Home » Eclipse Projects » Eclipse Website » Biggest problems on the web site
| Biggest problems on the web site [message #2023] |
Fri, 29 April 2005 16:01  |
 Ed Burnette
Messages: 279
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
1. Users don't know where to go for help. Some find the newsgroups, some
find the developer mailing lists. Some people don't like newsgroups and
post on the developer mailing lists even if they know it's the wrong
place. Adding to the confusion, a few mailing lists *are* for user
questions.
2. There are no screenshots.
3. Different projects have greatly different styles of doing things.
Compare these home pages:
http://www.eclipse.org/tools
http://www.eclipse.org/tptp
http://www.eclipse.org/webtools
and compare these download pages(all linked from the main download page):
http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/index.php
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/cdt- home/downloads/main.html?cvsroot=Tools_Project
http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/downloads/
http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/downloads/downloads.html
http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/
http://www.eclipse.org/technology/downloads.html
http://eclipse.org/ajdt/download.html
http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ve/downloads/index.php
4. There are no rollup packages, that combine, say, java programming,
web programming, modeling, and visual editing.
5. There is no site-wide update site story.
6. There is no syndication (RSS/Atom) of site contents, for example news
on particular projects.
7. There is no newsletter or announcements list that's actually used.
8. The web site is not data driven. For example to add a news item or
technical article involves cutting and pasting into an HTML unordered
list with special table formatting and whatnot. Yuck.
9. The web site should consistently use style sheets and not FONT tags
and TABLE. The webmaster should be able to change one css file and have
the whole site change.
If you can fix these very basic things then we can while away our time
arguing about numbers of columns and background colors and whatnot.
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| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #2040 is a reply to message #2023] |
Mon, 02 May 2005 21:59  |
Mike Milinkovich
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Ed,
This is great feedback.
The really good news is that our list of infrastructure requirements is very
close to what you have below. We will most definitely be moving to a content
management system, rather than using static HTML. RSS feeds are coming RSN.
Some of the items that you have listed may or may not be in scope. In fact,
I would assert that there is not even a consensus that they are a good idea.
For example, it is not obvious to me that we should insist that every
project site have the same look and feel. Personally, I think the advantages
outweigh the costs. But I am pretty sure that many projects like having
their own visual identity. So this requires much conversation with both the
users and the projects to decide the best approach.
Also, several of the items that you have listed are content, not
infrastructure. We would definitely love to dramatically improve our content
but there is absolutely no way that is going to happen with just the
resources currently on the team. We need to have many more contributors in
order to create the materials you are describing. E.g. rollup packages,
newsletter, etc.
Our primary objectives are to dramatically improve the infrastructure used
to run the site in order to allow the community to improve much of the
content. We are going to focus on migrating the existing "Foundation"
content. Projects will migrate at their own pace.We will create new and
better content at the rate and pace we can sustain with the resources we
have.
"Ed Burnette" <ed.burnette@sas.com> wrote in message
news:d4tm0o$o00$1@news.eclipse.org...
> 1. Users don't know where to go for help. Some find the newsgroups, some
> find the developer mailing lists. Some people don't like newsgroups and
> post on the developer mailing lists even if they know it's the wrong
> place. Adding to the confusion, a few mailing lists *are* for user
> questions.
>
> 2. There are no screenshots.
>
> 3. Different projects have greatly different styles of doing things.
> Compare these home pages:
> http://www.eclipse.org/tools
> http://www.eclipse.org/tptp
> http://www.eclipse.org/webtools
>
> and compare these download pages(all linked from the main download page):
> http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/index.php
> http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/cdt- home/downloads/main.html?cvsroot=Tools_Project
> http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/downloads/
> http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/downloads/downloads.html
> http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/
> http://www.eclipse.org/technology/downloads.html
> http://eclipse.org/ajdt/download.html
> http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ve/downloads/index.php
>
> 4. There are no rollup packages, that combine, say, java programming, web
> programming, modeling, and visual editing.
>
> 5. There is no site-wide update site story.
>
> 6. There is no syndication (RSS/Atom) of site contents, for example news
> on particular projects.
>
> 7. There is no newsletter or announcements list that's actually used.
>
> 8. The web site is not data driven. For example to add a news item or
> technical article involves cutting and pasting into an HTML unordered list
> with special table formatting and whatnot. Yuck.
>
> 9. The web site should consistently use style sheets and not FONT tags and
> TABLE. The webmaster should be able to change one css file and have the
> whole site change.
