Maybe I'm missing the obvious... but I find it rather difficult to find things on the OpenSUSE website. You have to be a psychic to know what's available there, or happen to search on exactly the right search terms. I'm constantly "discovering" new pages that someone links in an answer on the mailing list here. Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site? C.
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Clayton wrote:
Maybe I'm missing the obvious... but I find it rather difficult to find things on the OpenSUSE website. You have to be a psychic to know what's available there, or happen to search on exactly the right search terms. I'm constantly "discovering" new pages that someone links in an answer on the mailing list here.
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site?
Google is your friend: site:www.opensuse.org <search string(s)> or site:opensuse.org <search string(s)> (if you want to include lists.opensuse.org, etc.) If I remember correctly legal is looking into adding google sitesearch to *.openSUSE.org. Regards Christoph
Maybe I'm missing the obvious... but I find it rather difficult to find things on the OpenSUSE website. You have to be a psychic to know what's available there, or happen to search on exactly the right search terms. I'm constantly "discovering" new pages that someone links in an answer on the mailing list here.
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site?
Google is your friend:
site:www.opensuse.org <search string(s)>
True enough... and I have used this, but from the aspect of site design and site navigation this seems to me to be a rather poor way of navigating a site - to have to resort to a Google search to discover what's actually there. This assumes that you know ahead of time what you're looking for, and this doesn't give you the opportunity to discover what's available. If you don't know what's available (and what you need to search for), being buddies with Google isn't much help. C.
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Clayton wrote:
Maybe I'm missing the obvious... but I find it rather difficult to find things on the OpenSUSE website. You have to be a psychic to know what's available there, or happen to search on exactly the right search terms. I'm constantly "discovering" new pages that someone links in an answer on the mailing list here.
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site?
Google is your friend:
site:www.opensuse.org <search string(s)>
True enough... and I have used this, but from the aspect of site design and site navigation this seems to me to be a rather poor way of navigating a site - to have to resort to a Google search to discover what's actually there.
This assumes that you know ahead of time what you're looking for, and this doesn't give you the opportunity to discover what's available. If you don't know what's available (and what you need to search for), being buddies with Google isn't much help.
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an automated way to generate a sitemap for the wiki. IMHO we need someone (any volunteers? ;)) to go though the wiki pages and categorize them + create some sort of sitemap. Until then http://www.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories might be something for you - but it's only a temporary solution. Regards Christoph
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Christoph Thiel wrote:
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Clayton wrote:
Maybe I'm missing the obvious... but I find it rather difficult to find things on the OpenSUSE website. You have to be a psychic to know what's available there, or happen to search on exactly the right search terms. I'm constantly "discovering" new pages that someone links in an answer on the mailing list here.
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site? Google is your friend:
site:www.opensuse.org <search string(s)> True enough... and I have used this, but from the aspect of site design and site navigation this seems to me to be a rather poor way of navigating a site - to have to resort to a Google search to discover what's actually there.
This assumes that you know ahead of time what you're looking for, and this doesn't give you the opportunity to discover what's available. If you don't know what's available (and what you need to search for), being buddies with Google isn't much help.
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an automated way to generate a sitemap for the wiki. IMHO we need someone (any volunteers? ;)) to go though the wiki pages and categorize them + create some sort of sitemap.
Until then http://www.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories might be something for you - but it's only a temporary solution.
Regards Christoph
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Hi folks, I think Christoph has 'hit the nail on the head' here. Media wiki provides for categorisation of all the pages including parent/sub categroy relationships. This in theory *should* be enough to at least start a user off for navigation however there are a few caveats. First there is no category tree structure so categories are presented in a click through paginated list, probably in no order other than when they were created. Also categories can be added/updated dynamically with a soft link e.g. [[Category: foo]] on a new page will automatically add the category foo, [[Category: bar]] on a page that belongs to the foo category will add a sub category of foo called bar. Also, there is no direct link to the categories from the home page at the moment. Even if there were a user looking for vmware help might, for example, see the category 'Virtulization Software' and click on that. If he did he would see 'Xen' and some other page but not vmware which is currently in its own category even though it is also virtualization software ;) As you see this is quite flexible but can also lead to duplicate categories, category cycles and so on... So what I'm getting at really is that even the categories need a bit of love and attention now and again. So Christoph is quite right, a site map should be generated ( manually ) of the major categories with at least the first level of child categories. This would certainly go a long way to helping navigation on the site which i think is not great at the moment. I'll do what i can over the next 2 weeks of holidays ( between eating and drinking too much ;) to sort any uncategorized pages. Theres around 150 or so of these at the moment so its not *too bad* ;) If you are editing or creating any pages in the meantime it might be worthwhile to bear all of this in mind and try to remember to categorise your page correctly. Cheers the noo... Graham -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFDqT0mE7J2/DSrgDcRAnb/AJ0T7/phzJQX/TSku2SzXW2T/nB6EACfXsu8 cljUIRcSlin2DnTIR5+0tJE= =zV3U -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On 21/12/05, Graham Anderson <graham.anderson@gmail.com> wrote:
So Christoph is quite right, a site map should be generated ( manually ) of the major categories with at least the first level of child categories. This would certainly go a long way to helping navigation on the site which i think is not great at the moment. I'll do what i can over the next 2 weeks of holidays ( between eating and drinking too much ;) to sort any uncategorized pages. Theres around 150 or so of these at the moment so its not *too bad* ;)
Please help to improve the http://www.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE:Browse page, which is exactly the page you are talking about, modelled on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Browse, and is actually linked to on the Documentation page as "Browse Articles by Category". But I don't think Categorization will be the total solution. Wikipedia is great, but it is an Encylopedia. Opensuse.org is the site of a distro, we need more structure. There were discussions on the opensuse-wiki list a couple of months ago now, they basically came to the conclusion that we need to update the navigation bars side and top, to reduce the level of pages required to navigate the site. And I think we need to modify the front page, as it is currently underutilised in providing useful information and navigation. Both these tasks require staff. Maybe we should run a design-the-front-page competition. Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Peter Flodin wrote:
Please help to improve the http://www.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE:Browse page, which is exactly the page you are talking about, modelled on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Browse, and is actually linked to on the Documentation page as "Browse Articles by Category".
Ah yes, I discovered this page via a link from a category page. It didnt take long to realise that some categories have this link and some dont. Incidentaly I suspect the reason I (and probably many others) don't notice this link to the Browse by category page is because it's position and style are such that the eye easily passes over it rather than lingers on it (the headlines directly below it are noticabley larger in size). I think it could be positioned and styled more suitably. Also I don't neccessarily think that "Browse Articles by Category" is the the best descriptive text to use for the link. I think it the word 'Article' is more associated with news or opinion pieces than documentation. Perhaps something like "Browse Documentation by Category" might be better? This also leads me on to the actual style of the wiki article pages. It's hard to follow the flow & logic of some articles because both the section and subsection headers are the same font size but wrongly the subsection headers are in bold i.e. =Header= is the same font size as the bold ==Sub Header==. I think the style sheet could use a few minor tweaks to improve readability of the pages...
But I don't think Categorization will be the total solution. Wikipedia is great, but it is an Encylopedia. Opensuse.org is the site of a distro, we need more structure.
Agreeed, there are limitations to the MediaWiki category approach but every page should at least belong to a category or the only way it will be found is via the often ignore search function. The structure will come from these efforts :) Cheers the noo Graham -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFDqVwpE7J2/DSrgDcRAkoMAJ9/n8BPR/I0ISjjYBJFopUCiyymmACfXiSQ Ifg5VYAJakW0zMrUCa+rgdI= =FImJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Wednesday 21 December 2005 08:06, Peter Flodin wrote:
On 21/12/05, Graham Anderson <graham.anderson@gmail.com> wrote:
So Christoph is quite right, a site map should be generated ( manually ) of the major categories with at least the first level of child categories. This would certainly go a long way to helping navigation on the site which i think is not great at the moment. I'll do what i can over the next 2 weeks of holidays ( between eating and drinking too much ;) to sort any uncategorized pages. Theres around 150 or so of these at the moment so its not *too bad* ;)
Please help to improve the http://www.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE:Browse page, which is exactly the page you are talking about, modelled on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Browse, and is actually linked to on the Documentation page as "Browse Articles by Category".
But I don't think Categorization will be the total solution. Wikipedia is great, but it is an Encylopedia. Opensuse.org is the site of a distro, we need more structure.
