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@elmsln

HAX The Web

Improving education by improving the open web through big, open sourced, world changing ideas.

The web needs more moonshots bent on improving the web for everyone. This is one of those. Write HTML without realizing it, in a highly semantic, forever format that never breaks, won't need maintained, and yet is easy to use. Let's unlock creativity and self expression for all users, regardless of technical ability.

HAX

The authoring experience of HAX and the ability to make fast, static file backed websites rapidly. Get all the details you want on HAXTheWeb.org! HAX seeks to be the smallest possible back-end CMS to make HAX work and be able to build websites with it. Leveraging JSON Outline Schema, HAX is able to author multiple pages, which it then writes onto the file system. This way a slim server layer is just for basic authentication, knowing how to save files, and placing them in version control.

Watch and Read more about HAX here:

Issues / Support / Community

Everything you need to get others interested

Definitions

  • hax - headless authoring experience. A platform built on web components
  • web components - an HTML browser meta specification envisioned in 2011, gaining full browser adoption in 2018, market / user acceptance in 2021
  • JS modules - <script type="module"> means that JS can sustainably reference other js files
  • custom elements - meaning we can define our own valid HTML tags and define them
  • <template> - an HTML tag that says "hold valid HTML but don't actually stamp / render it until told"
  • shadowDom - meaning CSS / functionality is scoped to the component.

Why this spec is so powerful

  • make new html tags out of old ones... or new ones and stack new ones in newer ones
  • single what-ever.js file is a <what-ever> tag
  • low level browser spec means they are highly performant
  • Any library that inherits from this spec works together naturally
  • Our team has made over 924 open source web components that can stack infinitely

Why this will kill wordpress in edu (long term, in many instances, focusing on pedagogy atm)

  • faster to build a site
  • static by default
  • portable - download as zip
  • forever - HTML, built using web standards, load the JS and you load the semantic tags
  • Built with microservices in mind - advanced functionality shipped off to individual microservices on vercel. backend does minimal it has to to save in right location, know who you are (JWT) and rebuild the static files
  • hax (editor only) integrations - drupal 6,7,8,9 / wordpress / gravcms / anywhere h-a-x can be loaded and wrapped
  • new bricks are always HTML spec web component that works anywhere 1st, then inform HAX about how to edit it(bricks can be engineered to help improve UX in HAX if that's required though)
  • working on import from pressbooks... which is wordpress.
  • working on screen scrapers to convert common WP / Drupal themes into haxcms sites

Public examples of things built

What we need

  • people to bang on it, bump against it, and ask probing questions, more eyes on it and challenging it
  • docs / marketing / style guide - putting students on this
  • collaborators
  • grants, media, published articles,
  • external momentum

What we have

  • three colleges contributing + university library leveraging this currently (40 more site rolls outs by library slated over the next 2 years).
  • 0 internal marketting (starting late July) and yet, 1500+ of accounts (yet I've only had about 300 students)
  • A pipeline where I train ~54 developers a semester in the tech stack that powers HAX and their final projects solve a different need we have in our project
  • Top solutions adopted (last semester solutions: https://github.com/elmsln/issues/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3A7B+ )
  • Top contributors tapped to do more involving independent studies in teams
  • A team of instructional designers, ID assistants, faculty, multimedia, accessibility experts, site builders, students, developers and 1 engineer with an activist mindset.
  • Weekly processing / intake of issues from users
  • Monthly core team user group to review possible solutions / problems
  • bi-monthly faculty advisory council that is shown solutions and gets feedback prior to roll out

core tenants

links

Deep dive articles about the tech

What is all this

Install on your own stuff (or Reclaim cloud / hosting)

site builder / copy and paste and play

front end developer

I want to contribute / join the community / connect

Welcome, to Project #edTechJoker ♎+🃏+🔥+ 👥 + ♥️ ≥ 💸 "Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have."

Pinned

  1. HAXcms HAXcms Public

    HAX with a lightweight CMS backend to manage your microsite universe

    PHP 123 49

  2. lrnwebcomponents lrnwebcomponents Public

    HAXTheWeb monorepo of elements and apis

    JavaScript 235 76

  3. issues issues Public

    Issue queue for hax, haxcms, elmsln, lrnwebcomponents, wcfactory, websites and more.

    10 1

  4. WCFactory WCFactory Public

    A factory that churns out web components, library agnostic with a unified development, testing, and build to production pipeline.

    JavaScript 149 14

  5. hax11ty hax11ty Public template

    hax + 11ty == hax11ty, HAX for authoring, HAXcms for rendering, 11ty for static publishing. Enjoy!

    Nunjucks 8 7

  6. elmsln elmsln Public

    ELMS - create and sustain innovation in education. Dream with us!

    PHP 242 119

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