Am 05.02.2010 14:43, schrieb Christian Van Brussel: > Hi Denis, > > Here are some personal thoughts on what can be improved within CS. I can > help a bit working on this, we can talk about that through this mailing > list or the crystal-develop one, through personal mails, through trac > tickets or the 'Discussion' option of the web pages. > > IMO, the most important aspect is having a more attractive and usable > web site. The current site is rather complete but it is having some > problems: > > * The visual aspect of the web site is rather sober and sad. When going > to the web site of a 3D engine, the visitor expect to find fancy images > etc. The impression given by the current web site doesn't reflect the > graphical potential of CS. > - We can have more images, eg a random screenshot on the main page and > images within the news. > - The graphical layout may be improved. Less importantly, the layout may > be unified between the web site, the blogs, the forum, the trac. > >
I too think the webpage layout should be revised. It should be considered to change from the current Wiki to a CMS like Drupal; as the Trac developer page is already a wiki, I don't see much of a reason of making the main page a wiki too. In its current state, it only accumulates spam that way; just see "Recent changes" for evidence. This doesn't make a good impression. > * The navigation is not evident. It is hard to find the information you > want when you don't know where it is. > There are three menus on the main page: on the left, at the top, and in > a box on the right. This is disturbing. All menus should be regrouped at > the same place, ie on the left. Some quick links are also missing, while > some others are outdated. The page structure may also be improved: some > big pages may be split, some small pages may be merged. > > Here is a proposition of a menu layout: > > About > - Home > - News > - Features > - Screenshots > - Videos > > Projects > - Crystal Space Engine > - CEL > - CELstart > > Community > - Forums > - Blogs > - Other > > Developers > - Subversion > - Trac > - Bugs > > Donations > - Contribute > > Documentation > - Manual > - API > - Tutorials > > Ressources > - For artists > > Download > - Demos > - SDK > > Links > - YoFrankie > - Crystal Core > - blender2crystal > - CrystalArchitect > - PlaneShift > > ToolBox > > > I would propose to make Screenshots a top-level item, as that is often the first place where people look if they encounter the page of a 3d engine. News should be part of Home, so that they are immediately visible. Here would be my link list: Home About - Crystal Space (includes Features) - CEL - CELstart Screenshots Download Documentation - Manuals - Tutorials - API Reference Links > * Some information is outdated or incomplete > - The most important page is the main page. This is where the visitor > will choose between going further or zapping to another web site. The > description of CS may be improved to reflect more the status and the > potential of CS. There may also be more news when there are events like > release candidates, binary packages, new features, new projects, things > to test, needs (like seeking for an artist for the relooking of the web > site), etc > Seconded. > - The second most important pages are the feature list and the > screenshots/videos. The current pages doesn't reflect the impressive > feature list and potential of CS/CEL/etc. They can be improved to be > more accurate/complete/sexy. There can also be more videos/demos on the > features and uses of CS. A win32 demo package may help. > > Yeah. Are there any impressive demos that could be shown? Otherwise, some would have to be written (I probably don't have the artistic and programming expertise to do so myself, unfortunately). > * Another important aspect of CS that is problematic is the time between > each releases. Having some scripts to automatize the whole process can > help a lot. Having supported binary packages too. > > I also wanted to investigate that, especially SDK builds (it is very unfortunate that there are no binary SDKs currently, especially on Windows where building is not that easy). Regards, Denis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Planet: dedicated and managed hosting, cloud storage, colocation Stay online with enterprise data centers and the best network in the business Choose flexible plans and management services without long-term contracts Personal 24x7 support from experience hosting pros just a phone call away. http://p.sf.net/sfu/theplanet-com _______________________________________________ Crystal-main mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crystal-main Unsubscribe: mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe
