I'd be happy to donate a tips/tricks section, a slight adjustment of my tips site specifically for Beonex users. These pages could be hosted on your site of course.
- Holger Ben Bucksch wrote: > Hi all, > > I've heard some praise and more complaints about the Beonex website. > > Some problems I know: > (some of that is documented in the users mailinglist archive) > > The site is kind of spotty, because many of the pages still have to > written and thus there are somewhat missing links (in the general sense, > not the clickable link sense) between several areas. Somebody would have > to write these pages. Look the sitemap or browse the links on the bottom > to see what I mean. > > I also wonder, if the strict separation into > > * non-Beonex-specific parts, > * general Beonex, > * general Beonex Communicator and > * specific versions of Beonex Communicator > > makes sense. Esp. the latter 2: it helps to put out a Stable version and > a slightly less stable, but newer Preview version at the same time, but > it adds a lot to the complexity of the site. > > A few people have suggested to have several static links on every page > to the main pages of interest, e.g. Support, Download etc.. I am not > convinced that is a good idea, because it bloats every page and there > are a lot of pages which are potentially of high interest. I also want > people to read certain things before they end up e.g. at the download or > mailing list pages, e.g. installation instructions, references to FAQs > etc.. But I might be convinced otherwise. > > Some things I personally consider requirements for the website > (requirements which any future version of the website should meet): > > Layout: > Lean, attractive, sticking to the original intentions of the web > standards, working with all browsers. > Most importantly, we should not abuse HTML to add formatting/layout (use > CSS instead). In no case use <table>s for layout, because they > completely mess up the layout in other browsers and new browsers with a > slim/tall window (width <= 600 pixels). > The real content of the page should be more than 50% of the page. Seems > obvious, nevertheless most commercial sites violate that by excessively > adding links to other parts of the site on every page, usually in the > top, left, right and bottom. > > Structure: > I consider a hierarchy to be the natural structure of a website and > would like to keep that. A change of the hierarchy might make sense, > though (see e.g. above for a concrete possibility), I don't know. > > Content: > Yes. We need more of that. :-P > I already wrote some parts before the 0.8 release, but we're still > missing the parts that describe the browser in general, for people who > are not familar with Mozilla or Netscape 6/7. I so far assumed that > everybody is. We need to find a good balance or structure for both types > of visitors (if you know Netscape 6 already, it is boring to read about > the overlapping features again). A possible solution is to have a "death > match" section where we compare the browser with other browsers plus a > general description. The problem is that comparing advertizing is not > allowed in Germany, where I am located. Any suggestions welcome. > We miss a description of the new features between the versions of Beonex > Communicator. > We need a way bigger FAQ. > Much of the above is low-hanging fruit, because some of that, for > Mozilla, can be found at various places on www.mozilla.org and > third-party pages [1]. > You probably noted that there are nice links ala "Introduction [to > Beonex Communicator]" and "Explore the Web" on the welcome page of the > browser <about:welcome>, but the pages they link to have no content. The > first link was intended to have a tutorial for people new to the web and > Mozilla / Beonex in particular. How a browser works, how to find > information on that intentionally chaotic web etc., all with concrete > instructions for Beonex Communicator. The Explore link was intended to > list some "hub" sites, which open the visitor whole interesting sections > of the web or supply otherwise vey useful tools. Examples are > dmoz.org/groups.google.com, the Gutenberg project, web.archive.org, > central academia and open-source resources, a good way to find good > online shops, online communities etc.. > > The problem is: I am a techy and don't know what general users are > missing here or what confuses them. Of course, I created it how it made > sense to me, but I obviously failed to a large extend. My limited time > might only be a part of the problem. So, suggestions are welcome, and > volunteers are even much more so. If anybody wants to take over the > command for the website, I would be very glad, because that would remove > a large work burden from my shoulders. People who write certain missing > pages, or even pages not yet thought of, are very welcome, too. Just > write them in Beonex Composer (be easy with formatting) and send them in > as HTML file. > > As for the technical side, the site is currently kept as plain HTML > files in a versioning system (CVS). Over that I run a generator which I > wrote in C++ and which adds the links to the subsections (in the bottom) > and the parent pages (in the top) and adds the title (the black bar). > The generator creates a set of static HTML pages, which I manually > upload to the server (but in one batch :-) ). This is not sat in stone, > other solutions are possible. > > You know, this is intended as mainly Open-Source project (ignoring the > commercial support and stuff), so volunteers helping with different > tasks are not only welcome, but were planned / hoped for from the > beginning. So, if helping with the Beonex website could be fun to you, > more power to you! :-) > > To close, a quote from a reporter of the website of a big, respected > U.S. newspaper: > >> Could be... this program really remains a mystery to me (partially >> because it didn't hit "0.8-stable," whatever that means, until after >> I'd done a lot of the work to >> review Mozilla itself. It doesn't help that the Beonex site is >> composed of some of the least informative pages I've ever seen about >> an end-user product. > > > > I am not sure what in particular he refers to, but it shows that Beonex > has a problem that needs to be solved. > > Ben > > > [1] > > * Official Netscape 7 FAQ > <http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/7/learnmore/faq.jsp> > * Mozilla 1.0 release-notes > <http://www.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla1.0/> > * Mozilla end-user docs > <http://www.mozilla.org/catalog/end-user/> > * Holger Metzger's FAQ. (Also in German.) > <http://www.hmetzger.de/net6e.html> > * Dark's Mozilla Linux FAQ > <http://home.c2i.net/dark/My_Mozilla_FAQ.html> > * Gerbil's FAQ called NewZilla > <http://www.gerbilbox.com/newzilla/> > * Mozilla profiles tips > <http://www.vorstrasse91.com/moztips/mozillaprofiles.html> > * O'Reilly - Various articles about Mozilla > <http://www.oreillynet.com/mozilla/> > * Pratik's collection of some hidden prefs > <http://www.geocities.com/pratiksolanki/index.html> > * UFAQ > <http://www.ufaq.org/ns6_faq.html> > * Mozilla profile files > <http://gemal.dk/mozilla/files.html> > * Mozilla 1.0 (FAQ only partially applies to Beonex) > <http://www.mozilla.org/start/1.0/> > * Another N6 FAQ > <http://home.adelphia.net/~sremick/ns6faq.html> > * Mozdev.org - many projects around Mozilla > <http://www.mozdev.org> > > Disclaimer: Note that this is just a compilation of resources that I > collected and found. I cannot tell that all of that is correct, in fact > I know that some documents contain wrong, misleading and suboptimal > information. > >
