Official website and work copy

Our official website is not displayed using Spip directly but its static copy instead. Our Spip website is then our work copy of the official website. This process was introduced for several reasons:

• a static copy, using pure Html files, is faster that a Php website
• the website contents can be quietly updated on the work copy several days before a release is out
• web designers can experiment changes without disturbing the official site

The main drawback is that visitors cannot write messages on our website anymore. They need to contact us by email, on IRC, on social networks, using tickets or through mailing lists. Quite a lot though!

As a result, authors work on the work copy of our website, as our visitors browse the static copy. A static copy is automatically built every night and is browsable online too. However the nightly copy is currently converted into the official website manually, after several checks are performed. This is why the author’s work can take several days to really go online. In the future we plan to automate this operation, supposing we find a reliable algorithm for the tests.

Shortly:

• authors are working on Spip, the work copy of our website
• a nightly static copy is made every night
• a nightly copy is manually switched into the official website when needed