It’s no secret that the Fedora Websites and Apps Team has been hard at work. For over a year, we have been overhauling Fedora’s website architecture, design, and content management. During this time, we’ve collaborated with the Fedora Design, Marketing , and Infrastructure teams. We’ve also worked with members of each official Edition’s team. It’s been a pleasure to build web pages that reflect the hard work of these teams while also showcasing the vibrancy of the Fedora community. Timed with the launch of Fedora Linux 38, the community also gets the new Fedora Websites 3.0 release.

Along with modernizing Fedora’s websites, we have sought to make it easier for non and new coders to contribute with a Git-based Content Management System (CMS) that features a simple GUI. The move to Nuxt 3 (a hybrid rendering VueJS framework) offers an exciting, modern, and reasonably-intuitive developer experience. It should be easy for anyone with basic HTML, CSS, and Javascript knowledge to pick up. We’ve also switched from Bootstrap to Tailwind CSS because it is lighter weight and easier to learn.

This launch is important. It’s the culmination of countless hours of work, learning, debate, creation, and growth by our team members. It’s also the culmination of lessons learned from the rich history of Fedora Linux’s past. Check out Máirín Duffy and Sayak Sarkar’s Nest With Fedora 2022 talk for more details. Other websites and applications will be able to take advantage of the technical and design foundations that we have established. With this launch, we are just getting started.

 Objectives of this release

Our primary goal is to release web pages for all five Editions when Fedora Linux 38 lands. We believe this timing is most appropriate. The websites’ revamp has focused heavily on making the Fedora Project websites more accessible to new contributors. So what better time to get involved than with two exciting releases?

Two key features of this launch are the global navigation bar and the Git-based CMS Jamstack architecture. Our long-term plan is to make an exportable version of the navbar. That way, non-VueJS based sites can use the same nav system. Prior to this, we will optimize and enhance the navbar based on community usage and feedback. This will bring all of the Fedora Project’s websites into one easily navigable space. New contributors should find it easier to contribute using the GUI for content editing. In alignment with this goal, teams will be able to manage their page content more easily and with shorter wait times.  This will free up time for Fedora Websites and Apps developers and designers to work on other revamp efforts, all while expanding on the component library and design system that was born out of this exciting release. 

Feedback and follow up

Prior to the official release later this month, we are looking for feedback on usability, accessibility, and functionality. If you encounter problems such as illegibility due to color or dark mode, broken or incorrect links, or screen responsiveness issues, we would love to hear from you! Please open up a ticket in our Gitlab Repository. Note the web page and any particulars that you can (screen shots are very helpful), and we will follow up as quickly as we are able to.

We hope that you enjoy what we’ve done with these websites. Change always takes time, and there will still be tweaks and edits to come. As noted, these designs, the content, and the underlying architecture have gone through changes brought about by multiple stages of team and community review, and we are confident that this work reflects well on the community and identity of Fedora Project. 

However, this is only a beginning and we look forward to seeing what will come of future development from team members who have not yet joined in on the action! Be it from a design, content editing, or development perspective; the Fedora Websites and Apps Team is a welcoming place that aims to foster growth, creativity, and collaboration.

Shout outs

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people for their hard work.

Fedora Design Team

Thank you to Máirín Duffy, Emma Kidney, Madeline Peck, Jess Chitas, Ashlyn Knox, and Dawn Desmarais. Your work on the mockups, logo design, usability testing, and user experience (UX) prototyping has made all the difference. The passionate and inspired efforts from these folks led to incredible evolution of the Fedora Project’s visual brand. Your work has also established a design system that has made it possible to deploy cohesive pages quickly. Another thank-you goes out to the Fedora Design Team members who were involved in the discussions and hack sessions during the creation and review of these designs.

Fedora Web & Apps Team

Thank you to Niko Dunk, François Andrieu, Ashlyn Knox, Matt, Jefferson Oliviera, Gregory Lee Bartholomew, Sayak Sarkar, Deepesh Nair, and Onuralp Sezer. From the early stages where frameworks were tested and debated, to the +2000 commits that went into this effort. You put your minds and hands to the task of building the fabulous designs into existence. You have set the stage for an exciting new era of web development in Fedora Project.

User Testers

During the past year, we ran a series of user tests on different aspects of the revamp. Most notably the navigation system and the CMS interface. For their valuable feedback, time, and energy. We’d also like to also thank Hari Rana, Gregory Lee Bartholomew, Matthew Miller, Ben Cotton, François Andrieu, and everyone who participated during the test session at Nest With Fedora 2022. Your efforts helped us build a better website. You also helped us learn how to normalize user experience as part of Fedora’s web development workflow.

General Shoutouts

We’d also like to thank the members of the translation team who have been hard at work making these web pages accessible to people all over the world. Finally, we would also like to thank the Fedora Websites & Apps Community Initiative lead Akashdeep Dhar and our Mindshare representative, Onuralp Sezer. This team would not be here without the coordination, advocacy, mentorship, and leadership they have provided. 

What’s Next?

The Fedora Website and Apps team has already begun planning the next phase of our website revamp. Which includes exciting projects like revamping the Fedora Badges system. We will also be improving the codebase, making the exportable nav, writing documentation, migrating a component library, and reviewing feedback. There is plenty of exciting work to do. We enthusiastically welcome folks to the team who want to get in on the action. However, I think that I speak for everyone who has worked on this when I say that a little rest is due. We will be looking forward to seeing our work be enjoyed by you all.

Feel free to let us know what you think in the automatically generated discussions forum. If you run into any bugs in our site, please open up an issue. Or if you are interested in getting involved, check out our documentation, join us for one of our meetings, or jump into our Matrix chat at #websites:fedoraproject.org.