> To focus the talk a little, I spent half an hour merging and 
> organizing
> the Tools, Packages, and Projects pages.  The new page is at:
> 
> 	http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1406

Thanks, very nice!

> Unfortunately, many of the projects were listed with no 
> description, and
> so this attempt at an index is as yet quite sparce.  
> Furtermore, there's
> only about 50-60 projects on there, when I'm sure there is much more
> going on.  But hopefully it's enough to get the idea.
> 
> So, a few comments and questions.
> 
> First, categorizing this stuff is hard.  An ideal system would allow
> items to have multiple categories, but that could be a pain 
> to maintain.
>  Maybe we just have to live with it.
> 
> Second, it's not clear what should show up on the index page 
> directly. 
> Most projects have a web page for them; heck, if they don't, it's real
> easy to make a quick Swiki page for it.  So detailed instructions seem
> like a poor thing to put in the index.  How about author 
> names?  I guess
> this is appropriate, so long as its a small number of authors.  What
> else should show up there?

How about a table with the following columns:
- title
- category(s)
- contributor [If squeak swiki was a "refs" swiki, 
  the "who's who" pages would automatically build cross-references]
- short description

This would tighten up the page - easier to print and read in bed...  You
could have a table for each major category, but browser search would allow
you to look for different categories, authors, etc.  The title would link to
a page with more detail, either on the swiki or elsewhere.

> Finally, my inclination is to list other indices of projects 
> separately
> somewhere.  I started a list at the top of the page for things like
> "STP's Goodies".  In the index itself, it seems sensible to actually
> list out the goodies.  Does this sound reasonable to others?  There's
> simply a cognative dissonance in mixing both indices and 
> actual projects
> in a long list like the current Projects, etc, pages do.
> 
> Overall, what do people think of this?  Can we axe the 
> Projects, Tools,
> and Packages pages, and replace them with a single "All Projects" page
> (probably renamed to "Projects") ?  People who have actually used
> Freshmeat before, is this anywhere close to useful compared to those? 

I could never figure out the difference between a project, tool, package or
goodie - so I vote yes.

-david