Scribus Webpage

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Zyphon

This is a great start Martin and I like the layout. With a little tweaking based on the suggestions here then this could develop into a very nice modern looking webpage.

Great work.
Kind regards,

Michael

GarryP

[Martin, if I misrepresent your views below then I apologise in advance.]

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone. We're looking forward to reading more. I'll start to answer some of the issues with some general comments.

General: First off I must say that any praise for the site should predominately go to Martin. He's done the vast majority of the work and I've just been around to - figuratively - make the tea.

Images: As Martin said, none of the images are set in stone. They can all be changed and we would hope that anyone who has a better version of anything that's there will suggest something specific or, even better, post a link to something that can be used instead.

Text: All of the text can be changed. What's there, as Martin said, is just so there is something to discuss. We decided to add something from the real world instead of just using lorem upsum or bullet-pointed question marks to get the ball rolling.

Design: The overall design is a bit like custard at the moment - not totally fluid but, at the same time, not quite set. (You could say it's a non-Newtonian website!) The eventual product will probably look much like it is now but most of the details can be - and probably will be - changed. So, whatever you don't like, speak up.

And now for the individual comments:

utnik

I think you're right that the link to the bug tracker could be put on the footer (and therefore on every page). It's important enough to be there. I think the "Get Involved" section might change into something like: Write some code; Change the interface; Get the message out; Report a bug. Or something like that. Something more "active".

The large image on the home page isn't unusual these days and most people will have seen something similar (http://foundation.zurb.com/ , http://www.libreoffice.org/ , etc.). If the browser doesn't show scroll bars then that's probably an issue with the browser. Most people know that web pages can scroll and will try to do so. If someone doesn't have the technical know-how to use their browser then they're probably not going to be able to use Scribus.

I agree that the "standard headers" should be shorter. I don't know how easy/difficult that would be to achieve within the framework being used (that's Martin's area of expertise). I think about half to two-thirds the current height - probably more towards half - would be reasonable.

The current "standard header" images are just place-holders for something better. If you - or anyone else - can think of an image that says "features" or "download" (or any of the other things) better, especially if they are relevant to DTP, then please say so because it's difficult to think of something good (they're already at the second or third versions).

a.l.e

I agree that the sponsors should have more prominence on the home page. Some kind of carousel may be possible (again, that's Martin's area).

I also agree about the text on the home page image being wrong. But what's the Scribus tagline? Inkscape - as you say - has "Draw Freely", Blender has "Creative freedom starts here", GIMP, well GIMP doesn't seem to have one. So what can Scribus have? "Publish it now", "Get it published", "Layouts made easy", "Fast and Free Layouts", "Get laid for free"! (Obviously they're all terrible suggestions.) Maybe someone can come up with something good.

The "About Scribus" section is indeed too wordy - it was taken from the current Scribus web site - and should be re-written into something more "enthusiastic", "upbeat", and "active", and far less technical. Which direction do you think it should go in: What people can do with Scribus (which is then repeated later in this page); or: What Scribus can do (which is then repeated on the features page)? It's difficult to know what to put there. Maybe a mix. If anyone has some good text to use then please say so.

For Features, can you say what you would not put in there or would write differently? It's difficult to know how to respond if you don't give us any idea of what you think is wrong. I know you don't really want to get involved in anything to do with the web site so It's great that you've taken the time to comment but it would really help if you could give more than a vague hint. (You can send me suggestions in a private message if you don't want stuff to go public.)

For Learn, can you say what links you think should also be there? Or are they a secret? It's as if you said "I know how to put this fire out" and then ran off into the distance.  ;)

For News, yes, that's probably the most difficult page to get right. All of the other pages will be fairly static but both Martin and myself - if I've understood his feelings on the matter correctly - feel that this page should be kept "buzzing" with new information. What's been fixed? What are people working on? What's coming up? This page should show people that Scribus has an active community and is being updated regularly. They are more likely to give it a try if they know it hasn't just been left to rot (as so many other projects have been). This is something that Kunda was doing very well until not so long ago.

If this doesn't become "the" Scribus web site then there's no real point in it existing. There's no point in having two Scribus sites, that would just be confusing for everyone. "Hey, have you seen the news on the Scribus site?" "No, which one?" "The main one", "Which one's that?" As far as I'm concerned, either this becomes - or evolves into - the "real" Scribus site or it just goes into the trash. I have no problems with that either way. Martin has put a lot of work into this and I'm sure he would be disappointed if it wasn't used but I warned in my second post in this thread that it could all be for nothing in the end.

