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Community => Scribus forums => Topic started by: tim_occ on December 29, 2016, 10:43:37 PM

Title: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on December 29, 2016, 10:43:37 PM
Hi there,

who is responsable for the Scribus webpage? I'm asking for two reasons.

1. Someone made a link building on homepage, I think that is not wanted. I found this line:
<div style="position:absolute;left:-1097px;top:-1817px;"> medicinsk uredelighed advokater nj <a href= http://danmarkpillen.com/ >http://danmarkpillen.com/</a> karriere i sundhedsindustrien </div>

2. I would like help to improve the webpage theme.

Scribus is a designer tool, but if I take a look to Scribus' webpage it looks not really professional. Let's make a comparision between others. ;)
Blender: https://www.blender.org/
Krita: https://krita.org/en/
Gimp: https://www.gimp.org/
Synfig: http://www.synfig.org/

Basicly I like the webpage of Blender. It is well structured and has a lot of visual stuff - here you get the right feeling what you can do with the tool.


Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on December 30, 2016, 04:38:18 PM
I agree that the scribus.net site doesn't look as visually appealing as those other sites but it's way better than what it looked like before it had a revamp a while ago.

I think the aim was that the site as it currently stands would be the start of something but it seems to have been left behind. For example, this page https://www.scribus.net/category/upcoming-events/ is essentially blank. Even if there are no up-coming events I think it would be nice if it - at least - told people about things happening in Scribus, e.g. IndigoDock, RTL language support etc. If people can see that Scribus is being regularly updated they are more likely to want to give it a try. A lot of people don't bother trying software if it hasn't been updated for a while because they assume that, if no-one is updating it then, there will be no support if it goes wrong. (Has the main developer just left it to die while they get on with something more interesting?)

It would also certainly help potential users if they could see more images of Scribus in action and/or what it can produce. There's a "Made with Scribus" page but I think the site needs to be more up-front showing what Scribus can help people to make. Without wishing to cause offence, the newsletter, book cover and installation guide on that page look very nice but when you look at the kind of images on the other product sites they look a bit "tame". And I mean "tame" from the sense that they aren't dynamic or fun or interest-grabbing. I'll say again, they look nice, there's absolutely nothing wrong with them, but they just don't grab the attention of potential users.

For instance, compare the type of images currently shown on the home pages:
* Blender - Cyborg, cityscape, some kind of Space Station?
* Krita - Manga-style characters, a dragon
* GIMP - A dragon (again) and a woman
* Synfig - More manga-style action characters
* Scribus - Some blokes sitting in what looks like an airport lounge and a printing press

I've cherry-picked the images for effect but I think the idea I'm trying to get over is plain. I know Scribus has got a "no-nonsense professional getting the job done" air about it but so do the other applications mentioned. What the others do though is say "we're doing it professionally, but we can also have fun while doing it". The Scribus website needs to say this too.

Personally I too like the Blender website best out of the ones mentioned. It catches the eye and looks great. Would the Blender Foundation allow the Scribus team to copy and modify their site code perhaps? I don't think it would take much time to make a Scribus version of it. (If I could get a copy of the original resources I could probably even knock something up myself without too much trouble.)

I realise that maintaining the website takes time and effort but once it's set-up there shouldn't really be much work to do other than updating text when things happen and changing some images every now and then to keep it fresh. How often does something happen in the Scribus Universe that needs to be reported? Every few months? Not much maintenance there.

Anyway, long story short, I agree. The website is perfectly nice as it is, but it could be more engaging.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on December 30, 2016, 09:24:33 PM
Hi Garry,

I'm not sure if we need a full copy of blender's wordpress theme. I think a basic barebone for Scribus will do the job. I made a quick bootstrap mockup. Based on this it is not hard to create a wordpress theme out of it. (without any fancy plugins). But I will ask the Blender guys if we can reuse the theme. ;)

What did you says about my mockup?

I think we would need page templates for:
- homepage
- posts
- category pages which show linked posts in one view (like, features, news, downloads)

greets
Martin

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on December 31, 2016, 02:00:06 PM
Hi Martin.

Ah, I didn't realise it was a Wordpress theme. That would make it more awkward I suppose but I don't know anything about how the Scribus site is hosted. I don't have anything to do with it, I'm just concerned - as you are - that it's not getting the right message across.

Your mockup looks great as a starting point. It's clean and "fresh" and is a good way of getting the relevant points to potential users quickly. (I won't mention any small issues I have with it as it's just a mockup.)

Without thinking about it too much, I think the pages could include:
* Home - Pretty much what you've got (but maybe not so much text)
* Features - All of the main features listed (bullet point lists are preferable to paragraphs)
* Showcase - A variety of examples (preferably not a lot of newsletters)
* Downloads - Proper instructions - or links to proper instructions - for all OSes (including warnings about using dev versions)
* Posts - A simple blog list will probably be enough (something that can be easily & quickly edited and maintained)

These pages should, of course, have links where appropriate to the other sites such a the forum, the wiki, etc. Keeping the number of pages down to a reasonable amount will make it easier to maintain which means that someone will be more likely to maintain it.

I'd be wary of putting stuff about colour management on the home page. Most users won't know what it's for, but it should definitely be on the features page. I think the home page should give people a sort of "BANG Oh I want to make me one of those BANG And one of those BANG Oh and I definitely want to try making that too" type of experience.

