I would like to start a discussion on the general structure of the wiki (including the side and top navigation bars). I guess the first thing is to get the view of the openSUSE core team, as they probably have some plans already in terms of general site navigation etc. and how the different laguage wikis will integrate. Everything contributed to the wiki at the moment is reached through the Documentation page, this to me is simply wrong. I don't think that the project pages, wishlists etc are documentation in that sense. I propose that we have either a "wiki" link or perhaps a "Community" Link on the side navigation, probably replacing the How to Participate link. I have more ideas, and areas to cover, especially on the the User Documentation page - we need to discuss and reach a consensus on what the links and layout should be. Although I'll let the people on the list (if there are any yet :-) enter into the discussion first. Pflodo
Peter Flodin wrote:
Everything contributed to the wiki at the moment is reached through the Documentation page, this to me is simply wrong. I don't think that the project pages, wishlists etc are documentation in that sense. I propose that we have either a "wiki" link or perhaps a "Community" Link on the side navigation, probably replacing the How to Participate link.
+1
I have more ideas, and areas to cover, especially on the the User Documentation page - we need to discuss and reach a consensus on what the links and layout should be.
I made a try with few luck, you did also, better. We probably need at least two entry points: one for simple user, now that SUSE Linux 10.0 OSS is beeing to be relesed and an other one for beta testers. For example, the link to bugzilla should not be in the main page... in fact there should be a "map of the wiki" page :-) jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr
On Wed, Sep 28, 2005 at 09:01:33AM +1000, Peter Flodin wrote:
I guess the first thing is to get the view of the openSUSE core team, as they probably have some plans already in terms of general site navigation etc. and how the different laguage wikis will integrate.
I'm afraid I have a very undetailed opinion right now ;-) The navigation of the wiki clearly needs to be improved, is it very difficult to find information right now. I'm not sure how, though. The wikis for the other languages will be integrated just as it is done on wikipedia.org: - separate wiki instance for every page - Interlanguage links as described on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Interlanguage_links
Everything contributed to the wiki at the moment is reached through the Documentation page, this to me is simply wrong. I don't think that the project pages, wishlists etc are documentation in that sense. I propose that we have either a "wiki" link or perhaps a "Community" Link on the side navigation, probably replacing the How to Participate link.
Would it help to have more top level items in the navigation bar? If yes, which ones? Sonja -- Sonja Krause-Harder (skh@suse.de) Research & Development SUSE Linux Products GmbH
On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 01:55:35PM +0200, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:
Would it help to have more top level items in the navigation bar? If yes, which ones?
One thing that I consider annoying with the navigation bar is that when not logged in some "special" links like "Recent Changes" are not displayed although they are usable when not logged in. If you combine this detail with the fact that the system seems to expire your login from time to time you always have disappearing these links which is extremely confusing. I recommend to add them even for users that are not logged in because of that. Robert -- Robert Schiele Tel.: +49-621-181-2214 Dipl.-Wirtsch.informatiker mailto:rschiele@uni-mannheim.de
Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:
Would it help to have more top level items in the navigation bar? If yes, which ones?
probably not. Too many links is not a solution.. we need to think on this. maybe we can have some "hub" pages but the first thing to do is to sort the content by categories (not the wiki's category). What a content is good for, for whom,... may be * general infos (licence, name, roadmap) * beta tester's corner (for 10.1 and so) * download center * user help (on actual stable release) (only these in the navigation bar) the only real problem is to maintain these hubs. 2 or three of us could be in charge on one hub - is the sorting if obvious enough, the page authors will do most job themselves jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr
On Thu, Sep 29, 2005 at 01:55:35PM +0200, Sonja Krause-Harder wrote:
Would it help to have more top level items in the navigation bar? If yes, which ones?
