[squeak-dev] re: homepage

tim Rowledge tim at rowledge.org
Wed Feb 19 00:56:23 UTC 2014


As I’ve mentioned I like the general style of http://box3.squeak.org:8624/

In the image carousel we have some images that need updating and checking.

Latest Squeak - obviously a suitable 4.5 snapshot required
Morphic GUI - must be something more interesting than just a workspace and bouncing balls. 
Web development - a) ought to be later in the list, b) what are the current web tools?
Code Browsing Tools - ought to refer to browsing & development tools I’d say.
OpenQwaq - should presumably be changed to refer to 3Dicc? And probably ought to be just after Web development in the list.
Etoys - looks ok to me. Any newer more exciting image on offer?
OLPC - is that still a valid entry? I haven’t kept up with olpc
Scratch - still valid
Spoon - any newer image Craig?
Tablets - ok?
Newspeak - probably newer images Eliot?
Raspberry Pi - we could go for a linux UI based image but since that is so vanilla I’d propose keeping the RISC OS picture

I’d suggest changing the order to
latest
morphic
(add) mvc ?
code tools
etoys
scratch
spoon
newspeak
web dev
3dicc
tablets
pi
anything else?

Does clicking on the carousel typically provide links to something about the entry? We need content for them. If we can’t come up with interesting content, why do we think anyone would bother to read the site? Would a simple static list of the same links off to one side be sensible? Once one knows what is in the carousel it is likely quicker to get there via a list rather than wait for it to come around.

Under the carousel there is sensible space for three short columns. I definitely see the first as where to go for downloading. The second should be pretty much as it is - perhaps renamed ‘Join In’ ? How about -
Join In
- Download (link to same download page as first column)
- Join the community
- Documentation
- Development resources

Third column ought to be a couple or three snippets from the weekly squeak feed, or similar.

The across-the-screen menu probably ought to echo the order of the list in the second column (ie download/community/doc/dev and then add blogs/projects/wiki/license) but archive should be linked from the download page.

There’s a lot of content needed to make any sense of it all. It needs to be easy for any interested newcomer to find out what Squeak is, how to get it and how to ‘get it’. It also needs to be quick for habitual users to get to where the latest info is; the newest stable and development releases are probably the most important things and we need to get a decent story together about which sources are correct rather than flailing around trying to grab one part from Jenkins, one from squeakvm.org and another from Idontknowwhere.org.

Chris - what format for submissions would make life simplest? 

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
In /dev/null no one can hear you scream




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