Things like colour management are great but the average user just wants to make cool stuff they can show to their friends and family first, then they should want to get into the more serious stuff. Draw them in with the cool stuff then keep them hanging around for the more serious features.

Users that want the serious stuff from the start are more likely to read the features list and not be all that bothered about the cool stuff anyway. They'll look to see what it can do before committing to anything so all of the "flash" will be fairly irrelevant to them. Home page - Cool stuff gets them interested, Features page - show them what they're getting.

Anyway, what's you've put together is looking great. It does look like a lot of other websites but that - in my opinion - is a good thing. It's what people are used to seeing so they're already comfortable with the format. Anything weird and they get confused and will move on to something else.

I'm looking forward to seeing more on this but I think it would be wise to wait and see what the team thinks about it. If the website people don't want to change things or the developers don't want it changing or the management don't want to move away from their plan then it's not going to go anywhere.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on December 31, 2016, 03:57:12 PM
Hello Garry,

about the content of the homepage I agree with you. My intention behind was to tease some sections, like: about, features and news. The user should get a short impression. I think we should tell a great story on homepage that the user get these "BANG" effect.

In my opinion the homepage should answer following questions:
- what is it?
- for who is it made?
- why should I use it? -> benefit

I like your list of topics (home, features, showcase, downloads and posts). But I think we need some additional topics which give support to the user, like documentation or tutorials and one additional topic to get more contributors for Scribus.

I can imageing something like that:

* Home (no menu item, because of marketing landing page)
* Features
* Download - filter by operating system (auto detection?), separate source code section
* Showcase - a simple gallery
* News - simple blog for release notes, anouncements, started projects, etc.
* Support - a place where user can find help
  - tutorials
  - documentation
  - forum/wiki
* Contribute
  - developer (code contributions, GSoC?)
  - designer (UI, Website, templates?)
  - writer (documentation, wiki)
  - report bugs
  - donations

greets
Martin
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on January 02, 2017, 04:04:07 PM
Yeah, I think we're pretty much on the same page (pardon the pun).

I'm not sure about the "for who is it made" bit. I think a "what can I do with it" kind of automatically selects the people who it's made for. Tell the potential users what they can do with it and either they want to do that sort of thing or they won't.

Or, to try and put it another way: Instead of saying it's for people who want to create professional looking documents, it might be better to say "look, you can make posters and books and magazines and DVD cover inserts and all of that kind of thing". People tend to use whatever software lets them make the sort of thing they want to make rather than a certain sort of person using a certain sort of software. (Fanboys excepted.)

Hmm. That doesn't sound much better but hopefully you can see where I'm coming from.

I like your additions. A Support link page is a definite must-have so I have no problem with that.

A nicely written Contributions page will also be good. There are probably a lot of people out there that want to contribute in some way but they either don't know what needs to be done or they don't feel that they have the skills needed. Most people haven't been part of an open source project before so they don't understand what goes on or what the various roles do.

There's no clear path showing what someone can do to get involved. For instance, say someone has some coding skills and wants to get involved in fixing - or at least tracking down - some bugs. (A good way to learn new coding techniques.) There are no clear instructions on how they can start to do that. There are little bits and bobs scattered around the wiki and other places but a lot of them are out-of-date and none of them are comprehensive.

What people get is (and I'm simplifying for effect):
1. Download Qt. (Reader: What's that? Why do I need it?)
2. Download all of the other stuff you need, which depends on your machine set-up. (Eh? What stuff? From where? How do I know if I've done it right?)
3. Get the code from GitHub. (How? What's this? Which bit do I need? Where should I put it?)
4. Upload when done. (How do I do that? What if I get it wrong?)

Most of the instructions are for people who already have experience of doing this sort of thing. There's nothing that tells people what to do from scratch and holds their hand during the process. There could be some fantastic coders out there who have only worked on their own stuff and have no experience of using all of these tools. It's easy to say RTFM, but unfortunately the reader will just reply "to heck with this, I'm off" and go elsewhere.

Experts generally don't remember what it's like to not know what they know. They don't remember being the person who doesn't know what's going on because what they know seems so basic and simple to them that they can't understand not knowing it. Everyone starts off knowing nothing at all. If you know it then you had to learn it, and that means someone else has to learn it too.

Anyway, rant over, for now. (I'm sure I've said most of this before.)

I think the website could be improved quite considerably but it's all dependant on the "powers that be". If the Scribus team doesn't want the site to change - and that's fair enough, it's their site and they can do with it as they please - then that's how things will have to stay. In my opinion it would be wrong to keep the site as it is but that's just my single opinion among many. There's nothing special about what I think.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on January 02, 2017, 04:04:37 PM
for "historical" reasons, the website is one of the last part of the scribus project that i want to get involved with.

so i'll limit my contribution to one single hint:

https://scribus.io

is one of the "community" driven scribus homepages and i don't think that kunda would mind, if you would use it as a playground for creating a working prototype for the scribus home page.

if the team likes the result, they can then take the result and put it on https://scribus.net
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on January 02, 2017, 04:44:50 PM
Hi together,

Garry, I totally agree with you.
Quote from: GarryP on January 02, 2017, 04:04:07 PM
I think a "what can I do with it" kind of automatically selects the people who it's made for. Tell the potential users what they can do with it and either they want to do that sort of thing or they won't.

Also your comment about the guides for new contributors. I had the same issues as I started to contribute Scribus.

