firebird-website — Everything about Firebird's web site

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...>]

Dmitry Yemanov wrote:
> Please don't consider them being a concrete proposal :-) I just hope 
> they could be useful as a reference for the further discussion.
>   
Even so it would be a HUGE improvement. A clean and professional design, 
XHTML 1.1,  a clean CSS.

Giovanni

-- 
Giovanni Premuda 

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

Rustam Gadjimuradov wrote:
> 
> "SF Award winner" block is inapproriate in the home page

Just to clarify, as I haven't mentioned this block in my description.

This is a "hot news" balloon, i.e. it would represent something we'd 
like to make more visible for the visitors. Our awards (as in my 
example), new big sponsor, pleasing benchmark results, etc. Its contents 
is expected to change regularly. IMHO, such PR element does belong to 
the home page.


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Lester C. <le...@ls...>]

Rustam Gadjimuradov wrote:
> Carlos H. Cantu
>> Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I
>> must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my
>> eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good
>> choice of colors and text sizes.
> 
> +1 :)
> 
> However, left menu run to bottom in my IE and i dislike this menu content. :)
> 
>> I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and
>> "rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird
>> Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site.
> 
> My thoughts too. In current site rabbits is efficient solution,
> but "umbrella" always really deadlocks me. :)
> 
> And about CMS (forgot to wrote in previous letter) - if
> Marius's team already uses some Firebird-support CMS
> (Drupal or what else) - than let them independently choose
> the best they want.

This demo has thrown up a number of things on my 'test environment' and 
highlights one of the problems of static html. I have text overlying boxes on 
some browsers. Not a major problem, but annoying enough, and certainly less 
annoying than some of the static sites I visit! A CMS framework SHOULD already 
handle the different requirements of .css and the like, and is not worth 
discussing here, but manually built pages need to take that into account! (And 
IE6 is not dead - MANY large organizations simply can't afford to replace W2k! )

Another +1 for a proper CMS is the latest news section. This should be built 
automatically FROM the news articles, which is another reason for having a 
central site, rather than referring to other sites for news and other activity. 
And I include the tracker in that ;)

But the main complaint about the 'demo', and one that is not easy to solve, is 
that it barely fills half of the width of my browser so the bulk of the page is 
white space. This is one of my criticisms of the existing site as well, but at 
least that stays to the left of the browser. I know that 'dynamic pages' play 
havoc with some web designers 'esthetic's' but with wide screen monitors at high 
resolution becoming more common ( has anybody tried buying a 1024x768 monitor 
recently ) some consideration should be given to that aspect. Since I do now 
have to use glasses for close work, I switch the browser to 150% text. Try that 
on the demo page ..... and on wiki.firebirdsql.org

A dynamic CMS approach is a lot more than 'complicating things' - it takes care 
of a lot of the 'complicated things' that get forgotten when manually creating 
each page ....

If I get some time over the next couple of days I'll take the demo layout and 
create a theme for it on bitweaver so people can see how it might look, but 
changing the header on the existing wiki site is a 5 minute job, and the top 
menu can be reworked just as easily.

-- 
Lester Caine - G8HFL
-----------------------------
Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact
L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk
EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/
Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk//
Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Rustam G. <fir...@ma...>]

Carlos H. Cantu
> Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I
> must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my
> eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good
> choice of colors and text sizes.

+1 :)

However, left menu run to bottom in my IE and i dislike this menu content. :)

> I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and
> "rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird
> Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site.

My thoughts too. In current site rabbits is efficient solution,
but "umbrella" always really deadlocks me. :)

And about CMS (forgot to wrote in previous letter) - if
Marius's team already uses some Firebird-support CMS
(Drupal or what else) - than let them independently choose
the best they want.

WBR, GR

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Rustam G. <fir...@ma...>]

Dmitry Yemanov
> I don't event think it needs voting. I'd rather just leave it up to the 
> web designer doing the "dirty work". The only voting I can think of is 
> to choose from a few predefined sketches to collect the basic view of 
> our preferences

Yes, i think about this way too. But, some of moments - such as 
main color scheme, menu and navigation scheme, site structure
and home page structure+blocks+content - must and can be
"selected" before designers begin to work.

> Feel free to share them! If they're not just about colors and other 
> minor stuff :-)

OK, lets begin, here "too many letters". :)

My thoughts (for clearness i'll state from
"what we should not to do" to "what we can/must do") :

1. No 2-level menus (like mysql.com). I don't dislike
dropdown menus, but if it can be avoided - it must.
Or, compromisse way - hyperlinked dropdownable
menus (such as current "download" and "doc" menus,
but not like current "development" and "licensing").

I think, 5-7 menu items is optimal. My suggestion -
Home - Downloads - Documentation - Development -
News & Events - Support & Community - About.

Top menu bar (and cap as a whole) must be the same
in all site pages. I think, here is nothing to discuss.

For additional navigation sub-pages can have additional
menu bar (under the top) or left menu column - as Carlos
already said, i agree. Also i agree about 3-4 level limitting.

2. No "heavy" and overweighted homepage and main
subsection pages. Not like microsoft.com, oracle.com
and others - good example of bad sites, created by
the whole army of professionals for money.

