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Greetings [message #1842] Tue, 19 April 2005 20:06 Go to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
This is the newsgroup for the Eclipse Foundation's project Phoenix. This
goal of this project is to turn our website into a great meeting place for
all members of the Eclipse community. We are aiming for lots of new
functionality, a complete re-organization and a more streamlined look.

Few topics around Eclipse attract more attention and opinion than our
website. We know we have lots of work to do in order to accomplish our
goals. We are looking forward to lots of contributions and interactions with
the community as we evolve the site.

Before everyone starts posting a "hey, what about this!", please give us a
day or two to post some of the docs we've been building within the team. It
would probably be better for everyone if the conversations focus on what we
are missing rather than starting from first principles.

As our first foray into opinion generation, we have created a "new look"
home page for people to try out. Please note that this is *not* a design for
the permanent new home page for the site. It is something we could do which
was relatively quick, which used the existing frames+static HTML site
implementation, and which we think uses a better layout to make things
easier to find. Check out http://www.eclipse.org/phoenix/index.html. Feel
free to let us know what you think. If most people think it's an
improvement, we can make the switch to this new homepage pretty easily.

/mike
Re: Greetings [message #1846 is a reply to message #1842] Wed, 20 April 2005 13:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: martin.j.nilsson.sverige.nu

Hi,

> easier to find. Check out http://www.eclipse.org/phoenix/index.html. Feel
> free to let us know what you think. If most people think it's an

Nice to see someone is trying to improve the site! I've often had a hard
time finding what was looking for so I'm all for a re-design.

Not to bring you down or anything, but I wasn't particulary fond of the
new look at the URL above. My main concern is that I have a hard time
overviewing it, just seems like lots and lots of links.

If you go with the new phoenix-look I would make the text below each link
a bit more verbose which means fewer links (since fewer links will fit).
In my experience the news-sections aren't updated so frequently that you
need to have 12 items in community news, six items in project news and
five items in foundations news. I'm not sure if it's technically viable
for you to make the introductionary texts longer, but that's just my two
cents.



regards,
martin
Re: Greetings [message #1856 is a reply to message #1846] Wed, 20 April 2005 20:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Kim Moir is currently offline Kim MoirFriend
Messages: 39
Registered: July 2009
Member
I agree! It's great that the web site is being updated.

However, the prototype presented is a quite overwhelming with the number
of news links. Perhaps the news could consume less real estate. This
would allow the "New to Eclipse" section to be more prominent and
provide additional links for new users to get acquainted with the
resources that the community provides, such as newgroups.

Just my $0.02

Kim
Re: Greetings [message #1866 is a reply to message #1856] Wed, 20 April 2005 21:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Like I said, the new page is *not* a prototype for what we think will be our
eventual look. It is (we thought) an improvement over the current state.

It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

Any fans out there? Any additional feedback?

"Kim Moir" <kmoir@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:d46erh$djv$1@news.eclipse.org...
>I agree! It's great that the web site is being updated.
>
> However, the prototype presented is a quite overwhelming with the number
> of news links. Perhaps the news could consume less real estate. This
> would allow the "New to Eclipse" section to be more prominent and provide
> additional links for new users to get acquainted with the resources that
> the community provides, such as newgroups.
>
> Just my $0.02
>
> Kim
Re: Greetings [message #1880 is a reply to message #1866] Thu, 21 April 2005 09:58 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: martin.j.nilsson.sverige.nu

> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

I'll admit that the new look is a lot more polished and professional than
the old/current one and in that respect it would be an improvement. I
still feel that the enormous (could it be that I'm getting old? :-) number
of links makes it harder to find what you're looking for.



regards,
martin
Re: Greetings [message #1924 is a reply to message #1880] Thu, 21 April 2005 12:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
This is very interesting feedback.

One of the documents we will post is the benchmark sites that we looked at.
Many of them are developer portals which approximate the number and
distribution of links you see on the sample. Perhaps we've been looking at
the wrong benchmarks.