The User Documentation is too much hidden. Fisrt you need to click on Documentation and then on User documentation. If you have no idea what you are looking for, it looks hidden. And User documentation is what openSUSE.org is all about (or so I like to believe) So I would add some things to the Use SUSE Linux part. Downloads User documentation Official Novell Documentation (Need to make a new page, wich could include Cool Solutions and stuff) Development Documentation. (also a new page) Projects (also a new page) The new pages should look like the User Documentation page. Products higlights should be placed somewhere else, unless it is completely re-written. This would add 3 links to the Menu Item `Use SUSE Linux`. A total of 5 is just acceptable. 6 will be something some people see as `many` and 7 is definatly a no-no, because people will not recognise when looking at it in a glance (and that is what most people will do.) houghi -- Quote correct (NL) http://www.briachons.org/art/quote/ Zitiere richtig (DE) http://www.afaik.de/usenet/faq/zitieren Quote correctly (EN) http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Ok, so I think it is agreed that the navigation links on the side bar need to be changed or added to. In fact because it so central to the wiki I don't think we can really talk about the rest of the wiki until we have established what to do with the side (and top) links. We should keep the additions to a minimum. Houghi's description of 5 being acceptable is about right.
So I would add some things to the Use SUSE Linux part. Downloads Yes, I think nobody wants to remove this :-)
User documentation Yes I agree.
Official Novell Documentation (Need to make a new page, which could include Cool Solutions and stuff) I am not convinced that this needs its own page, shouldn't we aim at being the location for all documentation. And then Novell doco just becomes external links where appropriate. Especially as there is talk of importing Novell info into thw wiki.
Development Documentation. (also a new page) I think this will be more than just documentation. How about just "Developers" or "Developer Resources"
Projects (also a new page) The word "project" is a bit overused on the OpenSUSE site. "Project Overview" refers to OpenSUSE. "Projects" http://www.opensuse.org/Projects refers to other projects that Novell sponsor. "User Projects" is what you are referring to, but what makes them "User" projects? PPC should be listed on that page, which at the moment has a link from Official Novell doco. We just need to do some renaming I think. The current [[Projects]] page should move to [[Other Novell Sponsored Projects]] or similar, and the [[User Projects]] I think should be the [[Projects]] page. But yes a link to that page is OK with me....
Pflodo.
Official Novell Documentation (Need to make a new page, which could include Cool Solutions and stuff) I am not convinced that this needs its own page, shouldn't we aim at
I meant to say that, I am not convinced it needs a link from the sidebar, its own page is fine. Pflodo.
On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 11:30:47AM +1000, Peter Flodin wrote:
Official Novell Documentation (Need to make a new page, which could include Cool Solutions and stuff) I am not convinced that this needs its own page, shouldn't we aim at
I meant to say that, I am not convinced it needs a link from the sidebar, its own page is fine.
What I have done is just put all of the [[Documentation]] on the sidebar. I also used the same wording as used on that page. And why should it NOT get its own link on the sidebar? If you see what pages it hols now, I think fast access is very handy. User guide, Admin guide, ... Not realy things you would want to hide somewhere. Also we should either remove http://www.opensuse.org/Product_Highlights or completely re-write it. If those are the highlights of SUSE, I have no reason to use it. houghi -- Quote correct (NL) http://www.briachons.org/art/quote/ Zitiere richtig (DE) http://www.afaik.de/usenet/faq/zitieren Quote correctly (EN) http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
On 30/09/05, houghi <houghi@houghi.org> wrote:
I also used the same wording as used on that page. And why should it NOT get its own link on the sidebar? If you see what pages it hols now, I think fast access is very handy. User guide, Admin guide, ...
Yes but User Guide and Admin guide to what? Not the SUSE version that openSUSE is currently concerned with. I don't think they deserve their own link on the sidebar as: 1. They are not central to openSUSE, 2. Encourages leaving of our site before our own doco has been exlpored. Our own doco should cover everything in those guides. Of course we we should link to them, just not from the side bar. Novell user doco shoud be linked from our user doco, and Novell Developer doco should be linked to from our Developer page. Just my thoughts... Pflodo.
On Fri, Sep 30, 2005 at 02:21:02PM -0700, Peter Flodin wrote:
On 30/09/05, houghi <houghi@houghi.org> wrote:
I also used the same wording as used on that page. And why should it NOT get its own link on the sidebar? If you see what pages it hols now, I think fast access is very handy. User guide, Admin guide, ...
Yes but User Guide and Admin guide to what? Not the SUSE version that openSUSE is currently concerned with.