As starting point, i like Dmitry's offered design of homepage.
"About" text is too bad, "SF Award winner" block is inapproriate
in the home page etc, but all of this - is details, main - blocks 
and structure - is good as for me. What must be instead of
right-top block - I don't know, may be it's better drop it ...
but i think about "subproject-buttons" - Flamerobin etc.
Or, another way: right-top block - last news, right-bottom -
friend-site banners (firebirdnew, ibphoenix etc).

Good example for meditation and comparision - site ubuntu.com.
No design like mozilla.org, please, but opensuse.org is not bad.

3. Now is not a time to discuss or even talk about subsites
(community.firebirdsql.org etc), which Pavel mentioned.

4. Logo. I disagree with Pavel, I think current logo more good,
than bad. And Carlos's poll confirms this. May be it needs some
cosmetical redesign, but it isn't directly related with site redesign.
In any case, I think it's not time to "re-branding".

--

If someone has forgotten last year's design proposals - just
compare them with current proposals. :)

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

DY> In our case we'll need to have a layout skeleton done by the designer
DY> beforehand. My demo (while being css based) was not intended for the 
DY> real world testing.

And I not saying the contrary. My point is that it is always better
choose/test a layout if it shows real info, and it is much easier to
produce them if the content is coming from database, unless someone
likes to exercise copy/paste skills ;) The static x dynamic content
subject was being discussed a few days ago, and IMHO, this is +1 for
dynamic (so my comment).

This is not the first time that layouts, structures, logos, etc. are
being discussed, and all the previous attempts ended in nothing being
done because there was too many suggestions, ideas, etc. but no
agreement, and I'm seeing this happening again. So, I'm leaving this
entire discussion, because as I already said, my opinion is that 2 or
3 (max) capable persons/professionals should handle this task without
having to explain or ask approval for each proposed change.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

Carlos,

> Though I would remove the excessive glare from the logo,

I paid almost zero attention to the logo (and avoided designing the 
header section at all), these two are simply outside my skill set.

They deserve serious attention from the web designer though. Those talks 
about our logo being suboptimal have some value, as IMHO it can hardly 
fit any professional design. I hope to be proved wrong.

> and would not use "pink" (or whatever the color of the
> "get involved" ballon is :-).

That was a random color choice. Anyway, the demo was not about colors of 
balloons ;-)

> I agree with many of your points and if we already had the site content
> available in a database, it would be less problematic and time consuming
> to test different layouts/approaches using real content.

In our case we'll need to have a layout skeleton done by the designer 
beforehand. My demo (while being css based) was not intended for the 
real world testing.


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

Pavel,

> The idea was to have top menu with "behavioural" topics (get files, get
> support, get involved etc.) instead "factual" topics (download,
> documentation, development etc.). Of course, there would be also center
> pages for some "factual" topics, but accessible via special sub-domain,
> and individual "documents" would be primarily accessed directly in
> particular context.
> 
> In fact, your proposal has the same issue, just from different angle :)
> Your menu is topical, but home page also contains links to behavioural
> sections (Get started, get updated etc.) that are in turn not directly
> accessible once you leave the main page.
> 
> So, as you can see, it's a compromise either way, we can just choose
> which one would fit our needs better.

Exactly. I'm not pretending that my concept is better, it's just some 
alternative to consider. I think that the "factual" pages have to be 
reached from everywhere while the "behavioural" ones make sense mostly 
to those opening the home page.

> The topical approach you suggest has one crucial issue for me: it forces
> us to mix information of interests for different kind of site users into
> humongous resource sections (especially the download and documentation
> section is problematic). Just take a look at our current site for what
> and how much information we would have to "sink" into these two sections!

I agree this requires special attention. I just hoped it could be kinda 
"solved" by the properly sectioned structure and layout (i.e. avoid 
having everything on a single page).

> Anyway, the content would be basically structured in the same way
> whatever menu/section scheme we would finally use, so I would like
> propose to create the content in new structure and then assemble it in
> both ways (it wouldn't be much additional work, they differ just in main
> page and menu header) as two separated "test sites" and let people
> decide which one works better for them.

This sounds appropriate to me.

>> I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section:
>>
>>    * What is Firebird / Intro
>>    * Origin / History
>>    * License
>>    * Advantages / Key Points
>>    * SQL compliance
>>    * Fact Sheets / Success Stories
>>    * Organization / Sub-Projects
> 
> Wouldn't the About us then become identical to Get started section?

Only partially. The "Get Started" section would also contain links to 
the downloads, documentation and probably support (at least newsgroups).

Something like this:

Get Started: About, Downloads, Documentation, Support
Get Updated: Downloads, Documentation, Development, News
Get Involved: Foundation|Sponsorship, Development, Documentation

It doesn't mean these aggregated pages should contain all the references 
from the every mention section, only most important of them (and with 
user-friendly textual explanations like "Pay special attention to" or 
"Follow this section").

I've been thinking about behavioural pages as "smart collections" that 
don't have their own documents but only links to elsewhere. In this 
case, the About menu is still required as a container which its own 
documents.


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

Hi Dmitry!

Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I
must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my
eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good
choice of colors and text sizes. Though I would remove the excessive glare
from the logo, and would not use "pink" (or whatever the color of the
"get involved" ballon is :-).

I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and
"rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird
Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site.

I don't see too much problem having topical and behavioral together,
if they are mixed in a way that will help the navigation and not
confuse the visitor.

I agree with many of your points and if we already had the site content
available in a database, it would be less problematic and time consuming
to test different layouts/approaches using real content.

