Platform

Draconis is a website platform for organized communities. It is opinionated on purpose: the platform decides how a site is structured and how it behaves, and each community decides what it says and how it looks.

Community identity#

Draconis provides the foundation. A community makes it its own.

Draconis provides the page structure, the layout, the typography and the behavior. These are the same on every Draconis site, which is what keeps each one consistent, readable and accessible.

A community provides:

• Its name, shown in the header, the footer and every page title
• Its colors, by setting the brand colors of the theme
• Its hero artwork. The Draconis dragon is the default, and a community replaces it with its own when it has some
• Its browser icon, and the image shown when a link to the site is shared
• Its imagery: department images, the media gallery and staff pictures
• Its words: every headline, description, rule and document
• Its own terms, such as what it calls its departments and where its main button leads

How this is done today. A community's identity is set up with its site and kept in files of its own. Changing it means changing those files and publishing the site again. There is no sign-in, no admin screen and no self-service editor.

One thing is not available yet: a logo image in the header. For now the header shows the community's name as text.

Home#

A hero with the community's headline and one main action, a short list of reasons to join, a preview of its departments, recent updates and a closing call to action. A section with nothing in it is left out.

Departments#

The groups a community is organized into, whatever it calls them: departments, divisions, agencies, teams. Each gets a card on an index page and a page of its own, with optional sections for leadership, ranks, requirements, training, fleet, equipment and more.

Documentation, rules and policies#

Three collections of pages that share one layout: a page tree, breadcrumbs, a list of the sections on the page, previous and next links, and search. Search runs in the visitor's browser, and nothing typed is sent anywhere.

Get Started#

A numbered joining path: the steps a newcomer takes, in order, each with a link. Applications are not handled by Draconis. The page links to whatever a community already uses for them.

Community, media and staff#

A page about the community, a media gallery and a staff list. The gallery and the staff list are maintained by hand. There are no uploads, and the staff list is not connected to Discord roles.

Changelog#

A dated feed of what has changed. The newest entries can appear on the home page.

Server information#

A page with a server status and a connect link, and a status indicator in the header. Today the status is a fixed value set for the site. It is not read from a live server.

Discord#

For a community, the main button on every page is Join Discord. Today Discord is a destination and nothing more: one invite link, kept in one place. There is no sign-in with Discord, no role sync and no bot integration.

Pages of a community's own#

A community can have pages beyond the standard set. This page is one of them.

Pages that wait until they are ready#

Every optional page is off until a community turns it on, so a site can open with a few finished pages and add the rest as their content is written. A page that is off cannot be reached, and every link to it disappears.

Not part of Draconis today#

• Accounts or sign-in
• An admin area, an editor or any way to change a site from a browser
• Applications handled inside the site
• Uploads
• Live information from a game server or from Discord

What could come later#

Ideas for later versions include sign-in with Discord, live server information, applications handled inside the site, and tools for a community's staff. None of these exists today, and none is promised.