Next steps to improve the website

[Jacopo Cappellato]

Hi all,

what about slowly moving on the website refactoring?
Here are a few small steps that in my opinion should help this effort:

1) remove (or at least comment out) from the main page the section about
  "Open Source Projects & Standards" (at the bottom of the page); it is
not necessary, it is not up to date and could be confusing

2) add a message about the upcoming dev conference (even if it is an
unofficial Apache event)

3) split the "Docs&Books" page into two different pages:
3a) "Documentation" that is the main index for the documentation, and it
should go into the Confluence server
3b) "Books" page, leave it in html

4) remove the top tabs "Home" and "Docs&Books" and use links in the left
column instead

Finally, we should start to seriously consider to move the Confluence
docs into an official Apache server.

Jacopo

[Jacques Le Roux]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jacopo Cappellato" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 12:15 PM
Subject: Next steps to improve the website


> Hi all,
>
> what about slowly moving on the website refactoring?
> Here are a few small steps that in my opinion should help this effort:
>
> 1) remove (or at least comment out) from the main page the section
about
>   "Open Source Projects & Standards" (at the bottom of the page); it
is
> not necessary, it is not up to date and could be confusing

-1, I would prefer to update. This may be interesting from a technical
POV

> 2) add a message about the upcoming dev conference (even if it is an
> unofficial Apache event)

+1

> 3) split the "Docs&Books" page into two different pages:
> 3a) "Documentation" that is the main index for the documentation, and
it
> should go into the Confluence server
> 3b) "Books" page, leave it in html

+1

> 4) remove the top tabs "Home" and "Docs&Books" and use links in the
left
> column instead

-1, Create a Docs and a books tabs. IMHO there are already a lot too
much things in the left colums. I would even prefer to have more tabs
for existing features.

> Finally, we should start to seriously consider to move the Confluence
> docs into an official Apache server.

+1;  + use Giffy

Jacques

> Jacopo

[David E Jones]

On Feb 26, 2007, at 4:15 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> what about slowly moving on the website refactoring?
> Here are a few small steps that in my opinion should help this effort:
>
> 1) remove (or at least comment out) from the main page the section  
> about  "Open Source Projects & Standards" (at the bottom of the  
> page); it is not necessary, it is not up to date and could be  
> confusing

Jacques has an interesting point about this. Maybe a good alternative  
to both options would be to move this to a confluence page and just  
not have it so prominent on the home page.

> 2) add a message about the upcoming dev conference (even if it is  
> an unofficial Apache event)

This is next week, so it would be a good idea, and actually I should  
have done this a long time ago! I'll send out another email reminder  
about this to the dev list.

> 3) split the "Docs&Books" page into two different pages:
> 3a) "Documentation" that is the main index for the documentation,  
> and it should go into the Confluence server
> 3b) "Books" page, leave it in html

This sounds like a good idea. We should be able to move the Books  
part of the page to confluence as well.

> 4) remove the top tabs "Home" and "Docs&Books" and use links in the  
> left column instead

+1

> Finally, we should start to seriously consider to move the  
> Confluence docs into an official Apache server.

We should continue considering it, but I think we aren't ready for  
this yet. Aside from the fact that it will take some time and  
patience to get the new spaces and permissions and such setup, I  
don't think we know yet exactly how we want to organize everything  
(ie how many and which spaces we actually need/want), and I'm also  
not sure yet about the ASF policies or de-facto practices related to  
this, and we need to make sure those will work for us. In other  
words, this is still a pretty new area and I think we actually still  
have a number of complaints and things that may need to be changed,  
and it's nice to have a server that we have control of while we are  
experimenting (well, during the fairly rare occasions that we can  
spend time on this anyway... as it is one of many priorities).