"Martin J Nilsson" <martin.j.nilsson@sverige.nu> wrote in message
news:aa1022696995aeeb3261234bbf7030d8$1@www.eclipse.org...
>> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
>> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.
>
> I'll admit that the new look is a lot more polished and professional than
> the old/current one and in that respect it would be an improvement. I
> still feel that the enormous (could it be that I'm getting old? :-) number
> of links makes it harder to find what you're looking for.
>
>
>
> regards,
> martin
>
>
>
>
Re: Greetings [message #3310 is a reply to message #1866] Thu, 05 May 2005 17:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: newsgroups.ryanlowe.ca

It might be a good idea to consider what other open source projects are
doing with their websites and why they work well. Especially the open
source projects that have funding for web design.

Mozilla's web site is a great example: http://www.mozilla.org/

Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

Personally I find portals to be very distracting. Contrast Yahoo
(http://www.yahoo.com/) with Google (http://www.google.com). Google
succeeded because it got to the point, solved people's problems and was
easy to use. The front pages of traditional portals like Yahoo are like
a room full of shouting people. Portals like Yahoo are on the way out.

Mozilla's site, which underwent significant public peer review before it
replaced the old version, is my favourite. It's not cluttered, the
layout and graphics are good looking and I can find and download the
latest version of the product very quickly (it even smartly detects my
operating system, which is easy to do).

Mozilla and Google's sites are alike in that the important business is
on the first page, and the rest is a click or two away rather than in
your face on the first page.

Mozilla's well-designed website probably contributed to its recent
popularity because a lot of people seem to equate website quality with
the quality of the software product. Eclipse's current website has a
lot of information but it's not particularly well laid out or designed.

Will Phoenix have a graphic designer on staff who is familiar with the
challenges of the web? Mozilla's site really benefitted from having
someone who was very knowledgable in that area and could defend/explain
those decisions (on mailing lists, newsgroups and bug reports) so that
people understood why things were the way they were. The open source
culture of the Mozilla project probably wouldn't have had it any other way.

Here's a blog post from one of the guys at silverorange, who redesigned
the site, to get an idea of what they did:

http://www.actsofvolition.com/archives/2004/august/newmozill aorg

I like that Phoenix will have a place in the Eclipse Bugzilla as well as
other communication channels. The feedback, especially subjective
feedback, will be valuable.

Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #3409 is a reply to message #1842] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

After the initial shock, I kinda like it. I like how giving more space
to news means you can show more of it at a time. I learned some things
from the news links that I might not have seen otherwise.

I read the other comments and agree that if stale news sticks around too
long I would come to regard it as not worth looking at. But you could
easily mitigate that with an RSS feed for Eclipse news (suggestion).

Bob Foster
Re: Greetings [message #3542 is a reply to message #3310] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:53 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Yes, we have an experienced web designer on the project. His name is Andrew
Gerharty and you will see his name popping up in all sorts of places as we
go along.

"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5dmbp$ls7$1@news.eclipse.org...
> Will Phoenix have a graphic designer on staff who is familiar with the
> challenges of the web? Mozilla's site really benefitted from having
> someone who was very knowledgable in that area and could defend/explain
> those decisions (on mailing lists, newsgroups and bug reports) so that
> people understood why things were the way they were. The open source
> culture of the Mozilla project probably wouldn't have had it any other
> way.
Re: Greetings [message #3574 is a reply to message #3310] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5dmbp$ls7$1@news.eclipse.org...
> It might be a good idea to consider what other open source projects are
> doing with their websites and why they work well. Especially the open
> source projects that have funding for web design.
>
> Mozilla's web site is a great example: http://www.mozilla.org/

I also really like Mozilla's site. It is definitely on our list of
benchmarks.

I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.
That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
developer portals.

But in any event, this is great feedback. Thanks very much.
Re: Greetings [message #3668 is a reply to message #3574] Fri, 06 May 2005 15:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: newsgroups.ryanlowe.ca

> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
> focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.

That's a good point but there's a significant difference between a
developer that just wants to download and use Eclipse and a developer
that wants to actively contribute back to the Eclipse project.

I'm guessing, but the ratio is probably several orders of magnitude.
Many developers probably don't have time to contribute back to the
Eclipse project itself, they just want to use Eclipse. In order to
properly target your website to the Eclipse audience you may want to try
to estimate this ratio. I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 100 to 1
or more.