@a.l.e. That would be nice if we would have a playground to setup a prototype for testing and fill content. But at first a theme or layout template can be develop locally. In worst case I can use my own webspace for a public test version. ;)

BTW I got a response from Ton Roosendaal. He sent me a link to the git repository of Blenders wordpress theme. We can reuse the theme or parts of it. I have checked the theme, maybe it is better to create a new theme, because the Blender theme has a lot of hardcoded parts which have to adapt to Scribus.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on January 02, 2017, 05:11:18 PM
It's really great that you were allowed to use the Blender site code, it shows a real spirit of open source co-operation. A shame that it's a Wordpress theme though.

I'm in agreement with you about using something simpler. If something can be created with just some HTML and CSS (and maybe some LESS/SCSS in the background) then it will be much easier to maintain. Having dependencies on all kinds of frameworks and libraries in the background just makes things more awkward. Minimum use of Javascript will be good too but may be necessary for some nice little effects (as long as it's mostly "hidden" within the framework then that's fine).

Something like Bootstrap should be okay for what's needed. I've not used it myself for anything - except having a bit of a look round to see what it does - but if the HTML can be kept simple it will be easy for someone to make changes.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on January 02, 2017, 05:25:16 PM
Blender is using bootstrap and scss files for compiling to CSS too.

However, I think for Scribus we can make it simple too. For my mockup I used http://pingendo.com/ (http://pingendo.com/). It is a free and nice tool to create mockups with bootstrap. It supports less files and work with plain html and CSS/less. In fact we can easy create different page types (homepage, download page, etc) with this tool and later we port the html to wordpress.

But collaboration is only possible via sharing source files (html, less, images).
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on January 03, 2017, 12:06:05 AM
I have created a new Git repository for the mockup files and Wordpress theme:

https://github.com/nitramr/scribus-webpage
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on January 03, 2017, 02:32:18 PM
I've never used Pingendo so it will take me some time to get up-to-speed, when I get the time to get to grips with it anyway. It's been installed and it looks fairly simple (fingers crossed).

Good move putting the project onto GitHub. I've got myself a clone and it's looking nice (I like the new black header bar, for instance). I've also put a watch on it so I can keep up-to-date.

This is a great start. Hopefully a lot of people will get involved, even if it's just with suggestions.

One that note: If anyone knows which images to use for examples of work done, or what features should be highlighted, please post your suggestions here. What's needed - in my opinion - are images that will make someone really want to try Scribus and features that show off what Scribus can do. (It's a marketing exercise after all.)
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on January 28, 2017, 12:33:29 AM
Hi Guys,

Garry an me were working on a prototype for the new web page. Now it is time to share it with you. All files are hosted on a temporary workspace, check it out:
http://scribus.martinreininger.de/

Tell us what you like, what you not like and where we can improve things.

Have in mind it is not the final state, some images has to be replace by better ones and also some contents/links are incomplete. But it's enough to get an idea.

greets,
Martin
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: utnik on January 28, 2017, 04:55:02 PM
hi garry and martin

your web page looks great!
the link to the bug tracker is a bit hidden. it could be added to the footer.
...and i'm not sure about the header images:
all in all: good work!

utnik
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on January 29, 2017, 11:42:48 AM
all in all: a very good proposal!

here some hints from my side:

main page:

- the sponsors on the main page... personally, i would add one sponsor like inkscpae does (but rotating among the sponsors currently listed)
- the main title "Open Source Dekstop \n Publishing"... I would not put Open source in there... I love the "Inskape \n Draw freely" (Open source is important, of course, but the title should not imo contain that; I would probably prefer the word free...)
- the "about scribus" section: focus on what scribus does well, not on the technical part. IMO the whole section should be rewritten to be more "user oriented".

features:

- nicely done but there are a few things i would not write in there... or i would write them a bit differently :-)

download:

nice

learn:

good... there are a few other links that can be added in there...

news:

ok... the weak point... we need people who write news :-)

contribute.

yes.


... and if it does not become *the* scribus webpage i would love this to be a community page for scribus...
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: Zyphon on January 29, 2017, 11:17:54 PM
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.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on January 30, 2017, 03:29:57 PM
[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.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: CGood on January 30, 2017, 06:06:39 PM
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!



Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on January 31, 2017, 01:36:54 PM
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.]
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on February 02, 2017, 12:03:39 PM
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!
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: CGood on February 05, 2017, 10:38:28 PM
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.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on February 06, 2017, 01:28:32 PM
Hi CGood. I got your message, thanks. I've just not had the time to reply yet. I'll be in touch soon.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on February 12, 2017, 01:13:48 PM
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.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: CGood on February 12, 2017, 07:08:11 PM
Wonderful!!!!!
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: Zyphon on February 13, 2017, 01:01:49 AM
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.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: utnik on February 13, 2017, 12:47:04 PM
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
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on February 13, 2017, 01:56:42 PM
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]
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: utnik on February 13, 2017, 06:53:40 PM
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
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on February 23, 2017, 09:47:14 PM
I have uploaded the latest changes from Garry.

regards,
Martin
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on February 24, 2017, 10:33:28 AM
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... : - )
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on February 25, 2017, 11:03:19 AM
Thanks for the extra feedback a.l.e.

You've made some very valid points.

As for the dark theme, that's one of those things that is totally subjective. Some people like dark while others like light. Sometimes it depends on the subject matter but, personally, I think the dark theme looks better for Scribus because it helps as a contrast to the images. I don't think it would be a huge amount of work to change it but I think it can be left as it currently is unless a lot of people have a major problem with it.

