Re: [CsMain] A helping hand

Am 05.02.2010 14:43, schrieb Christian Van Brussel:
> Hi Denis,
>
> Here are some personal thoughts on what can be improved within CS. I can
> help a bit working on this, we can talk about that through this mailing
> list or the crystal-develop one, through personal mails, through trac
> tickets or the 'Discussion' option of the web pages.
>
> IMO, the most important aspect is having a more attractive and usable
> web site. The current site is rather complete but it is having some
> problems:
>
> * The visual aspect of the web site is rather sober and sad. When going
> to the web site of a 3D engine, the visitor expect to find fancy images
> etc. The impression given by the current web site doesn't reflect the
> graphical potential of CS.
> - We can have more images, eg a random screenshot on the main page and
> images within the news.
> - The graphical layout may be improved. Less importantly, the layout may
> be unified between the web site, the blogs, the forum, the trac.
>
>    

I too think the webpage layout should be revised. It should be 
considered to change from the current Wiki to a CMS like Drupal; as the 
Trac developer page is already a wiki, I don't see much of a reason of 
making the main page a wiki too. In its current state, it only 
accumulates spam that way; just see "Recent changes" for evidence. This 
doesn't make a good impression.

> * The navigation is not evident. It is hard to find the information you
> want when you don't know where it is.
> There are three menus on the main page: on the left, at the top, and in
> a box on the right. This is disturbing. All menus should be regrouped at
> the same place, ie on the left. Some quick links are also missing, while
> some others are outdated. The page structure may also be improved: some
> big pages may be split, some small pages may be merged.
>
> Here is a proposition of a menu layout:
>
> About
> - Home
> - News
> - Features
> - Screenshots
> - Videos
>
> Projects
> - Crystal Space Engine
> - CEL
> - CELstart
>
> Community
> - Forums
> - Blogs
> - Other
>
> Developers
> - Subversion
> - Trac
> - Bugs
>
> Donations
> - Contribute
>
> Documentation
> - Manual
> - API
> - Tutorials
>
> Ressources
> - For artists
>
> Download
> - Demos
> - SDK
>
> Links
> - YoFrankie
> - Crystal Core
> - blender2crystal
> - CrystalArchitect
> - PlaneShift
>
> ToolBox
>
>
>    

I would propose to make Screenshots a top-level item, as that is often 
the first place where people look if they encounter the page of a 3d 
engine. News should be part of Home, so that they are immediately visible.

Here would be my link list:

Home

About
- Crystal Space (includes Features)
- CEL
- CELstart

Screenshots

Download

Documentation
- Manuals
- Tutorials
- API Reference

Links

> * Some information is outdated or incomplete
> - The most important page is the main page. This is where the visitor
> will choose between going further or zapping to another web site. The
> description of CS may be improved to reflect more the status and the
> potential of CS. There may also be more news when there are events like
> release candidates, binary packages, new features, new projects, things
> to test, needs (like seeking for an artist for the relooking of the web
> site), etc
>    

Seconded.

> - The second most important pages are the feature list and the
> screenshots/videos. The current pages doesn't reflect the impressive
> feature list and potential of CS/CEL/etc. They can be improved to be
> more accurate/complete/sexy. There can also be more videos/demos on the
> features and uses of CS. A win32 demo package may help.
>
>    

Yeah. Are there any impressive demos that could be shown? Otherwise, 
some would have to be written (I probably don't have the artistic and 
programming expertise to do so myself, unfortunately).

> * Another important aspect of CS that is problematic is the time between
> each releases. Having some scripts to automatize the whole process can
> help a lot. Having supported binary packages too.
>
>    

I also wanted to investigate that, especially SDK builds (it is very 
unfortunate that there are no binary SDKs currently, especially on 
Windows where building is not that easy).

Regards,
Denis

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