Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 8:37 AM, Harald Schilly harald.schi...@gmail.com wrote: On May 16, 1:37 am, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: It's about time http://sagemath.org got totally reworked for improved usability and simplicity. A design idea from last year is here: (you need safari or firefox, doesn't work in ie) http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/schilly/www3/ The main difference is that the menu is on the left and each sub-point is always visible. That saves clicks and you always see a thematically structured map of all pages. I'm happy to hear about some feedback or ideas how to make it better - then I can re-implement it so that also IE is happy. Technically, layout is oriented on the left and there are fewer graphics. That speeds up the page even further, download and rendering! Having just tried the above, I'm not convinced that such a dramatic change is a good idea right now. For starters, most of the buttons on the left aren't even visible when I load the page. Also, personally it seems odd for the buttons to be on the left, not the right. And our website should have a couple randomly chosen [quotes] and displayed in a sidebar. I've started that a while ago here: http://sagemath.org/inc/quotes.shtml as a replacement for the random links at the bottom. (It's just one quote, but there is room for 10) That seems to be a google search that list pages that mention Sage. This should not be on the main page. What should be is some selection from http://sagemath.org/library-stories.html discussion lists Personally, when maintaining the website, my main problem is that they get created but nobody tells me about them. I just don't automatically think about adding them to the page if i read about them some time later. True. There is no solution to this problem, except increased communication, *and* a clear link that says Do you know about a Sage-related discussion group that should be listed here? If so, click here to report it. That link could just be a mailto:harald. download page Well, there is no javascript involved at all and nothing is guessed by javascript - it's done via ssi on the server. If it is ok to use javascript, I can create an intelligent select dialog for the download process, just like on other pages. It's just that when I started to create the page the requirement was that all essential functions should work w/o javascript. So, if it is ok to create a dialog in js i'll do it. As a fallback for js-disabled browsers I can add a link to the mirrors. I'm perfectly fine with you using Javascript to make the download process easier for end users. That no javascript thing was I think some weird obsession that Michael Abshoff had. The main thing we want to avoid is making it hard to setup mirror sites. Anyway, sagemath.org has javascript all over it already. And btw, the download link at the top menu was pointing to the detected operating system, but then i got mails that this is confusing because there are users who use windows but want to download linux binaries. So, there is no simple solution and all such simplifications need a visible fallback to the general case. There are solutions that appear simpler to end users.Almost any major software project's download solution is simpler that what we currently do. -- William H -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Simon King simon.k...@nuigalway.ie wrote: On 15 Mai, 22:18, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: There is such a list: http://sagemath.org/development.html It only took me 5 minutes of confusion and clicking on random links athttp://sagemath.orgto find that page. So, hard to find, and incomplete (the list doesn't contain sage- algebra). OK, I added it. William -- Simon -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On May 15, 2010, at 1:15 PM, Nathan O'Treally wrote: On 15 Mai, 22:10, Simon King simon.k...@nuigalway.ie wrote: [...] I find it relatively easy to ignore posts about topics that I am not interested in. And occasionally it happens that I start to be interested in a topic because of a thread. +1 I think it makes sense to have separate forums for topics that are regularly sufficiently high volume (e.g. 100 or so messages a month), sufficiently specialized (e.g. sage-nt), and/or of little interest to the general community (the initial question of coercion probably doesn't fall into this category). - Robert -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On 15 May 2010 21:36, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Simon King simon.k...@nuigalway.ie wrote: On 15 Mai, 22:18, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: There is such a list: http://sagemath.org/development.html It only took me 5 minutes of confusion and clicking on random links athttp://sagemath.orgto find that page. So, hard to find, and incomplete (the list doesn't contain sage- algebra). OK, I added it. I don't see it!? John William -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 2:35 PM, John Cremona john.crem...@gmail.com wrote: On 15 May 2010 21:36, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Simon King simon.k...@nuigalway.ie wrote: On 15 Mai, 22:18, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: There is such a list: http://sagemath.org/development.html It only took me 5 minutes of confusion and clicking on random links athttp://sagemath.orgto find that page. So, hard to find, and incomplete (the list doesn't contain sage- algebra). OK, I added it. I don't see it!? It was there, then it suddenly disappeared. Editing the sagemath.org website is confusion because there are multiple redundant directories, etc. I'm guessing somebody else (Harald?) might be working on this same page right and hence there will be a new version of the page with sage-algebra on it, possibly structured in sections. This looks different: http://sagemath.org/sandbox/development.html And diff'ing shows: diff -r 780f194ec989 www/development.html --- a/www/development.html Sat May 15 14:32:04 2010 -0700 +++ b/www/development.html Sat May 15 14:58:16 2010 -0700 @@ -44,32 +44,52 @@ are discussed here. ul - lia href=http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel; -target=_blanksage-devel/a – development/li + liGeneral lists/li + ul + lia href=http://groups.google.com.au/group/sage-support; + target=_blanksage-support/a – general help and support on + using Sage, e.g. installation, usage, functions, syntax, etc./li ... ... so stay tuned. -- William Stein Professor of Mathematics University of Washington http://wstein.org -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