Can you explain what you mean about a "download icon" please? (A link to a site that shows what you mean would help.) Do you just mean adding one of those "down arrow" icons to the button as can be seen on the GIMP home page, or something else?

I agree that the image under the "About Scribus" could do with some work. It needs to be something that shows Scribus in action but I agree that the grid should not be shown. If anyone has a really good screenshot, of Scribus being used to make something nice, we can look at using that instead. (And yes, the name of the file should probably change too.)

I agree that the Arrange Pages dialog is not the best one to show for that section. Maybe a combination of Align/Distribute with the Layers dialog would be better. It needs to be looked at.

A quick look at  (link removed) shows that people have posted something in most of the forums this year. Can it really be that "dead"?

I agree that the link to the IRC would be a useful addition.

The financial donation button can be easily removed. It can be added later if necessary.

I've created GitHub issues for the relevant topics above.

P.S. You mentioned that it's about the small details now and I totally agree. We need to make sure that the site looks great and works really well. If the site has problems then people will think that the application has problems. I.e. "If they can't be bothered to get the site right then what does that say about the software?"
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on February 25, 2017, 11:32:43 AM
Quote from: GarryP on February 25, 2017, 11:03:19 AM
Can you explain what you mean about a "download icon" please? (A link to a site that shows what you mean would help.) Do you just mean adding one of those "down arrow" icons to the button as can be seen on the GIMP home page, or something else?

yes, that down arrow. mostly, it's in a circle. or in a cloud.

both inkscape and gimp have one on their home page : - )
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: utnik on February 25, 2017, 11:57:46 AM
hi garry
Quote from: GarryP on February 25, 2017, 11:03:19 AMA quick look at link removed/ (http://link%20removed/) shows that people have posted something in most of the forums this year.

but take a look at them → almost no answers...
Quote...Can it really be that "dead"?

yes, it is.
...and this has historical reasons:
the once active forum died by spam attacks (without an active administrator). then someone took over, but with the same problem – the forum is an orphane...

there was an effort to save it, but the new owner didn't cooperate in any way – so the active members moved on to the new forum under scribus-user.de (https://www.scribus-user.de/forum/index.php).

the problem is that scribus newbies run against a wall by asking questions on a dead place. (and if someone links to the new forum, he gets banned a couple of weeks later – so there is some administration, but not enough to clean spam attacks in time...)

– for the benefit of the scribus project we should finally shut down the heart and lung machines and let it really die...

utnik
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on February 25, 2017, 01:35:39 PM
Thanks for the clarification a.l.e. I've added an icon as suggested. If you want a different one then I'll have to go looking at the documentation.

Thanks for the info utnik. I've commented out the link. I didn't remove it completely in case the site came back to life. It can be permanently removed later (if necessary).
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on February 25, 2017, 03:32:48 PM
i've removed all references to the other german speaking forum from this thread.

that forum has the perfect name for google and is very high referenced.
after a couple of years, that forum is still first in the google results for the most relevant search terms and we should try not boost it further by publishing links to it.

sadly, as utnik says, the admins of that forum being too passiv (and it seems to be impossible to get in touch with them) and all the people who were giving answers in there migrated to the newly created forum.
the problem is that people still ask questions and do not get any answer.
that's sad for scribus.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on August 11, 2017, 11:40:02 AM
so, i'm cleaning up a bit my tabs today... and one of the topics that i've moved to is this proposal for a new website for scribus.

should we ask the question to the team?

ciao
a.l.e
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on August 12, 2017, 10:54:39 AM
I think the site is at a point where the question can be asked.
It's not quite fully polished but - to me at least - it makes a better job of promoting Scribus than the current site.
The new site has no complex installation requirements, it's just HTML/CSS/JS with some images, so copying it over shouldn't be a huge issue.
I would like to hear what the team thinks.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on August 13, 2017, 03:22:41 PM
It is also no big deal to create a wordpress theme out of this just to reuse the existing infrastructure.

regards,
martin
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 20, 2017, 10:09:15 AM
a user showed up in irc and was complaining about the present scribus website.

during the discussion i've referred him/her to this forum discussion and proposal.

there is one thing that i wrote in irc, that i'd like to share here too:

in my eyes, the next step should be to make a proposal about how the content will be managed.

it should be easier for new contributors to jump on the wagon and start publishing on the website. but the "editors" should have tools to ensure the overall quality of the site.

i'm pretty sure that wordpress has plugins for ensuring good workflows!
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 20, 2017, 01:30:37 PM
The content is already in GitHub which has all kinds of management stuff. Is anything more needed?

Or, to put it another way, are there really so many people that will be wanting to modify the site so frequently that extra management is needed?

The existing site only changes once every few months - probably less often - and I can't see a new site being updated on anything like a regular basis so why add an extra level of complication?

I think this can be handled much more casually, and if problems do arise then they can be addressed when they happen.

If you want a vibrant site that's full of interesting new things then the worst thing you can do is put it totally under the control of a few people who want everything done their way and take forever to "approve" things.

I understand the need for some level of editorial oversight but I really don't think most people making changes will be doing anything unreasonable.

I'm probably missing some technical issues - like getting the site updated automatically from the repo - but I would hope they can be handled reasonably easily.

