Re: Site structure redesign

From: Borut Bolčina (borut.bolcin..mail.com)
Date: Sat Sep 09 2006 - 09:10:08 EDT

  • Next message: Borut Bolčina: "Re: Site structure redesign"

    Hello,

    2006/9/9, Andrus Adamchik <andru..bjectstyle.org>:
    >
    > 1. Navigation
    >
    > * I like "Home/Documentation/Downloads" split. I'd like to suggest
    > two more top-level sections: "Community" and "Development" (maybe
    > "Issue Tracking" as well??)

    What is Community and its content? Development and Issue Tracking don't
    belong there in my opinion because of their technical natures.

    * I also think 3 sets of navigation are too much (shortcuts section
    > can be too limiting - there are more than two things users may want
    > to access quickly, I'd rather those are displayed prominently on the
    > documentation page).

    We will try to pick the option that has two different focuses - one for
    newbies and lurkers, the other for users and experts. That is why I decided
    to put shortcuts on the right, but as they are important to users of Cayenne
    framework because they are more frequently accessed, they are more visually
    exposed.

    * Side menu - maybe each second-level page will have its own small
    > side menu (if applicable), without duplicating the entire menu on
    > every page?

    The navigation is driven by site content. I don't mean some dynamic menus
    here, just that the volume and data organization decides how the menu should
    look like (multilevel or not, duplicating or not, ...). I am for simplicity,
    no two level menus, as people feel much more comfortable if they think they
    know the site's structure by memory.

    2. Home Page
    >
    > * (taking this item from my other message) Need a small "latest news"
    > section, listing recent news titles (we can automate an update
    > process, using RSS, to avoid stale news).

    Here we come to some basic questions we must answer. What technology we will
    decide to use? Will the site use some server side logic? Who will host it?
    Who will take care of it? How will the content be updated?

    Putting news on the front page is a BIG decision. Using RSS does not prevent
    news being old. That is why I hid the news. In no circumstances there should
    be a two months old news on the front page. This drives away people with
    less knowledge about the framework but the power to decide which
    technologies to use for commercial applications.

    Of course it would be great if news section was on the front page with one
    news every week or so, but this won't happen in my opinion.

    Good initial work on structuring and volumes of documentation will cause
    only minor and less frequent updates of the site.

    * +1 for the modeler section with the screenshot.
    > * -1 on the supported DB section - maybe replace it with a quick
    > summary of features, with a link to a "feature overview" page.
    >
    > 3. Documentation Page
    >
    > * Big +1 for current organization of the top-level documentation
    > topics (including splitting the user guide into installation/quick
    > start/user guide).
    > * Need a clear split between different versions of Cayenne
    > documentation (via side menu or tabs?) Side menu is probably more
    > scaleable.

    I am tutoring my coworker in Cayenne and one of his early remarks was that
    documentation was badly interconnected and structured. I mentioned that
    already by pointing out the Children section. All the documentation should
    be on main site not on Wiki, which is intended more for cooperation of users
    and developers, tips, maybe user contributed stuff, which there is not much
    as the user base is small sadly. That is something we will try to remedy
    with new better site.

    Andrus
    >



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