redesigning lclark.edu

Trillium

Trillium is old, but the web site is older.

I’ve been out and about having meetings and giving presentations on the redesign to various groups across the campuses and have adopted the phrase Morgan coined some time ago when talking about the replacement of Trillium with LiveWhale — that its full name is “Trillium 2000” — but have you ever wondered how long ago Lewis & Clark joined the then officially titled World Wide Web?

Lewis & Clark on the World Wide WebSo, with a little help from Shelly Meyer, editor of the Chronicle, we have the answer in this article that appeared in the Winter 1996 edition.

Also published: https://media.zendesk.com/forums/22045/entries/31176

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How long will Trillium live?

As I was writing about the short-term future usage of Trillium for sending Constant Contact emails, it struck me that I haven’t really talked about what will happen to Trillium on a longer-term basis. All this hasn’t been confirmed with IT yet, so let’s just call it a general plan or some issues to consider.

First, we’d like to shut down editing of Trillium pages as soon as reasonable for the simple reason that we don’t want people thinking they’ve updated their web site (somehow) not knowing that their pages are no longer indexed by us or any other service like Google.

But, we do want to keep an accessible, archival copy of the Trillium site around for at least a year. This is in part because a number of sites keep annual pages that they refresh each year for a symposia, or other such time-based content. We also expect that after migration slows up, we’ll still find something that was missed and needs to make it over to the new server, or historical information we’d like to add post-launch.

Now, this archival copy need not be the fully-fledged version currently in use. After we turn off editing, we might instead grab a static copy of the content and keep that available elsewhere even as we shut down the current server. That way, we’d have all the usage without having to maintain the server anymore.

At any rate, we’ll probably play it by ear to see what happens and what we can reasonably do at each point along the way. If you have concerns about this, be sure to email us so that your voice is heard.

Also published: https://media.zendesk.com/forums/22045/entries/31096

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What about Constant Contact?

In an email to me recently, Monica Baker asked about the use of Trillium for future Constant Contact emails, since Trillium will still be around, even if it is no longer the main web server. And, short-term, yes this probably would work.

At present, we’re expecting to take the new web server and have it replace the server currently responding to www.lclark.edu and the schools and then rename the current web server with Trillium to something like old.lclark.edu.

Now, while that server will no longer be indexed by web search like Google et al., it will still be accessible for archival purposes while we continue to migrate old services off of it. So, you might simply replace the www in the domain address with something like old for old.lclark.edu.

However, we don’t intend to keep Trillium around for active editing for a long period, and will probably shut down the ability to log into it within six months to a year after launch (depending on needs, etc.). So, this is not a long-term solution.

With regards to Constant Contact, I’d be in favor of switching over from Trillium-built content to using its internal templated system, since it also is a bit difficult to try and force it to consume ours. And further, it would also be great to integrate email directly into Raiser’s Edge as well. There are a lot of options out there, I’d love to begin a campus-wide discussion on bulk email — but, after the launch. :)

Also published:  https://media.zendesk.com/forums/22045/entries/31094

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Goodbye Trillium, Hello LiveWhale!

As we move forward with our website redesign, I would like to mention a very important step in the process. Trillium, our content management system for the past few years, is being phased out this semester in favor of a new system called LiveWhale, which has increased functionality and ease of use.  I am in the initial stages of developing LiveWhale training for everyone.  This will include workshops, one-on-one meetings, and online resources.  We will let you know as these become available.

In the meantime, I will continue to help you answer all your Trillium questions.

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Trillium & Web Novices

One thing great about Trillium that should be in everyone’s mind: People who are novices to webwork can actually get some fairly complex content online.   Each page is a separate html file that can be accessed via the “secret button,” which wonderfully takes them to a true WYSIWYG page for them to edit their content.  Content is split into blocks that are accessed individually right above the block itself; see the image below for a block containing a short unordered list: Trillium block Users know exactly what they are manipulating.  And they can remove [rmv], or add something new above it [ins], or change the order with other blocks [ ^ v ] , or of course edit it right there.  There is little chance of a user manipulating the wrong content. Furthermore this content can be headlines (with a choice of h-tags), text with autoformatted p-tags, text with autoformatted br-tags, objects like images or .pdfs inserted from Trillium’s Object Utility, autoformatted links, autoformatted lists, autoformatted tables, or even out-and-out HTML.  Additionally, users can repeat their blocks via the “Existing Content Block” feature. While this interface can be frustratingly simplistic  at times, it also can be quite convenient even for the most advanced users; more importantly, it enables users with little knowledge of HTML and other Web technologies to post and maintain their content.

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