The Eclipse website could reflect the reality of that ratio (that many
people just want to download the latest stable build of Eclipse and get
on with their own business, just like FireFox) while still encouraging
people to give feedback and contribute, just like the Mozilla website does.

> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
> developer portals.

Is there a compiled list of these benchmark sites? It would be
interesting to compare them.

Cheers,

Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #3700 is a reply to message #3668] Fri, 06 May 2005 16:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: sinleeh.hotmail.com

There are several good points in Ryan's post. I think Ryan strike gold
when he says that the homepage should concentrate on Developers who
download and use Eclipse as-it-is rather than trying to please everyone.

What I would like to add is that I do use Eclipse website to sell to my
end user who are not my developer. Therefore, a homepage concentrating too
much on Developers will put them off as they cannot understand what's
going on. Things like 100,000+ plugins available will interest them, but
how to write a plugin will not.

I recognize that it is very difficult to create a website that please
everyone and the final decision of course rest with the web development
team. Perhaps the home page should be targetted at no-one at all but
contain pointers to sub-homepages that targets individual audience group,
e.g., one for developers that use eclipse as-it-is, another for
contributors.

I do believe the first page is advertisement page for Eclipse. May be in
the survey that Ryan proposed, we can add a question asking whether
"developers to point clients to browse the Eclipse website as part of
their promotional drive". We should aim to "shock and awe" on the home
page and point people to the appropriate second level pages.

My $0.02

Best regards,
Sinlee
Re: Greetings [message #4186 is a reply to message #3574] Fri, 06 May 2005 17:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: sinleeh.hotmail.com

Mike Milinkovich wrote:

> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
> focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.
> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
> developer portals.

I have to agree and disagree with this statement that mozilla and eclipse
audience is different. I agree that the emphasis is different, but the
possible analogy here is

mozilla -> Eclipse
-----
end users -> end users that use Eclipse as a traditional IDE only. They
might use vanilla IDE, or have third party plugins. Point here is that
their end results is not dependent on the choice of IDE used.
developer who write mozilla plugin -> developer who writes eclipse plugin
contributor/maintainer -> eclipse contributor/maintainer


With this view one can say Mozilla had chosen to use their home page to
focus on "end user" only. The analogy with Eclipse is to say that the
homepage aim is to promote the use of IDE/RCP.

Focusing on "end users" may not be a bad thing. One of the major selling
point of Eclipse is an IDE where there is a lot of plugins that works
together. This is something that others (perhaps except Visual Studio)
cannot claim to have achieved. An IDE needs to attract "end users".
Without them, it rather defeats the purpose of writing a plugin for it. ;)

HTH
Cinly
Re: Greetings [message #4674 is a reply to message #3668] Sun, 08 May 2005 11:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
We completely agree that the Eclipse home page is enormously valuable real
estate. We also agree that the visitors who are consumers far outweigh the
visitors who are contributors. But, the eclipse web site is also the focal
point for our entire community. We feel we need to balance the following:

(1) the needs of consumers of Eclipse technology
(2) the needs of the contributors to our projects (including the special
needs of committers)
(3) the needs of our members

Regarding your second point, we will post the benchmark work we've done. I
think that many would find it interesting.

"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5g22u$4lp$1@news.eclipse.org...
>> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
>> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is
>> primarily focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on
>> developers.
>
> That's a good point but there's a significant difference between a
> developer that just wants to download and use Eclipse and a developer that
> wants to actively contribute back to the Eclipse project.
>
> I'm guessing, but the ratio is probably several orders of magnitude. Many
> developers probably don't have time to contribute back to the Eclipse
> project itself, they just want to use Eclipse. In order to properly
> target your website to the Eclipse audience you may want to try to
> estimate this ratio. I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 100 to 1 or
> more.
>
> The Eclipse website could reflect the reality of that ratio (that many
> people just want to download the latest stable build of Eclipse and get on
> with their own business, just like FireFox) while still encouraging people
> to give feedback and contribute, just like the Mozilla website does.
>
>> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
>> developer portals.
>
> Is there a compiled list of these benchmark sites? It would be
> interesting to compare them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #4742 is a reply to message #3700] Sun, 08 May 2005 11:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Sinlee,

I think we are in violent agreement :-)

The challenge is to please all of our constituents without ending up with
something which pleases no one.

