Extend TorStatus navigation to cover metrics website parts
I would like to merge the new TorStatus website with the metrics website. Both websites are based on the same information, but focusing on a) the most recent network status vs. b) aggregate statistics on the network status over time. A single website would be much easier to maintain.
Developers seem to prefer Python/Django over JSP, so I'm happy to move the metrics website parts to Django and give up the metrics website once we're done. But we need a new navigation in TorStatus to cover everything. This ticket is for discussing this navigation and the possible migration.
The current TorStatus navigation bar contains these links:
- Current Result Set
- Reset Search Filters
- Tor Exit Node Query
- Advanced Search
- Display Options
- Network Statistics
- Download CSV of Current Result Set (only shows up on results page)
Most of the functionality is arranged around searching for relays (Current Result Set, Reset Search Filters, Tor Exit Node Query, Advanced Search, Display Options, Download CSV of Current Result Set). I wonder how we can arrange these pages in a way that they all belong to a "Relay Search" part of the navigation. The current TorStatus landing page could also be the landing page for the combined TorStatus and metrics website.
The graphs on the Network Statistics page should either be integrated into the Network page on the metrics website, or be removed. In general, I don't find bar graphs very useful, because they eat a lot of space while providing little information. I think the only reason why they're on the new TorStatus website is that they were on the old TorStatus website. But if people find them really really useful, I can still be convinced to keep them.
The current sitemap of the metrics website contains the following links:
From these pages, Home, Graphs, Research, and Status can go away. They only explain what's on the subpages. Well, Home contained some news of the Metrics page, but I don't think anyone read those. Also, we have a blog and a Tor website for news.
The pages Network, Users, Packages, and Performance should be integrated into the new TorStatus if possible. This requires us to provide custom graphs and tables based on user input. Of course, the interface can be different, but it would be good to keep the functionality. For the moment, we could add links to the metrics website to the TorStatus navigation, and once we have the code in TorStatus, we can link to the new pages.
The pages Papers, Data, and Tools contain mostly static content, except for the list of tarballs on the Data page. But we might simply link to an Apache directory containing the tarballs. I could imagine moving these pages to the Tor website.
The pages ExoneraTor, Relay Search, and Consensus Health are what TorStatus could provide as part of its "Relay Search" functionality. These pages are all about searching relays and getting an idea of the network status. In fact, these pages are only on the metrics website because we didn't have a useful TorStatus and because it was easy to extend the metrics website.
There, that's my idea of how we could change the current navigations on TorStatus and the metrics website. I'm not sure how exactly a combined navigation would look like. Thoughts?