Hi Kay,
I don't know whether it works as it is supposed to work, since there are
tooo many alerts now ;)
But, (I hope that I won't offend you saying this)
How important are versions anyway? I guess it's nice to have, but isn't
the native language problem a much more serious issue? I assume that 99%
of all people need the latest version when they come to the download
area. We should not put much effort in addressing a problem that only
pleases a minority. There is a much more serious issue: Many people not
speaking english try to get OpenOffice.org in their native language via
the normal download area, which does a very bad job in helping them out.
Old versions of potential interest to special users (i.e. Windows 95
users and rock solid experience seekers) can be addressed using static
links to the old download page. I don't see much of a problem with that
besides that it would be nice to have such working. But it's a minor
problem imho. The german language project has it already working because
it's relatively easy to manage for just one language.
The problem now, when we try to address offering different versions, is
that incorporating direct downloads (which I guess is the ultimate goal)
from this download page becomes an even greater problem, especially
since naming and releases are so irregular.
Yet this is only my opinion, and of course you may disagree. But my
message is actually: why not first get all heads in the same direction.
I saw some serious discussion going on between you and Christian, full
of misunderstanding, and I had my own little thread going on with him,
going in a much different direction. I believe it's better to first get
some goals straight (prioritized), then we can discuss the technological
possibilities and limitations of different solutions (on 'paper'), and
only at that stage I believe it's a good moment to start implementing.
Else we'll be doing too much work in wrong directions.
My goals (prioritized):
1. Servers should be randomized, making better descriptions is allright,
but as it's such an easy thing to accomplish using javascript, and code
is already available...
2. One should be able to download OOo in their native language directly
(as that is assumed by the interface as we have it now). Different
option is to remove the language dropdown completely, and just refer in
text to the international pages, else it doesn't make sense
3. With or without JRE should actually be a checkbox (it's a minor
issue, but makes more sense)
4. There should be an advanced and a simple way of downloading (my
comment on the german download area was that it showed too much to the
average user) I don't think many will complain if much information is
being given, but it will make the whole action of downloading look more
complex than it is to average users, therefore making the threshold of
downloading OOo higher.
9. Make it possible to choose between different versions (only in the
advanced download options)
Future goals:
- Incorporate P2P downloads: Can be another checkbox, followed by a
dropdown showing the three supported P2P methods.
- Offering ISO's (in advanced downloads)
- Creating an python script (or whatever), that will make maintenance of
these pages much more easier
g.,
Maarten
Kay Schenk wrote:
Folks--
You can view/use the changes I've made to the download page from
http://website.openoffice.org/tryouts/Kay/download/DL_index.html
Though, on the surface it doesn't look a LOT different, you can play
with the additional "version" dropdown.
I did MAJOR surgery on the JS for this putting the script at the
top-level of the download area, download.openoffice.org, hopefully to
make maintenance *much* easier if you continue with this in the
future. Another major change is basically the construction of the
mirror links from the user supplied OOo version they select and the
OS, thus eliminating the HUGE amounts of arrays we originally had in
there. Those of who haven't had to deal with this every time a new
version came about probably don't care much, but I know there are some
of you who did.
Finally, there's a single array toward the top of the script which
holds versions and descriptions of them, so it will be a LOT easier to
just plunk another one in. Basically a LOT of the structure we've been
dealing with in the download area of the site may be able to jsut go
away entirely.
OK, issues with this version (and possible additional enhancements)...
* not all the mirrors still carry the versions I've included here. Is
there some time limit for them on this? The point being that to
include MULTIPLE versions for a consistent set of mirrors (now
automatically generated), we need to somehow ensure that the versions
will exist on those mirrors.
* the naming of some download files, notably the JRE versions, has
actually changed from say 2.0.0 -> 2.0.1 -> 2.0.2. This is not good!
* as Christian has pointed out, the category 1 servers do include ALL
the stuff. Hence, instead of a jump to the Development page as this
now does, we could modify this more to get folks to the development
version directly, BUT...the directory name changes from most recent
version to most recent version. Why is this? I sent an e-mail to one
of the mirror project leaders but haven't heard anything back.
* same with the URE stuff
* the JS needs work to deal with what happens when a user goes BACK.
The form needs to be cleared. I admit to NOT being a JS guru, and I
don't have time to deal with this right now, but I'll bet somebody out
there probably knows how. You can the JS file from
download.openoffice.org/ooo.js
I'm not going to get into the "localizations" discussion further. I
personally think it's a good idea to have folks "visit" the actual
native language sites.
OK, so that's it. Comment away. However, it may be a while before I
can get back to doing any more work on this. Hopefully, one of you can.
Cheers!
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