Thanks for spending your precious time with this.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

DY> Please let me add my two cents.

DY> This is mostly a reply to the [constructive part of] messages by Carlos
DY> and Pavel. I'm basically agreed with many things already mentioned here.
[....]

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

Rustam,

> I think, background and color is not the main problem etc.

Sure.

> I think, such "trifles" may be voted and forgotten.

I don't event think it needs voting. I'd rather just leave it up to the 
web designer doing the "dirty work". The only voting I can think of is 
to choose from a few predefined sketches to collect the basic view of 
our preferences, like it was done with design schemes by Marius and his 
developer.

> There are some wrong moments from my POV

Feel free to share them! If they're not just about colors and other 
minor stuff :-)


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Dmitry Yemanov napsal(a):
> 
> I've seen an idea to omit some sections from the top menu (in favor of 
> other links?), but I tend to disagree. In this case, sub-sections would 
> have no possibility to jump there directly, or it would require 
> different top menus for the home page and sub-sections. I'd rather 
> prefer to have the same top menu at the every level. But this is surely 
> discussable.

The idea was to have top menu with "behavioural" topics (get files, get
support, get involved etc.) instead "factual" topics (download,
documentation, development etc.). Of course, there would be also center
pages for some "factual" topics, but accessible via special sub-domain,
and individual "documents" would be primarily accessed directly in
particular context.

In fact, your proposal has the same issue, just from different angle :)
Your menu is topical, but home page also contains links to behavioural
sections (Get started, get updated etc.) that are in turn not directly
accessible once you leave the main page.

So, as you can see, it's a compromise either way, we can just choose
which one would fit our needs better.

The topical approach you suggest has one crucial issue for me: it forces
us to mix information of interests for different kind of site users into
humongous resource sections (especially the download and documentation
section is problematic). Just take a look at our current site for what
and how much information we would have to "sink" into these two sections!

However, I agree that topical menu is more clear (you'll find exactly
what's in topic's name), as behavioural navigation may not be completely
clear for everybody who never saw it before. Nevertheless the actual
navigation with topical menu could (and probably would) be more complex
and confusing once you start to drill down into sections.

> There was a good point that we need target on a few areas and use some 
> visual "welcome here" approach for the targeted audiences. I think we 
> have three categories to handle: newcomers, current users and potential 
> sponsors/contributors. So the home page should contain some clearly 
> visible special navigation for them. I've codenamed these items "get 
> started", "get updated" and "get involved". They should redirect to some 
> aggregated pages containing (directly or through the links) the 
> information that is of the primary interest of the appropriate audience 
> (to save them time iterating through the entire menu system).

We're on agreement here :)

> As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to 
> demonstrate the aforementioned ideas:
> 
> I'm not sure that IE would show the layout properly, so please use 
> Firefox or Opera. Sorry for that, I'm not a web designer ;-)
> 
> Level 0 (home page):
> http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html
> 
> Level 1 (sub-section):
> http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/dev.html
> 
> Level 2 (document):
> http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/roadmap.html

I liked the structural concept, however there is that menu/section
divide thing :)

Anyway, the content would be basically structured in the same way
whatever menu/section scheme we would finally use, so I would like
propose to create the content in new structure and then assemble it in
both ways (it wouldn't be much additional work, they differ just in main
page and menu header) as two separated "test sites" and let people
decide which one works better for them.

> I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section:
> 
>    * What is Firebird / Intro
>    * Origin / History
>    * License
>    * Advantages / Key Points
>    * SQL compliance
>    * Fact Sheets / Success Stories
>    * Organization / Sub-Projects


Wouldn't the About us then become identical to Get started section?

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Rustam G. <fir...@ma...>]

Dmitry Yemanov
> I'm also in favor of the KIS principle. Text based, without much 
> graphics (maybe except the home page), no expandable sub-menus.

+1

>  white background, uniform style using firebirdish colors (orange or red), 

I think, background and color is not the main problem etc.
Current bg-color (light-green), bg-color in your link etc - 
all are good for most of peoples. I think, such "trifles"
may be voted and forgotten.

> Home page may also contain news, but only as shortcut links to the other 
> pages with complete articles. The same for the download links.
> 
> As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to 
> demonstrate the aforementioned ideas:
> 
> Level 0 (home page):
> http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html

Very pleasant for me! :) There are some wrong moments from
my POV, but it is proposal and good step to begin. Some more
such steps - and the work will move on. :)

WBR, GR

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...>]

All,

Please let me add my two cents.

This is mostly a reply to the [constructive part of] messages by Carlos 
and Pavel. I'm basically agreed with many things already mentioned here.

I'm also in favor of the KIS principle. Text based, without much 
graphics (maybe except the home page), white background, uniform style 
using firebirdish colors (orange or red), no expandable sub-menus.

The whole site generally consists of three levels: home page, 
sub-sections (to be jumped into via top menu) and documents (to be 
jumped into via a side-bar of a particular sub-section). Deeper level 
documents (if required) should be navigateable directly from the parent 
ones.

I've seen an idea to omit some sections from the top menu (in favor of 
other links?), but I tend to disagree. In this case, sub-sections would 
have no possibility to jump there directly, or it would require 
different top menus for the home page and sub-sections. I'd rather 
prefer to have the same top menu at the every level. But this is surely 
discussable.

