Thoughts on Netlify

[Harnum, Alan]

I will echo some of Jon's thoughts - I don't feel like, at least in the version I tested, the Netlify UI achieves the desirable "someone who doesn't know markup can create content in a WYSIWYG interface" effect.

It also seems like use of the features that make a static site generator desirable (repeated headers / footers, short codes / helpers, etc) may cause the interface to present in confusing ways - the "rich text" option displays HTML tags and Hugo shortcodes, and generally doesn't behave like I'd expect a rich text / WYSIWYG interface to behave. This is likely to be a block on the ability of users to edit and create content.

I do like the workflow setup at a glance, but my quick take is that this feels like it's optimized for managing blog/news-style sites, and may require further wrangling to actually make it something that can manage a full website (this same thing can be said for Wordpress, to be fair).

On 2018-12-12, 10:52 AM, "fluid-work on behalf of Gill, Avtar" <fluid-work-bounces at lists.idrc.ocad.ca on behalf of agill at ocadu.ca> wrote:

    Hi Jon,
    
    Thanks for your feedback!
    
    > If the site maintainers wanted to change some colours, add a logo to the footer, or adjust some layout - they would still have to use the traditional method of modifying the code.
    
    This sounds about right. It might be worth comparing Netlify CMS to something like WordPress. One person might be comfortable with HTML and CSS enough to customize the theme being used or tackle layout issues. Whereas others might only want to edit content on pages or create new blog posts. In this respect perhaps Hugo and Netlify CMS serve the same purpose?
    
    Avtar
    
    
    > On Dec 11, 2018, at 5:36 PM, Hung, Jonathan <jhung at ocadu.ca> wrote:
    > 
    > Hi everyone (specifically "Hi Avtar" since he asked for this feedback),
    > 
    > I spent a couple minutes exploring Netlify and here are my incoherent thoughts (you've been warned).
    > 
    > The interface only allows editing or creating content. It doesn't seem to allow you to do much more than that.
    > 
    > If the site maintainers wanted to change some colours, add a logo to the footer, or adjust some layout - they would still have to use the traditional method of modifying the code.
    > 
    > Netlify is not a full-serve "user-friendly" interface for administering and maintaining Hugo sites - it seems to me to be more of an interface for data entry with a bit of workflow control. You still need someone capable of maintaining a traditional Hugo site.
    > 
    > Depending on who will be using Netlify + Hugo once deployed, there may need to be some training or documentation covering capabilities of Netlify (including can not be done) and typical workflows. Some documentation about the custom shortcodes would be useful too.
    > 
    > Hope that helps.
    > 
    > - Jon.
    > 
    > ---
    > Jonathan Hung, Inclusive Designer
    > Email: jhung at ocadu.ca
    > OCAD University
    > Inclusive Design Research Centre
    > 
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