Hi Marc, We are well aware of these navigation issues on today's website.
- I will add a commit to make mailet list more accessible - With 3.0 release, we plan to make James 3.0 documentation the landing page, with links to previous versions documentation, so that one can not land on bad documentation - We tried (I have a PR on it for server stuff) to make left side bar more navigable Your feed backs are more than welcome, as they help us improve the website. Any contribution on this topic is more than welcome! Cheers, Benoit Le 23/10/2016 à 17:09, Marc Chamberlin a écrit : > Hi Benoit - (I will follow your precedent of top posting.) No, the > trouble with the current organization of the James website is that the > only way to navigate it is to use the hierarchical tree structured table > of contents that is found on the left hand side of the pages. This can > make it difficult to discover where a particular topic is addressed, > especially if/when that topic is found in a location that the developer > thought was appropriate, but not intuitive in the mind of a user. For > example, I wanted to discover what mailets are provided with James. My > initial guess was to navigate to the "User Manual" > Configure James > > Mailet Container and almost missed the tiny link provided/embedded at > the bottom of the page to the list of mailets. Then and only then did I > discover that this list was located in a surprising location under > "Developers Corner" which I had assumed would be topics strictly of > interest to James developers, not to users. (I am NOT criticizing this > particular layout, just using it as an example of how using a tree > hierarchy must be navigated, sometimes through many many branches, in > order to discover where a particular topic is documented.) > > Using search engines can further complicate matters, especially on sites > such as James where multiple versions of documents are stored. One can > easily and inadvertently land on a document that is inappropriate for > the version of the James that he/she is using, and waste a lot of time > chasing a wrong answer. (I know, I have done it myself) > > What a site map is/does is to flatten the presentation of an entire > website into a single page which contains links to EVERY web page > associated with that website. (including orphaned web pages which > sometimes crop up) That both makes it easy to see a high level view of > the entire website, all at once, and provides a lot of additional clues > as to the organizational model and where one may find documents on a > particular subject. One measure of the ease of use of a website is to > ask how many clicks does it take, to discover the answer to a question > or reach a goal on that website. A site map can reduce this to a single > click. Site maps are often used on large complex web sites and I am sure > you can find many examples. Also I have seen tools that develop a site > map automatically, some do it externally by chasing links, others do it > internally on the servers by chasing documents and directories also, > although these tools do have their limitations and shortcomings > especially if/when a web site serves dynamic content. > > I am not asking that James use a site map in lieu of the hierarchical > table of contents it now has, just in addition to it. > > Marc... > > On 10/22/2016 11:05 PM, Benoit Tellier wrote: >> Hi marc, >> >> This is the landing page for james.apache.org >> >> The Documentation link will point to today's james.apache.org's content, >> achieving what you want. (Horizontal nav bar will allow to reach each >> and every subproject documentation, and James logo will get you back to >> the first page) >> >> Were you suggesting something like this? >> >> Regards, >> >> Benoit >> >> Le 22/10/2016 à 16:29, Marc Chamberlin a écrit : >>> On 10/18/2016 6:42 AM, Laura Royet wrote: >>>> Hi everyone, >>>> >>>> I have been working for a few weeks now on a promoting website for >>>> James. >>>> Today, I would like to share with you my proposal mockup : please see >>>> file attached in https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/JAMES-1837 >>>> >>>> The aim is to have this page as the James website home page. >>>> In this way, a user interested by James (curious developers and >>>> network administrators for example) will directly access tofundamental >>>> information about the product and could try it thanks to the Getting >>>> Started part. >>>> He will also find quickly all the links to contact James Community. >>>> >>>> And what about the current James website? Actually, the marketing >>>> website menu bar contains the link "Documentation" leading to it. >>>> For your information, I am currently working on cleaning the existing >>>> website in order not to have duplicates with the marketing page and >>>> also in order to adopt the same graphic charter. >>>> >>>> Thanks in advance for your feedbacks. >>>> >>>> Regards, >>>> >>> Hi Laura - May I suggest adding a link to a site map so that all the >>> all the web pages associated with and maintained by Apache James are >>> discover-able from a single point? The site map(s) should be organized >>> by version releases also, which is often the drawback of using Google >>> searches that can lead to finding outdated information.. >>> >>> Marc... >>> >>> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org >> >> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: server-user-unsubscr...@james.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: server-user-h...@james.apache.org
