Did I miss the discussion in some way? From the minutes:
Action Item michl: - discuss front page redesign on opensuse-wiki
If I have to wait a bit more. please let me know.
houghi
On 2/10/06, houghi houghi@houghi.org wrote:
Did I miss the discussion in some way? From the minutes:
Action Item michl:
- discuss front page redesign on opensuse-wiki
If I have to wait a bit more. please let me know.
Well we could start the discussion now...
To summarise, the opensuse frontpage has over 3 million page hits (not 1 million as the IRC log stated), and I feel (and I don't thing there were any objections), that the current front page could do with an overhaul as the 3 million hits could have been served something more exciting, more informative, more captivating etc.
We can either discuss the process of developing a new page, or discuss what should go on a new page.
I will start with what I think: 1. I think the latest news should be more prominent, probably a heading with a synopsis and then a link if you want to read more, for each item. 2. The different language wikis should be more prominent, unless we create a "splash" screen for www.opensuse.org, like what has been done for www.wikipedia.org, and not just redirect to the english one. 3. By using templates, we could allow community input to the front page without unlocking the design of the front page. ie, the front page has some templates inserted that are editable, even though the front page remains locked to stop casual vandals.
Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin.
Peter Flodin wrote:
- The different language wikis should be more prominent, unless we
create a "splash" screen for www.opensuse.org, like what has been done for www.wikipedia.org,
this one is a very good idea. only one URL to give.
anyway, its need still to redesign the others main pages :-)
jdd
---- Wiadomość Oryginalna ---- Od: Peter Flodin pflodin@gmail.com Do: opensuse-wiki@opensuse.org Data: Fri, 10 Feb 2006 23:31:50 +1100 Temat: Re: [opensuse-wiki] opensuse.org frontpage lift-up/redesign
[...] I will start with what I think:
- I think the latest news should be more prominent, probably a
heading with a synopsis and then a link if you want to read
more, for
each item.
Fully agree.
[...] 3. By using templates, we could allow community input to the
front
page without unlocking the design of the front page. ie, the
front
page has some templates inserted that are editable, even though
the
front page remains locked to stop casual vandals.
Also a good idea, I think.
Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin.
Regards.
IMHO there shall be more info about distribution itself on the frontpage. Everybody know, there's a lot of different distributions, more than hundred these days. Personally, when I've had first time visited openSUSE.org (during searching for new distro for my computer), I felt a bit confused: What is it all about? What is better in openSUSE, than in other distros. I believe there could be maybe some principles of developing openSUSE or even the most characteristic features of distro... At this time, the front page speaks mostly about (with all respect) everything and nothing at once. There shall be more concretes. The most important thing for potential user is system itself. Then, if he likes it, he may be thinking about joining community. :) That's why I think this way.
Kind regards, Piotr Orzechowski.
Am Freitag, 10. Februar 2006 13:31 schrieb Peter Flodin:
On 2/10/06, houghi houghi@houghi.org wrote:
Did I miss the discussion in some way? From the minutes:
Action Item michl:
- discuss front page redesign on opensuse-wiki
If I have to wait a bit more. please let me know.
Well we could start the discussion now...
To summarise, the opensuse frontpage has over 3 million page hits (not 1 million as the IRC log stated), and I feel (and I don't thing there were any objections), that the current front page could do with an overhaul as the 3 million hits could have been served something more exciting, more informative, more captivating etc.
We can either discuss the process of developing a new page, or discuss what should go on a new page.
I will start with what I think:
- I think the latest news should be more prominent, probably a
heading with a synopsis and then a link if you want to read more, for each item.
Agreed, an having "Report a Bug" as one of the only two "main" themes on the page sort of makes you wonder about the quality of the product - at least it isn't hidden away under 30 levels of support options like Microsoft do it :-P
Having it under "Participate" as it is now and taking the one off of the main panel would be a help...
Then moving the Upcoming Events, News and Milestones as three items filling the main section, and putting a security announcements or something up there as well...
A lot of people don't like mailing lists and never subscribe unless forced to - I know I used to be like that - so they don't get announcements, especially security announcements. If we can make a better news page, just have the headlines on the home page and more detailed information behind it... Having it (or the news page) as an RSS feed would also be useful, but I don't know if that is feasible with a Wiki page...
I think a lack of easily visible information and the staticness of the centre frame of the front page put a lot of people off. I know there are sites I keep going back to because there is always new information coming along, whereas with the wiki I tend to go to the downloads page and additional repos page and that's about it at the moment.
- The different language wikis should be more prominent, unless we
create a "splash" screen for www.opensuse.org, like what has been done for www.wikipedia.org, and not just redirect to the english one.
