:murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote:
Hi Kay,
I don't know whether it works as it is supposed to work, since there are
tooo many alerts now ;)
yeah--I forgot about that and commented them out about 10 mins
after I sent this... :/
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.
The naming is actually consistent...well now, anyway, and if you
look at the instructions from the mirrors project, this is clear.
What IS inconsistent is the number of versions that are currently
stored on the mirrors.
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.
That's always a VERY good goal when working in a group. :)
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...
Why do you feel this is important? Priority #1. Yes, it's not
difficult to do with JS, but, again, my question is why?
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
Yeah...this is a bit of a misdirection with the current page. My
thought was to somehow at least "warn" them about it as we're
doing with the JRE business. I don't think the way we're handling
this is bad, just that it isn't at all clear WHAT will happen.
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.
Do you think what we currently have implemented is too
complicated? I've been meaning to check the "support" list logs
on this but just haven't had time.
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
You might be waiting a LONG time for this...
g.,
Maarten
--
=======================================================
MzK
Kay Schenk
"Love is blind only to the eyes.
The heart sees everything clearly."
-- Unknown
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