"sinlee huang" <sinleeh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47e5b6092f3015243d575b81a9c7ef30$1@www.eclipse.org...
> There are several good points in Ryan's post. I think Ryan strike gold
> when he says that the homepage should concentrate on Developers who
> download and use Eclipse as-it-is rather than trying to please everyone.
> What I would like to add is that I do use Eclipse website to sell to my
> end user who are not my developer. Therefore, a homepage concentrating too
> much on Developers will put them off as they cannot understand what's
> going on. Things like 100,000+ plugins available will interest them, but
> how to write a plugin will not.
>
> I recognize that it is very difficult to create a website that please
> everyone and the final decision of course rest with the web development
> team. Perhaps the home page should be targetted at no-one at all but
> contain pointers to sub-homepages that targets individual audience group,
> e.g., one for developers that use eclipse as-it-is, another for
> contributors.
>
> I do believe the first page is advertisement page for Eclipse. May be in
> the survey that Ryan proposed, we can add a question asking whether
> "developers to point clients to browse the Eclipse website as part of
> their promotional drive". We should aim to "shock and awe" on the home
> page and point people to the appropriate second level pages.
>
> My $0.02
>
> Best regards,
> Sinlee
>
Re: Greetings [message #5748 is a reply to message #1842] Sat, 14 May 2005 11:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: js84.njit.edu

Hello,

I think the new page you've made is a significant improvement over the
previous page, however, I think that a lot can be done to make it even
better.

For instance, I think the text to be quite small. I do not have poor
vision, but this could be problematic for those who do.

Also, there's is a LOT of information on the first page, and parsing
through all of it would be quite difficult. The cutoff for
project/community/foundation news should be at a much lower threshold,
perhaps 4 or 5 entries.

Would you object to taking this layout and making a few adjustments and
linking them here? Or is this not a point of contention anymore?

I would also like to know about volunteering for developing and how
that'd work if that's all right.

Have a nice day,
John Scanlan

Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> This is the newsgroup for the Eclipse Foundation's project Phoenix. This
> goal of this project is to turn our website into a great meeting place for
> all members of the Eclipse community. We are aiming for lots of new
> functionality, a complete re-organization and a more streamlined look.
>
> Few topics around Eclipse attract more attention and opinion than our
> website. We know we have lots of work to do in order to accomplish our
> goals. We are looking forward to lots of contributions and interactions with
> the community as we evolve the site.
>
> Before everyone starts posting a "hey, what about this!", please give us a
> day or two to post some of the docs we've been building within the team. It
> would probably be better for everyone if the conversations focus on what we
> are missing rather than starting from first principles.
>
> As our first foray into opinion generation, we have created a "new look"
> home page for people to try out. Please note that this is *not* a design for
> the permanent new home page for the site. It is something we could do which
> was relatively quick, which used the existing frames+static HTML site
> implementation, and which we think uses a better layout to make things
> easier to find. Check out http://www.eclipse.org/phoenix/index.html. Feel
> free to let us know what you think. If most people think it's an
> improvement, we can make the switch to this new homepage pretty easily.
>
> /mike
>
>
Re: Greetings [message #7043 is a reply to message #5748] Thu, 19 May 2005 15:57 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"John Scanlan" <js84@njit.edu> wrote in message
news:d64mi1$96d$1@news.eclipse.org...
> Would you object to taking this layout and making a few adjustments and
> linking them here? Or is this not a point of contention anymore?

We are completely open to changing this page. It is simply there in order to
solicit the kind of feedback that you have provided. Thanks!

> I would also like to know about volunteering for developing and how that'd
> work if that's all right.

