My guess is that most of the visitiors to the website are developers and if they are users—they are likely to be highly technical.
If an application is indeed meant to be used by someone who does not know how to press build—then the application owner can and should build a separate marketing page.
This is in fact a throwback to the “Bicycle for the mind” instead of today’s an “Appliance in every pocket.”
Etoile for example—is a developement environment. The main attraction is its customizability and customizability is basically development by point and click.
Focusing on developers is probably the best way to highlight the promise of GNUstep: that it is built on an easy to use framework and you can easily make it your own.
Hi
Xavier Brochard wrote:
>
> Regarding users, there is something totally missing for this public on
> the website : there is no single point entry for applications and
> appearance (howto, themes, icons and related tools). It is more easy
> to discover something than to find it again.
>
> For example, let's find available applications from the home page:
>
> - First there is the GNUstep Application Project with a link pointing
> to a readable list of apps.
> - A bit below this link there is two links pointing to more complete
> lists of softwares (Wiki application pages and Software Index), but
> these lists are more difficult to read, and Software Index contains
> also libraries.
> - Between these two parts there is the link to the Experience page
> with same Wiki application pages and Software Index, and another
> lisst, the Official GNUstep Applications.
>
I don't fully agree with this. We have main entries to lists, but it is
perfectly possible to have multiple-links to sub-parts of it.
So, while menus and other structured navigation part need to point
consistently
Software Index contains "all software". We also have other software but
guessing a user is more interested in application we point prominently
to it, making shortcuts in navigation.
We also have frameworks, like:
> It is confusing. While developers or sysadmins can find their way,
> users expect something easier. As a user all I need are simple answers
> to some questions:
>
> 1. if I install it, what does it looks ? (the look)
> 2. what is possible ? (the useful)
> 3. how can I do this or this ? (the help)
>
> Answer to the first one is easy : screenshots and a bit of text.
> The second one can be answered with screenshots and a short list of
> applications sorted by theme.
> The third is where you put the complete list of available software,
> the list of customizing tools, themes and icons and users related howtos.
Thise the possibilities of the project are a bit wider and it does not
itself contain "all apps" this is a bit misleading. Just hitting on the
looks is diminutive for the project. However I think the idea of putting
more prominence to a showcase is good, but please read my ideas below.
> 1) in GNUstep Overview, just remove the end: "which other projects can
> complete." as it can be told later and it is a bit confusing.
Did that, although it can be further improved with a showcase.
> 2) Add entry points for Users and Developers. Developers will contain
> both Experience (instead of User Experience) and Develop!. Users will
> contain something graphical (the look), a very short list of good apps
> (might be GNUMail, Cenon, PikoPixel, Cynthuiune, Gworkspace, Gorm, …),
> this list could be a carrousel (to combine the look with the useful).
> Then provide a link to a User page on the wiki where we can provide
> application list, tools, themes, help, other projects, etc.
I did a POC carousel for that, I attach a screenshot. I think it is of
impact and it can be added, but some thoughts about which and how to
present the images. For this reason I did not commit anything, not even
the POC.
* We could present specific apps and/or "tasks" (e.g. development tools,
generic themes).
* For each image one can have a title but also a link/button in the
style of Bootstrap. This can be for example a quick shortcut: GWorkspace
links directly to its experience page, Gorm or ProjectCenter to the
developer page, etc.
- should we such boldly link to external projects or apps? perhaps
not: it would be unexpected to have a navigation take you away from the
site when you did not yet explore it
* Images resize only with tricks inside a carousel, so it would be
really best to have a set of specific images, all of the same size and
aspect ratio "special" for the carousel. I propose super-wide screen, so
cut/resized to 1000x400 about, strips not full screenshots
I would thus showcase apps like GNUmail, but then point to our
application list generically.
Also I would show applications styled/themed in different ways.
Agreed?
Then Let's agree on about 8 images:
* GWorkspace -> GWorkspace page
* ProjectCenter -> dev page
* Gorm -> dev Page
* GNUMail -> App page
* PikoPixel with cool image open -> App page
* perhaps specific image running on windows? -> we don't have a good
windows page to point to anymore - maybe hidden for now, no link, just
description
What else ? Etoilé and NeXTSPACE (with description but no real link though?)
Or do you have different ideas?
Riccardo
PS: since you mentioned it in another mail, I would rather not update to
Bootstrap 5 which is too incompatible with browsers. BS 4 breaks our
navigation menu, I plan to fix that later. I prefer agree and complete
this carousel showcase on the homepage.
With the menu update from Patryk, once finalized, I will at least update
everything to the same BS 3.4.1 version with the same imports, I see it
is a mix-match. An upgrade later will not be hard, but better we keep
the website consistent.
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