>
>
> If you can fix these very basic things then we can while away our time
> arguing about numbers of columns and background colors and whatnot.
|
|
|
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #2054 is a reply to message #2040] |
Tue, 03 May 2005 02:40 |
Ed Burnette
Messages: 279
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
In this model, there is an infrastructure-supplied project page with
downloads, forums, mailing lists, committers, bug tracking,
announcements, screenshots, and so forth. It's all data driven and every
project looks the same. There is also an (optional) personalized home
page, that looks different for every project. For example if you go to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus/ you can see the standard
project page for Azureus, and if you click on the Home Page link it
takes you to the personalized page which can be anything but in this
case it's http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ . The personalized pages can
pick things off the standard page (like a list of releases) or be
completely free form.
Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> Some of the items that you have listed may or may not be in scope. In fact,
> I would assert that there is not even a consensus that they are a good idea.
> For example, it is not obvious to me that we should insist that every
> project site have the same look and feel. Personally, I think the advantages
> outweigh the costs. But I am pretty sure that many projects like having
> their own visual identity. So this requires much conversation with both the
> users and the projects to decide the best approach.
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| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #2082 is a reply to message #2068] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 02:38 |
Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: ckng.nrg.cs.usm.my
Patrick Mueller wrote:
>
> 11. Integration with Google Maps (everyone else is doing it!)
I don't, Ed don't, do you? =)
Anyway, to add to the list
12. Site-wide search, help locate content easily
13. Site-map, help navigation
14. Collaborative book, collective knowledge/information like
http://drupal.org/handbook
15. Project/developer blogs, I think everyone like to get a glimpse of the
exciting things everyone is working on.
16. Better newsgroup archive/search, this is where I'm having most problem
where you can't google for it =)
--
Regards,
CK Ng
|
|
| | |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #3113 is a reply to message #2082] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 13:44 |
Mike Milinkovich
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
"CK Ng" <ckng@nrg.cs.usm.my> wrote in message
news:d59css$q01$1@news.eclipse.org...
> 12. Site-wide search, help locate content easily
Yes, that is on the list. We are looking into leveraging google for as much
as possible of this.
> 13. Site-map, help navigation
Yes, on the list.
> 14. Collaborative book, collective knowledge/information like
> http://drupal.org/handbook
We are looking into wiki usage at multiple levels. What you have linked to
here is currently out of scope for the Phoenix project. Revamping all of the
help content for a new format, etc. is a decision by the projects IMHO.
> 15. Project/developer blogs, I think everyone like to get a glimpse of the
> exciting things everyone is working on.
Definitely. But to be clear, our mission is to ensure that the
infrastructure is available. Each project will have to make its own
decisions about how to best leverage the tools we make available. We are
hoping that many projects will start using blogs, etc. but we can't tell
them to.
> 16. Better newsgroup archive/search, this is where I'm having most problem
> where you can't google for it =)
OK. Makes sense.
|
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| |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #3476 is a reply to message #2054] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 02:26 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com
Ed Burnette wrote:
> I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
> and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
> put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
> a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
> been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
> lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
I'm not familiar with all those, but the pages in SourceForge that are
uniform are quite ugly and confusing. The pages that aren't uniform
across projects are more unlike each other than any two Eclipse projects.
I think maybe a compromise that would satisfy both the need for
uniformity and the need for volunteers to be individuals would be a
required template page that forced certain items, like downloads, to the
top of the page, and left the rest as a blank page and a stylesheet.
Bob
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| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #3509 is a reply to message #2095] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 02:29 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com
Ed Burnette wrote:
> So I say, drop the password protection, obfuscate the email
> addresses if you want, and open the whole thing up so google can crawl
> it. You get better search at no cost to the Foundation.
Good idea! Please, however, delete the phrase "if you want".
Bob Foster
|
|
|
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #4046 is a reply to message #3476] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 16:54 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: Sinlee.hotmail.com
Bob Foster wrote:
> Ed Burnette wrote:
>> I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
>> and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
>> put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
>> a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
>> been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
>> lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
> I'm not familiar with all those, but the pages in SourceForge that are
> uniform are quite ugly and confusing.
I agree they are ugly and also too clogged. The only thing in
sourceforge.net/projects/myProjectName that is relevent to the project is
in the middle frame. Things surrounding the that frame are all junk as far
as the project is concern, and I don't want eclipse website to make the
same mistake.
> The pages that aren't uniform
> across projects are more unlike each other than any two Eclipse projects.
