Hi, On Mon, 2007-03-19 at 08:58 +0100, :murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote: > Hi, > > Since it seems that the download page in its current and that proposed > > form requires JavaScript anyways, why not use JavaScript to detect the > > conditions of the target environment and offer one tailored default > > download with an option for "other downloads" in the fashion that > > firefox does it or in the fashion that i implemented on > > http://marketing.openoffice.org/tryouts/Why.OpenOffice.org/en/download.htm ? > > > We could indeed do some OS recommendation, but language selection is > sadly not possible. The get variables that your script generates, need > to go somewhere... and in the case of OpenOffice.org that is > http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/ . Great you might think, version, > operating system and language are all supported variables... sad thing > though is that not every combination retrieves a link... so de (German) > will work for 2.1.0 (but it probably didn't work for 2.1.0 in start), > but not for nl (Dutch), or es (Spanish), while both versions are > actually available. And secondly, not all languages are part of this > dropdown.
this argument seems to mix the current situation into a future possibility. I see two possibilities to circumvent the issues you are arising: 1. Make bouncer universal and just maintain the offerings in the JavaScript. This is the non-ideal solution, but it would mean that the JavaScript only offers options that are indeed available. 2. The better way: I'm assuming that any collabnet page is create via php and that any content part of a page can hence use php, right? So why not create a php script that generates an according JavaScript which only covers viable options? From what i know it should well be possible to create a php script that scans a file repository for available versions (or an manually maintained list) and adjusts the contents of proposed JavaScript accordingly. This script could then be sourced by the main page as well as a separate download page. I don't really see a point in not taking that approach except that it's work. Such a solution would even more or less maintain itself and a "other downloads" counterpart could be generated using the same mechanisms. This could furthermore even offer a fallback later version for a given language. Lets say 2.2.0 becomes available for Win in english, but not in spanish. The php script simply creates a list of os+language->version matches, creates a JavaScript that has that list as it's "database", reads the users OS version and language and generates a tailored download button to present the match case. Plus a link to a page that allows for manual selection of alternatives. After all, the current bouncer page must fill its lists from somewhere and i don't see why it wouldn't be able to output JavaScript code instead of those lists? But after all i'm not familiar with the inner workings of collabnet, so if there's something i'm missing, please let me know. > Currently we are using javascript as well add an extra line to 'This is > the (US) English version of OpenOffice.org, it is available in other > languages too.', we write 'You might be interested in ' ... followed by > the english name for the language detected by the browser. The whole system as it is now seems far too complicated to me. It is intransparent for the user and it seems chaotic maintanence as well. > This does not include 'preferred language' btw, and with firefox I have > doubts whether it sends more than OS language (on multiple levels a > browser might send information about language-settings, and firefox only > sends a limited set of this). No it doesn't send more than OS language. Furthermore, in IE on Windows the wrong part of the language settings is exported. However, it seems a very valid assumption to me that the OS language is a users preferred language. And if not so, the user should be able to realize that the offered language is not what he wants and click the "other download options" link. This is really nothing new but rather exactly what the mozilla download button does. > I have promoted this type of button as well... but it resulted in a <ul> > inside of the button referring to several ways of obtaining OOo which is > imho definitely not the way to go. I would like it a lot to have such > button. And... ??? I don't understand. Except if that approach tried to cover too much in one button. I really totally can't see the difference between Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.org in that matter. Both offer one single product for a variety of Operating Systems in various languages. The only difference is that JRE bundling for OOo but as i believe i've shown, that's rather just expanding the same solution than needing to find a new one. Ok, so we have independant language projects who maintain their translated downloads and we don't know when they become available. So what? It's no problem to check for their availability via php, given that they are place in some kind of standard path scheme. > A one click download however is obstructed by the fact that the bouncer > website for openoffice.org doesn't have all languages available. As mentioned above the simple solution to that is to eleviate that "deficiency" right into the download button so it only offers available languages and falls back to english for those that don't exist. André.
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