-David

[Jacques Le Roux]

I'm ok too with 3a). I missed it in my first reply. But I always prefer
having some tabs than plenty of links in an only left column. Does this
imply some issues, constraints ? Do you want to refactor the site ? why
supressing all tabs ? I agree that all this is a bit subjective BTW...
My only concern is too allow newbies to find informations in the fastest
possible way (ok some glitter is good also, Pentaho site looks great in
this POV, I love their bee :o).

Another think I learnt some time ago is a lesson from newspapers. Why do
you think they have narrow columns ? Because it's easier to read (less
eyeballs work). That's also how TV prompters are working. Of course they
are all journalists. Test it yourself when really tired, it's obvious. A
lesson for oneliners too (I'm a kind of because I did some APL ;o)

Jacques

From: "David E. Jones" <[hidden email]>
>
> On Feb 26, 2007, at 4:15 AM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > what about slowly moving on the website refactoring?
> > Here are a few small steps that in my opinion should help this
effort:

> >
> > 1) remove (or at least comment out) from the main page the section
> > about  "Open Source Projects & Standards" (at the bottom of the
> > page); it is not necessary, it is not up to date and could be
> > confusing
>
> Jacques has an interesting point about this. Maybe a good alternative
> to both options would be to move this to a confluence page and just
> not have it so prominent on the home page.
>
> > 2) add a message about the upcoming dev conference (even if it is
> > an unofficial Apache event)
>
> This is next week, so it would be a good idea, and actually I should
> have done this a long time ago! I'll send out another email reminder
> about this to the dev list.
>
> > 3) split the "Docs&Books" page into two different pages:
> > 3a) "Documentation" that is the main index for the documentation,
> > and it should go into the Confluence server
> > 3b) "Books" page, leave it in html
>
> This sounds like a good idea. We should be able to move the Books
> part of the page to confluence as well.
>
> > 4) remove the top tabs "Home" and "Docs&Books" and use links in the
> > left column instead
>
> +1
>
> > Finally, we should start to seriously consider to move the
> > Confluence docs into an official Apache server.
>
> We should continue considering it, but I think we aren't ready for
> this yet. Aside from the fact that it will take some time and
> patience to get the new spaces and permissions and such setup, I
> don't think we know yet exactly how we want to organize everything
> (ie how many and which spaces we actually need/want), and I'm also
> not sure yet about the ASF policies or de-facto practices related to
> this, and we need to make sure those will work for us. In other
> words, this is still a pretty new area and I think we actually still
> have a number of complaints and things that may need to be changed,
> and it's nice to have a server that we have control of while we are
> experimenting (well, during the fairly rare occasions that we can
> spend time on this anyway... as it is one of many priorities).
>
> -David
>
>
>

[David E Jones]

On Feb 26, 2007, at 5:17 PM, Jacques Le Roux wrote:

> I'm ok too with 3a). I missed it in my first reply. But I always  
> prefer
> having some tabs than plenty of links in an only left column. Does  
> this
> imply some issues, constraints ? Do you want to refactor the site ?  
> why
> supressing all tabs ? I agree that all this is a bit subjective BTW...
> My only concern is too allow newbies to find informations in the  
> fastest
> possible way (ok some glitter is good also, Pentaho site looks  
> great in
> this POV, I love their bee :o).

I like removing tabs and using only the left bar because based on  
comments on the mailing lists and in other places it seems that  
people often miss the "Docs & Books" tab because they are looking at  
the left bar or the main page only.

> Another think I learnt some time ago is a lesson from newspapers.  
> Why do
> you think they have narrow columns ? Because it's easier to read (less
> eyeballs work). That's also how TV prompters are working. Of course  
> they
> are all journalists. Test it yourself when really tired, it's  
> obvious. A
> lesson for oneliners too (I'm a kind of because I did some APL ;o)

I agree with this rationale for having multiple columns in the main  
area of the page (ie 2 equal width columns in addition to the left  
bar). In addition related to the above I think there is another. If  
there are 3 columns perhaps people will scan all of them rather than  
favoring one or the other, and then asking on the mailing lists where  
a certain resources is located.

-David