The advantage with that ugly and clogged sourceforge project info page is
that once you get the hang of it, you know where to find the things you
want: They are all at the top of the middle frame.
Of course, this means the disadvantage is the steep learning curve to
understand the layout.
> I think maybe a compromise that would satisfy both the need for
> uniformity and the need for volunteers to be individuals would be a
> required template page that forced certain items, like downloads, to the
> top of the page, and left the rest as a blank page and a stylesheet.
I agree with this. But I think we should keep the "forced" items to a bare
minimum and to essentials only.
Best regards,
Sinlee
|
|
| |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #561816 is a reply to message #2023] |
Mon, 02 May 2005 21:59 |
Mike Milinkovich
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Ed,
This is great feedback.
The really good news is that our list of infrastructure requirements is very
close to what you have below. We will most definitely be moving to a content
management system, rather than using static HTML. RSS feeds are coming RSN.
Some of the items that you have listed may or may not be in scope. In fact,
I would assert that there is not even a consensus that they are a good idea.
For example, it is not obvious to me that we should insist that every
project site have the same look and feel. Personally, I think the advantages
outweigh the costs. But I am pretty sure that many projects like having
their own visual identity. So this requires much conversation with both the
users and the projects to decide the best approach.
Also, several of the items that you have listed are content, not
infrastructure. We would definitely love to dramatically improve our content
but there is absolutely no way that is going to happen with just the
resources currently on the team. We need to have many more contributors in
order to create the materials you are describing. E.g. rollup packages,
newsletter, etc.
Our primary objectives are to dramatically improve the infrastructure used
to run the site in order to allow the community to improve much of the
content. We are going to focus on migrating the existing "Foundation"
content. Projects will migrate at their own pace.We will create new and
better content at the rate and pace we can sustain with the resources we
have.
"Ed Burnette" <ed.burnette@sas.com> wrote in message
news:d4tm0o$o00$1@news.eclipse.org...
> 1. Users don't know where to go for help. Some find the newsgroups, some
> find the developer mailing lists. Some people don't like newsgroups and
> post on the developer mailing lists even if they know it's the wrong
> place. Adding to the confusion, a few mailing lists *are* for user
> questions.
>
> 2. There are no screenshots.
>
> 3. Different projects have greatly different styles of doing things.
> Compare these home pages:
> http://www.eclipse.org/tools
> http://www.eclipse.org/tptp
> http://www.eclipse.org/webtools
>
> and compare these download pages(all linked from the main download page):
> http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/index.php
> http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/cdt- home/downloads/main.html?cvsroot=Tools_Project
> http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/downloads/
> http://www.eclipse.org/tptp/home/downloads/downloads.html
> http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/
> http://www.eclipse.org/technology/downloads.html
> http://eclipse.org/ajdt/download.html
> http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ve/downloads/index.php
>
> 4. There are no rollup packages, that combine, say, java programming, web
> programming, modeling, and visual editing.
>
> 5. There is no site-wide update site story.
>
> 6. There is no syndication (RSS/Atom) of site contents, for example news
> on particular projects.
>
> 7. There is no newsletter or announcements list that's actually used.
>
> 8. The web site is not data driven. For example to add a news item or
> technical article involves cutting and pasting into an HTML unordered list
> with special table formatting and whatnot. Yuck.
>
> 9. The web site should consistently use style sheets and not FONT tags and
> TABLE. The webmaster should be able to change one css file and have the
> whole site change.
>
>
> If you can fix these very basic things then we can while away our time
> arguing about numbers of columns and background colors and whatnot.
|
|
|
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #561836 is a reply to message #2040] |
Tue, 03 May 2005 02:40 |
Ed Burnette
Messages: 279
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
In this model, there is an infrastructure-supplied project page with
downloads, forums, mailing lists, committers, bug tracking,
announcements, screenshots, and so forth. It's all data driven and every
project looks the same. There is also an (optional) personalized home
page, that looks different for every project. For example if you go to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus/ you can see the standard
project page for Azureus, and if you click on the Home Page link it
takes you to the personalized page which can be anything but in this
case it's http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ . The personalized pages can
pick things off the standard page (like a list of releases) or be
completely free form.
Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> Some of the items that you have listed may or may not be in scope. In fact,
> I would assert that there is not even a consensus that they are a good idea.