Just out of interest, what kind of feedback did the person on IRC give about the proposed site?
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 20, 2017, 02:58:04 PM
hi garry

i completely agree that just trusting the people on the feeling is probably enough.
but in the case of scribus i don't see it as a successful path when proposing a new website.


i see at least three reasons for having a defined (it does not have to be complex!) editorial workflow that does not rely on a case by case process:

- currently the website is managed in the way you're suggesting and it does not work.
  i fear that if we leave the process as it is now, the website will quickly become outdated in many places.

- the current content is perfect for a prototype.
  imo, there are a few sections that need to be filled...
  and we want to keep the pages somehow up to date and provide relevant
  information to the current situation.
  we need new people to get involved to help out!
  we often have people that show up and are ready to make a bigger effort for a short time:
  how can we get them to be productive?
  the current process only integrates (if ever) people that have been sticking around for a long time...
  mostly just before they completely leave the scribus process.

- of course, most people won't be doing anything unreasonable.
  but we are talking about perfectly unknown people who came from the deep internet...
  and it's about avoiding that people with "criminal intents" can sneak in and change the download links to point to malware...
  some pages should only be accessible to the team... really.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 20, 2017, 04:31:03 PM
I completely understand why some level of oversight is needed. The example you gave about changing links to point to malware is absolutely something that should be watched for. The same goes for people adding malicious javascript to the pages. And the list goes on.

I wasn't trying to say that the site should be completely and freely editable by anyone. That would be a terrible way to do things. What I was trying to say is that using GitHub (or something similar) would allow anyone to be able to make changes to their own copy of the site and then put in a pull request to get those changes made to the site itself. The pull request would have to be checked by someone of course but the whole process would be opened up to anyone who wanted to give it a try rather than the current process where only a very small group of people (or just one individual?) has access to potentially make changes to the site.

Letting people collaborate on changes that can be later incorporated into the site makes it easier for people to get involved. Their changes might not "make the cut" for whatever reason but at least they can have a go.

Personally - if the proposed site does eventually go ahead - I would like to see more areas being created. For example, I would like to see a new "Build and Installation" area that tells people how to get Scribus up-and-running. This will be easier to keep up-to-date if it wasn't "stuck" in a wiki where you have to get special access before you even start looking at changes. I would also like to see a new "Tutorials" section where people can learn to use Scribus by doing, rather than having bits and pieces of documentation all over the place.

Basically I would like the new sections to replace the wiki completely. It has done its job - up to a point - but it's time for it to go now. Putting these new sections into a site where change management was done via something like GitHub would make it a lot easier for people to make new content and maintain it.

It would be great if all of the Scribus documentation and information could be accessible from one place rather than from distributed wikis, forums and other places. And putting it all in somewhere like GitHub would enable that to happen much more quickly.

I may have been over-reacting to your use of the words "proposal" and "managed". I have worked in places where more work is put into a proposal than is actually needed to get the job done and where management of something can mean a drawn out process that takes longer, and way more people, than just doing the thing in the first place. Yes there have to be procedures in place but sometimes the procedures can become more important than just getting stuff done.

Anyway, I think we're both saying the same things but from slightly different perspectives:
* The site should allow people to get involved easily but there should be controls in place to stop malicious acts;
* The site should allow quick updates to be made while "something" ensures that those updates are correct and reasonable;
* The site can only be productive if a large number of people have the ability - not necessarily access - to make changes.

I don't think any of this is unreasonable and I think it can all be achieved with GitHub. (I am not being sponsored by GitHub. Other development platforms are available.)
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: radu81 on September 21, 2017, 10:50:45 AM
tim_occ made a nice template that could be also used with GRAV (a file-based CMS system https://getgrav.org/) which has the advantage to use pages from Github.
An example, here is the documentation https://learn.getgrav.org/ which is saved on Github
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 21, 2017, 01:25:00 PM
One of the big problems with a CMS-based website is that there is the extra overhead of maintenance. Someone has to maintain a list of users with different security permissions and also install bug fixes and other things like a web server and so forth.

Also, there is the issue of what happens when the expert decides to leave the project. They could just drop out completely without any notice and leave things up in the air.

Keeping the website as plain HTML/CSS/JS means that anyone with a bit of knowledge can maintain the site and all of the security is done via GitHub. (The code used in the proposed site is very easy to change - it's just Bootstrap - and there's a tool that Martin mentioned that makes it even easier.)

CMS is a great idea when you want to control what gets done, how things look and what gets published but the extra work would, in the case of an open source project, make things more awkward in my opinion.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 21, 2017, 03:04:51 PM
currently the scribus website is wordpress based.

we need good arguments when we want to propose a technology change.

personally, i wanted anyway to look into grav and i like the idea of git(hub) based cms... so count me in for supporting this type of workflow! : - )
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on September 21, 2017, 08:59:22 PM
Hi Guys,

you both have really good arguments. Maybe I can share my point of view with you too. ;)

As I'm was a Scribus beginner it was really hard for me to get an orientation about all the stuff (documentation, tutorials, resources, etc). Why? Because of all these informations are really decentralized. In example: all the important infos can be find in the wiki, but every new user would start to read about Scribus on the web page, because it is the normal way to get informations.

So I agree totally with Garry, that we need a new central place for all users to start, to find help or to show their work.
Lets say the webpage will be like this, than we will have a lot of pages for tutorials, news, download section for templates? and perhaps the manual. I think to have all the content in plain htrml and css it was a way in the end of 90' to write all into single files. If there will be just few static infomations it will be easier to have just few html pages.