We are definitely looking for help. The two impediments for starting
immediately are:

(a) the project is not yet created, so we are not yet doing development
(b) the implementation toolset (CMS, etc.) has not yet been selected.
Right now we don't even know what programming language we will be working in
:-)

Anyone interested in development on Phoenix should jump on the phoenix-dev
mailing list.
Re: Greetings [message #561541 is a reply to message #1842] Wed, 20 April 2005 13:52 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: martin.j.nilsson.sverige.nu

Hi,

> easier to find. Check out http://www.eclipse.org/phoenix/index.html Feel
> free to let us know what you think. If most people think it's an

Nice to see someone is trying to improve the site! I've often had a hard
time finding what was looking for so I'm all for a re-design.

Not to bring you down or anything, but I wasn't particulary fond of the
new look at the URL above. My main concern is that I have a hard time
overviewing it, just seems like lots and lots of links.

If you go with the new phoenix-look I would make the text below each link
a bit more verbose which means fewer links (since fewer links will fit).
In my experience the news-sections aren't updated so frequently that you
need to have 12 items in community news, six items in project news and
five items in foundations news. I'm not sure if it's technically viable
for you to make the introductionary texts longer, but that's just my two
cents.



regards,
martin
Re: Greetings [message #561559 is a reply to message #1846] Wed, 20 April 2005 20:41 Go to previous message
Kim Moir is currently offline Kim MoirFriend
Messages: 39
Registered: July 2009
Member
I agree! It's great that the web site is being updated.

However, the prototype presented is a quite overwhelming with the number
of news links. Perhaps the news could consume less real estate. This
would allow the "New to Eclipse" section to be more prominent and
provide additional links for new users to get acquainted with the
resources that the community provides, such as newgroups.

Just my $0.02

Kim
Re: Greetings [message #561579 is a reply to message #1856] Wed, 20 April 2005 21:32 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Like I said, the new page is *not* a prototype for what we think will be our
eventual look. It is (we thought) an improvement over the current state.

It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

Any fans out there? Any additional feedback?

"Kim Moir" <kmoir@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message
news:d46erh$djv$1@news.eclipse.org...
>I agree! It's great that the web site is being updated.
>
> However, the prototype presented is a quite overwhelming with the number
> of news links. Perhaps the news could consume less real estate. This
> would allow the "New to Eclipse" section to be more prominent and provide
> additional links for new users to get acquainted with the resources that
> the community provides, such as newgroups.
>
> Just my $0.02
>
> Kim
Re: Greetings [message #561599 is a reply to message #1866] Thu, 21 April 2005 09:58 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: martin.j.nilsson.sverige.nu

> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

I'll admit that the new look is a lot more polished and professional than
the old/current one and in that respect it would be an improvement. I
still feel that the enormous (could it be that I'm getting old? :-) number
of links makes it harder to find what you're looking for.



regards,
martin
Re: Greetings [message #561656 is a reply to message #1880] Thu, 21 April 2005 12:53 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
This is very interesting feedback.

One of the documents we will post is the benchmark sites that we looked at.
Many of them are developer portals which approximate the number and
distribution of links you see on the sample. Perhaps we've been looking at
the wrong benchmarks.

"Martin J Nilsson" <martin.j.nilsson@sverige.nu> wrote in message
news:aa1022696995aeeb3261234bbf7030d8$1@www.eclipse.org...
>> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
>> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.
>
> I'll admit that the new look is a lot more polished and professional than
> the old/current one and in that respect it would be an improvement. I
> still feel that the enormous (could it be that I'm getting old? :-) number
> of links makes it harder to find what you're looking for.
>
>
>
> regards,
> martin
>
>
>
>
Re: Greetings [message #562061 is a reply to message #1866] Thu, 05 May 2005 17:45 Go to previous message
Ryan Lowe is currently offline Ryan LoweFriend
Messages: 13
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
It might be a good idea to consider what other open source projects are
doing with their websites and why they work well. Especially the open
source projects that have funding for web design.

Mozilla's web site is a great example: http://www.mozilla.org/

Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> It took me a bit to get used to the layout, I admit. But I've actually
> learned to like the "portal" feel of it.

Personally I find portals to be very distracting. Contrast Yahoo
(http://www.yahoo.com/) with Google (http://www.google.com). Google
succeeded because it got to the point, solved people's problems and was
easy to use. The front pages of traditional portals like Yahoo are like
a room full of shouting people. Portals like Yahoo are on the way out.

