Re: Other observations on www.gnustep.org

[Alex Perez]

Wim,

Be assured that your comments are not falling upon deaf ears...read below 
for my inline comments.

On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, Wim Oudshoorn wrote:

> 
> I just looked for a short time at the www.gnustep.org site
> and here are my observations.  I think the website looks
> very good and the following is not meant as any criticism.
> 
> So take the following as they are, just a bunch of observations
> and feel free to ignore them reject them or do something with them.
> 
> (1) The pages show fine when I browse them online, however if I browse
>      a copy made with wget the column with all the links shows up
>      below the main text instead of to the right of the main text.

This is probably due to a shortcoming of wget, actually. It's probably not 
getting the CSS stylesheet. Can you provide us with some more information 
about how you used wget to get the site? I'm presuming you were using a 
recursive wget, unless you tell me otherwise.

> 
> (2) I think link "Frameworks" under the "Resources" heading is
>     unfortunately named.  It points to a section in the 
>     "Documentation" page.  I would expect it to point to a list
>     of frameworks, with a short description.
>     (However, I am perhaps influenced by the recent discusion
>     on the gnustep mailing lists.)

I agree completely. I've been consideringsome alternate namings, and if 
you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

> 
> (3) In the "Documentation" page, the last section is named
>     "GNUstep Developers".  This could perhaps be interpreted
>     as "documentation for developers using GNUstep" instead
>     of the intended "Developers of GNUstep".
>     (Think about C++-Developers, I picture a programmer
>     programming in the C++ langauge, NOT a programmer of a 
>     C++ compiler.)

The documentation section is (was?) a monumental mess. MJ Ray has made 
some great inroads here, but more needs to be done. Some more discussion 
needs to be had before we do anything too drastic, but we definately have 
consensus that changes need to be made to rectify the problem.

> 
> (4) The "GNUstep, OpenStep and Objective-C Information" page
>     under the "More" section I find the layout not very clear
>     It seems to be 
>     "short line of text, including link"
>     "slightly longer line of text, describing the conent"
>     and this repeated a lot.  But it is not very clear, you
>     have to read very carefully to notice this.

I agree completely that it's not clear. If you have any critical analysis 
of how you think it can be improved, I'm willing to hear you out.

> 
> (5) I do not like the format of the FAQ.  
>     Every section (which are generally speaking very short)
>     is followed by a line
>     [ < ] [ > ] [ << ] [ Up ] [ >> ]  [Top][Contents][Index][ ? ]
>     Which I find distracting.  I think it looks a lot better
>     without these lines and I do not think they add a lot.

Yes, this is actually a problem I hvae with the FAQ's too. They are 
generated automatically every once in a while, and some sort of mechanism 
needs to be put in place for those pages to be templated when they are 
updated. Site consistency is extremely important, and it's something the 
old gnustep.org website lacked completely. I also agree that the line of 
navigation buttons probably shouldn't be there. In fact, it may be best to 
have the FAQ section be a single page, depending on its size. Can we get 
others comments on this? Adam? MJ?

> 
> (6) Also, the FAQ misses the nice righthand side links and the
>     top bar.  

Yes, once again a templating issue. We need a mechanism that will 
autotemplate the documents at the time they are created. Adam, do you have 
any suggestions? MJ?

> 
> (7) In the "Progress Overview" page on the last line of the
>     first paragraph there is link in the text:
> 
>     "Be sure to check here for _more_ _news_"
> 
>     - missing period?
>     - It is an external link to the www.gnustep.us site.

I can't comment on this...

>     
>     I would not expect such an external link here, more
>     in the related links section.
> 
> 
> Wim Oudshoorn.
> 
> P.S.:  I am not reading any gnustep + wwww related mailing
>        lists, so if you want more information or keep
>        me informed, you need to reply/CC to this 
>        e-mail address.
Will do.

Alex Perez
Resident gnustep.org co-lackey.