Check out "The Conference"
a starter website for developer conferences
We love developer conferences; the only thing we all hate at such conferences is the unpredictable wireless internet. All information about the conference (sessions, speaker list, schedule etc) are on the conference website and without internet, they needed to be printed and handed out to all the attendees
Given that most browsers have offline capabilities in some form or the other, I worked on a project that can be used as a starting point for developer conferences website.
Functionality
The conference website has the following functionality.
- Responsive site to view conference information like sessions, speakers and schedule - this information is stored and retrieved from a CouchDB database.
- Go green - no printing conference schedules. All information stored using IndexedDB or WebSql, so that it is available during no internet connectivity.
- Bookmark and plan sessions you want to attend. These are also available offline, and sync to a server when internet connection in the conference finally works.
- Take notes on your computer and sync them to a server, read them later
- Socialize with other participants, note down their details and see what sessions are getting interesting.
- Responsive with Bootstrap - works on your computer, tablets of phone - take any of them to the conference with you
Technology
Under the covers, the website does the following
- Written in Backbone, with Underscore and Jquery to back it up
- Themed using Bootstrap, enabling a responsive design.
- PouchDB for offline storage and replication with Iriscouch
- Support on iPhone, and other WebSQL supported browsers using IndexedDB polyfill.
- Proxy server for Iriscouch running on Heroku
If you would like to try using this for information about your conference, please do get in touch with me, I would be more than happy to help you.
