to be terrible... all sorts of hidden links within links.
The old site is much larger and the letters appear as written, it's got a nice blue background and maybe I just prefer the look of some older websites. The RS2 website has much smaller text and a wider canvas for the text plus the original formatting of the letter is lost. All of the content is there but I just had a much more enjoyable reading experience on the reciprocalsystem.com site.

Thinking there must be a nice reader style view template for the drupal theme which might improve letter presentation and reading?
bperet wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:32 am The transfer of reciprocalsystem.com to the RSRS server is now under way. It normally takes DNS a few days to update to the new location so in the meantime, it is sort of "pot luck" as to which site will show up. After this move is finished, I'll move rstheory.org (content already moved; just need to build the redirection list).
Thanks for the update, i'll let you know if I encounter any anomalies.
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by bperet »

Djchrismac wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:45 am The old site is much larger and the letters appear as written, it's got a nice blue background and maybe I just prefer the look of some older websites. The RS2 website has much smaller text and a wider canvas for the text plus the original formatting of the letter is lost. All of the content is there but I just had a much more enjoyable reading experience on the reciprocalsystem.com site.
On the stuff we copied, it is the same font (Times New Roman) because there are <font> tags in the posts. The stuff that was there is the browser default (Arial), with the default size for the browser (which is also too small for me).

When I did the theme for this forum, I changed the defaults to Times and a larger font size, so if this is better here, I can use the same parameters on the main site.
Djchrismac wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:45 am Thinking there must be a nice reader style view template for the drupal theme which might improve letter presentation and reading?
I've started an RS theme to customize it, but to get it to work we'll have to go in and clean out all the <font> tags in the copied text, since the tag overrides the defaults. There are a bunch of Drupal themes here:
https://www.drupal.org/project/project_theme
Select for "Drupal 8.x" core compatibility and see if you spot anything useful. Otherwise, it is just a matter of using the page inspector on the browser to identify the CSS classes of the regions to change, and update the stylesheet (not difficult). I am currently using an extension to "Danland" to get the dynamic menus and slideshow.
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by bperet »

Djchrismac wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:45 am The old site is much larger and the letters appear as written, it's got a nice blue background and maybe I just prefer the look of some older websites.
What browser are you using? I just happened to notice that when I brought up Pale Moon (a less fancy version of Firefox), the text on the site is considerably larger (about 50%). It appears that the text size is dependent upon the browser and user settings, not so much on the website, itself.
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Main website updates

Post by bperet »

I have corrected a number of style errors (mainly listings) and a few other formatting bugs on the main site. I have also improved the menu content to provide more links for people that don't use sub-menus.

Added a "Papers by Subject" category, but most of the papers have not had subjects added. Those helping out on the site, feel free to continue to add subject taxonomies when you get a chance, so I can focus on correcting problems and adding new material to the site. (I still have the photo gallery and store to move from rstheory, then I'll be deprecating that site.)

Added Larry Denslow's book, Fundamentals of Scalar Motion (still working on Appendix). This is a good introductory book, written by High School teacher. Much more direct than Larson and may help to clarify many concepts, though he does use an unusual notation system.

I've also added the complete text to Larson's original 1959 book, The Structure of the Physical Universe, which, IMHO, is much easier to understand than his revised edition, Nothing But Motion, as he concentrates more on theory, rather than trying to justify his ideas to the scientific community. And yes, there are many chapters missing--they are also missing in the printed book. After all, this was just a "preliminary edition."

ReciprocalSystem.org now contains some 850 topics and over 4000 pages of information on the Reciprocal System--and it is all FREE to access (though I am being pressured by the Board to make it a "pay" site to make the Society self-sufficient).
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by Djchrismac »

bperet wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:56 am On the stuff we copied, it is the same font (Times New Roman) because there are <font> tags in the posts. The stuff that was there is the browser default (Arial), with the default size for the browser (which is also too small for me).