Mozilla's site, which underwent significant public peer review before it
replaced the old version, is my favourite. It's not cluttered, the
layout and graphics are good looking and I can find and download the
latest version of the product very quickly (it even smartly detects my
operating system, which is easy to do).

Mozilla and Google's sites are alike in that the important business is
on the first page, and the rest is a click or two away rather than in
your face on the first page.

Mozilla's well-designed website probably contributed to its recent
popularity because a lot of people seem to equate website quality with
the quality of the software product. Eclipse's current website has a
lot of information but it's not particularly well laid out or designed.

Will Phoenix have a graphic designer on staff who is familiar with the
challenges of the web? Mozilla's site really benefitted from having
someone who was very knowledgable in that area and could defend/explain
those decisions (on mailing lists, newsgroups and bug reports) so that
people understood why things were the way they were. The open source
culture of the Mozilla project probably wouldn't have had it any other way.

Here's a blog post from one of the guys at silverorange, who redesigned
the site, to get an idea of what they did:

http://www.actsofvolition.com/archives/2004/august/newmozill aorg

I like that Phoenix will have a place in the Eclipse Bugzilla as well as
other communication channels. The feedback, especially subjective
feedback, will be valuable.

Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #562130 is a reply to message #1842] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:14 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: bob.objfac.com

After the initial shock, I kinda like it. I like how giving more space
to news means you can show more of it at a time. I learned some things
from the news links that I might not have seen otherwise.

I read the other comments and agree that if stale news sticks around too
long I would come to regard it as not worth looking at. But you could
easily mitigate that with an RSS feed for Eclipse news (suggestion).

Bob Foster
Re: Greetings [message #562228 is a reply to message #3310] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:53 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Yes, we have an experienced web designer on the project. His name is Andrew
Gerharty and you will see his name popping up in all sorts of places as we
go along.

"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5dmbp$ls7$1@news.eclipse.org...
> Will Phoenix have a graphic designer on staff who is familiar with the
> challenges of the web? Mozilla's site really benefitted from having
> someone who was very knowledgable in that area and could defend/explain
> those decisions (on mailing lists, newsgroups and bug reports) so that
> people understood why things were the way they were. The open source
> culture of the Mozilla project probably wouldn't have had it any other
> way.
Re: Greetings [message #562253 is a reply to message #3310] Fri, 06 May 2005 02:56 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5dmbp$ls7$1@news.eclipse.org...
> It might be a good idea to consider what other open source projects are
> doing with their websites and why they work well. Especially the open
> source projects that have funding for web design.
>
> Mozilla's web site is a great example: http://www.mozilla.org/

I also really like Mozilla's site. It is definitely on our list of
benchmarks.

I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.
That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
developer portals.

But in any event, this is great feedback. Thanks very much.
Re: Greetings [message #562337 is a reply to message #3574] Fri, 06 May 2005 15:17 Go to previous message
Ryan Lowe is currently offline Ryan LoweFriend
Messages: 13
Registered: July 2009
Junior Member
> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
> focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.

That's a good point but there's a significant difference between a
developer that just wants to download and use Eclipse and a developer
that wants to actively contribute back to the Eclipse project.

I'm guessing, but the ratio is probably several orders of magnitude.
Many developers probably don't have time to contribute back to the
Eclipse project itself, they just want to use Eclipse. In order to
properly target your website to the Eclipse audience you may want to try
to estimate this ratio. I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 100 to 1
or more.

The Eclipse website could reflect the reality of that ratio (that many
people just want to download the latest stable build of Eclipse and get
on with their own business, just like FireFox) while still encouraging
people to give feedback and contribute, just like the Mozilla website does.

> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
> developer portals.

Is there a compiled list of these benchmark sites? It would be
interesting to compare them.

Cheers,

Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #562362 is a reply to message #3668] Fri, 06 May 2005 16:49 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: sinleeh.hotmail.com

There are several good points in Ryan's post. I think Ryan strike gold
when he says that the homepage should concentrate on Developers who
download and use Eclipse as-it-is rather than trying to please everyone.