There was a good point that we need target on a few areas and use some 
visual "welcome here" approach for the targeted audiences. I think we 
have three categories to handle: newcomers, current users and potential 
sponsors/contributors. So the home page should contain some clearly 
visible special navigation for them. I've codenamed these items "get 
started", "get updated" and "get involved". They should redirect to some 
aggregated pages containing (directly or through the links) the 
information that is of the primary interest of the appropriate audience 
(to save them time iterating through the entire menu system).

Home page may also contain news, but only as shortcut links to the other 
pages with complete articles. The same for the download links.

As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to 
demonstrate the aforementioned ideas:

I'm not sure that IE would show the layout properly, so please use 
Firefox or Opera. Sorry for that, I'm not a web designer ;-)

Level 0 (home page):
http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html

Level 1 (sub-section):
http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/dev.html

Level 2 (document):
http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/roadmap.html

Please don't consider them being a concrete proposal :-) I just hope 
they could be useful as a reference for the further discussion.

I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section:

   * What is Firebird / Intro
   * Origin / History
   * License
   * Advantages / Key Points
   * SQL compliance
   * Fact Sheets / Success Stories
   * Organization / Sub-Projects


Dmitry

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

You're right, you have to move forward to stand a chance.

* set new goals for the foundation - a new homepage isn't enough (and  
what you want from it will be clearer)

* announce to forums / newssites that "coders wanted" from every  
aspect, dovecot to dbartisan
(IS there still a relation between current delphi and fb??)

* The foundation lack resources, search money for above and invite  
universities.

* Launch a QND site with quickstart for these coders, people a  
currently looking for a decent mysql-alternative,
(even here in Sweden, mysql origins).

* Concider web-forums as an alternative to yahoo for that. They are  
quite wide-spread, I know some of you
dislike them. Personally, I still dislike yahoo for what they did to  
those chinese journalists.

Still nowhere to gather ideas, a maillist... ..we're all history.

//t


23 nov 2009 kl. 21.21 skrev Martijn Tonies:

>
>> But isn't that what he's refeering to?
>> Besides, You don't need history. You need *visions* for fb to  
>> survive.
>>
>> The foundation HAS to found a promotional group ASAP.
>> Sooo many trains missed, 10 years ago, fb was already awsome,
>> the old "better than mysql" isn't valid anymore. What's the issue  
>> here?
>> Don't wanna become "mainstream"?
>
> Hopping on a train isn't easy.
>
>
> With regards,
>
> Martijn Tonies
> Upscene Productions
> http://www.upscene.com
>
> Download Database Workbench for Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQL
> Anywhere, MySQL, InterBase, NexusDB and Firebird!
>
> Database questions? Check the forum:
> http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008  
> 30-Day
> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and  
> focus on
> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with
> Crystal Reports now.  http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july
> _______________________________________________
> Firebird-website mailing list
> Fir...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Martijn T. <m.t...@up...>]

 
> But isn't that what he's refeering to?
> Besides, You don't need history. You need *visions* for fb to survive.
> 
> The foundation HAS to found a promotional group ASAP.
> Sooo many trains missed, 10 years ago, fb was already awsome,
> the old "better than mysql" isn't valid anymore. What's the issue here?
> Don't wanna become "mainstream"?

Hopping on a train isn't easy.


With regards,

Martijn Tonies
Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

Download Database Workbench for Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQL
Anywhere, MySQL, InterBase, NexusDB and Firebird!

Database questions? Check the forum:
http://www.databasedevelopmentforum.com

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

Sure, my intention was to make a point why "I" think Helen doing
content is ok, but see problems if she get involved in management or
decision making. Sorry if it offended someone.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

RG> Carlos, Pavel and others

RG> Sorry for interrupting, but may be it's better to talk about
RG> subj rather then debate personalities ?

RG> Thanks

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure,

[Rustam G. <fir...@ma...>]

Carlos, Pavel and others

Sorry for interrupting, but may be it's better to talk about
subj rather then debate personalities ?

Thanks

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

> After this one, I would wonder if any project
> member who *knows* NN would ever take you seriously again.


That's the spirit, shoot the messenger boy and loyalty can never be  
exaggerated.

> especially as e-mails get archived for historical records and  
> everything

But isn't that what he's refeering to?
Besides, You don't need history. You need *visions* for fb to survive.

The foundation HAS to found a promotional group ASAP.
Sooo many trains missed, 10 years ago, fb was already awsome,
the old "better than mysql" isn't valid anymore. What's the issue here?
Don't wanna become "mainstream"?

AWH hopes for the embedded market, but tinysql and sqlite works for  
that.

Webapplications is not the future, it's now. (Most countries consider  
delphi dead.)
Work with open and closed source solutions, drupal, tigercrm, navision  
likes,

If you don't want users, why do you do all this?

//t

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> About logo, I'll put online a poll at FBNews about what users thinks
> about the currently logo, just to check people people opinion.

You're welcome. It doesn't hurt or anything.

> PC> 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
> PC> somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle the
> PC> content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
> PC> handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
> PC> content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
> PC> excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
> PC> someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
> PC> interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.
> 
> Helen is a very good writer and does this job very well, and I see no
> problem with she being kept as the site content supplier when needed.
> But there are 3 areas that "history" shows Helen is problematic:
> 
> - Many times, she is too aggressive with people, so I would not put
> her in any kind of job that requires "talking" with someone else.
> 
> - She is always right, and if you criticize anything that she have
> done, you will get in trouble.
> 
> - She is not open to changes, specially those changes that doesn't
> fit in what she think is correct, or doesn't fit in her way of doing
> things.
> 
> So, yes, Helen is a great writer, and she is very good in this task.