Michael

Thanks for commenting. If there is anything specific you think might need changing then don't hesitate to speak up. Even if it's something small. Sometimes it's the tiny details that make the difference.

Martin

I've added some issues to the GitHub project to keep track of what's been commented on so far.

CGood

Beautiful!

A couple of minor thoughts that do not imply any criticism of this proposed new structure:

If this does become the structure for the official Scribus site, I suggest:

That bug report be a category under http://scribus.martinreininger.de/contribute.html.

I do not see a link to the wiki. I have mixed feelings there. I can't imagine not using and linking to a wiki, but the current wiki incarnation has serious limitations. I think I should put further thoughts regarding the problems with the wiki elsewhere. This thread is about the new site proposal.....and I thoroughly applaud it!




GarryP

Thanks for your feedback CGood.

As mentioned above, a link to the bug reporter will probably be added to the Get Involved section of the footer (which will be on every page), but I agree that it could also have more prominence on the Contribute page. Getting bugs fixed is always a good thing so the easier it is for people to report them, the quicker people can get round to fixing them. One option would be to swap the Bug Report and Donate sections on that page. It's definitely worth looking into.

Regarding the Contribute page as a whole, I think it would be beneficial if it was expanded to give more information about what sort of thing is expected from people who want to get involved. There could be a lot of people enthusiastic about doing something but might be put off by the scale of what is needed.

For instance, there could be a coder that wants to dip their toe into a project like Scribus but they find the complexity of the project a bit too daunting. If they could see that they could start by fixing a tiny bug here, and changing a little bit of code there, and then moving onto more complicated things it might help them to be more comfortable about getting involved.

I think each contributor type should have a short description - maybe bullet points - giving potential contributors an idea of: What sort of commitment is expected; How much time they are expected to put in; What sort of skills they need. That sort of thing. If that has whetted someone's appetite to get involved then they can link to a page that gives them a more detailed description of what is needed.

Currently, there is no information about exactly how people can get involved and what they need to do. There are a lot of calls for people to "just climb aboard and start doing stuff" but there's no real information about how someone would actually go about doing so. E.g. If you want to start fixing bugs: What software do you need to have installed? How do you find out what needs fixing first? How do you tell people what you're going to do? How do you know you're doing things the right way? How do you put the fix into the main code? The existing developers know all of this. But new people will not. I think this is putting a lot of people off from getting involved. Scribus looks a bit like a walled garden where only the specially initiated can come in. The hedges need to be trimmed and some of the walls need to come down.

As for the Wiki, there's a link to it from the Learn page - under Scribus Manual - but you're right that it's not very visible. There should be a link to it - maybe something that deliberately says "Wiki" as that's what most people will look for - but I don't think it should be too prominent given the state the wiki is in. People might look at it and wonder why it's such a mess. And if the wiki is a mess, what will the software be like?

I have my own ideas about the wiki. I've been wondering about the wiki, the manual, the help files, and other related issues and have been forming some vague ideas about how they could be done better. Fixing it all would be a massive project in itself - and probably won't even get started - but I would be glad to add my ideas to your own if you started a new thread.

[Martin: I've added some more issues relating to the above comments to GitHub.]

a.l.e

martin and garry: i skimmed through the new preview and i like how the the site is improving!

thanks your the good reaction to my and other people feedback!

CGood

Hi GarryP, I have sent you a message regarding the wiki and an idea or two about getting the most benefit possible from a limited number of edits. I've been reluctant to publicly let loose at the wiki since I do not want to demean or discourage those who have put in extraordinary effort to create it.

I'm a slow typist and cannot claim to be able to work at the speed needed to fix a great deal, but maybe aiming my efforts where a little effort will have disproportionate payback might be a good strategy? If you have any feedback I'd love to hear it.

I don't want to further divert attention here away from the excellent proposed changes to overall site design.

GarryP

Hi CGood. I got your message, thanks. I've just not had the time to reply yet. I'll be in touch soon.

tim_occ

Hi together,

today I want to present the latest updates for website-mockup:

http://scribus.martinreininger.de/index.html

We have changed a lot details based on your feedback. I think it become more and more a really pretty nice page.
Thanks to all of you.


Martin

PS: Let us know what you think about the updates. More feedback are welcome.

CGood


Zyphon

Hi Martin,

Loving your work, great job.