> For example, it is not obvious to me that we should insist that every
> project site have the same look and feel. Personally, I think the advantages
> outweigh the costs. But I am pretty sure that many projects like having
> their own visual identity. So this requires much conversation with both the
> users and the projects to decide the best approach.
|
|
| |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #561874 is a reply to message #2068] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 02:38 |
CK Ng
Messages: 18
Registered: July 2009 |
Junior Member |
|
|
Patrick Mueller wrote:
>
> 11. Integration with Google Maps (everyone else is doing it!)
I don't, Ed don't, do you? =)
Anyway, to add to the list
12. Site-wide search, help locate content easily
13. Site-map, help navigation
14. Collaborative book, collective knowledge/information like
http://drupal.org/handbook
15. Project/developer blogs, I think everyone like to get a glimpse of the
exciting things everyone is working on.
16. Better newsgroup archive/search, this is where I'm having most problem
where you can't google for it =)
--
Regards,
CK Ng
|
|
| | |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #561936 is a reply to message #2082] |
Wed, 04 May 2005 13:44 |
Mike Milinkovich
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
"CK Ng" <ckng@nrg.cs.usm.my> wrote in message
news:d59css$q01$1@news.eclipse.org...
> 12. Site-wide search, help locate content easily
Yes, that is on the list. We are looking into leveraging google for as much
as possible of this.
> 13. Site-map, help navigation
Yes, on the list.
> 14. Collaborative book, collective knowledge/information like
> http://drupal.org/handbook
We are looking into wiki usage at multiple levels. What you have linked to
here is currently out of scope for the Phoenix project. Revamping all of the
help content for a new format, etc. is a decision by the projects IMHO.
> 15. Project/developer blogs, I think everyone like to get a glimpse of the
> exciting things everyone is working on.
Definitely. But to be clear, our mission is to ensure that the
infrastructure is available. Each project will have to make its own
decisions about how to best leverage the tools we make available. We are
hoping that many projects will start using blogs, etc. but we can't tell
them to.
> 16. Better newsgroup archive/search, this is where I'm having most problem
> where you can't google for it =)
OK. Makes sense.
|
|
| |
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #562179 is a reply to message #2054] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 02:26 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com
Ed Burnette wrote:
> I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
> and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
> put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
> a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
> been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
> lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
I'm not familiar with all those, but the pages in SourceForge that are
uniform are quite ugly and confusing. The pages that aren't uniform
across projects are more unlike each other than any two Eclipse projects.
I think maybe a compromise that would satisfy both the need for
uniformity and the need for volunteers to be individuals would be a
required template page that forced certain items, like downloads, to the
top of the page, and left the rest as a blank page and a stylesheet.
Bob
|
|
|
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #562204 is a reply to message #2095] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 02:29 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com
Ed Burnette wrote:
> So I say, drop the password protection, obfuscate the email
> addresses if you want, and open the whole thing up so google can crawl
> it. You get better search at no cost to the Foundation.
Good idea! Please, however, delete the phrase "if you want".
Bob Foster
|
|
|
| Re: Biggest problems on the web site [message #562384 is a reply to message #3476] |
Fri, 06 May 2005 16:54 |
| Eclipse User |
|
|
|
Originally posted by: Sinlee.hotmail.com
Bob Foster wrote:
> Ed Burnette wrote:
>> I see the point about different projects maybe wanting their own look
>> and feel. However from the point of view of the user who is trying to
>> put together a working combination of those different projects it's not
>> a distinction they really appreciate. How about using the model that has
>> been successful at sites like SourceForge, FreshMeat, GForge, and to a
>> lesser extent Java.net and GotDotNet?
> I'm not familiar with all those, but the pages in SourceForge that are
> uniform are quite ugly and confusing.
I agree they are ugly and also too clogged. The only thing in
sourceforge.net/projects/myProjectName that is relevent to the project is
in the middle frame. Things surrounding the that frame are all junk as far
as the project is concern, and I don't want eclipse website to make the
same mistake.
> The pages that aren't uniform
> across projects are more unlike each other than any two Eclipse projects.
The advantage with that ugly and clogged sourceforge project info page is
that once you get the hang of it, you know where to find the things you
want: They are all at the top of the middle frame.
Of course, this means the disadvantage is the steep learning curve to
understand the layout.
> I think maybe a compromise that would satisfy both the need for
> uniformity and the need for volunteers to be individuals would be a
> required template page that forced certain items, like downloads, to the
> top of the page, and left the rest as a blank page and a stylesheet.
I agree with this. But I think we should keep the "forced" items to a bare
minimum and to essentials only.
Best regards,
Sinlee
|
|
| |
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