You know Carlos, e-mail is such a wonderful communication tool that
allows one to think twice before hitting the send button. You should try
that sometimes, especially as e-mails get archived for historical
records and everything. After this one, I would wonder if any project
member who *knows* Helen would ever take you seriously again.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

About logo, I'll put online a poll at FBNews about what users thinks
about the currently logo, just to check people people opinion.

PC> 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
PC> somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle the
PC> content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
PC> handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
PC> content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
PC> excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
PC> someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
PC> interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.

Helen is a very good writer and does this job very well, and I see no
problem with she being kept as the site content supplier when needed.
But there are 3 areas that "history" shows Helen is problematic:

- Many times, she is too aggressive with people, so I would not put
her in any kind of job that requires "talking" with someone else.

- She is always right, and if you criticize anything that she have
done, you will get in trouble.

- She is not open to changes, specially those changes that doesn't
fit in what she think is correct, or doesn't fit in her way of doing
things.

So, yes, Helen is a great writer, and she is very good in this task.

PC> 2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if
PC> there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to.
PC> Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/her
PC> way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it.
PC> But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to get
PC> over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something
PC> with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it. What's
PC> interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside the
PC> project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually work
PC> on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it.

I understand your point, and I would not expect that any other
currently member of the project would like to take this job, because
they probably are already too busy, or because this is not their
area. This is old problem from the project: lack of human resources.

PC> reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're
PC> short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help
PC> materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with.

Maybe it is time to list this things and let people volunteer for it.

PC> Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility
PC> for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us.

I'm not a project member, and afaiu from your above comments, the job
should be taken by some project member. Also, I'm not a professional
webmaster. I created all my sites, but to do that, I only had to make
one person happy: me :)

But, if you or anybody else thinks I would be able to help in any of
the tasks involved in the required changes, I would be glad to help.
But first, I need to know what would be the job and, of course, see if
my currently time and skills would allow me to accomplish it.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

>> Yes, no, maybe. But underlying technology doesn't make an appealing
>> website, design does. So, could we let it go and concentrate on  
>> design?
>> Let the *real* requirements to dictate the technology once we'll get
>> there, please?
>>

You do not need to look into design yet. First do your homework  
beginning with
IF you want more support / interest from the community.
If so, change your attitude accordingly.

Primary target, community or enterprise, or both? That affects the rest.
Stop behaving like goats looking for a horse. You're mainaining one of  
the
finest open source databases in the world. If you're sick of it, quit,  
noone
is forcing you.

/t

Re: [Firebird-website] [Firebird-general] Re: Fb Website

[Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...>]

Pavel Cisar wrote:
> We heard countless *suggestions*, very few
> offers and saw almost zero real contributions (most of those were just
> images and other graphics). We've got no improved CSS, no content
> (except content created as part of our sub-projects), nothing, zero, nada.
>   
You really never *encouraged* them.
> ...especially how we should do it in this or that CMS. 
Because it's the easiest way to get started. Moving content around in a 
CMS is usually quite painless. Skinning most CMS is quite painless
> Give me appealing CSS that looks great in
> all browsers that we could use instead such advices, and we could
> implement it right away. Did we get any? Nope, just the same old "use
> this, use that technology" b****. I understand that it's mostly because
> we're all developers, so all help/advice is developer-related, but
> anyway, we're getting tired of this over all years it's thrown at us.
>   
You seem to believe that CSS are developed in a vacuum. They are not. 
Developing a reasonable CSS requires a reasonable content structure and 
clean markup. And  www.firebirdsql.org has neither.
> We know what we want, we're just not skilled enough in design neither we
> have enough time to learn it as we have other more important duties. If
> you want to help us, help us with THAT. 
No, you don't. You believe you do, and  seem fully committed in 
micromanaging the activity, but you obviously have no real idea of how a 
good design comes to life.

> If you put cart before the horse, then certainly. Ask what we want to
> achieve and then you can create and offer us a design that could be
> accepted. But don't throw at us any design you saw, liked and copied,
> and that may work for someone else but not for us.
>   
No, because "what we want to achieve"  means  " We rule  so you clean 
our toilets".  And nobody is willing to spend free time cleaning toilets.
If we start discussing what *should* be archieved in a constructive way, 
then you will probably see a lot more real interest and useful 
contributions.
>
>> DB driven sites make change to the structure of the site quite painless.
>> And 99% of the professional sites around the world are db driven. It 
>> can't be that bad.  BTW it's really not the message an open source DBMS 
>> should give, unless we want people to believe that MySQL is stabler than 
>> Firebird.
>>     
>
> Yes, no, maybe. But underlying technology doesn't make an appealing
> website, design does. So, could we let it go and concentrate on design?
> Let the *real* requirements to dictate the technology once we'll get
> there, please?
>   
No objection.

Giovanni


-- 
Giovanni Premuda 

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure

[tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...>]

Comments to site-structure:

> My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
> can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
> too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
> 3 clicks (even less, if possible)."