How about having the openSUSE lizard taking up centre stage on the page and he is broken down into sections, each section being a representation of a language "flag" (E.g. Union Jack for English, Spanish flag for spanish, French for French, German flag for German Wiki etc.), of course you'll get somebody complaining about getting stuck with the butt and tail :-P
I think having the lizard split into multiple flags would give a good show of community spirit... Possibly with breakout lines to the language names for those who aren't sure about their flags :-P The only problem is you might need to keep increasing the poor lizards belly size as more and more translations are put online... ;-)
Alternatively having the logo in the middle with the languages around it in a circle semi-Wikipedia style might work better...
You could combine this with the existing front page, have the lizard at the top, with the news and other information below...
- By using templates, we could allow community input to the front
page without unlocking the design of the front page. ie, the front page has some templates inserted that are editable, even though the front page remains locked to stop casual vandals.
Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin.
That would be an idea... Is there a way to make it an auto-feed from another page? There is much later and possibly more interesting and relevant news on the news page, but the front page has 2 links to much older news.
Also, for example, the milestones is a little sparse, some indication of what each milestone is hoping to achieve (E.g. Beta 4 - what will it have that is interesting? XGL, Yum MD updates etc.), integrate that with a roadmap of where you see openSUSE and SUSE OSS going in the future (E.g. KDE 4 will be integrated when? Full XGL support?)
The site also could do with a site map, several times I've known there is useful information buried in the Wiki somewhere, but I've gone through several false click-trails before I've found what I've wanted...
Finally, and OT I'm afraid, when a beta is released, having its release note available to read whilst downloading might be handy. I know that I do this with some of the online games I play, while the servers are down or the client is patching I can go through the notes on what's new and what's been fixed. This could just be a link to a text file, it doesn't need to be fully wiki-fied
Dave
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
I know the real number can probably not be known, but a reasonable guess would be nice :-)
jdd
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
Do you mean of SUSE Linux 10.0 distributions downloaded?
I know the real number can probably not be known, but a reasonable guess would be nice :-)
Andreas
Andreas Jaeger wrote:
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
Do you mean of SUSE Linux 10.0 distributions downloaded?
yes - you are right, I have difficulties separating the community and the distribution :-)
jdd
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
Andreas Jaeger wrote:
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
Do you mean of SUSE Linux 10.0 distributions downloaded?
yes - you are right, I have difficulties separating the community and the distribution :-)
Christoph should be able to get a count from what has been downloaded via download.opensuse.org. Michael might have some more statistics. For what do you need these?
Andreas
Andreas Jaeger wrote:
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
Andreas Jaeger wrote:
jdd jdd@dodin.org writes:
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
Do you mean of SUSE Linux 10.0 distributions downloaded?
yes - you are right, I have difficulties separating the community and the distribution :-)
Christoph should be able to get a count from what has been downloaded via download.opensuse.org. Michael might have some more statistics. For what do you need these?
Andreas
oh... on the thread subject :-) it could be fine to have this on the wiki front page :-)
jdd
On Fri, 10 Feb 2006, Andreas Jaeger wrote:
is there anyway to have a counter of the number of opensuse downloaded?
Do you mean of SUSE Linux 10.0 distributions downloaded?
yes - you are right, I have difficulties separating the community and the distribution :-)
Christoph should be able to get a count from what has been downloaded via download.opensuse.org. Michael might have some more statistics. For what do you need these?
Sure, I have the logs of download.openSUSE.org -- but I don't really trust those statistics, because they are most likely inaccurate. The only way to get hard facts would be to ask *all* SUSE / openSUSE mirrors to come up with their logs + add the BT stats... we used some heuristics and YOU stats to "count" the number of running / installed SUSE Linux'es, but even those numbers might be quite inexact ;)
Anyway, do you really think we need those kind of numbers (presumably live?) to impress people? IMHO having something like... "downloaded more than <somebignumber>" would be sufficient.
Regards Christoph
Christoph Thiel wrote:
Anyway, do you really think we need those kind of numbers (presumably live?) to impress people?
I think so. of course it needs a minimal accuracy, if not the competitors will laught at us :-)
IMHO having something like... "downloaded more
than <somebignumber>" would be sufficient.
no. The key is accuracy.
but is it possible to achieve it, I don't know (I guess no :-()
jdd
On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 08:51:52PM +0100, Christoph Thiel wrote:
Anyway, do you really think we need those kind of numbers (presumably live?) to impress people? IMHO having something like... "downloaded more than <somebignumber>" would be sufficient.
I would replace <somebignumber> with <somerandomnumber>.
SUSE: downloaded more then 7 times.
houghi
On 2/11/06, David Wright david.wright@wright-is.com wrote:
- By using templates, we could allow community input to the front
page without unlocking the design of the front page. ie, the front page has some templates inserted that are editable, even though the front page remains locked to stop casual vandals.
That would be an idea... Is there a way to make it an auto-feed from another page? There is much later and possibly more interesting and relevant news on the news page, but the front page has 2 links to much older news.
