Should leoeditor.com Be Moved To GitHub or Somewhere Else?

[Thomas Passin]

Currently Speed Ream (@Edward's brother, IIUC) is the registered contact for leoeditor.com and the domain name registrar is Launchpad.com, according to Whois.com.  I don't know where the actual server is, who pays for it, or who is authorized to put anything on it or modify anything that's there.

I wonder if it's time that leoeditor.com be made more available, at least to actively contributing members of the Leo community.  Could there be a home for the server that doesn't require a periodic payment, for example?  We don't want it to go away if something happens to the wrong person at the wrong time.  And someone outside of {Edward, Speed} needs to be able to know how to access and administer it.

Perhaps this is already taken care of, and I just don't know where it's written up?

[Edward K. Ream]

Thanks for reminding me of this issue. I have just reopened #480.

Iirc there needs to be some close collaboration between Speed and whoever is assigned to make the move. The previous attempt failed--iirc both collaborators were waiting for the other.

Thomas, are you willing to take on this project?  If so I'll give you Speed's phone and email.

Edward

[Thomas Passin]

I might be willing, but I'm thinking it would be better to have someone younger pick it up - you know, better for long-term corporate memory and all that.  I'd be willing to work on getting it all moved over and working if no one else is able to just now.

It seems to me that the content at leoeditor.com could be hosted on GitHub at no additional cost.  Any non-commercial GitHub project can do so.  I don't know about linking the domain name to it, but we can work on that.  If need be, we could change all the documentation links and slowly deprecate leoeditor.com. (I don't know how nostalgic you (@edward) feel about that domain name)

[jkn]

I'm not very clear about the motivation - what does 'make leoeditor.com more available...' mean?

If it's an idea towards (for instance) allowing more, interested, parties contributing to Leo's documentation, then I think that is a good idea. It's not clear to me whether that is where the suggestion is coming from.

I would have thought that this could be done without deprecating leoeditor.com; plenty of projects seem to separate out code and documentation in this way. I don't know if the cost of serving leoeditor.com is an issue...

J^n

[Thomas Passin]

I meant that the server should be more available to devs or an admin.  Right now, it may very well that only Speed and Edward can access it to make changes, etc. Also, someone is presumably paying for the server and the domain.  That person might go away or lose interest at some time, and then no one else would be able to maintain the server or domain.

If the documentation were moved to github.io, and the links changed to point there instead of leoeditor.com, newer users could find the docs and the older docs on leoeditor.com could slowly age away.

[Edward K. Ream]

On Wednesday, December 28, 2022 at 3:04:39 PM UTC-6 tbp1...@gmail.com wrote:

I meant that the server should be more available to devs or an admin.  Right now, it may very well that only Speed and Edward can access it to make changes, etc.

Thanks to all for your comments.

After looking at the docs for GitHub Pages, I think I should do the admin work required to transfer leo-editor.com. Once the DNS stuff goes through any Leo dev (including me) should be able to update Leo's docs simply by doing a PR to a dedicated branch.

I have just created #3019 for this project. It's a restart of #480, which I have just now closed.

Edward

[Thomas Passin]

That would be great!  GitHub Pages only support static pages, so any PHP usage will need to be reworked not to use it.  Also, won't someone need to keep renewing and paying for the leoeditor.com domain, if that becomes linked to GitHub Pages?  If so, ultimately it would be good to phase that DNS entry out.

[Félix]

Indeed, using the technique referenced by Edward at https://pages.github.com/, (which I used for https://boltex.github.io/) would yield the URL https://leo-editor.github.io/ which I feel is totally acceptable, and would be available without maintenance nor fees, for years if not decades.

Félix

[Thomas Passin]

I agree. There are sites out there that refer to leoeditor.com, like the LeoVue web site.  It would probably be good if those links could still work for some time as we got the new site going.

[Edward K. Ream]

> Félix: the technique referenced by Edward at https://pages.github.com/, (which I used for https://boltex.github.io/) would yield the URL https://leo-editor.github.io/ which I feel is totally acceptable, and would be available without maintenance nor fees, for years if not decades.

> Thomas: I agree. There are sites out there that refer to leoeditor.com, like the LeoVue web site.  It would probably be good if those links could still work for some time as we got the new site going.

I'm convinced. We should phase out leoeditor.com in favor of a new website hosted on GitHub. Using ensure that Leo's website (including documentation) will continue after my brother and I are gone.

I have just updated #3019 with the following plan:

1. Create a new website using GitHub pages. Details (and url) unclear at present.

   I expect to continue to use Sphinx to create Leo's documentation.

2. When all looks good (and works as expected), change the top-level leo-editor.com page so that it redirects visitors to the new url. We will not transfer leo-editor.com domain itself to the new site.

This plan eliminates the need to change the DNS entries for leoeditor.com. Eventually leoeditor.com will "wither away".

Any comments or suggestions?

Edward

[Thomas Passin]

I'm comfortable with this approach.  Once the new site is up and working, let's try contacting each site that we know references leoeditor.com and inform them of the change.  That won't catch everything but I don't know what else we can do, once leoeditor.com itself lapses at some point in the future.

[George Zipperlen]

I don't know how long I would count on whoever in the future owns github to continue hosting *.github.io when some future beancounter reassesses their margins.

E.g.  I'm glad that leoeditor.com wasn't hosted on geocities... sourceforge... google+...

Even GitLab is mumbling about "inactive" repositories... cue CI/CD script to auto add new comment periodically.

[George Zipperlen]

PS.  archive.org *is* a long term resource, be sure to archive leoeditor.com after each major release.

"Cool URIs don't change" < https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html >

On Tuesday, December 27, 2022 at 4:51:52 PM UTC-6 tbp1...@gmail.com wrote:

[Edward K. Ream]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2023 at 3:10 PM George Zipperlen <george.z...@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't know how long I would count on whoever in the future owns github to continue hosting *.github.io when some future beancounter reassesses their margins.

I don't like to worry about things that might happen :-) For sure it's time to move Leo's site away from Speed's server.

Edward

[Thomas Passin]

Don't worry, leoeditor.com is in the Wayback Machine going back to 2013 -