A two-row top-menu can in fact result in a more structured site, without
excessive clicks, top row1 corresponds to "the stairway of knowlede",
* Start - what's this (general description, licence, testimonials)
* Download - I'm interested
* Documentation - How do do what I want (with browsable help files (in  
the long run))
* Help - I'm stuck - FAQ, mail list etc, forums (maybe, in the long run)
* Get involved, donate, foundation,dev's corner etc
* Ext.ref. just links to tools, support and other.

At level two, up to around seven subcategoires, (more becomes blurry)

At each "level1-page", there can be a quick-jump-list on the left  
side, so information
can be strongly hierarcical, and yet quick to reach if the topic is  
often requested.
(these quicklists can of course be selfmainaining upon page-statistics)

If the left menu holds further two levels, maby 8 items each, (except  
the quicklinks-box),
it would make up a quite easy-navigatable site.

So from an outsiders perspective, here's my original suggestion:
Site
   >Start
     >Homepage w. news
       > News archive
     >Introduction
     >Overview
     >History
     >Licence
     >The FB Foundation
       >Firebird brand
       >Join / Donate

   >Download
     >Server
       FB2
       FB1
     >Client
       >ODBC
       >JDBC
       >PHP
       >...
     >Tools
     >Logos

   >Documentation
     >Configuring
     >Basics
       >Obejct overview
         >Tables
         >Triggers
         >...
     >SQL
       >SQL / DDL - kind of good ol' ib6 html ref.
       >PSQL
       >Internal functions
       >Localization
       >Security
     >Advanced
       >System tables
       >UDF's
       >Bundled tools

   >Get Help
     >FAQ
       >FB terminology
       >Newbie
       >General
       >Advanced
     >Books
     >Lists

   >Get involved
     >Conferences
     >Foundation

   >External resources
     >Tools
     >Extensions
     >Support
     >Hosting


> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's  
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.).

In fact I like it, (not the shaded one), it's not an easy one as it's  
extremly light (both meanings),
but doesn't have to be completely disregarded. (I don't hold an AD- 
exam but I have worked
with design, se pomada.se for references)

> don't want to hear that I should spend hours of my time to learn  
> Drupal or
> whatever CMS so I could code another non-appealing website. Give me  
> appealing
> CSS that looks great in all browsers that we could use instead such  
> advices,
> and we could implement it right away. Did we get any? Nope, just the  
> same old "use
> this, use that technology" b****.


Am I being harrased again here? Please feel free to quote me, but do  
it with honersty.
Never have I insinuated that the site maintainers should learn drupal.  
I know from
own experiences that it takes a good amount of time. Maintaining a  
site in drupal
is not the same as building one. (But i do understand that it might be  
unpleasant
not knowing what's "under the hood")

In fact regarding the drupal issue, which once again, was an open idea  
from my
side on how to add public interest for firebird, I've been  
reconsidering with the
following outcome:

+ A known cms may be add value to FB for anyone with respect for that  
cms
- Use of a known cms may give credit to the cms, not to FB
- It may result in a kind of vendor-lockin
- Current sitemaintainers seems to want a understanding of the nuts  
and bolts,
not just a administers backend. And current sitemaintainers seems  
commited
to continue their work.
- Even the most accredited cms:es comes and goes,
+ CMS modules may reduce devtime as new features are requested,  
search, forum, commenting...
- There's no interest or need(?) for such new features.

>  So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make  
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.


I am very happy to hear this (I'm sincere, not ironic). This was what  
I was requested
in the fist place, I did not impose that it should come from your  
side, nevertheless
after a few posts I was attaced by HB, (see firebird-general).

> Did we get any? Nope, just the same old "use this, use that  
> technology" b****.


I have tried to ask as kindly as I can for white papers, drafts,  
offered a wiki as a repostory for idéas,
indicating that I have things to offer, (but not wanting to bloat), as  
in

> I've put together a sitemap and layout-draft - nothing spectacular  
> but  something
> to start from. I'd gladly share it with you.


Did *I* get any responses? Nope. Null. That's ok. However I don't  
understand
why this list is public in the first place since outsiders both  
present and from the past
are being mocked at. Feel free to do it, but open up a list for  
yourself then. Currently
some of you are only proving Giovanni Premuda to be perfectly right.  
And since you first now
are beginning to look at concept (wherever that put's the horse), how  
could anyone possibly
contribute. I speak for my experiences - not the long history.

Finally, my sincere apologises to Pavel or anyone else offended by the  
"powed by flatfiles"-joke,
it slipped my tounge as I was so profundly surprised. I'm sorry for  
the words, but not the content,
apache.org isn't powered by thttpd even if apache is a fairly complex  
piece of software.

Except for that I've tried to be creative and serious. If anyone has  
found my posts to be valuable,
I'd be very glad to hear that, here or PM.

