New Website Plan and Discussion

The new PanAfrican Localisation Network project succeeds the PAL project in early 2008 and will run for 3 years. It will use the same webspace, though at least temporarily making use of one of the alternate URLs, http://www.PanAfriL10n.net/ . The new project site will incorporate information already on the current one plus a lot more. Please help with your ideas below.

1. Requirements

• Multilingual
  • how many languages?
    • I'd suggest two categories of languages - "working" and "localisation" - with English and French as the first two for working languages; some parts of the site or basic info can be put in the localisation languages (and if anyone is ambitious, as much more as they can do) - Don
  • which languages?
    • English and French as the first two "working languages"; all languages specifically listed as localization targets as "localisation languages" -Don
  • all are LTR languages? (RTL language will require an RTL theme)
    • Should try to have something in Arabic of course, which would be the main RTL/bidirectional language; some locales for some languages could include Ajami or N'Ko transcriptions, so maybe something in those could have some presence on the site too -Don
  • Should support fallback for incomplete translations
• News, events, documents, reports, photos, notes categorized by sub-projects
• Blogs for members
• Comments on news, events, documents, blogs, ..
• Subprojects pages to list sub project decription, members list and include reports, documents, ..etc.
• Feeds from other interesting sites and external blogs
• Access levels? How many different roles and what will be their access permissions?
  • Beware of over-restricting; permit comments by anyone with kaptcha if necessary; use log-ins for project members to access specific areas -Don
• Cross links with & continued development of info on the existing site.

2. Potential Project Names

In addition to the formal project name, a shorter name is being sought. As an example, the "Réseau Mondial pour la Diversité Linguistique / World Network for Linguistic Diversity" chose the name "Maaya" (from the Manding language) as its short name. Please feel free to post here any names you think will be suitable for this project.

• Koya Gana (submitted by Karim Mardini)
  • This is an attempt to say "red earth talks" in Hausa (I think). I don't know the language so the conjugation might be wrong. I think it flows nicely and has a catchy sound. Comments from Tunde and any Hausa speakers are welcome :). I also believe having the name restricted to two syllables as opposed to four would be better and easier to remember.
    • See my comments on the idea of coining an African language new project name - Don

3. Website Design

3.1 Homepage screenshots:

Below is a couple of screenshots of the homepage, please note:

• The internal pages will use a fluid width layout
• The second screenshot shows what happens when you hover on one of the main navigation sections (About us, partners, projects, etc.).
• In the internal pages, the navigation sections will be converted to navigation menu links, i.e they will not take the same height.
• As a graphical element, we are writing the same menu link 'word' in a different script of one of the localisation languages in PALNet (will need your input regarding the exact word to be used).
  • 1st one is about us as said in Arabic: 'an al mashro' and written in Arabic script
  • 2nd one is partners in Manding written in N'Ko, we need to have the exact word.
  • 3rd one is projects said in Amharic and written in Ge'ez/Ethiopic, we need to verify that this is the right word.
  • 4th one is forums said in Berber written in Tifinagh, we need to have the exact word.

3.2 Internal page screenshot: