Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On 23 May 2001 00:43:56 +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: We might. But not today. The discussion could go into technical stuff like how do we do this in php or something. The more important problem now is: Who is helping out? Who does the graphics, who the code? Where can we put the stuff? Many loose ends which still have to be closed. And what is the purpose of the site? Some answers can probably be found from webmaster@ mail archives (if there are such things) and by listening to users. Before thinking anything else we should think what should be there? And if we use PHP, we need some sense in the code, as PHP tends to evolve into ultimate spaghetti (just look at themes.org).. In that sense the perl template thingy would perhaps be better. Also PHP can be used like that, although not many people (including me) do it (there is a template class you can use and it fills your page template with stuff, much like Java servlets or the perl thingy) Anyway. like Christoph said, the all most important thing is to get the people to do it. Unfortunately I dont have too much time in my hands, but if I happen to get some excess Copious Free Time(tm) I could look into it. But unfortunately I will be on vacation starting next week, so I must disappear from this discussion (not that I have made a lot of noise lately anyway, because of a lot of work stuff (with the Gimp though! :)) Maybe a public Call for volunteers would be of help. Has anybody made good/bad experiences with something like that? Looking for PHP coders to hack on www.gimp.org is going to give a ton of Oh, I just found this PHP thing and it is l33t! -coders and will end up in ultimate spaghetti unless someone is looking over the code. Not that I respect the volunteer efforts, but we want to keep the thing maintainable so the page is easy to update if there is need and the main web dudes are away. *cough* :) Tuomas -- .. | Tuomas Kuosmanen | Ximian | Art Director | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.ximian.com | `' ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On 23 May 2001 19:38:48 +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: Raphael Quinet schrieb: That's pretty poor. Why would I want to update my bookmarks? You need not. gimp.org will happily redirect you to the page you wanted. Hmmm... This is better than nothing, but if would be nice if there could be some real pages (not redirects) at the following URLs, to which a number of other web sites (or user bookmarks) are pointing: downloads.html = /download/ and so on? different url, but same content. does that confuse the users? For the deeper nested pages like http://www.gimp.org/the_gimp_system_reqs.html which are not as often linked I would recommend a redirect. We should have those most-often-needed pages there, as they are not going to collide with the new structure (I prefer directories too, makes stuff more simple to maintain) - The pages would just contain a template to this page is moved to [insert new url here], once there are no hits to them in the logs anymore, we can remove them. And I think the best fallback thing to do is to have the 404 Document not found -page be a site map: --- -- - - - Oops, the page you are looking for is not found! Please, have a look below for the information you are looking for: * About the Gimp * Download -short info blurb here -short info blurb here * Learn to use Gimp! * Get new plugins -short info blurb here -short info blurb here * No good? Then why not visit our _main page_ and try looking around in there? If you came through a link from another website, please be kind and inform the webmaster to update their link! Thank you! The Gimp Development Team --- -- - - - Tuomas -- .. | Tuomas Kuosmanen | Ximian | Art Director | | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | www.ximian.com | `' ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Tuomas Kuosmanen schrieb: For the deeper nested pages like http://www.gimp.org/the_gimp_system_reqs.html which are not as often linked I would recommend a redirect. We should have those most-often-needed pages there, as they are not going to collide with the new structure (I prefer directories too, makes stuff more simple to maintain) - The pages would just contain a template to this page is moved to [insert new url here], once there are no hits to them in the logs anymore, we can remove them. I changed my mind. Why should we remove them? We should integrate all the current links to fit to the new structure. Speak of: 2 links, one page. I dont think that this would be too hard to create such a system. And I think the best fallback thing to do is to have the 404 Document not found -page be a site map: This would be a huge improvement. But then... everythings better than a plain 404. :-)) Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] New GIMP Webpage the 2nd
On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 04:46:21PM +0800, Malcolm Tredinnick wrote: On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 11:28:57AM +0300, Ville Pätsi wrote: Uhm. Funny enough, right now there is a big discussion in gnome-webmaster list about wml. It's not just on gnome-webmaster -- it's raging across a number of Gnome lists. In amongst some of the crazed hand waving and finger pointing one of the good points raised that hasn't been mentioned here (at least, not clearly) is standards compliance. Some of the complaints about the current Gnome site and it's potential replacement is how to ensure that it is possible for people to validate that what they are about to commit will generate valid HTML. Here valid means conforming to the W3C standard for whichever version of HTML is chosen and also passing through something like htmltidy without complaint. The former is obvious, the latter maybe not so common (try running the current www.gimp.org/index.html through tidy -- lots of warnings). That greatly increases the chances that whatever you have will degrade nicely to different browsers. I am unfortunately _very_ out of touch with web standards - I preferred HTML in about 1995. I think it's safe to say that however this gets done, the HTML in the content should be limited to p, br, a, b, i, and everything else should come from a template, one way or another. On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 02:20:24PM +0300, Tuomas Kuosmanen wrote: But the first thing to think about is NOT how it looks. It is what we want to put there, what the users need, and how to organize it nicely so it will serve the needs of the users and the Gimp project. I've tried to build things so that these decisions can be made in parallel - that is, if we decide to stick with the simple left-side tree-style navigation, what actually appears in the tree can be changed without much worry. Once we have some serious stuff done on that area, I can even see if could put some free time aside for doing the look, if you want. Cool, I was hoping you would say that. 1. dynamic - php/*sql - easy to code, offers many possibilities, we use it at the GUG and it's excellent for those purposes IMHO Beware that PHP can get slow under heavy load if you dont do it right. It is very easy to have all kinds of stupid spaghetti tricks there, as well as get lost in the table labyrinth when you include stuff a lot. Yes. That's why my Perl stuff has a _very_ short path to decide whether there is a cached copy of the page -- then the spaghetti can commence for the unlucky soul who is the first to visit a page that has just been edited. :) It is easy to generate static pages via Cron if it becomes a problem though. (snarf http://www.gimp.org/dynamic.html static.html) Indeed - when global changes are made to the site, I nuke all the cached files and use a recursive wget to force a regeneration. Cheers, Tom -- Tom Rathborne [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/ | I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my | H complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the | A greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission, and I want to help you. | L ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 04:50:05AM -0400, Michael Spunt wrote: I've hacked some lines right now, maybe you (and others) would like to see it. Unfortunately, my f2s MySQL won't be available until 9:30am GMT, so I had to test it at home. Anyway, these are the URLs: http://www.technoid.f2s.com/news.gif http://www.technoid.f2s.com/news.php.txt The latter is the source code. No OOP, almost no functions, pure junk code. Sorry for GIF guys and girls! :-) Tell me, if you'd like to see the MySQL structure, too. Umm, see, this is what worries me. code and HTML all interspersed. I just can't deal with that and I have the impression that lots of folks here have been through that nightmare many times. Can you restructure it to get that design/code/content separation going? On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 07:12:26AM +0200, Stefan Stiasny wrote: talking about source code is probably not appropriate in this stage... but if we really want to have any dynamic sites i would urge to use xml/xsl transformation or another kind of templating system... mixing contents, code and design is just a nightmare to maintain. That whole XML/XSL is snake oil IMHO. It just seems like it's trying to do a little bit too much. Cheers, Tom -- Tom Rathborne [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/ | I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my | H complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the | A greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission, and I want to help you. | L ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 02:01:42PM +0200, Ingo Luetkebohle wrote: Tuomas Kuosmanen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Anyway. like Christoph said, the all most important thing is to get the people to do it. I volunteer to work on the development side. As for the technical side, I leave that up the folks on this list to decide. My only strong urge is to use some means of seperating content from code. Apache Cocoon is nice but if that seems overkill, I have had good experiences with JSP tag libraries. Similiar concepts are probably available for other languages. I'm had good experiences with mod_perl (well in particular my stuff). Others have had good experiences with PHP and probably Apache::Mason and ::EmbPerl and stuff. On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 03:33:07PM +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: Great!!! But IMHO we should limit the languages used, because of maintainablity. So the decision of what language to be used should be in the hands of the developers. Regarding content/code seperation: it's the only way to go. There are many ways to do it, and we should take a path where someone who doesnt know anything about coding, but is a master in HTML and design can change the site-layout. I have this in theory, but not necessarily in practice :) Cheers, Tom -- Tom Rathborne [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/ | I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my | H complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the | A greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission, and I want to help you. | L ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Eep. I have over 150k of mail about the gimp webpage now. Here's a first reply to _some_ of it: On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 04:20:00AM -0400, Michael Spunt wrote: I tried some stuff ony my own, too. Maybe you would like to have a look at it: http://www.technoid.f2s.com/gimp.org/index.php That's a neat design, but you're doing all this funky stylesheet stuff that leaves me with a bad font! Please don't change my font on me! Also, what's with this? http://www.technoid.f2s.com/gimp.org/index.php?nav=doc A query in the URL for a static document?? On Sat, May 19, 2001 at 09:09:55AM +0200, Raphael Quinet wrote: Well, this looks interesting but I do not know if such a design is appropriate for a Gimp site. Your design is modern/futuristic, but these characteristics are not directly related to image editing, painting, or graphics in general. Someone who comes to the site without knowing what the Gimp is about (e.g., a Windows user who clicked on a button Graphics by Gimp on some other web page) would probably not think that she just loaded a page describing an image editing program. It would be better if the home page could show some paintbrushes, color palettes, maybe some photorealistic images (but the page should not be too heavy), and of course our friend Wilber. These things could easily be associated with what the Gimp is about. I have purposely _not_ applied any significant design to the stuff I've been working on - I'm expecting someone to come up with a better one, eventually. I've just chosen the general geometry of the page. Just a matter of changing a few template files. Anyway, I am not sure that a completely new design for the Gimp site is necessary. It would be nice, but upating the presentation is IMHO much less urgent than updating the contents. There are many broken links to external sites, incomplete information for developers, outdated descriptions of the Gimp's features, ... If someone has the time to update both the layout and the contents (and to keep on maintaining the site for a while), then I am all for it. But if nobody has enough time to do both, then updating the layout should not delay the long-awaited updates of the contents. Design and contents are two completely separate things in my world. I suppose I could rearrange my templates to look more like the current site :) In addition to some of the things mentioned in Christoph's TODO list, I would like to add a couple of things that should avoided for the Gimp's web site: * The new layout should not break the existing URLs. Many people have bookmarked some pages on www.gimp.org, and many web sites have direct links to the download pages, to the documentation or to the mailing lists page. So even if the navigation system is redesigned, there should still be something available from the same URLs as today. Yes, mod_rewrite can do this. I am into directory hierarchies and organizing information, but I agree that we should not break any existing URLs. * The design should be fast and clean. It should support all browsers and should not make excesssive use of nested tables or JavaScript. The current design of www.gimp.org is OK from that point of view. But on the other hand, the GUG site is taking too long to render in Netscape 4 (2-3 seconds of delay for re-displaying any page, because of the nested tables). I think my stuff is pretty quick - works in Lynx and w3m quite nicely, too. * The pages should be easy to bookmark and the URLs should not be too long. This means that frames are forbidden, and the systems that generate dynamic contents using horribly long URLs should also be avoided (see the bad examples from Corel below). Very much agreed. On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 02:46:24PM +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: Raphael Quinet schrieb: and the systems that generate dynamic contents using horribly long URLs should also be avoided (see the bad examples from Corel below). There is always mod_rewrite. This way we can beautify the URLs, without disturbing functionality from the developer side. Actually, in my system, all of my URLs are _already_ nice and clean, with full functionality. :) Compare: http://www.technoid.f2s.com/gimp.org/index.php?nav=docpage=tutorials http://wilber.gimp.org:8192/docs/user/tutorials/ Why _create_ ugly URLs? Why not just make them pretty in the first place? On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 03:32:13PM +0200, Raphael Quinet wrote: and the systems that generate dynamic contents using horribly long URLs should also be avoided (see the bad examples from Corel below). There is always mod_rewrite. This way we can beautify the URLs, without disturbing functionality from the developer side. Yes, of course. But it could be even better if most of the site could be based on static files that are generated once (by applying some templates around the CVS files), so that the pages do not have
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Folks - On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 02:17:25PM +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: Tom Rathborne schrieb: So this really could have been a chicken and egg problem. Yes, it seemed very chicken and egg to me. That's why I just started doing something on my own. I have already made about half of the decisions in Christoph's excellent list -- but I doubt that most people will agree with all of those decisions. Maybe someone will find _something_ useful in what I have done. Then please share your decisions you have done so far. Describe what language do you use, what layout, andsoon. We could then avoid making duplicate efforts. I will then put up a second list with done-so-fars and todos. Nobody's decided to do anything with my system so don't take any of my decisions as final! *grin* Another thing that comes to my mind is i10n. When designing the content-enginge one should keep that in mind. We could have a documents in various languages on one page. The language would be selected by the browsers preferences. As Raphael pointed out, Apache does this very nicely. I suspect that my stuff would have to be hacked on a bit more to be internationalized properly ... but not a whole lot more. On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 05:13:54PM +0200, Christoph Rauch wrote: I have updated my lists at http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/gimp_org/ Here are the choices that I've made: 3. Go through various planning stages and then start working. 1. Layout 1. How should the site look like (look and feel) 1. Appearance 1. Clean and cool 2. Dark and dirty 3. Nice and fluffy 4. other idea... Pink and cyan pastels with titles that look like silly putty. However, it's pretty simple to change that and then nuke all the cached content pages and have a new look for the site. 2. In-detail design 1. Mark of links going to off-site pages. 2. Icons 3. Style-sheets 4. lots of other stuff... Most of this stuff falls into the category of 'content', really. 2. Do we need a new logo for the site? 1. Something with Wilber? 2. Something like the current splash-screen? Good idea. 3. How do we structure the site? 1. New directory layout? 2. Navigation 3. Useability 4. Accessability 5. (insert your favourite buzzword here :-)) I like my navigation layout - expanding tree with bold indicating current path and an arrow indicating the current page. It looks ok on Lynx and w3m and a bunch of graphical browsers. 2. Software 1. What do we want to do? 1. Post News, Articles, ChangeLogs We can grab the news in RDF format from Xach's site, but yes, in general, there should be a system to help us manage articles. 2. Show The GIMPto new users 3. Provide the users with: 1. Tutorials 2. Plugins 3. Scripts, Perls, and other FUs 4. Source Code / Binaries 5. Palettes / Textures / and so on Yes, there should be a resource management system. 4. Be able to change parts of the site without having to learn all the website-code. Got that. 2. What do we NOT want to do? 1. Become a programmer-page with no look, but lots of functions. 2. Become a fscking portal which does everything except cooking good coffee. I do have a Yahoo-style link database, which I think is worth having, but I agree that it shouldn't be a portal. 3. Leave the web-site as it is today. 3. How do we want it to be done? 1. Stick with current system 1. Reevaluate It's not that bad, but not very much fun to look at. 2. Install a new Apache with certain modules 1. Use a CMS (Content Management System... buzzbuzz! ;-)) 1. Which one? CVS. :) 2. Code it for ourself 1. Active HTML 1. Perl (mod_perl) I'm using mod_perl along with my own template and page generation/caching system. 2. Python 3. PHP 4. Use templates! (Seperate code and HTML) Yes! My stuff keeps the Perl in .pm files where it belongs. Much of it is documented in POD too! 2. Static HTML 1. WML Website Meta Language 1. Would allow us mirroring 2. Use templates! 3. Use a mix of both? 1. WMLPerl, WMLPython, WMLPHP??? 1. Would allow us mirroring of static pages with
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi, Raphael Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: In addition to some of the things mentioned in Christoph's TODO list, I would like to add a couple of things that should avoided for the Gimp's web site: [lots of good points deleted] * Please don't use GIFs! Salut, Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Tom Rathborne schrieb: So this really could have been a chicken and egg problem. Yes, it seemed very chicken and egg to me. That's why I just started doing something on my own. I have already made about half of the decisions in Christoph's excellent list -- but I doubt that most people will agree with all of those decisions. Maybe someone will find _something_ useful in what I have done. Then please share your decisions you have done so far. Describe what language do you use, what layout, andsoon. We could then avoid making duplicate efforts. I will then put up a second list with done-so-fars and todos. Another thing that comes to my mind is i10n. When designing the content-enginge one should keep that in mind. We could have a documents in various languages on one page. The language would be selected by the browsers preferences. Christoph ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Andreas Jaekel schrieb: I suggest putting the GIMP web site in CVS along the source code. We do this with our company web site and it has the usual benefits: versioning, locking, all privileged people can do updates. I'll put that on the list. Christoph ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Michael Spunt schrieb: Yes, it seemed very chicken and egg to me. That's why I just started doing something on my own. I have already made about half of the decisions in Christoph's excellent list -- but I doubt that most people will agree with all of those decisions. Maybe someone will find _something_ useful in what I have done. I tried some stuff ony my own, too. Maybe you would like to have a look at it: http://www.technoid.f2s.com/gimp.org/index.php Changing the navigation structure was the main goal here, so it differs from your effort. We could test various navigation structures without much design involved. That way we could then use the most appealing. I'm going to ask a graphic-designer, who is a friend of me, to help us with the design or layout. Perhaps we could have some input from a different viewpoint. (user vs. developer) Christoph ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi! On Sat, 19 May 2001 09:09:55 +0200 Raphael Quinet [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well, this looks interesting but I do not know if such a design is appropriate for a Gimp site. Your design is modern/futuristic, but these characteristics are not directly related to image editing, Perhaps I should have mentioned that this design is not a design yet (do you really think I would allow something ugly like that to become gimp.org? :-)). I just like some frame for content and it's sure the next design won't be plain text either. Anyway, I am not sure that a completely new design for the Gimp site is necessary. It would be nice, but upating the presentation is IMHO much less urgent than updating the contents. There are many broken It is. The blue bar at the left is the only thing I like about the current design but it's tied to the old navigation and I'm not sure if it would be good to reuse. Everything else are clumsy tables which make an old-fashioned impression. I'm not aiming at a Pixecore type design but have a look at this: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/main.html It's simple, clean navigation, not overbloated and shows some little gimmicks that can be done (see the circles). We don't need (want) to copy Adobe, but the design should be as functional as theirs. Correct me if I missed a point here. * The new layout should not break the existing URLs. Many people have bookmarked some pages on www.gimp.org, and many web sites have direct links to the download pages, to the documentation or to the mailing lists page. So even if the navigation system is redesigned, there should still be something available from the same URLs as today. If a user requests a page not available on the server, he / she gets redirected to news, 404, we have changed or whatever from where he / she can navigate to the required page and realizes that it's time to update bookmarks. Backward-compatibility isn't cool. :-) Also, a new navigation structure would really force a new file naming and all. Maybe it could be interesting to have a look at the web sites of the companies selling similar products... You will see that all of them are using simple layouts: they do not try to impress people with nice HTML tricks; instead they simply list the features of their products and provide some simple documentation. I fully agree at this point. Only that Gimp isn't a commercial product and needs some more comprehensive online documentation, external links, feedback etc.. The Paint Shop Pro Tour looks nice but it only shows what you can do and not how you can do it. -- --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Michael Spunt schrieb: * The new layout should not break the existing URLs. Many people have If a user requests a page not available on the server, he / she gets redirected to news, 404, we have changed or whatever from where he / she can navigate to the required page and realizes that it's time to update bookmarks. Backward-compatibility isn't cool. :-) Also, a new navigation structure would really force a new file naming and all. a please update your bookmarks page would be the best choice, IMHO. Maybe it could be interesting to have a look at the web sites of the companies selling similar products... You will see that all of them I fully agree at this point. Only that Gimp isn't a commercial product and needs some more comprehensive online documentation, external links, Maybe look at other free software projects websites? For example: The documentation section on http://www.php.net/ is a great example for functionality but perhaps a bit overcrowded. But I like the annotated documentation. Why not have something like that too? Christoph ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
[Gimp-developer] New GIMP Webpage the 2nd
Hi all, I have updated my lists at http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/gimp_org/ It would be great if we could get all that uncertainty out of them. :-)) We must know what we want to have as the result and how to get there. Any comments? Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Raphael made a number of excellent points regarding the site redesign. I'd like to reiterate some of them and add something. |* The new layout should not break the existing URLs. Many people have | bookmarked some pages on www.gimp.org, and many web sites have | direct links to the download pages, to the documentation or to the | mailing lists page. So even if the navigation system is redesigned, | there should still be something available from the same URLs as | today. | |* The design should be fast and clean. It should support all browsers | and should not make excesssive use of nested tables or JavaScript. | The current design of www.gimp.org is OK from that point of view. | But on the other hand, the GUG site is taking too long to render in | Netscape 4 (2-3 seconds of delay for re-displaying any page, because | of the nested tables). They should also work if JavaScript is not available. Links should be links - not JS calls! |* The site should not use cookies unless there is a real need for | them. For example, if the site is built with PHP then it should not | use the session-id cookies or any other user-tracking cookies. This | is not needed and it annoys the users who have configured their | browser to warn them when the server wants to set a cookie. | |* The pages should be easy to bookmark and the URLs should not be too | long. This means that frames are forbidden, and the systems that | generate dynamic contents using horribly long URLs should also be | avoided (see the bad examples from Corel below). I work for a software company whose products handle content management, personalization, etc. [It doesn't run on linux, and it's much more complex and resource intensive than we need, so I haven't pursued trying to get a copy.] I've worked on the GUI, in professional services doing work for clients and in applications. The above points turn out to be absolutely critical if you want a really useful site for the vast majority of users - especially if you care about a wide cross-section of users from techiphobes to technophiles. And while I know this is a mind-boggling concept, we should make sure the pages work even if there is no image delivery. -Miles ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi Christoph! On Wed, 23 May 2001 16:07:46 +0200 Christoph Rauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: update bookmarks. Backward-compatibility isn't cool. :-) Also, a new navigation structure would really force a new file naming and all. a please update your bookmarks page would be the best choice, IMHO. Sure, this would be a more polite way. :-) Maybe look at other free software projects websites? For example: The documentation section on http://www.php.net/ is a great example for functionality but perhaps a bit overcrowded. But I like the annotated documentation. Why not have something like that too? The new php.net design is great! I liked the old one with yellow popup boxes, too, but this one's the best combination of annotated function reference, news and feedback and it's free of bloat. The function search is great. Anyway, the new gimp.org frontpage should have a little freshmeat-like look, ie large news and a secondary bar for links, polls, contests and every other temporary information. Check out my mockup on that. -- --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hello Miles! Miles O'Neal schrieb: In terms of layout, the gimp site is head and shoulders above the vast majority of sites out there now. right. I think if we have a redesign there should be a good reason for it. A fersh look is NOT important. Fresh content is far more important. Consistency is a *good* thing. With a well designed site we could use the with our software you are able to do that too-effect and attract more potential users to gimp. That may be worth it, or not? Marketers will tell you that you have to change the site to make it moer appealing,. [...deleted...] I wont go to marketeers. Shes a friend. :) It actually *annoys* people to go to a favorite site and suddenly have to hunt for things. Yeah. I had that experience 3 days ago... [...people love gimps navigation...] I know, I know. Since we're probably going to rewrite the site in something less arcane and more known, now is the ideal time to revamp the look and feel. Let's just make sure it's worth the effort, and we don't lose things - like the top notch menu system, etc. Will add this to my lists. Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On Wed, 23 May 101 10:23:57 -0500 (CDT), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Miles O'Neal) said: I know, I know. Since we're probably going to rewrite the site in something less arcane and more known, now is the ideal time to revamp the look and feel. I hate it when sites change things. (My credit card company changes their online customer service system every couple of months and it drives me nuts.) There is nothing at all wrong with the current look and feel, and I see no reason at all to change it. Kelly ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Kelly Martin schrieb: I know, I know. Since we're probably going to rewrite the site in something less arcane and more known, now is the ideal time to revamp the look and feel. I hate it when sites change things. (My credit card company changes their online customer service system every couple of months and it drives me nuts.) There is nothing at all wrong with the current look and feel, and I see no reason at all to change it. Well, thats a different extreme. :-) Many sites have never changed since 1995. Some are changing too frequently. With gimp.org we have sort of the first one (even if its not THAT old). With a redesign in both content and structure we can be more flexible and add more things which are usefull to both new and old users. The current webpage organises all html-pages in the root-direcotry of the server. This is definitely NOT flexible enough. Example: http://www.gimp.org/download/ Result: 404 - not found The site-design neednt be redesigned from scratch. It may be enough to polish it up and remove the Gimp-standard-script-look, which was copied all over the web and today has a bit trashy touch. Definitely not a good representation for the greatest graphic program on earth. :-) Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Christoph Rauch said... | I think if we have a redesign there should be a good reason for it. | A fersh look is NOT important. Fresh content is far more | important. Consistency is a *good* thing. | |With a well designed site we could use the with our software you are able to do |that too-effect and attract more potential users to gimp. That may be worth it, |or not? Depends. I'm certainly open to suggestions. Just don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. | Marketers will tell you that you have to change the site | to make it moer appealing,. [...deleted...] | |I wont go to marketeers. Shes a friend. :) That wasn't to you; it was a more general thing for everyone to keep in mind. I've actually had friends who were marketers. They even listened to me, and I to them. 8^) -Miles ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Nick Lamb schrieb: That's pretty poor. Why would I want to update my bookmarks? You need not. gimp.org will happily redirect you to the page you wanted. Because you are a w1ck3d cool new webmaster? Of course. ;-)) Because you've decided that downloads go in foo/ and screenshots go in baz/ ? Because its easier to maintain. We have more possibilities to guide the user if we use directories. Please explain to me, a simple web user, why I need the URLs for info on the Gimp site to change. If there isn't a compelling reason for the USER then there's no reason at all, is there? go to http://www.gimp.org/download/ Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] New GIMP Webpage the 2nd
Hi! On Wed, 23 May 2001 17:13:54 +0200 Christoph Rauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have updated my lists at http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/gimp_org/ It would be great if we could get all that uncertainty out of them. :-)) We must know what we want to have as the result and how to get there. One point I have to criticise: ...* No so important ones: 1. Netscape 2. IE... The web-site should look perfect in every browser, also there are many Windows users and people who use Windows at the office / internet café :-) etc. Any discussions about which browsers must be supported more / less are no good IMHO. Anyway, here are my votes on different topics (see also my mockup): layout: 1. layout - appearance - clean and cool, the current color map is not that bad, consequent theme 2. in-detail design - a set of icons is required to mark special news, sections... see above 3. a logo is nice, should contain Wilber 4. navigation structure should be changed (see my mockup) content: 1. all news in the Gimp / general image processing world (new algorithms, contests...) 2. tutorials, articles, interviews (ok, this is a little portal-style but why searching the net for hours to find stuff you need!?) 3. (maybe) integrate registry.gimp.org and add screenshots / examples as far as posible 4. dynamic list of mirrors, RPM / DEB locations 5. links to external resources (e.g. linuxgraphic.org, gtk.org, linuxartist.org - is it alive, btw?) 6. mailinglist archives 7. cvs usage / getting involved / compilation / requirements / Windows LZW quirks cms: 1. dynamic - php/*sql - easy to code, offers many possibilities, we use it at the GUG and it's excellent for those purposes IMHO editing: 1. people should get an editor's account to add news, articles etc. via web-interface (perhaps slashdot-like commenting, get ready for AC, fp and ge.cx ;-)) Just my 0.02 Euro. -- --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On Wed, 23 May 2001 18:21:16 +0200, Christoph Rauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Many sites have never changed since 1995. Some are changing too frequently. With gimp.org we have sort of the first one (even if its not THAT old). With a redesign in both content and structure we can be more flexible and add more things which are usefull to both new and old users. The current webpage organises all html-pages in the root-direcotry of the server. This is definitely NOT flexible enough. Example: http://www.gimp.org/download/ Result: 404 - not found That's not a look and feel issue, it's just a broken link problem that has nothing to do with look and feel. The site-design neednt be redesigned from scratch. It may be enough to polish it up and remove the Gimp-standard-script-look, which was copied all over the web and today has a bit trashy touch. Definitely not a good representation for the greatest graphic program on earth. :-) Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Kelly ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Kelly Martin said... |Example: http://www.gimp.org/download/ Result: 404 - not found | |That's not a look and feel issue, it's just a broken link problem |that has nothing to do with look and feel. While it's a tangential LNF issue, it *is* an LNF issue. A plain old page not found error is fine when the web is young and your audience is 12 people in your department and you're developing web servers and such. In the real world, it's a bad idea. Of course, it's even worse when the page not found page has 12 nested tables and 37 graphics on it and takes a week to load, as I have seen on some of the commercial webspace servers... -Miles ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi Nick! On Wed, 23 May 2001 16:47:14 +0100 Nick Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: update bookmarks. Backward-compatibility isn't cool. :-) Also, a new navigation structure would really force a new file naming and all. That's pretty poor. Why would I want to update my bookmarks? Because you are a w1ck3d cool new webmaster? Because you've decided that downloads go in foo/ and screenshots go in baz/ ? Why should I update to Mozilla 0.9 or use UNIX? The Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 shipped with my Windows 3.1x is enough for my needs. ;-) The Gimp world emerges, information changes, the page becomes obsolete and hard to maintain. Backward compatibility isn't worth that. Also, noone wants to be a w1ck3d cool webmaster. A great software deserves a great page update time up to time and keeping the old crap won't help much. Maybe you can tell us how to do it without breaking backward compatibility, though. -- --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Raphael Quinet schrieb: That's pretty poor. Why would I want to update my bookmarks? You need not. gimp.org will happily redirect you to the page you wanted. Hmmm... This is better than nothing, but if would be nice if there could be some real pages (not redirects) at the following URLs, to which a number of other web sites (or user bookmarks) are pointing: downloads.html = /download/ and so on? different url, but same content. does that confuse the users? For the deeper nested pages like http://www.gimp.org/the_gimp_system_reqs.html which are not as often linked I would recommend a redirect. Because its easier to maintain. We have more possibilities to guide the user if we use directories. Yes. As long as there are not too many levels (deep hierarchy), this should be OK. But it would be nice if the most frequently visited pages could have a very short URL, like the ones listed above. Please explain to me, a simple web user, why I need the URLs for info on the Gimp site to change. If there isn't a compelling reason for the USER then there's no reason at all, is there? go to http://www.gimp.org/download/ OK, that directory does not exist and you get a 404 error (which could be replaced by a redirect to the correct page). But where did you find a link to it? The only links that I found are pointing to the page (not directory): http://www.gimp.org/download.html a user could by chance enter that url. wouldn't it be nice to guess what he wanted and present him with the page, or with a list of possible pages instead of a 404? Anyway, that did not answer Nick's question: why would the users have to change their bookmarks? Its up to the user what he does. Perhaps i'm a bit too acustomed to update your bookmarks pages We could of course link all the old pages to the new pages, so he wouldnt even notice. Or even redirect him without explaining, so he would end up on a different page then he entered. What would be better? I dont know. Example: Go to http://www.amazon.com/books/ and see where you are after page-load. Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
On Wed, 23 May 2001, Christoph Rauch wrote: [...] The site-design neednt be redesigned from scratch. It may be enough to polish it up and remove the Gimp-standard-script-look, which was copied all over the web and today has a bit trashy touch. Definitely not a good representation for the greatest graphic program on earth. :-) Well, if it has been copied all over the web, this is probably a good sign... Anyway, I agree that the look could be improved and the titles could be a bit more impressive (but they should still use a common color palette and they should not be too heavy or too distracting). But it is very important to have most of the graphics (titles, etc.) done with a script that is included in the standard Gimp distribution so that every Gimp user can make the same things with only a couple of mouse clicks. Contrary to some companies that have to protect their image, we do not want to prevent people from copying the look and feel of the gimp.org web site. We want the Gimp users to recognize immediately that the graphics were done with one of the standard scripts so that they know that they can do the same if they want to. I would like to hear things like: Hey, cool, this Gimp program works well... I can do the same graphics as they have on their web site and it is really easy to do with the built-in scripts. If it is good enough for them, then the Gimp must be good enough for me. Of course, a standard script does not mean an old one. This can be done by a new script, as long as it becomes part of the standard distribution in version 1.2.2 or 1.4.0. By the way, this will have to be done in Script-Fu and not Perl-Fu because the script should run in the Windows version of the Gimp (which is probably the version that is used by the majority of new users nowadays). -Raphael ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Raphael Quinet schrieb: The site-design neednt be redesigned from scratch. It may be enough to polish it up and remove the Gimp-standard-script-look, which was copied all over the web and today has a bit trashy touch. Definitely not a good representation for the greatest graphic program on earth. :-) Well, if it has been copied all over the web, this is probably a good sign... Well, of course, but it wears off... :-) Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Raphael Quinet said... |But it is very important to have most of the graphics (titles, etc.) |done with a script that is included in the standard Gimp distribution |so that every Gimp user can make the same things with only a couple of |mouse clicks. Contrary to some companies that have to protect their |image, we do not want to prevent people from copying the look and feel |of the gimp.org web site. We want the Gimp users to recognize |immediately that the graphics were done with one of the standard |scripts so that they know that they can do the same if they want to. This will also help with the branding cncept. If we have eppole using the look and feel all over the place, with GIMP logos, it will be a big win. That's one thing I agree with the marketers on! ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Whether you like it or not, gimp has been ported to mac and windoze. All gimp info should be accessible and helpful for all. And point to os specific help when needed. And yes, even be viewable with internet explorer. (My mom uses that, sorry). Michael Spunt wrote: Hi Nick! On Wed, 23 May 2001 16:47:14 +0100 Nick Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: update bookmarks. Backward-compatibility isn't cool. :-) Also, a new navigation structure would really force a new file naming and all. That's pretty poor. Why would I want to update my bookmarks? Because you are a w1ck3d cool new webmaster? Because you've decided that downloads go in foo/ and screenshots go in baz/ ? Why should I update to Mozilla 0.9 or use UNIX? The Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 shipped with my Windows 3.1x is enough for my needs. ;-) The Gimp world emerges, information changes, the page becomes obsolete and hard to maintain. Backward compatibility isn't worth that. Also, noone wants to be a w1ck3d cool webmaster. A great software deserves a great page update time up to time and keeping the old crap won't help much. Maybe you can tell us how to do it without breaking backward compatibility, though. -- --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] New GIMP Webpage the 2nd
On Wed, 23 May 2001, Simon Budig [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Christoph Rauch ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: The current page displayed in lynx is suboptimal. Well, at least it is not too bad. It is still looking better in lynx than http://gug.sunsite.dk/ and some other gimp-related pages. ;-) [...skipped nice HTML trick...] PHP has a advantage over passive html-pages. You can react on the user immediately. Think of: You go to gimp.org in germany and see german content. Same thing in GB or the US and you see it in english. PHP can be made to react on the browsers language preferences. But perhaps we could configure Apache to do it too? Yes, this is possible with content negotiation. And it is better, IMHO. Apache allows you to store several versions of the page in different languages, and it will serve the most appropriate one according to the user's language preferences. This approach also has the advantage that if you want to get one page in a different language than the one specified in your preferences, you simply have to modify the URL (e.g. index.fr.html instead of index.html) without having to reconfigure your browser for a single page. As I mentioned in a previous message, static pages (generated once, not at every request) can be cached, which is not always possible for dynamic pages and definitely not possible if cookies are used. Static pages are good for the user's browser as well as for large caching proxies that speed up the downloads for many users. I am behind a proxy that is used by several thousand users, so I can see the difference... -Raphael P.S.: This has been surprisingly active discussion... Unfortunately, I will probably be away from the 'net in the next 4 days, so do not be surprised if you do not see more replies from me. I hope that the other topics that were discussed before this web site thread started will not be lost in the noise... Bye! ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
[Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi all, having been a lurker to gimp-devel for 2 or 3 years now, I realised that the gimp-webpage is a very delicate topic. :-) So I gave myself a hand and wrote down a list of things I learned to give attention to, when creating big web-projects: http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/proposal_for_gimp_org.html I hope this list can be of some help and will be the topic of heated discussions. ;-) Aaand I hereby want to offer my help building the new page. thanks, Christoph --- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi Christoph! So I gave myself a hand and wrote down a list of things I learned to give attention to, when creating big web-projects: http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/proposal_for_gimp_org.html I think it's a great step in the right direction. The gimp.org discussion ist really not young and hasn't shown any visible results yet. The Gimp User Group has been aiming at redesigning (both content and appearance) of gimp.org for a long while and we would appreciate to see final decisions to start working. CU, Michael --=[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]=-- --=[ http://www.technoid.f2s.com ]=-- ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Hi, Christoph Rauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is there a mailinglist for the gimp webpage yet? nope. But we can certainly set up one if the traffic on this list increases too much or the people that want to discuss this issue demand one. For the moment, I'd suggest we keep the discussion here. Please don't resist to discuss web-site details here until we have set up a mailing list. Do you think we need one now? Salut, Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
Sven Neumann schrieb: Is there a mailinglist for the gimp webpage yet? nope. But we can certainly set up one if the traffic on this list increases too much or the people that want to discuss this issue demand one. For the moment, I'd suggest we keep the discussion here. Please don't resist to discuss web-site details here until we have set up a mailing list. Do you think we need one now? We might. But not today. The discussion could go into technical stuff like how do we do this in php or something. The more important problem now is: Who is helping out? Who does the graphics, who the code? Where can we put the stuff? Many loose ends which still have to be closed. Maybe a public Call for volunteers would be of help. Has anybody made good/bad experiences with something like that? Christoph -- http://home.bn-paf.de/smokey/ ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
RE: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage
hi all, for a site with some dynamic content, Zope (www.zope.org) is a platform which is easy to setup and to maintain. I used the Squishdot Product (www.squishdot.org) for www.gimp.de and I am quite happy with that. So if you want to integrate a dynamic slashdot-like discussion forum on the new site, I could volunteer to do that. regards Juergen -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Sven Neumann Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 12:11 AM To: Christoph Rauch Cc: Sven Neumann; Michael Spunt; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Gimp-developer] The GIMP Webpage Hi, Christoph Rauch [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is there a mailinglist for the gimp webpage yet? nope. But we can certainly set up one if the traffic on this list increases too much or the people that want to discuss this issue demand one. For the moment, I'd suggest we keep the discussion here. Please don't resist to discuss web-site details here until we have set up a mailing list. Do you think we need one now? Salut, Sven ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer ___ Gimp-developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.xcf.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gimp-developer