Sincerely,
/tjelvar eriksson

>> PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e.  
>> downloads
>> PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started  
>> (single
>> PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
>> PC> minimal text.
>>
>> I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new
>> users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and
>> simple design.
>
> They're more synonyms than opposites, don't you think?
>
>> [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....]
>>
>> I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them  
>> are
>> related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside
>> people (professional web designers). They should suggest what  
>> colors to
>> use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to
>> approve or reject ;)
>
> Nope. Designers don't have ultimate freedom in design. It's like an
> architecture. Architect can be free to express his imagination in his
> design, but still must follow the basics, whether he designs school,
> museum or business center, how it would be used, in what surrounding  
> it
> would be etc. So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make  
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.
>
> About buttons and links, it's related to site structure and content,
> which is not something that designers should decide.
>
>> PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new  
>> one at
>> PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we  
>> just use it
>> PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long  
>> time ago
>> PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But  
>> tenth
>> PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that  
>> we need
>> PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an  
>> isometric
>> PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of  
>> fire (head
>> PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of  
>> surfaces
>> PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I  
>> mean.
>>
>> Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change  
>> to
>> a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe  
>> it
>> just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business
>> to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job
>
> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's  
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.). And believe me, it's almost impossible
> to design an appealing web page with this logo, many people tried hard
> many times and failed. Because the logo looks like amateur's attempt  
> to
> make a logo (which it is), it makes all layouts look amateurish.
> Facelift would help either, as all attempts failed. You *may* come  
> with
> some mixed and rendered image that wouldn't look completely awful  
> (like
> firebirdnews button), but that will not fix the logo itself. Logo must
> look good even in two-colour (i.e. printed) flat mode.
>
> We use it only because we haven't anything better to replace it at the
> time, and the sole reason we still use it is pure inertia. The 10th
> anniversary is our best chance to overcome this inertia and get
> something better we could live with to the very end. Otherwise we'll  
> be
> stuck with this nightmare to our 25th anniversary.
>
> I agree that we need a professional logo designer for this task,  
> however
> we have to clearly specify its *parameters*. We definitely want a bird
> in it. Flames would be a bonus (we doesn't have them now). Because we
> need to use it on icons, it must look good when down-scaled. There are
> many "phoenixes" in the wild used as logos, and only one really
> appealing phoenix logo was for Phoenix Pictures movie production  
> company
> (see http://www.phoenixpictures.com/). All others look from awful to
> mediocre, especially when portrayed as full birds, and that was in  
> "full
> size", down-sized it's even worse. The "just head" suggestion is based
> on down-scale factor.
>
>> About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are
>> good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do  
>> would
>> be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user.
>> Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different  
>> places is
>> one of the faults of the currently site, imho.
>
> 1. It's not currently spread around the site (see Download and
> Documentation). Yes, there are sub menus, but without them it would be
> even worse, just take a look at Firebird Documentation Index page and
> imagine it would has it *all*, the same for Download when you'd look  
> at
> Engine downloads.
>
> 2. My proposal contains both approaches: "all in one place" (focus on
> area and then drill down and down and down...) and "by context" (much
> shorter navigation path). It would come for almost the same money.  
> I've
> just emphasized the preference for shortest path over central  
> repository
> as part of initial user experience, but both is still there.
>
>> Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most
>> interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the  
>> visitors,
>> and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also,
>> some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the
>> numbers of available items.
>
> We do prioritize by potential user interest, but there are simply too
> many items so it would always look cluttered. The only one way how to
> make it more clean is to "select by context" as part of pageflow, plus
> provide the central repository for "librarians".
>
>> PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from  
>> other
>> PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and  
>> others have
>> PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this.  
>> However,
>> PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have  
>> to check
>> PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises,  
>> but we'll
>> PC> do what we can.
>>
>> Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be
>> you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the
>> control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the
>> necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able
>> to do it now?
>
> 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
> somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle  
> the
> content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
> handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
> content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
> excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
> someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
> interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.
>
> 2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if
> there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to.
> Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/ 
> her
> way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it.
> But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to  
> get
> over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something
> with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it.  
> What's
> interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside  
> the
> project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually  
> work
> on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it.
>
> So that's about the control, now about the "change". Yes, it would
> change. We didn't made it one or two years ago because we knew it
> wouldn't be shining. It would be a lot of work and at the end we would
> probably have more usable site, but not more appealing. So we  
> postponed
> this task until we could actually do it better (i.e. with help from
> professional graphic and web designer). Now it seems we would have it,
> and the 10th anniversary is a good motivation to pass through this  
> dark
> valley.
>
>> For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move
>> forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with  
>> the
>> job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of
>> a great help for them.
>
> Ideas are good, but even the best ones are just that - ideas. They  
> don't
> magically materialize into something, someone has to make them in the
> reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're
> short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help
> materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with.
>
>> I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed
>> a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You
>> and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care
>> about.
>
> Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility
> for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us.
>
> best regards
> Pavel Cisar
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Pavel C. <pc...@ib...>]

Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a):
> PC> As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I
> PC> would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more
> PC> graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples.
> 
> I partially agree with you. Yes, I love Mozilla site design, but they
> are not database guys, so I doubt we can be that simple :) Some years
> ago I was able to find who did the Mozilla design, maybe this info
> will be useful for us now.

The mozilla.org was given as an example of desired page layout, not
style. Its style is too "stylish" for our needs. I'd prefer something
lighter in colours (soft tones, more based on lines than coloured surfaces).

> PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads
> PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single
> PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
> PC> minimal text.
> 
> I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new
> users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and
> simple design.

They're more synonyms than opposites, don't you think?

> [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....]
> 
> I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them are
> related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside
> people (professional web designers). They should suggest what colors to
> use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to
> approve or reject ;)

Nope. Designers don't have ultimate freedom in design. It's like an
architecture. Architect can be free to express his imagination in his
design, but still must follow the basics, whether he designs school,
museum or business center, how it would be used, in what surrounding it
would be etc. So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make with
it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
they think would express it.

