Rick Reumann sent this to me. I'm posting it here so we don't lose it.
I saw some suggestions here that are good. I'll comment on it later.
Any other comments are welcome.
Brandon
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Wrote this fast, so I'm sure parts of it don't make sense:)
iBATIS web site suggestions
Since iBATIS.com will more than likely be the first place a new person
to the technology will go to, I think it's most beneficial for the
inital presentation of information to aid the new iBATIS newbie.
Currently when you to go iBATIS.com you are presented with 'news' on
the home page. Sure that's nice for those already keeping up with the
technology but it now becomes work for the new person to have to find
out crucial information about iBATIS.
Here are my sugessions.
1) Change the Home Page and provide link to "Home." Currently "news"
is the home page. I think the Home page should be there to describe
iBATIS (above news provide the Home link and also make the main iBATIS
heading a link to home). Content on the Home page might be stuff
like...
* What is iBATIS? Elaborate on the info in the About section.
Seems odd there is a large section on background, but there seems to
be so much more you can say about what iBATIS provides.
* What benefits are there to using iBATIS? ( no need to write
JDBC code, easy mapping to objects, can write regular SQL, caching,
easy to use, etc)
* Getting Started (this should also be a link on the left menu)
Topmost left menu: Home, Getting Started, News, Events, News Archive
(I know "Home" seems cheezy but it almost has become a standard. You
could relabel it something like "Welcome" (ala Amazon) but people have
come to expect a way to get
back to the 'first page')
2) Concerning the "getting started" link. I think iBATIS really needs
this. I understand that iBATIS is really two seperate products, and
under each product under "Software" this is explained, but someone new
to iBATIS could benefit from a "getting started" link giving them some
tips for what they might want to download (more than likely I'm
guessing most are initially coming for the Data Mapper). This getting
started link could also explain about looking at the good
documentation bla bla.
3) Example of code. I code of sworn on the older site, there was a
quick example showing an SQL map and how that would map to an object.
I think it's a good idea to show this on the web site. I don't think a
new user should have to download the whole JPetStore app in order to
get a feel for how cool iBATIS is. Showing a couple code snippets
would be nice to really hook people and get them looking at the
documenation.
4) Not critical but under Resources, I'd love to see an HTML version
of the documentation. The PDF is great but it's somtimes a pain to
have to go to a PDF. It would be great if that PDF was in HTML and the
contents could be broken up into hyperlinks. Not sure how viable this
is, but it would be nice if that resources section on the left was
broken out right there into the links- FAQ, Documentation, wiki, Other
Resources, etc. Seems a bit awkward that The Project section has a
break down of smaller links below it "team" "bylaws" etc yet the
Resources section doesn't. If anything, I'd flip this around. Most of
that Project information could be on one page vs small subsection
links. If you are going to break the Project section out into smaller
subsections, then the Resources section should do the same. More
likely someone is going to want to quickly get to a FAQ or
Documenation then they are going to want to get to "Bylaws."
5) Under the Downloads documention section should the sections # SQL
Maps for Java, Developer Guide # SQL Maps for Java, Tutorial be
changed to DataMapper?
6) The Downloads section is confusing. Since iBATIS is offering two
products (Data Mapper and DAO shouldn't they be separate downloads? If
they aren't going to be separate I think it should be explained on
that page. I think a link to the "Gettting started" page should be
provided there also. "If you aren't sure what you need to download
click 'getting started'"
