I am prejudiced. Being a web developer makes me think this is the easiest part. Maybe it’s not for you. That’s OK. But get a real website. Hopefully, you’re using the great SourceForge.net site to manage your project. Good news- they’ll let you change your simple project website into a ‘real’ one!
The details are here, here, and here.
You set up your project on sourceforge, you buy a domain name from a registrar like my favorites, Dynadot and Directnic, and follow this instructions and you can have a WordPress site answering to yourproject.org or whatever you’d like. That’s available, anyway. It’s true that most names will be gone. That’s ok. Be creative. I installed powertop today which monitors what is using power from your laptop battery. Domain name? lesswatts.org – get it? Lately, we’ve seen a proliferation of domains like (product name)app.com and get(product name).com – choose something you feel good about. More guidelines to come.
Install WordPress in your Developer Web.
Isn’t that overkill?
No. You want something that can grow with you and that you don’t have to tweak. Is your project your project or is your project website your project. Yes, you can do HTML- good for you. Don’t start from scratch. Use WordPress.
Why WordPress? I want to use _______!
Because WordPress is good. And it’s on the list of hosted apps at SourceForge, so you can click and be done.
WordPress uses PHP! Don’t we want Ruby to make our website really cool?
Please. I won’t even dignify that with a response.
Find yourself a beautiful theme for your site. Something that you can ask someone not on your project team (a normal person preferably) how it looks and get a favorable reaction.
Customize the header of the site with your project icon. Need help. I’d be happy to help you do that. I don’t have time to code you a custom template but I’ll incorporate your logo for you as a volunteer. I want you to succeed.
Set up the VHOST as SourceForge instructs and you’ve got a website!