I’m a newcomer to discourse, and am part of a group in Ireland that is looking to set up platform to facilitate volunteer collaboration.
We’ve tried Slack, but it doesn’t really scale for us, and while discourse looks great, I’m not sure how to get the front page looking as I would like.
I have done a (very!) rough mock up of what I would like the homepage to look like. Would you know where I could find a contractor to do a days’ work on it?
Can I paste/upload an image? Link to Google Drive above shows a quick wireframe (the first one I’ve done) of what the homepage might look like.
Discourse allows for a choice of the “front page” I think most Discourse forums use Latest, some Categories and few, other pages.
In my experience, in a lot of cases CSS can be easily used to alter a pages style,
There are a few settings and Admin -> Customize options that can be used.
And there are quite a few plugin-outlets that can be used.
In extreme cases it is possible to over-ride template files - but - IMHO this is not the wisest approach. The template files are a mix of HTML and “mustache” placeholders. Any time Discourse core changes you may find things broken when you upgrade. Even if not a maintenance nightmare, the chore could get old fast.
AFAIK some have alternate static pages, but I don’t know the details of how they may have done things.
So tl;dr
If you have a good grasp of CSS and HTML you may be able to come up with something that satisfies your wants quite easily.
If you know a bit about the Admin UI options better yet. In fact, knowing the Admin UI well may mean you don’t need to know any HTML / CSS - there’s a lot there.
Else you may need to know some Ruby and / or Ember.
Do any of these pages closely resemble what you’re thinking of having as the “front page”?
If so, it’s a simple matter of putting the one you want as the first.
Another way to do what you describe is to set up a Wordpress (or whatever) site that has the stuff on your “Front page” and have discourse be separate (e.g., just make the “join the conversation” button a link to discourse.yoursite.com). That’ll give you complete and easy control over that landing page (and and require little mucking around with Discourse.
Thanks both & apologies for not replying sooner. Given my utter lack of html/css or Admin UI knowledge, I think the best way to start might be to have the wordpress Front page and do as little customisation of Discourse as possible to avoid upgrade shocks.
I’m trying to bring together the people that might be able to help me with this; at the moment budget is zero but if someone wants to contact me privately and quote for the various elements that I need, I’d be happy to discuss. Thx