Let's say we do it like in the first option, I have few questions:
- How can we easily update the design? -> because of trends and new technologies, etc without updating any single files and maybe manage complications with that.
- How can people write/contribute Tutorials with a low knowledge of webdevelopment?
- How can people present their work on the webpage without managing the whole github stuff at first on the local device.

Let's list some facts:
- there is already a wordpress installation on the webserver
- there is already content on the webpage
- we will need some security layer for publishing content. (On github it needs some admins which review all the stuff -> wordpress is much more handy)

I'm not a fan of reinventing the wheel if it is not necessary. And currently we can try out more possibilities of the given system. So, I think we should stay on wordpress. The template itself can be located on github that everyone can improve it. If we use just github or wordpress we will need in any case in minimum of one responsable guy!

I can imagine to have the new website on wordpress with a static template in a first interation. Later we can make it more dynamic for parts of the webpage which are havyly updated a lot by non-techy guys, like for Showcases, tutorials, manuals, news, etc. A possibility for an auto deployment of the template via github can help a lot.

However, if someone should use it in long term it must be easy.


regards,
Martin
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 22, 2017, 10:57:38 AM
i'm with you martin.
(even if i would love a flat file cms / static site generator)

just one difference: we should also make a proposal for the editorial workflow (and suggest which plugin could be installed to achieve the goal).

i fear that, it will be much harder to have such a workflow to be implemented after the fact.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 22, 2017, 11:02:05 AM
As long as the content is easily updatable by users and the overall site administration is not dependant on just one person then that's fine with me. I've never used Wordpress so I don't know how it's administered or maintained but if it works well then I would have no problem with that. I've not used many CMSes but if some kind of good solution can be found then I would be okay with that too.

I really don't care which technologies will be used. It won't be me that installs and maintains them and it won't be me that will be responsible for the content so I don't expect to have much of a say in the matter.

I feel that the Scribus project is getting to a point where it should be getting ready for a "relaunch":
* The forum has a slow and steady turnover but the software used needs to be changed to bring it into the 21st century.
* The wiki has been useful to some people but the good information is lost within a jumble of old/irrelevant/incorrect stuff and stub pages.
* The main site is, quite frankly, awful. You've just got to look at any site for any other major open source project to see just how awful it is. Simply awful.
* The stable branch of the software has not had any updates for over 18 months - basically it's been left for dead.

Anyone coming to Scribus for the first time must be asking themselves: "Is this thing still going or have people just forgotten to switch it off?"

Software that hasn't changed for over a year and a half, a wiki where the official tutorial was written 13 years ago, and a main website that looks like it was created for a wallpaper manufacturer who doesn't really know about this "newfangled inter-web thing". It's all just wrong.

Scribus has so much to offer but a lot of people coming to see what it's about will take one look at the outdated sites and decide that they'll just stick with what they've got or just not bother.

I'm not saying any of this to hurt anyone that has been involved in the project. A lot of people have done a lot of great work that I'm personally grateful for. I'm saying what I'm saying to try and "kick the project up the ar*e" so it gets in people's faces and starts to show everyone what it's capable of instead of just withering away in some darkened corner.

Scribus could be as well known as the commercial software. Scribus could be installed on more machines than the commercial software. Scribus could be the go-to default DTP application of choice. If it really wants to be. Or it could just continue how it's been going for the last couple of years and eventually die because everyone has gone elsewhere.

Scribus is a great product. Scribus should show the world that it is a great product. If it doesn't then a great product will fall, and that would be a real shame.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 22, 2017, 11:48:30 AM
hi garry,

i think you're right in most if not all the points you're pointing to.

my stance: if we want things to change, we have to propose new, solid, workflows that can be accepted by the guy in charge.

the problem is not starting well, the problem is making sure that the site is well implemented *and* well managed afterwards.

yes, the current wordpress would already allow all the things we, you, myself, are proposing, but the keys are in the hand of one single person (or a couple).
there is no reason to believe that changing the theme and proposing a new structure will help in any away against the proposal being badly implemented and the community having no way to improve it afterwards.

at least, i have to believe that this is what happened the last time the site has been completely reworked... and that was -- if i recall correctly -- not much than two years ago!
(or, better said, this is what i perceived)

one more thing: i think that the "main" website should contain the minimal content that is necessary to present scribus, get new users teased and started. and get all users informed.
documentation, forums and co, should be well linked, but kept "out" of the website.

let's solve one problem at a time: right now, we want a new website.
next time we will want more timely releases : - )

i'll step back from the discussion now, i have already said too much.
but i'm there to help out to do some work.
... i have some experience with wordpress... (i manage three sites with it... and i have wrote a dozen of small plugins for one of them)
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 22, 2017, 01:31:54 PM
I absolutely agree about solving one problem at a time. My only caveat is that one eye should be kept on the bigger picture, which is why I wanted to put things in context - or at least the context that I see them in.

I don't have a problem with having multiple places/sites for Scribus information but I think it would make it easier for people to be able to create and update material if all of those places had a single login and worked the same way. Whether that's Wordpress or anything else I really don't mind. If it's something I've never used before and I want to use it then I'll learn, but I only want to have to learn it once.

If whatever is chosen can accommodate all the things that are needed from it - from a whole-scale Scribus perspective - then that's great.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: Nermander on September 23, 2017, 08:06:54 AM
Quote from: tim_occ on September 21, 2017, 08:59:22 PM
As I'm was a Scribus beginner it was really hard for me to get an orientation about all the stuff (documentation, tutorials, resources, etc).