I don't think they deserve their own link on the sidebar as: 1. They are not central to openSUSE, 2. Encourages leaving of our site before our own doco has been exlpored.
Our own doco should cover everything in those guides. Of course we we should link to them, just not from the side bar. Novell user doco shoud be linked from our user doco, and Novell Developer doco should be linked to from our Developer page.
openSUSE.org should indeed have all that information. At this moment it has not, so untill all the info is in place, we can use the user and admin guide and other links. Also they are great documents, so why not put them on a seperate Novelell documentation link? I hope you understand I do not want the user and admin guide as links in the menu's. I want a page with Novell documentation as a link. On that page you have among other things a link to the user and admin guide, just as you do have now with the documentation page. houghi -- Quote correct (NL) http://www.briachons.org/art/quote/ Zitiere richtig (DE) http://www.afaik.de/usenet/faq/zitieren Quote correctly (EN) http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
Hello, Am Freitag, 30. September 2005 23:21 schrieb Peter Flodin: [...]
Yes but User Guide and Admin guide to what? [...] Our own doco should cover everything in those guides.
There are many things that still have a lack of documentation - better write about those and link to the existing User/Admin guide when it already contains the topic. Of course, if the User/Admin guide are incomplete/not-so-good/whatever on a topic, you can write the missing parts to the wiki. And/or you can go to bugzilla and enter a bug in the "Documentation" component ;-) Regards, Christian Boltz -- "Does your computer ever crash?" "Oh definitely, believe me. We want to make a tool that we can use ourselves and we know from our own use we can make it a lot better and a lot more reliable." [Bill Gates in a BBC interview]
On 01/10/05, Christian Boltz <opensuse@cboltz.de> wrote:
Am Freitag, 30. September 2005 23:21 schrieb Peter Flodin: [...]
Yes but User Guide and Admin guide to what? [...] Our own doco should cover everything in those guides.
There are many things that still have a lack of documentation - better write about those and link to the existing User/Admin guide when it already contains the topic.
The more links the better inside the wiki, but you didn't make it clear if you want a link on the side bar to an "Official Novell Documentation" page, like Houghi proposed. Pflodo
Hello, Am Samstag, 1. Oktober 2005 23:39 schrieb Peter Flodin:
[...] you didn't make it clear if you want a link on the side bar to an "Official Novell Documentation" page, like Houghi proposed.
I think having one "documentation" link is enough - it should contain both "official" Novell documentation and texts in the wiki. (Best case would be if users don't see a large difference between wiki and Novell documentation.) Having separate side bar links for Novell documentation and wiki documentation will worry most users. Regards, Christian Boltz -- mv ~/Hirn ~/Sieb [David Haller in suse-linux]
On Sun, Oct 02, 2005 at 10:31:23PM +0200, Christian Boltz wrote:
Hello,
Am Samstag, 1. Oktober 2005 23:39 schrieb Peter Flodin:
[...] you didn't make it clear if you want a link on the side bar to an "Official Novell Documentation" page, like Houghi proposed.
I think having one "documentation" link is enough - it should contain both "official" Novell documentation and texts in the wiki. (Best case would be if users don't see a large difference between wiki and Novell documentation.)
Having separate side bar links for Novell documentation and wiki documentation will worry most users.
The issue has solved itself. :-) On the documentation site there is PPC Documentation added. So a new proposal for the side menu: Use SUSE Linux Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation PowerPC Documentation Developer Documentation Projects An alternative could be: Use SUSE Linux Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation Developer Documentation Projects And then add PowerPC Documentation and a Novel Documentation page (Must be made) to User Documentation. Product Highlights, again, must be completely re-written. It should at least explain something about SUSE, what it does and also links to the differences between the versios OSS, CD and DVD. Could be also a links page, like the `User documentation page`. Or it could be something like http://www.novell.com/products/suselinux/ That way you get the following order: Homepage, click on the left menu. Subpage with more links, click on an item Get the page you were looking for. Two steps till what you are looking for is not bad at all. houghi -- Quote correct (NL) http://www.briachons.org/art/quote/ Zitiere richtig (DE) http://www.afaik.de/usenet/faq/zitieren Quote correctly (EN) http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html
On Wed, 5 Oct 2005, houghi wrote:
The issue has solved itself. :-)
On the documentation site there is PPC Documentation added. So a new proposal for the side menu: Use SUSE Linux Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation PowerPC Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
An alternative could be: Use SUSE Linux Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
And then add PowerPC Documentation and a Novel Documentation page (Must be made) to User Documentation.