When I did the theme for this forum, I changed the defaults to Times and a larger font size, so if this is better here, I can use the same parameters on the main site.
I've attached a few screenshots so you can see the difference. I'm mainly using firefox but it's similar on other browsers:
RS.com01.jpg
RS.com01.jpg (226.69 KiB) Viewed 28893 times
RS.com02.jpg
RS.com02.jpg (416.34 KiB) Viewed 28893 times
RS.org01.jpg
RS.org01.jpg (284.85 KiB) Viewed 28893 times
RS.org02.jpg
RS.org02.jpg (199.47 KiB) Viewed 28893 times
bperet wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 10:56 am I've started an RS theme to customize it, but to get it to work we'll have to go in and clean out all the <font> tags in the copied text, since the tag overrides the defaults. There are a bunch of Drupal themes here:
https://www.drupal.org/project/project_theme
Select for "Drupal 8.x" core compatibility and see if you spot anything useful. Otherwise, it is just a matter of using the page inspector on the browser to identify the CSS classes of the regions to change, and update the stylesheet (not difficult). I am currently using an extension to "Danland" to get the dynamic menus and slideshow.
Nice one i'll have a look through just now and see if there is anything worth using, cheers.
bperet wrote: Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:12 pm I have corrected a number of style errors (mainly listings) and a few other formatting bugs on the main site. I have also improved the menu content to provide more links for people that don't use sub-menus.

Added a "Papers by Subject" category, but most of the papers have not had subjects added. Those helping out on the site, feel free to continue to add subject taxonomies when you get a chance, so I can focus on correcting problems and adding new material to the site. (I still have the photo gallery and store to move from rstheory, then I'll be deprecating that site.)

Added Larry Denslow's book, Fundamentals of Scalar Motion (still working on Appendix). This is a good introductory book, written by High School teacher. Much more direct than Larson and may help to clarify many concepts, though he does use an unusual notation system.

I've also added the complete text to Larson's original 1959 book, The Structure of the Physical Universe, which, IMHO, is much easier to understand than his revised edition, Nothing But Motion, as he concentrates more on theory, rather than trying to justify his ideas to the scientific community. And yes, there are many chapters missing--they are also missing in the printed book. After all, this was just a "preliminary edition."

ReciprocalSystem.org now contains some 850 topics and over 4000 pages of information on the Reciprocal System--and it is all FREE to access (though I am being pressured by the Board to make it a "pay" site to make the Society self-sufficient).
Great work thanks very much, that is an impressive number of topics and pages, hopefully it will remain free as we have a hard enough time getting people to notice it without making it more exclusive. In saying that I can understand why the board want a steady source of income, maybe something could work where membership gives some very good benefits outwith the free content, although I have no idea what this could be but it's a model that works fairly well on other websites.
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Djchrismac
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by Djchrismac »

Hi Bruce, I found the following theme which could work, it is basic but highly customisable so it should be fairly straightforward to tweak it to make a more reading friendly page template, while also keeping similar elements from the existing theme:

https://www.drupal.org/project/mayo

There is no demo page yet as they only got it updated for v8 a few months ago.
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by bperet »

Djchrismac wrote: Wed Jan 09, 2019 3:08 am I've attached a few screenshots so you can see the difference. I'm mainly using firefox but it's similar on other browsers:
I modified the correspondence view to be closer to the old site.
(BTW, when updating the view, I noticed you misspelled "Dewey" as "Dewy" on a number of letters.)

I also switched the body text to Serif (Times New Roman) with a larger size.

Regarding the display of pages, I am sticking with "responsive" to address the wide range of device widths (.com used a fixed width).
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Re: Merging rstheory.org and reciprocalsystem.com into reciprocalsystem.org

Post by wsitze »

I've also added the complete text to Larson's original 1959 book, The Structure of the Physical Universe, which, IMHO, is much easier to understand than his revised edition, Nothing But Motion, as he concentrates more on theory, rather than trying to justify his ideas to the scientific community. And yes, there are many chapters missing--they are also missing in the printed book. After all, this was just a "preliminary edition."
I have the second printing of The Structure of the Physical Universe if that will help.
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