Hi William, On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 7:47 AM, William Stein wst...@gmail.com wrote: SNIP It was there, then it suddenly disappeared. Editing the sagemath.org website is confusion because there are multiple redundant directories, etc. I'm updating the Sage website in response to any usability problems reported here. Please stay tuned... -- Regards Minh Van Nguyen -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On May 15, 2010, at 19:41 , mhampton wrote: I really don't like the plethora of discussion groups. I'd be happy with sage-support and sage-everything-else. I find it very hard to keep up with things I care about with the current setup. Many issues do not cleanly fall into a particular category. +1 I find that most threads end up going to multiple lists, so I see multiple copies of each message. Justin -- Justin C. Walker, Curmudgeon-at-Large () The ASCII Ribbon Campaign /\ Help Cure HTML Email -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
Re: [sage-devel] Re: Better visibility of discussion groups
On May 15, 2010, at 7:41 PM, mhampton wrote: I really don't like the plethora of discussion groups. I'd be happy with sage-support and sage-everything-else. I find it very hard to keep up with things I care about with the current setup. Many issues do not cleanly fall into a particular category. There are several people who used to provide a lot of good input that have stopped reading sage-devel because it simply became too high traffic and too many messages were irrelevant, but I agree with your main point. It seems like many of the lists below are not used at all, and probably shouldn't be suggested (or, if they're listed, for archival purposes only). Here's my take: sage-announce -- low traffic, but easy for people to subscribe to to keep in touch sage-combinat-devel -- high volume, relatively self contained, good at cc'ing sage-devel when needed sage-flame -- safety valve so off topic and inflammatory comments don't poison the other lists sage-edu -- it seems several people are interested in this, but not in sage-devel or sage-users sage-marketing -- same as above (maybe?), and quite different in focus than sage-devel, but probably coincides a lot with the above. sage-release -- probably better named sage-build. Not everyone needs to know that some doctest failed on some alpha on some random piece of hardware (but some poeple do need to know this). Porting issues would fall naturally here as well. sage-windows -- lots of specific stuff here, but possibly once cygwin is actually a regular build platform it could be sage-release material sage-notebook -- important if we're trying to spin this off sage-nt -- I'm on the fence with this one, but there are a fair amount of number theory specific people. (Is anyone on that list not in sage- devel? Could be more useful if the sage-nt-support side is more emphasized.) sage-* Not listed above, not As I said before, I think it makes sense to only split things out if they're sufficiently high volume and sufficiently different audiences/ topics. Especially the development stuff is very interrelated, and branches of math aren't as distinguishing as, say, education vs. research. It may also make sense to ask if there are people who would sign up for that list but not sign up for sage-devel/support. Some stats below for the curious: - Robert - • sage-algebra – discussion and development of algebraic functionalities 12 members, 3 posts ever • sage-announce – release announcement 1423 members, this list serves a different purpose • sage-combinat-devel – combinatorics 124 members, 1009 posts this last year • debian-sage – Debian port 38 users, 18 posts this last year (used to be quite used, but not much going on here recently) • sage-finance – finance 53 users, no posts this last year. (Had two months of high activity in 2008.) • sage-flame – flame wars 31 members, 333 posts this last year. (Again, serves a different purpose.) • sage-grid – scientific grid computing 10 members, 3 posts ever • sage-marketing – coordinates promotion efforts, marketing materials, posters, information sheets, etc. 25 members, 171 posts this last year (though less than a year old) • sage-notebook – development of a standalone notebook server 73 members, 686 posts this last year (also less than a year old) • sage-nt – number theory 90 members, 271 posts this last year. • sage-release – release management 59 members, 871 posts this last year (and getting more regularly used) • sage-solaris – Solaris port 6 members, 3 months old, 19 posts ever (we got 2000 solaris messages on sage-devel last year, now build issues are mostly sorted out on sage-release) • sage-windows – Microsoft Windows Port 70 members, 491 messages this last year (some months have no messages, last month had 112). Comparatively, we have - sage-devel 1186 members, 15482 posts this last year - sage-support 1719 members, 7416 posts this last year - sage-edu 314 members, 705 posts this last year -- To post to this group, send an email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URL: http://www.sagemath.org