I like the second one better, but actually I don't really have a strong opinion on that proposals - however, the head wiki editor is on vacation right now and I guess we will have to wait until he is back (in about 2 weeks) to get things fixed(tm). Regards Christoph
On 12/10/05, Christoph Thiel <cthiel@suse.de> wrote:
On Wed, 5 Oct 2005, houghi wrote:
An alternative could be: Use SUSE Linux Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
And then add PowerPC Documentation and a Novel Documentation page (Must be made) to User Documentation.
I like the second one better, but actually I don't really have a strong opinion on that proposal... however, the head wiki editor is on vacation right now and I guess we will have to wait until he is back (in about 2 weeks) to get things fixed(tm).
Ok... This means that this discussion should be about right to continue, unless design changes have already been decided. I have created this page: http://www.opensuse.org/Proposed_Navigation with my proposal. And it will be a busy week, if the wiki roadmap will be adhered to... Pflodo.
Peter Flodin wrote:
I have created this page: http://www.opensuse.org/Proposed_Navigation with my proposal.
And it will be a busy week, if the wiki roadmap will be adhered to...
I think a different layout could be done. first the "FAQ" has nothing to do with "about" and should be with documentation (inside the documentation page) then I think that the order should be reversed. what interest first the people is dowload, then doc. Participating is important (very important), but this will anyway come after in the proccupation of most users (alas), I don't even know is product highlights should nont be on user doc and not on main page. and roadmap is not that important, I have seen quite little discussion on the subject http://www.opensuse.org/Proposed_Navigation is a good idea, but I would like to see more projects. what do you think of: (logo) home Download: Released Version Development Version Documentation: Product Highlights End User Beta testers (there are no extra developpers for now, isn't it?) Search: <Search box> search.gif Participate: How to participate Communicate Submit a Bug About: Project overview Roadmap Events Contact what do you think? I don't wan to disturb the community, I don't mind so much of that jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr
On 27/10/05, jdd <jdd@dodin.org> wrote:
what do you think of:
I have come to realise, that the navigation probably can't be done by consensus, as you will never get consensus. So instead I hope that the editor responsible will enter into this discussion (and we will try to influence their ideas :-), by each of us putting what we think is missing, what is not required, what is most important, and then I am sure they will be able to put something together. The main issue I see with the current navigation is that the entry point to the wiki is too small, with the single Documentation link. There are also a whole bunch of links that once you have visited openSUSE.org, you never use them again, but they are there on every page. I think we need a sitemap. The editor should know that we are willing to help, and should use us as a resource like any other collegue. Pflodo.
Peter Flodin wrote:
The editor should know that we are willing to help, and should use us as a resource like any other collegue.
absolutly and you where right to revive this very low traffic list :-) jdd -- pour m'écrire, aller sur: http://www.dodin.net http://valerie.dodin.net http://arvamip.free.fr
On Wednesday 26 October 2005 17:13, jdd wrote:
Peter Flodin wrote:
I have created this page: http://www.opensuse.org/Proposed_Navigation with my proposal.
And it will be a busy week, if the wiki roadmap will be adhered to...
I think a different layout could be done. first the "FAQ" has nothing to do with "about" and should be with documentation (inside the documentation page) then I think that the order should be reversed.
well, there should be also a project FAQ. But you are right that we should have also a FAQ within the document section ...
what interest first the people is dowload, then doc. Participating is important (very important), but this will anyway come after in the proccupation of most users (alas),
I don't even know is product highlights should nont be on user doc and not on main page.
yes, please not on main page ... -- Adrian Schroeter SUSE Linux Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nuernberg, Germany email: adrian@suse.de
participants (8)
-
Adrian Schroeter -
Christian Boltz -
Christoph Thiel -
houghi -
jdd -
Peter Flodin -
Robert Schiele -
Sonja Krause-Harder