Editing and maintaining the Project Home page

Project help for project owner administration: Index

Project owner administration
  You are here: Editing and maintaining the Project Home page
  - Maintaining project information
  - About the 'Use Project Home Page' option
  - Updating the owner's message
  - About configuring project mailing lists
  - About project locking
  Managing project site news
  Managing project files
  Adding project members and approving roles
  Configuring and managing project mailing lists
  Managing project documentation
  Managing project source code
  Tracking project issues
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Maintaining project information

The Project Home page is the entry point for all project users, members as well as potential contributors. The primary role of the Project Home page is to highlight the project's mission, primary goals, current status, and ongoing needs.

NOTE: For a good example of summarizing project goals and status, see the open source Subversion project home page.

Project information can be modified through the Administer Projects page, accessed by one of the following methods:

- At first login, the home page has a My Projects link as well as an Admin link to the Project Edit page.

- Once you are on your Project Home page or other project pages, use the Admin link in the Project Resources tool bar at the top of every screen.

The Project Home page has the following fields which are also part of the project creation process:

- Project Name
- Summary
- Description
- License
- Project Category.

By clicking on the Edit this Project link you can modify the information in each of these fields. Because the description field accommodates html formatting and graphics, you can use this to customize and add information to your project home page.

There are several additional fields in the Administer Projects page that do not appear during the project creation process:

- Message From the Owner(s)
- Edit this Project
- Request New Project Role

About the 'Use Project Home Page' option

Your Project Home page by default displays the content that you entered in the Description field in the Administer Project page.

Because some projects require more complex home pages, however, you have the option to store and display special home page content from a different file. The "Use Index" flag in the Administer Project page indicates that your project home page should display the contents of the "index.html" file instead of displaying description field information from the database. This file is located in:

> http://yourprojectname.this domain/www/index.html

This file is part of the project's source code repository under CVS version control. If you check the "Use Index" flag, this means you must update your home page content by editing the index.html file, saving it, and then committing it into CVS to display the newest file revision in your project's home page. When you use the index.html file, you can include HTML formatting, graphics, and other more complex elements for your project's home page.

Updating the owner's message

Initially you use the field to identify yourself as the project owner and convey project goals. As the project progresses, use the Owner's Message to highlight project milestones, list changing requirements, and identify particular resource needs. For example, you may advertise the types of development expertise currently being sought:

> "Desperately seeking experienced Java servlet developers with a passion for creating apps that will change the world."

Or, you can give updates about the current status of development and what's coming up next.

However you use this field, your Owner's Message should be updated frequently: usually once a week, but no less than monthly. Fresh messages convey a sense of excitement and momentum; critical perceptions to the growth of development projects.

About configuring project mailing lists

The Project Edit page is also the place to administer your project's mailing list. To find out more about this, see Configuring and managing project mailing lists.

About project locking

If you have received email notification that your project is locked, you should contact a site administrator immediately for further information. Project locking means that site administrators have temporarily disabled your project. This may be due to site policy matters, technical issues, or other reasons.

When you load your Project Home or Project Edit page, you encounter the "Locked" flag in red at the top. All site-related project activity is suspended in locked projects. Your project pages can still be accessed and all existing project data is intact, however you and your project members temporarily have read-only access to the source code repository, email archives, issue database, project files, and documents. No one -- including you -- can commit source code, enter issues, upload or download files and documents, change web content, or subscribe to or modify mailing lists. If your locked project is a public project, other site users can still view your project's home page but the project is flagged as "locked."

A site administrator must unlock your project to reactivate it. You will receive email notification when this action is taken also.

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