About buttons and links, it's related to site structure and content,
which is not something that designers should decide.

> PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at
> PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it
> PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago
> PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth
> PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need
> PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric
> PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head
> PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces
> PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean.
> 
> Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change to
> a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe it
> just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business
> to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job

The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's designed
poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
banners, t-shirts, icons etc.). And believe me, it's almost impossible
to design an appealing web page with this logo, many people tried hard
many times and failed. Because the logo looks like amateur's attempt to
make a logo (which it is), it makes all layouts look amateurish.
Facelift would help either, as all attempts failed. You *may* come with
some mixed and rendered image that wouldn't look completely awful (like
firebirdnews button), but that will not fix the logo itself. Logo must
look good even in two-colour (i.e. printed) flat mode.

We use it only because we haven't anything better to replace it at the
time, and the sole reason we still use it is pure inertia. The 10th
anniversary is our best chance to overcome this inertia and get
something better we could live with to the very end. Otherwise we'll be
stuck with this nightmare to our 25th anniversary.

I agree that we need a professional logo designer for this task, however
we have to clearly specify its *parameters*. We definitely want a bird
in it. Flames would be a bonus (we doesn't have them now). Because we
need to use it on icons, it must look good when down-scaled. There are
many "phoenixes" in the wild used as logos, and only one really
appealing phoenix logo was for Phoenix Pictures movie production company
(see http://www.phoenixpictures.com/). All others look from awful to
mediocre, especially when portrayed as full birds, and that was in "full
size", down-sized it's even worse. The "just head" suggestion is based
on down-scale factor.

> About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are
> good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do would
> be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user.
> Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different places is
> one of the faults of the currently site, imho.

1. It's not currently spread around the site (see Download and
Documentation). Yes, there are sub menus, but without them it would be
even worse, just take a look at Firebird Documentation Index page and
imagine it would has it *all*, the same for Download when you'd look at
Engine downloads.

2. My proposal contains both approaches: "all in one place" (focus on
area and then drill down and down and down...) and "by context" (much
shorter navigation path). It would come for almost the same money. I've
just emphasized the preference for shortest path over central repository
as part of initial user experience, but both is still there.

> Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most
> interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the visitors,
> and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also,
> some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the
> numbers of available items.

We do prioritize by potential user interest, but there are simply too
many items so it would always look cluttered. The only one way how to
make it more clean is to "select by context" as part of pageflow, plus
provide the central repository for "librarians".

> PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other
> PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have
> PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However,
> PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check
> PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll
> PC> do what we can.
> 
> Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be
> you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the
> control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the
> necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able
> to do it now?

1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle the
content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.

2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if
there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to.
Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/her
way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it.
But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to get
over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something
with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it. What's
interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside the
project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually work
on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it.

So that's about the control, now about the "change". Yes, it would
change. We didn't made it one or two years ago because we knew it
wouldn't be shining. It would be a lot of work and at the end we would
probably have more usable site, but not more appealing. So we postponed
this task until we could actually do it better (i.e. with help from
professional graphic and web designer). Now it seems we would have it,
and the 10th anniversary is a good motivation to pass through this dark
valley.

> For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move
> forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with the
> job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of
> a great help for them.

Ideas are good, but even the best ones are just that - ideas. They don't
magically materialize into something, someone has to make them in the
reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're
short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help
materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with.

> I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed
> a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You
> and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care
> about.

Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility
for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us.

best regards
Pavel Cisar

Re: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news...

[Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...>]

PC> As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I
PC> would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more
PC> graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples.

I partially agree with you. Yes, I love Mozilla site design, but they
are not database guys, so I doubt we can be that simple :) Some years
ago I was able to find who did the Mozilla design, maybe this info
will be useful for us now.

PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads
PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single
PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
PC> minimal text.

I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new
users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and
simple design.

[.... a lot of quote cutted here ....]

I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them are
related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside
people (professional web designers). They should suggest what colors to
use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to
approve or reject ;)

PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at
PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it
PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago
PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth
PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need
PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric
PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head
PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces
PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean.

Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change to
a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe it
just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business
to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job

About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are
good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do would
be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user.
Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different places is
one of the faults of the currently site, imho.

Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most
interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the visitors,
and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also,
some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the
numbers of available items.

>> 6. Contact

PC> Not as separate area / menu link. We have too many different kinds of
PC> groups and contacts. I'll left contact to project Admins as part of
PC> footer copyright notice and at "About" area fro press etc., but
PC> generally contacts would be scattered around the site on places where
PC> they're most relevant.

I avoided saying where things should be. I just wanted to build a
structure of the site content. Someone from the project + the designer
would decide where it would be, or how it will be presented (menu,
link, section, sidebar, etc).

PC> Agreed. But I'd like make it even simpler than you proposed :)

If possible, it would be great!

PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other
PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have
PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However,
PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check
PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll
PC> do what we can.

Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be
you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the
control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the
necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able
to do it now?

For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move
forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with the
job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of
a great help for them.

I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed
a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You
and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care
about.

PS: I wasn't able to comment all of your reply, since I just came back
from a great bike ride that took 10h (including 4h under the rain). I'm
really tired and just going to bed. Excuse me if I wasn't clear in any
of the above comments.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org
www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br