What I would like to add is that I do use Eclipse website to sell to my
end user who are not my developer. Therefore, a homepage concentrating too
much on Developers will put them off as they cannot understand what's
going on. Things like 100,000+ plugins available will interest them, but
how to write a plugin will not.

I recognize that it is very difficult to create a website that please
everyone and the final decision of course rest with the web development
team. Perhaps the home page should be targetted at no-one at all but
contain pointers to sub-homepages that targets individual audience group,
e.g., one for developers that use eclipse as-it-is, another for
contributors.

I do believe the first page is advertisement page for Eclipse. May be in
the survey that Ryan proposed, we can add a question asking whether
"developers to point clients to browse the Eclipse website as part of
their promotional drive". We should aim to "shock and awe" on the home
page and point people to the appropriate second level pages.

My $0.02

Best regards,
Sinlee
Re: Greetings [message #562444 is a reply to message #3574] Fri, 06 May 2005 17:22 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: sinleeh.hotmail.com

Mike Milinkovich wrote:

> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is primarily
> focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on developers.
> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
> developer portals.

I have to agree and disagree with this statement that mozilla and eclipse
audience is different. I agree that the emphasis is different, but the
possible analogy here is

mozilla -> Eclipse
-----
end users -> end users that use Eclipse as a traditional IDE only. They
might use vanilla IDE, or have third party plugins. Point here is that
their end results is not dependent on the choice of IDE used.
developer who write mozilla plugin -> developer who writes eclipse plugin
contributor/maintainer -> eclipse contributor/maintainer


With this view one can say Mozilla had chosen to use their home page to
focus on "end user" only. The analogy with Eclipse is to say that the
homepage aim is to promote the use of IDE/RCP.

Focusing on "end users" may not be a bad thing. One of the major selling
point of Eclipse is an IDE where there is a lot of plugins that works
together. This is something that others (perhaps except Visual Studio)
cannot claim to have achieved. An IDE needs to attract "end users".
Without them, it rather defeats the purpose of writing a plugin for it. ;)

HTH
Cinly
Re: Greetings [message #562609 is a reply to message #3668] Sun, 08 May 2005 11:48 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
We completely agree that the Eclipse home page is enormously valuable real
estate. We also agree that the visitors who are consumers far outweigh the
visitors who are contributors. But, the eclipse web site is also the focal
point for our entire community. We feel we need to balance the following:

(1) the needs of consumers of Eclipse technology
(2) the needs of the contributors to our projects (including the special
needs of committers)
(3) the needs of our members

Regarding your second point, we will post the benchmark work we've done. I
think that many would find it interesting.

"Ryan Lowe" <newsgroups@ryanlowe.ca> wrote in message
news:d5g22u$4lp$1@news.eclipse.org...
>> I think we could be more along those lines, but there is IMO a big
>> difference in the audiences which need to be reflected. Mozilla is
>> primarily focused on consumers, whereas Eclipse is primarily focused on
>> developers.
>
> That's a good point but there's a significant difference between a
> developer that just wants to download and use Eclipse and a developer that
> wants to actively contribute back to the Eclipse project.
>
> I'm guessing, but the ratio is probably several orders of magnitude. Many
> developers probably don't have time to contribute back to the Eclipse
> project itself, they just want to use Eclipse. In order to properly
> target your website to the Eclipse audience you may want to try to
> estimate this ratio. I'd guess it's in the neighborhood of 100 to 1 or
> more.
>
> The Eclipse website could reflect the reality of that ratio (that many
> people just want to download the latest stable build of Eclipse and get on
> with their own business, just like FireFox) while still encouraging people
> to give feedback and contribute, just like the Mozilla website does.
>
>> That is the reason why many of the benchmark site we looked at were
>> developer portals.
>
> Is there a compiled list of these benchmark sites? It would be
> interesting to compare them.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ryan Lowe
Re: Greetings [message #562634 is a reply to message #3700] Sun, 08 May 2005 11:50 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
Sinlee,

I think we are in violent agreement :-)

The challenge is to please all of our constituents without ending up with
something which pleases no one.