A template is just another page, in a special namespace, that allows it to be easily included in another page. Eg a page called Template:PageName can be inserted on another page with {{PageName}}. You can also dynamically insert the contents of any other page with {{:OtherPageName}}. (as an aside you can permanently copy another page with {{subs:OtherPageName}})
So the news could be on a page called "News_frontpage" and then inserted on the front page with {{:News_frontpage}}.
Although the idea of RSS is attractive, I will start a new thread about that.
Peter 'Pflodo' Flodin
On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 11:31:50PM +1100, Peter Flodin wrote:
Well we could start the discussion now...
Sorry about presuring. I understand that there is a lot going on.
To summarise, the opensuse frontpage has over 3 million page hits (not 1 million as the IRC log stated), and I feel (and I don't thing there were any objections), that the current front page could do with an overhaul as the 3 million hits could have been served something more exciting, more informative, more captivating etc.
Is that hits per hour, per second, per month? Irrigardless of the number of hits, it can use an overhaul
We can either discuss the process of developing a new page, or discuss what should go on a new page.
I will start with what I think:
- I think the latest news should be more prominent, probably a
heading with a synopsis and then a link if you want to read more, for each item.
Yes. There is a big however: there needs to be regurlar news. When I now click on the 'more news ...' I see 3 newer articles. Things mentioned on other sites (positive AND negative) should be there as well. Anouncements as well. Later, if there is enough news, this can become RSS or Atom or whatever, so you can put it on your site.
- The different language wikis should be more prominent, unless we
create a "splash" screen for www.opensuse.org, like what has been done for www.wikipedia.org, and not just redirect to the english one.
An easier solution would be to redirect www.* to $LANG.* of your browser and en.* if $LANG.* is not available.
- By using templates, we could allow community input to the front
page without unlocking the design of the front page. ie, the front page has some templates inserted that are editable, even though the front page remains locked to stop casual vandals.
I think the frontpage should not editable. The things (like news) should be steered from another page and be automated (RSS).
I also would like to point out the following two links: http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-wiki/2005-Sep/0003.html http://lists.opensuse.org/archive/opensuse-wiki/2005-Oct/0001.html
Thiese are mainly about the left side links. Especially the "Use SUSE Linux" should be dealth with better. Proposal:
Use SUSE Linux New Users Start Here Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation PowerPC Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
An alternative could be:
Use SUSE Linux New Users Start Here Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
Layout can be done by people who submit CSS. Then a page where you can select the CSS and that is rememberd per cookie. This would imply a submit page. It however would mean that even people who know nothing about SUSE can participate in the comunity.
houghi
Hi!
Somehow, every time I want to d/l the development version, I notice that the "menu" at the top of the download-page (Downloads: Released Version - Development Version...) but also the one at the very top (Communicate , Download...), are just not where I look for what I am searching.
My eyes seem to start reading where the text begins, i.e. "Choose the Version". If it is not just me, one could think about how to improve that issue, either by changing the format, the place or the arrangement of the menus. As the menu above the first heading seems to be a TOC, on should maybe arrange its items horizontally, as one is used to from books or wikipedia.
Am Freitag, 10. Februar 2006 17:28 schrieb houghi:
Thiese are mainly about the left side links. Especially the "Use SUSE Linux" should be dealth with better. Proposal:
Use SUSE Linux New Users Start Here Downloads Producs Highlights User Documentation PowerPC Documentation Developer Documentation Projects
What I miss in the wording used in the menus is the word "help". I think that users that get on the start-page are either looking for "download" or "help", so adding a big icon for "help" would help a lot. Maybe one could even place a search next to it.
Clicking on help, should offer the different channels there are for getting help. There is interactive help (mailinglists, irc-chat, forums), there are articles written by users and there is documentation. I am not sure why, but documentation for me is something different than "hints and tricks" or HOWTOs. Documentation is more like man-pages, i.e. a manual.
Anyway, clicking on help offers the channels, i.e.:
Interactive help: IRC-Chat Mailinglist Forum Newsgroup
HOWTOs/Hints Software Network/Internet Sound Printing
Documentation User-Manual FAQ Admin-Manual
For each section on the "interactive channel"-page, there should be a HOWTO, in order to explain the usage of a medium, e.g. clicking on IRC-Chat would get you to the IRC-Chat-heading on the channel-page and offer a list of channels sorted by language. Yet the first thing offered below the heading should be a link to a HOWTO that explains which application to use, how to install it, how to set it up. This will ensure that new users can participate, even if they are not familiar with IRC.
I think it would also be a good idea to add not only suse-help but also IRC-channels, forums and mailinglists for the big software-packages coming with suse, like OpenOffice, KDE and GNOME.
Finally I want to mention that I do not think that it is a good idea to arrange any TOC vertically, as it is e.g. done in the "Browse articles by category". What makes this even worse is the small font. So please increase the font-size!
Sven
-
Andreas Jaeger -
Christoph Thiel -
David Wright -
houghi -
jdd -
Peter Flodin -
Piotr Orzechowski -
Sven Burmeister