QMCPy + QMC Software Architecture, including transition `qmcpy.org` from WordPress to GitHub Pages

[fjhickernell]

Background

The qmcpy.org website has been migrated from WordPress hosting to GitHub Pages.

Current status

• Domain registration remains with WordPress.com (Automattic) through August 2028.
• DNS continues to be managed by WordPress.com.
• WordPress Business hosting is no longer required.
• GitHub Pages has been configured to serve qmcpy.org as the project's website.
• HTTPS is provided by GitHub Pages.
• A repository (QMCSoftware/qmcpy-website) was created to host the new site.
• The current homepage is simply the repository README and serves only as a placeholder.

The existing project documentation remains unchanged at

https://qmcsoftware.github.io/QMCSoftware/

Motivation

The website should become the public face of the project rather than simply exposing the documentation.

Recent discussions have explored branding the Python package as QMCPy, allowing room for future sibling projects such as QMCJulia.

The website architecture should accommodate whichever direction the project ultimately chooses.

Current Infrastructure

Domain

• Domain: qmcpy.org
• Registrar: WordPress.com
• DNS: WordPress.com

Website hosting

• GitHub Pages
• Repository: QMCSoftware/qmcpy-website

Existing documentation

https://qmcsoftware.github.io/QMCSoftware/

Questions for discussion

1. Purpose of the homepage

Should qmcpy.org primarily be:

• the QMCPy project homepage?
• a landing page for all QMCSoftware projects?
• simply redirect to the documentation?

2. Website technology

Choose an implementation approach for the project website.

Possible options include:

• Quarto
• plain HTML
• another static site generator
• reuse the existing documentation toolchain

The choice should consider long-term maintainability, contributor familiarity, and integration with the project's documentation and software ecosystem.

3. Website organization

Possible top-level navigation:

• Home
• Installation
• Documentation
• Tutorials
• Examples
• Publications
• Contributors
• News
• GitHub

Potential future links:

• QMCPy (Python)
• QMCJulia
• Other implementations

4. Documentation strategy

Should the new website primarily:

• link to the existing documentation,
• incorporate the documentation,
• or use another approach?

5. Branding

Pending discussion:

• Continue using QMCSoftware as the primary public brand.
• Brand the Python package as QMCPy, allowing room for future sibling projects such as QMCJulia.
• Determine the long-term relationship between the public website, project names, and the GitHub organization.

Initial tasks

• Replace README placeholder homepage.
• Decide on overall website architecture.
• Choose homepage design.
• Decide on the website implementation technology.
• Add navigation to the existing documentation.
• Add links to the GitHub organization and repositories.
• Add installation instructions.
• Add project overview.
• Verify HTTPS enforcement after certificate provisioning.
• Test both qmcpy.org and www.qmcpy.org.
• Decide who will maintain the project website.

Long-term vision

The website should become the central public entry point for the project while allowing the documentation, software repositories, and future language implementations (e.g., QMCPy and QMCJulia) to evolve independently.

Goal

Reach consensus on the long-term public website architecture before investing significant effort in implementation.

[fjhickernell]

If you go to qmcpy.org now, you see a much prettier website with placeholders for different things. I would like to open a comment period, where you can say whether you like it, if you want different font sizes, or different organization. Please comment here so that we can collect them.

[alegresor]

This looks great @fjhickernell!

1 Purpose of the homepage

I think it may work best as a landing page for all QMCSoftware projects, including

• QMCPy (after changing the name from QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware to QMCSoftware/QMCPy)
• LDData
• QMCToolsCL
• QuasiMC.jl
• ...

2: Website technology

The current Quarto markdown style looks quite nice.

3: Website organization

• home: including a unified description and subsections for each of the repos
• publications
• blogs
• contributors
• news
• repos: a drop down with one level select the project (e.g. LDData or QMCToolsCL) and another level to select either documentation, GitHub, or distribution. No actual pages here, just a 2-level dropdown with links

4. Documentation strategy

I think primarily a link to existing docs with a brief unifying description of the QMCSoftware landscape.

5. Branding

I think we continue with QMC Software as the primary public brand and then rename the current QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware to QMCSoftware/QMCPy

URLs

If we rename the repo from QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware to QMCSoftware/QMCPy, the QMCPy docs currently at https://qmcsoftware.github.io/QMCSoftware/ will migrate over to https://qmcsoftware.github.io/QMCPy/ and GitHub will automatically redirect old links to the new website so long as we do not create a recreate a new QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware repo after renaming.

If we want qmcpy.org to be the hub for all things QMCSoftware, then maybe we go with a URL like qmcsoftware.org. We could then have qmcpy.org reroute to this new URL.

In both situations, the redirects are only necessary to maintain links in previous publications.

[fjhickernell]

Thank you @alegresor, @sou-cheng-choi, and others for your feedback so far. Regarding where the content is host, I will consult with ChatGPT. Right now the website is on its own repo and that may continue. Docs should probably be on the repo that they document. Blogs and publications and news might be on the website repo they are shared among several projects. I like the the direction that Aleksei is suggesting. I will need to make some edits, of course but not too big. The big thing will be that I will need the help of team members to migrate, blogs publications, etc. please give your comments by today or tomorrow, and then we will move forward.

[fjhickernell]

based on Aleksei's suggestion, I have now secured qmcsoftware.org &.com. After more comments, we can move forward as we please.

After tomorrow, I will draft some sub-issues.

[fjhickernell]

A prototype is now in pull request QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware.github.io#2. Please take a look.

[fjhickernell]

One problem is that the new website points to https://github.com/QMCSoftware/QMCSoftware/blob/develop/cite_qmcpy.bib. This needs to go to main, but it also needs to be updated. @schoi32 and @alegresor should we put our Zenodo reference or an updated version 2.x compatible reference?