"sinlee huang" <sinleeh@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47e5b6092f3015243d575b81a9c7ef30$1@www.eclipse.org...
> There are several good points in Ryan's post. I think Ryan strike gold
> when he says that the homepage should concentrate on Developers who
> download and use Eclipse as-it-is rather than trying to please everyone.
> What I would like to add is that I do use Eclipse website to sell to my
> end user who are not my developer. Therefore, a homepage concentrating too
> much on Developers will put them off as they cannot understand what's
> going on. Things like 100,000+ plugins available will interest them, but
> how to write a plugin will not.
>
> I recognize that it is very difficult to create a website that please
> everyone and the final decision of course rest with the web development
> team. Perhaps the home page should be targetted at no-one at all but
> contain pointers to sub-homepages that targets individual audience group,
> e.g., one for developers that use eclipse as-it-is, another for
> contributors.
>
> I do believe the first page is advertisement page for Eclipse. May be in
> the survey that Ryan proposed, we can add a question asking whether
> "developers to point clients to browse the Eclipse website as part of
> their promotional drive". We should aim to "shock and awe" on the home
> page and point people to the appropriate second level pages.
>
> My $0.02
>
> Best regards,
> Sinlee
>
Re: Greetings [message #563018 is a reply to message #1842] Sat, 14 May 2005 11:04 Go to previous message
Eclipse UserFriend
Originally posted by: js84.njit.edu

Hello,

I think the new page you've made is a significant improvement over the
previous page, however, I think that a lot can be done to make it even
better.

For instance, I think the text to be quite small. I do not have poor
vision, but this could be problematic for those who do.

Also, there's is a LOT of information on the first page, and parsing
through all of it would be quite difficult. The cutoff for
project/community/foundation news should be at a much lower threshold,
perhaps 4 or 5 entries.

Would you object to taking this layout and making a few adjustments and
linking them here? Or is this not a point of contention anymore?

I would also like to know about volunteering for developing and how
that'd work if that's all right.

Have a nice day,
John Scanlan

Mike Milinkovich wrote:
> This is the newsgroup for the Eclipse Foundation's project Phoenix. This
> goal of this project is to turn our website into a great meeting place for
> all members of the Eclipse community. We are aiming for lots of new
> functionality, a complete re-organization and a more streamlined look.
>
> Few topics around Eclipse attract more attention and opinion than our
> website. We know we have lots of work to do in order to accomplish our
> goals. We are looking forward to lots of contributions and interactions with
> the community as we evolve the site.
>
> Before everyone starts posting a "hey, what about this!", please give us a
> day or two to post some of the docs we've been building within the team. It
> would probably be better for everyone if the conversations focus on what we
> are missing rather than starting from first principles.
>
> As our first foray into opinion generation, we have created a "new look"
> home page for people to try out. Please note that this is *not* a design for
> the permanent new home page for the site. It is something we could do which
> was relatively quick, which used the existing frames+static HTML site
> implementation, and which we think uses a better layout to make things
> easier to find. Check out http://www.eclipse.org/phoenix/index.html Feel
> free to let us know what you think. If most people think it's an
> improvement, we can make the switch to this new homepage pretty easily.
>
> /mike
>
>
Re: Greetings [message #563569 is a reply to message #5748] Thu, 19 May 2005 15:57 Go to previous message
Mike Milinkovich is currently offline Mike MilinkovichFriend
Messages: 260
Registered: July 2009
Senior Member
"John Scanlan" <js84@njit.edu> wrote in message
news:d64mi1$96d$1@news.eclipse.org...
> Would you object to taking this layout and making a few adjustments and
> linking them here? Or is this not a point of contention anymore?

We are completely open to changing this page. It is simply there in order to
solicit the kind of feedback that you have provided. Thanks!

> I would also like to know about volunteering for developing and how that'd
> work if that's all right.

We are definitely looking for help. The two impediments for starting
immediately are:

(a) the project is not yet created, so we are not yet doing development
(b) the implementation toolset (CMS, etc.) has not yet been selected.
Right now we don't even know what programming language we will be working in
:-)

Anyone interested in development on Phoenix should jump on the phoenix-dev
mailing list.
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