What resources did you need other than then built in help?

I am asking because in my experience, most users who do not understand how to use Scribus have never before used a page layout program. I do not think it is the task of the Scribus community to teach people DTP.

If you compare Scribus to for example GIMP, Inkscape or Open/Libre Office, do your really think it is harder to find the resources for Scribus than those other programs? I beg to differ, becuase those other programs are more widespread which means there are even more resources spread out all over the web (and even books).
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on September 23, 2017, 10:18:24 AM
Not all Scribus installations come with the built-in help manual. As far as I remember, it's something to do with licensing on Linux. I've just checked this on Mint Cinnamon 18.1 (Scribus 1.4.6) and going into the Manual gets you the attached result.

The built-in manual is a very useful resource and normally explains things well but if it's not available to everyone then lots of people will be missing out on some very important basic information.

I'm also curious as to what you think the Scribus community is here to do. Surely the people on the forum can teach people whatever they want to teach? If Person A wants to know something and Person B wants to teach them then what's the problem with that?

Personally I generally don't bother answering questions from people who have clearly not even bothered to even go through the basics of the tutorial but that's just me. That doesn't stop someone else from helping if they want to.

Page layout, and DTP more generally, is something that most people have not had to do before they try Scribus and it can be a bit scary, when you start to look at it, how much stuff you have to learn. Baseline grids, optical margins, font embedding, DPI, ligatures, the list goes on. Most of the time when you're learning you don't even know what the things are called so you can't search for them - in the manual or elsewhere. If you can't search for something then you need help and that's where the forum can come in.

If no-one wants to answer a question then that's unfortunate for the user who needs help but no-one is forcing people to answer and the user that needs help should acknowledge this. Free help on DTP issues is not a basic human right, but people can always ask.

To slide the argument sideways a little, GIMP is often used for photo retouching. Should people in the GIMP forums not teach people about use of colour, or brush techniques, or lighting, or layering, or any of the other things that someone needs to know because they are "too basic"? That doesn't sound right to me.

Beginners, by definition, don't know how to do things. It's beginners that need the help. Everything that you or I know is something that we had to learn. No-one is born with an innate knowledge of DTP any more than we are born knowing that fire can be dangerous. Everyone has to start from the beginning with everything. If people can't be bothered to put in a tiny amount of effort to learn some of the basics for themselves then just ignore them, but people should not be ignored just because they are a beginner.

The Scribus community has no "task" or responsibility to anyone. The individuals in the community can answer whatever questions they want to and can also ignore any questions they don't want to answer. Neither the community nor the individual people in it have any obligation to do anything. If you personally don't want to answer a question then just ignore it and move onto something else.

If the Scribus community isn't here to teach DTP to people who use Scribus - a DTP application - then what's it for?

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on September 23, 2017, 03:30:35 PM
@Nermander,

I had already years of knowledge in Indesign and DPT workflows before I'm started to using Scribus. That is not the point. :P

In case of Scribus you need your time to figure out where to start (not the software itself). At first I'm trying to help myself and make researches. But often you loose time, and if you are just searching for informations or a new tool which you want to use and you have to figure out where all of these important infos are, it is a no-go in my opinion.

Here some examples:
1. On webpage are no hints about the features of Scribus. As well in the wiki it is hard to find
2. On webpage (contact and support): there is nothing about support
3. On webpage there is no link to the forum (you have to google for it or you have to go to the wiki)
4. In my understanding wiki != manual, so there is no hint about the documentation of the features on webpage
5. Wiki homepage looks like the main resource because of all the cross-links in the header (Scribus Home, Download, Help, Manual, Forums, Bugs, Blog, About) -> At this moment I realized that I should use the wiki instead of finding something on the webpage
6. "Contribute" page on web page is a mess, it explains what you can do, but not how to or you have to search for it (https://www.scribus.net/contribute/)
7. Contribute section in Wiki is well invisible: You have to got to the menu on left side (Development: https://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Category:Development) and have to find the right topics in the overview.
8. Navigation through the wiki is a mess: In case of english language it is kind of "OK", but try to start on a localized home page, in this case you can't use the menu on left side
9. On webpage click on download -> Windows, why there are mac DMG's and other packages, are the packages for windows too?

Over all, you have so many dead ends in navigation - that is frustrating and is taking your life time.

That is why we have this thread now. :D

In case of resources/tutorials I agree, there a much lesser than e.g. for Blender. But we have the possibility to built a good infrastructure that people are motivated to create new tutorials.

regards,
Martin

Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: Nermander on September 24, 2017, 08:32:36 PM
Quote from: tim_occ on September 23, 2017, 03:30:35 PM
Here some examples:

So, what is your answer to my second question?

QuoteIf you compare Scribus to for example GIMP, Inkscape or Open/Libre Office, do your really think it is harder to find the resources for Scribus than those other programs?
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on September 24, 2017, 11:51:02 PM
Hi Nermander,

I think to anwser your question I have to separate the different things.