I'll do what I can to assist... I've been a bit lax lately with adding articles (lack of time due to holidays), but I'll be posting away shortly. In the meanwhile, I'll try and help nail down some categorization. I agree with your thoughts on Browse not being an end-all be-all solution, but I think a good start would be to categorize, then take said list and try to give it some static page structure, and theres the start of something more clear and concise (exactly the opposite of my run-on writing style at the moment). -Joseph M. Gaffney aka CuCullin
On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Peter Flodin wrote:
On 21/12/05, Graham Anderson <graham.anderson@gmail.com> wrote:
So Christoph is quite right, a site map should be generated (manually) of the major categories with at least the first level of child categories. This would certainly go a long way to helping navigation on the site which i think is not great at the moment. I'll do what i can over the next 2 weeks of holidays ( between eating and drinking too much ;) to sort any uncategorized pages. Theres around 150 or so of these at the moment so its not *too bad* ;)
Please help to improve the http://www.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE:Browse page, which is exactly the page you are talking about, modelled on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Browse, and is actually linked to on the Documentation page as "Browse Articles by Category".
But I don't think Categorization will be the total solution. Wikipedia is great, but it is an Encylopedia. Opensuse.org is the site of a distro, we need more structure.
Even if it's not the final solution, categorization makes a lot of sense in my opinion.
There were discussions on the opensuse-wiki list a couple of months ago now, they basically came to the conclusion that we need to update the navigation bars side and top, to reduce the level of pages required to navigate the site. And I think we need to modify the front page, as it is currently underutilised in providing useful information and navigation. Both these tasks require staff. Maybe we should run a design-the-front-page competition.
That sounds like a great idea to me! Is there anybody out there who feels like taking part? (Maybe we could even offer a reward -- I'll figure that out tomorrow.) Regards Christoph
On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Graham Anderson wrote: [...]
This assumes that you know ahead of time what you're looking for, and this doesn't give you the opportunity to discover what's available. If you don't know what's available (and what you need to search for), being buddies with Google isn't much help.
I totally agree with you. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an automated way to generate a sitemap for the wiki. IMHO we need someone (any volunteers? ;)) to go though the wiki pages and categorize them + create some sort of sitemap.
Until then http://www.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories might be something for you - but it's only a temporary solution.
I think Christoph has 'hit the nail on the head' here.
Media wiki provides for categorisation of all the pages including parent/sub categroy relationships. This in theory *should* be enough to at least start a user off for navigation however there are a few caveats. First there is no category tree structure so categories are presented in a click through paginated list, probably in no order other than when they were created. Also categories can be added/updated dynamically with a soft link e.g. [[Category: foo]] on a new page will automatically add the category foo, [[Category: bar]] on a page that belongs to the foo category will add a sub category of foo called bar. Also, there is no direct link to the categories from the home page at the moment.
As soon as we have the Categories in good shape, I'll make sure to have a like on the front page!
Even if there were a user looking for vmware help might, for example, see the category 'Virtulization Software' and click on that. If he did he would see 'Xen' and some other page but not vmware which is currently in its own category even though it is also virtualization software ;)
As you see this is quite flexible but can also lead to duplicate categories, category cycles and so on... So what I'm getting at really is that even the categories need a bit of love and attention now and again.
So Christoph is quite right, a site map should be generated ( manually ) of the major categories with at least the first level of child categories. This would certainly go a long way to helping navigation on the site which i think is not great at the moment. I'll do what i can over the next 2 weeks of holidays ( between eating and drinking too much ;) to sort any uncategorized pages. Theres around 150 or so of these at the moment so its not *too bad* ;)
Wow, that's great - many thanks in advance!
If you are editing or creating any pages in the meantime it might be worthwhile to bear all of this in mind and try to remember to categorise your page correctly.
Regards Christoph
On 20/12/05, Clayton <smaug42@gmail.com> wrote:
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site?
When I asked this, it was suggested that I check the Recent Changes, which you need to log into to see. While this works, some sort of front page map would be nice. -- Photos : www.flickr.com/photos/marcusc Blog : marcusbrain.blogspot.com
On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, Marcus Cooper wrote:
On 20/12/05, Clayton <smaug42@gmail.com> wrote:
Is there a sitemap, or some magical navigation method that people are using? How are people navigating and finding stuff/info on this site?
When I asked this, it was suggested that I check the Recent Changes, which you need to log into to see.
This has already been changed in SVN. Hopefully this change will go to production pretty soon. Regards Christoph
participants (6)
-
Christoph Thiel -
Clayton -
Graham Anderson -
Joseph M. Gaffney -
Marcus Cooper -
Peter Flodin