X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mail set sender to geda-user-bounces using -f X-Recipient: geda-user AT delorie DOT com X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com From: Kai-Martin Knaak Subject: Re: [geda-user] gEDA documentation gedasymbols etc (was: Wiki structure) Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 04:33:26 +0200 Lines: 85 Message-ID: References: <201404182030 DOT s3IKUJAN002585 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com> <53528F6C DOT 8020400 AT ecosensory DOT com> <201404191840 DOT s3JIeEpm002988 AT envy DOT delorie DOT com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit X-Complaints-To: usenet AT ger DOT gmane DOT org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: a89-182-91-162.net-htp.de User-Agent: KNode/4.11.5 Reply-To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com DJ Delorie wrote: > I just don't think a > generic wiki page makes for a good first impression when someone > looks for a project. Like any decent content management system (CMS) these days dokuwiki appearance is completely driven by cascaded style sheets (CSS) and javascript snippets. Unless you are into something really weird and extraordinary it can be rendered by a dokuwiki page. In other words, there is no such thing as a "generic wiki page". There is of course the look and feel you get by default if you just installed a fresh instance of dokuwiki. For dokuwiki this default was for a long time the look and feel of http://wiki.geda-project.org/ Except for minor tweaks no > It's not just the content, it's the > appearance. A few glossy images and a first-time-visitor-specific > layout makes a big difference. Very true. However, I don't see glossy images on http://geda-project.org/ :-) Let's compare with http://www.kicad-pcb.org/ (yes, this hurts) While I am not a particular fan of their web design, they got a few points right: 1) First impression is a screenshot of the application with a decently sized layout. --> subtext: This is a tool to get work done 2) The navigation list to the right is well organized. No subsection has more than seven items. Order of the links from top to bottom is like you would expect from newbie to expert. Note, how the navigation does not reflect the internal structure of the kicad suite. And honestly, as a new user I wouldn't care for this structure for navigation. The divide between schematic editor, layout tool, footprint chooser, gerber viewer and other tools will come naturally in a tutorial. Sure enough, the components are mentioned further down the main page. 3) If I scroll the below the first screen of the main page I see * More screen shots -- one for each major component of the suite * some statistics on code lines over time pulled from ohloh.net * a comparison of google frequency compared to their competition (geda and eagle) * a sketch of a typical design process for a simple project * an advertisement of their "large set of open-source library components". If the newbie has any experience with EDA this will ring some bells. A decent lib is definitely an asset. * a basic instruction how to contribute to the software Do I feel informed as a first time user? Yes, I do. Do I feel I need to dive into the web site to get an overview. No. Which page would I visit next? Probably "Download", then "Tutorials" Now, how does the current geda-Project page compare? > I disabled the registration page completely. I Didn't know, there ever was self registration enabled. Back when I started writing in the wiki I had to ask Ales on his personal mail. Right now, I have no account for the geda wiki. After I got removed for the third time out of the blue for no reason, I got tired to apply again. So no wiki contributions by me since about January 2013. I just failed to locate an instruction on how to obtain edit buttons for the wiki in the wiki. The start page http://wiki.geda-project.org/start refers for "jobs that need help" to the tasks page http://wiki.geda-project.org/geda:tasks which sends me back to http://wiki.geda-project.org/start for "how to get started editing the documentation on the wiki". ---<)kaimartin(>---