Manual
- for manual it is not much harder to find it than manuals of Blender or Gimp
Easy to find via in-built manual, but just the english version (in my case I have no installed manual, just a web link in to the wiki)
Scribus: http://docs.scribus.net
Gimp: https://docs.gimp.org/2.8/en/index.html (no installed manual, but possibility to open a web version)
Blender: https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/dev/ (just web link via "Help" menu)

Tutorials
- in case of tutorials it is much harder to find -> I think that is because of a smaller community than Blender or Gimp
Scribus: http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/board,11.0.html (BTW: if I search for "scribus tutorials" I can't find this forum section in my search engine) -> I have to know that there is a forum, have in mind it is not linked on scribus.net

Contribute
- in case of contribute to Scribus it is much harder as well -> I described some of the issues above
Scribus: https://www.scribus.net/contribute/ -> Overview (no links to subtopics)
Gimp: https://www.gimp.org/develop/ -> Overview + links in specific subtopics
Blender: https://www.blender.org/get-involved/ -> Overview + links in specific subtopics
Krita: https://krita.org/en/get-involved/overview/ -> Overview + links in specific subtopics



So, yes in case of a documentation it is like the others.
In case of contribution or tutorials it is not very easy.

For sure it takes time to learn a new software application, but it can be much easier. Maybe I come from a different perspective with a bigger focus on contribution.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: Nermander on September 25, 2017, 07:46:45 PM
Maybe you come from a perspective where people contribute themselves instead of asking others to do things?
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: tim_occ on September 25, 2017, 08:23:00 PM
Yes, but just for topics which I'm interested in. :D
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: joesber on November 30, 2017, 02:12:56 PM
Hi guys,

it is the first time I see this web proposal http://scribus.martinreininger.de/index.html (http://scribus.martinreininger.de/index.html) and I just would like to congratulate your work, tim_occ and Garry. I hope to see it officially working soon!  :)

About the finantial donation, I'm thinking about it since long ago, and it was searching about the topic that I found this post about the new web proposal. I think it would be great to have the option of donating money to support Scribus, specially for people without enough knowledge or time (or both), who anyway would like to help the develope of this tool.


Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: GarryP on December 01, 2017, 10:51:38 AM
Many thanks. I'm glad you like the proposed site.

Unfortunately, I can't see anything changing website-wise in the near-to-medium-term future.

From what I've read in this and other threads, the people responsible for the scribus.net site have no plans or incentives to make any changes.

The proposed site has been around for nearly a year but no-one responsible for the official site has been in touch to give any kind of feedback. There's a chance that they simply don't know about it but...

I really don't want to get into the whole discussion again - as it doesn't go anywhere - but it's worth people knowing this so they don't get their hopes up.

If changes happen then that would be great but don't expect anything.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on June 20, 2018, 01:45:37 PM
seeing this good proposal die out makes me sad.

as i already proposed, if the scribus team does not want to use it, i would be glad to use it for creating a user community site under http://impagina.org .

in march i've posted a formal request in the bug tracker to use this template

https://bugs.scribus.net/view.php?id=15223

it has somehow been acknowledged (and moved to the infrastructure part of the bug tracker) but no real reaction or comments.

would anybody be interested on setting up the site with me?

ciao
a.l.e
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on June 20, 2018, 01:58:51 PM
p.s.: of course, we have to modify it, so that it does not look like it's the official scribus web page.
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on September 28, 2018, 08:27:01 AM
after tonight's mploug post i'm willing to do another try:

finally create a sane website for scribus... and make it a community (non official page) and hope that:

- at some time it will be so much better than the scribus one, that google shows it at a relevant place or
- the team sees that a better page can exist and takes it as the official page.

i'd like to take martin's proposal

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

and make two changes to it:

- make it clear that it's not an official scribus page,
- use a static site generator, instead of wordpress.

jekyll? pelican? ... ?

anybody can help?
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on December 14, 2018, 06:45:37 PM
i've created my first grav (https://getgrav.org) and i'm pretty happy with the way it's working.

i plan to implement martin's template with it... and make my scribus planet + a new knowledge base part of it.

anybody wants to join?
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on December 16, 2018, 04:21:39 PM
the website is gently on its way...

see you soon...
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: radu81 on January 08, 2019, 10:07:07 PM
There are months since I don't login here, but today I saw ale's posts on GRAV forums. I like what you did on impagina.org and I'm glad you chose Grav cms. (don't know if my advise here (http://forums.scribus.net/index.php/topic,2282.msg12154.html#msg12154) was useful or you already knew GRAV, but doesn't matter).  Who knows, maybe some day, the other suggestion I made about scribus forums will be taken into consideration... ;)

I can't help with the project since I'm not a coder.

Quote from: a.l.e on September 28, 2018, 08:27:01 AM
- at some time it will be so much better than the scribus one, that google shows it at a relevant place or
- the team sees that a better page can exist and takes it as the official page.
I hope both, but mostly the second one
Title: Re: Scribus Webpage
Post by: a.l.e on January 09, 2019, 08:23:22 AM
thanks radu!

a/ eh eh... i've discovered grav multiple times, but never used it... in the last couple of month i've now done two projects with it and i have to say that it's a pleasant cms to use!

b/ for the forums, i guess you suggested the use of discourse. sadly, there is not much i can do there: the state of this forums does not justify starting a separate community, the split of forums has more consequences than just setting up a new website, and hosting a discourse instance is not trivial. and i don't see the team wanting to setup a new engine (even if -- behind the scene -- they started a rework of the wiki... so there is hope.)

c/ there is something you can do: i'm looking for samples of works done recently with scribus : - )

and since i wrote about it in a different thread but not here, where it all started, here it is, the (shy) announce:

i've now implemented martin's proposal on http://impagina.org and, even if it's in beta state, i looks good to me!

contributions are very welcome both for the content and for the grav site. there is a list of task in the README's "contribution" section: https://github.com/impagina/htdocs-grav-pages