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

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

Afair, the latest discussion about new web design (when Mariu's friend sent
some proposals) stopped because we didn't have a desired site
structure to send to him. So, below is my draft, just to give a start,
about how I think content can be structured. Probably it is not
complete or perfect, but with a starting point, it is easier to move forward.

Main page contents
- Official Project news
- Link to FirebirdNews
- Link to Firebird FAQ
- Next conferences/events
- Donation link
- Direct link to latest stable release

1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc)
1.1 Sponsors list
1.2 Members

2.Downloads
2.1 Firebird Binaries
2.1.1 FB 3.0.x
2.1.2 FB 2.5.x
2.1.3 FB 2.1.x
2.1.4 FB 2.0.x
2.1.5 FB 1.5.x
2.1.6 FB 1.0.x
2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc)
2.3 Source Code
2.4 Logos and images

3.Documentation
3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs 
3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ
3.3 Firebird License
3.4 Actual Roadmap

4.Support
4.1 Discussion lists
4.1.1 International (english language)
4.1.2 Regional (by country/language)
4.2 Firebird related sites and portals
4.2.1 Global (english language)
4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language)
4.3 Link to Tracker

5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site)

6. Contact

7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can
   use even Google for this)


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).

Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job
board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access
statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped
better than me.

Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to
the website project redesign. As we already have some amount
collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for
a task to be done.

Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3
people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their
opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions
and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything
they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside"
opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they
want to.

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