I do have some suggestions. Its purely cosmetic but I don't like the order of the menu at the top. I think that the Download and the News menus need to be moved closer to the left. Something like this: Download | News | Features | Showcase | Learn | Contribute.

Also there is no About Us menu link (at the furthest right). The current Scribus webpage does have an About link.

Many thanks.
Kind regards,

Michael

utnik

the website looks good!

...but the images shouldn't show bad work!
the first entry under features about 'advanced text formatting' is illustrated with a really bad example of a justified text block. (i.e. wide spaces in the first line...)
if you know the 'advanced settings' in scribus' text properties, (in the illustration open, but unused) this should look better. (same thing under 'layout tool')

i know, the images can be changed easily – but don't forget about...

utnik

GarryP

CGood: Many thanks from us both.

Michael: Thanks for the feedback.

The ordering of the menu items is probably something that can be discussed for weeks without agreement as there is no "right" answer and everyone has their own preferences. However, I thought it was something that was worth looking into.

I did a quick survey of some web sites for products in similar areas to Scribus - DTP, images, drawing, etc. - and came up with the attached table. As you can see, there is no agreement between the projects on the ordering of the menu items.

Some general observations are:
* Features - which can involve Showcase and/or Screenshots - seems to be the most popular choice for first item. (LibreOffice puts this under Discover.)
* Download seems to be the favourite for second item.
* About - if there is such a page - usually comes somewhere from first to third place.
* News - if there is any - can come anywhere from first to third place.
* Learn - including Docs, Help, Resources, etc. - seems to come somewhere around the middle of the menu.
* Community - including Participate, Develop, Get Involved, etc. - generally comes somewhere to the right of the menu.
* Support - including Donate, Shop, Store, Contribute - generally comes towards the end of the menu.

I would say that the way things are is a pretty good "average" of all the sites surveyed. It might be better if News came further to the left - before Learn perhaps - but I think it's a reasonable order. If you have any particular reason for why you think your ordering is better then I'd be happy to discuss it further. (Remember, the Scribus project doesn't generate much "news" very often so it's not really a high-priority item.)

Some projects have an About page that describes the product and some projects use that page to introduce the people behind the product. What sort of page were you thinking of?

To me, if the Home page (plus Features) adequately tells people what the product is for - what it does, what it's "about" - then there's no need for a separate About page describing the product. I believe the Home page in the mockup describes Scribus well enough. Is there something more it could do?

On the other hand, a page introducing the main contributors would need good information - including images - from those contributors. I think it's probably unlikely that we would get enough information for that sort of page to be useful for the reader. Just a list of a few names won't be very interesting to anyone.

utnik: As the Features page evolves we may have to change the images again anyway but I agree that some of them could be better.

Would you like to offer some of your own work to be featured? If you have some good ready-made examples that we can use then that would be a big help. It takes time to come up with a good bespoke image that shows what the text is about so if there's something that already exists that would be a great time-saver.

If anyone else would like to put their own work forward for consideration then please attach an example to a post here and we can think about putting it out for the world to see. Landscape images - for the Features page - should preferably be 720x400 PNG with transparency but other sizes could be fine also. Your image must have been made with Scribus (along with Inkscape, GIMP, etc.) and preferably show Scribus "at work".

[attachment deleted by admin]

utnik

Quote from: GarryP on February 13, 2017, 01:56:42 PMWould you like to offer some of your own work to be featured?

i will take a look. but im not sure if there's something suitable...

utnik

tim_occ

I have uploaded the latest changes from Garry.

regards,
Martin

a.l.e

#29
on top of my "hey, very good job" here some points:

the main page

- peronsally, i don't like dark themes... and the site feels a bit dark to me... but since most people since to love those dark themes it's probably fine as is.

- i like that the download is prominent and both in the middle and in the navigation. one thing that could be missing is a download icon... people are used to it...

- the document in the first "screenshot" (http://scribus.martinreininger.de/img/backgrounds/mac-book.jpg) should have the grid disabled and the matching guides shown instead (it's about the small details now :-) ...
  i would also change the name of the jpg file...

features:

- in the layout tools i would show the align and distribute dialog, not the arrange pages

learning:

- i would remove  [link removed] (it's basically dead... for now)
- i would add a link to the webirc: https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Special:WebChat

contribute:

- for now remove the "make a financial donation"... except if anybody volunteers for setting up something outside of the scribus team (some sort of scribus community foundation that would help scribus... : - )