Download choices :) or :(?

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Download choices :) or :(?

DougEdmunds
Pretend you are a newbie and want to try Pharo. You get on the
http://www.pharo-project.org page

1. Top right image says "Download Pharo"
That downloads immediately from  
https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/28437/Pharo-1.2.1-OneClick.zip

2. But in the left column
You can click on the heading "Download"
Now you go to  http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download
which gives you two different one-click choices, but
without any explanation of the difference between
Cog VM and standard VM.

2A. And if you look down further on that page, there are lots of
'custom' choices, one of which is a Windows Installer, apparently
of the most recent version, but that one says it uses the
unexplained 'Cog' vm.

3. Wait!! On the home page, you can assume that the
latest release is 1.2.1 in the left column,
and this takes you to
http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download/release-1-2-1
which now give you 3 choices to download, one of which
is a one-click, but is it Cog or is it Standard?

4. Wait again!!  On the home page, under Shortcuts
on 'Stable Pharo' which immediately starts to download
yet another version: currently Pharo-1.2.1-11.04.03.zip

5. And now you feel obligated to click the words 'Download Pharo'
on the right column of the home page, thinking there may be
even more versions to pick from.  It takes you to another
page. Deja Vu,  it looks familiar....

So, newbie, was that clear enough for you?  
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Re: Download choices :) or :(?

Fernando olivero-2
Nice to point it out, thanks.

Usability issues of the web page are surely to arise more often, since
Pharo is gaining more adepts every day.

Maybe a solution would be appreciated as well.

Fernando

On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 10:24 PM, DougEdmunds <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Pretend you are a newbie and want to try Pharo. You get on the
> http://www.pharo-project.org page
>
> 1. Top right image says "Download Pharo"
> That downloads immediately from
> https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/28437/Pharo-1.2.1-OneClick.zip
>
> 2. But in the left column
> You can click on the heading "Download"
> Now you go to  http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download
> which gives you two different one-click choices, but
> without any explanation of the difference between
> Cog VM and standard VM.
>
> 2A. And if you look down further on that page, there are lots of
> 'custom' choices, one of which is a Windows Installer, apparently
> of the most recent version, but that one says it uses the
> unexplained 'Cog' vm.
>
> 3. Wait!! On the home page, you can assume that the
> latest release is 1.2.1 in the left column,
> and this takes you to
> http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download/release-1-2-1
> which now give you 3 choices to download, one of which
> is a one-click, but is it Cog or is it Standard?
>
> 4. Wait again!!  On the home page, under Shortcuts
> on 'Stable Pharo' which immediately starts to download
> yet another version: currently Pharo-1.2.1-11.04.03.zip
>
> 5. And now you feel obligated to click the words 'Download Pharo'
> on the right column of the home page, thinking there may be
> even more versions to pick from.  It takes you to another
> page. Deja Vu,  it looks familiar....
>
> So, newbie, was that clear enough for you?
>
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Download-choices-or-tp3440405p3440405.html
> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>

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Re: Download choices :) or :(?

SergeStinckwich
There should be i guess just one download page.
On the first page, there is some downloads links in the three columns.
If you look at the python language website, there is only one download
page, the same for Ruby.

Adrian take care of the website if i remember. I know from experience
this a really boring task.
If we want to scale to a small team of volunteers, what could be done
to simplify the modification of pages ?
I know that the website currently used is based on Cmsbox and this is
great showcase for Pharo&Smalltalk, but
maybe an automatically generated html website with the help of tools
like webgen or something similar with the pages on a git repository
somewhere could help the management.

Regards,

On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 3:40 AM, Fernando Olivero
<[hidden email]> wrote:

> Nice to point it out, thanks.
>
> Usability issues of the web page are surely to arise more often, since
> Pharo is gaining more adepts every day.
>
> Maybe a solution would be appreciated as well.
>
> Fernando
>
> On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 10:24 PM, DougEdmunds <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Pretend you are a newbie and want to try Pharo. You get on the
>> http://www.pharo-project.org page
>>
>> 1. Top right image says "Download Pharo"
>> That downloads immediately from
>> https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/28437/Pharo-1.2.1-OneClick.zip
>>
>> 2. But in the left column
>> You can click on the heading "Download"
>> Now you go to  http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download
>> which gives you two different one-click choices, but
>> without any explanation of the difference between
>> Cog VM and standard VM.
>>
>> 2A. And if you look down further on that page, there are lots of
>> 'custom' choices, one of which is a Windows Installer, apparently
>> of the most recent version, but that one says it uses the
>> unexplained 'Cog' vm.
>>
>> 3. Wait!! On the home page, you can assume that the
>> latest release is 1.2.1 in the left column,
>> and this takes you to
>> http://www.pharo-project.org/pharo-download/release-1-2-1
>> which now give you 3 choices to download, one of which
>> is a one-click, but is it Cog or is it Standard?
>>
>> 4. Wait again!!  On the home page, under Shortcuts
>> on 'Stable Pharo' which immediately starts to download
>> yet another version: currently Pharo-1.2.1-11.04.03.zip
>>
>> 5. And now you feel obligated to click the words 'Download Pharo'
>> on the right column of the home page, thinking there may be
>> even more versions to pick from.  It takes you to another
>> page. Deja Vu,  it looks familiar....
>>
>> So, newbie, was that clear enough for you?
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Download-choices-or-tp3440405p3440405.html
>> Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>>
>
>



--
Serge Stinckwich
UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam
Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk
http://doesnotunderstand.org/

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Re: Download choices :) or :(?

Adrian Lienhard
On Apr 11, 2011, at 04:43 , Serge Stinckwich wrote:

> There should be i guess just one download page.
> On the first page, there is some downloads links in the three columns.
> If you look at the python language website, there is only one download
> page, the same for Ruby.

Yep!

> Adrian take care of the website if i remember. I know from experience
> this a really boring task.
> If we want to scale to a small team of volunteers, what could be done
> to simplify the modification of pages ?
> I know that the website currently used is based on Cmsbox and this is
> great showcase for Pharo&Smalltalk, but
> maybe an automatically generated html website with the help of tools
> like webgen or something similar with the pages on a git repository
> somewhere could help the management.

I don't think we have a tool issue here. We already have several people that help with managing the website and that works pretty well. I think the confusion about what to download can be addressed by providing less options. Maybe we just have too many of them... The initial idea was that in particular newcomers would just download the one-click image. In the meantime we got a one-click image with and without COG. Then people asked for direct shortcuts on the home page for the stable core, the unstable core, and the stable full image. Of course this makes everything very complicated for people who don't know what they want/need. So we should think again about what images we want to provide for download and how to link them.

Cheers,
Adrian