[steering-discuss] Website status

Please don't start trolling. 1st of all it is SilverStripe, not
SilverLight, 2nd if oyu know Joomla, Drupal, etc. Then you should know
that the look is independent of the CMS. What it looks like depends on
how you define the css.

You can make the site look like whatever you want. So please: Don't
argument pro/against a cms by the looks of the css. And yes, it is
starting up, and no, the design is not new, it is closely based on the
documentfoundation.org theme.
We're aware that it is not the nicest theme around there, but if you
want to be constructive, join the website@libreoffice.org mailinglist
and/or the design/marketing lists.

There have been various requests for comments, but people are too busy
to spend a considerable amount of time into it right now. There have
been a few proposals, but none of the drupal folks did comment on them
either, and the drupal team did not pick those up either.

So I don't consider the druapl site's theme any better in this regard.
"Closed-shop" work unfortunately. Instead of working on defining the
look of the site *right now* they prefer working behind closed doors
on the drupal site without providing feedback on the public
mailinglists. I don't like this at all.

It is good to see progress, but when this progress is on a completely
seperate track than the community discussion about the topic, then it
doesn't help at all.

Great. now this post turned into a rant again, but well, be it…

ciao
Christian

Hi Christian, :slight_smile:

Thanks for your reply. OK, I've noted about working with the git repo.
Let's see if there's any kind of go-ahead from Florian and Christoph.
If we wait for answers from everyone, we'll never get anywhere and the
subject will just drown in circular, endless discussions. My aim would
be to do something concrete real soon. Let's see what's said...

I personally don't like the libreofficeaustralia theme as it is now.
Header much too high, language selection doesn't work (something
opens, but that something is covered almost entirely by grey
background, no selection possioble, etc.
Visit it with german locale and you're locked out basically, as it
then also doesn't even offer navigation, etc. So from first looks:
Nah, needs work.

I'm only talking about achieving the same presentation as on that
site, so we're not really worried about what doesn't work on that
site. But it's a clean presentation that will allow us to make the
SilverStripe site and content look good quickly, and it basically fits
the graphic charter...

[1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/cgi_img_auth.php/6/65/Liboaustralia-screenshot1.png
[2] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/cgi_img_auth.php/1/14/Liboaustralia-screenshot2.png

P.S. My advice would be not to get into arguments with stupid people
deliberately spamming the thread with irrelevant off-topic comments.
They do it deliberately to break up the intelligent discussion...

David Nelson

HI

I do agree with the comments in the screenshots but i thought it was
good-practice to avoid forcing a certain width and allow browsers to resize
things to fit the screen as much as possible? It is not always going to be
possible and it is less of a worry since 'everyone' is moving to wide-screen
nowadays but reducing the need to for side-scrolling makes the site easier for
people to use. Perhaps just keeping critical information that noobs need to the
left might satify both sides?

Regarding stupid comments; i think they are usually best dealt with off-list as
people may be new to the list and just asking questions to try to get on-track
quickly. While core-contributors may not have time there may be other people to
enlighten noobs.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi, :slight_smile:

Hi David, all,

once again, please don't think I would not appreciate your great work, even
if I try to improve the "look and feel" of the welcome page.

<snip>

Please have a look at Christoph's proposal:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bbnG0Hny0SpccJIZsGp72A?feat=directlink

I must admit that, personally, I don't find this layout attractive at
all, although it gives some general indicators about content
positioning.

I'm sorry, that I can't design a mockup at the moment. Time is short even
for adding the short phases...

I *have* read your ideas, and will carefully read them and think about
them again as I finish off this first version of the site content. I
am doing my best to take account of your comments and the comments of
other people in what I'm doing. But, sometimes, the proposals and
reactions are so sharply contrasting that it is difficult or
impossible to please everybody.

The problem is that it is *extremely* difficult to work in the current
situation: it's a kind of contributive anarchy, with no-one having a
clearly-appointed lead role in particular areas of the project. Thus,
the only conclusion you can arrive at is this: the people that
actually *do* work are the ones that get to call the shots. If they
are good community members, they will do their best to take account of
other people's opinions. But, in many cases, one has to take a
decision, and the decision will inevitably dissatisfy someone.

Such is the case in what I'm presently doing. I observed how, after
long discussions on the mailing lists and various conference calls,
the website team had failed to put any IA together, and had failed to
put even as much as 10 words on any single page. So I jumped in and
started working on my own. Even when I asked for quick and concrete
contributions, I only got help with content from a couple of people
(apart from lots of patient technical support from Christian).

I do want to get feedback from people, and to take account of their
ideas, but I don't have time or patience to be spending all my time
writing to mailing lists. I actually want to *do* work *now*.

I'm aware that the content I've put on the site is not perfect, and
that it's open to revision in the future. But it does have the merit
of *actually existing* and being sufficient to roll out the site.

I'm determined to finish off what I started, but I do ask you to
remember that I, too, only have 24 hours in my day, and also have a
life to deal with outside the project. So please forgive me for any
shortcomings you perceive in what I produce. :wink: We can look at things
again in the New Year.

I will be doing my best to take account of all I've read. :slight_smile:

I'm currently negotiating with Florian, Christian and Christoph to see
whether to proceed with changes to the SilverStripe theme, or whether
to set this issue aside for someone else to decide about at sometime
in the future.

I hope you understand my position, guys. :wink:

David Nelson

Hi :slight_smile:

I like the way the website is at the moment.

I also quite like the proposed screenshot except that i would prefer the
download button on the left so that people can access it without having to
scroll sideways.

Ok, it may not be perfect for everyone but what we have got works well. It
might be a good time to stand back from the website and look at what we have
while we push forwards in other strategic areas.

Perfection is a great goal but we need to get basics in place first and we seem
to already have more than that with the website. It is pleasant, informative,
uncluttered and fast. It is easy to reach the download buttons. Do we really
need it more perfect than it is already? I think congratulations are due to
everyone involved and it is great that we have ideas building up and being
finalised but i am not sure we have to action them hastily?

Anarchy? My background is mostly in co-operative organisations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative
but i agree that getting work done can be more important than discussions as
long as there is room to make changes or revert to previous versions
after-the-fact.

I don't see this as a contradiction but many people new to co-operatives or
other non-hierarchical structures often assume that discussion about every tiny
point is vital. It isn't. Getting the job done is usually far more important.
The wider group may set policy or determine "house/company style" based on early
experimentation.

Anyone 'should' be free to express an opinion and "stupid questions" may reveal
a possibility for useful innovation but the people doing the work have to be
free to get on with the work. Ideas and suggestions are good if they help get
the work done but if they are not immediately useful they 'should' be ignored or
allowed to grow into something more useful later.

Anyone 'should' be free to do sundry jobs under the direction of the main
worker(s) as though being mentored for a while if that helps get the work done.
It sometimes helps to split into 'temporary' roles such as one person/group
working mainly on content and the other mainly on look-and-feel, each able to
make suggestions to the other team/person.

Note that 4/5 (80%) of new businesses FAIL in the first 2 years when they are
set up in a "traditional" hierarchical format with 1 top boss dictating and
no-one else feeling like they have any ownership of the project. By contrast
only 2/5 (40%) of new worker co-operatives fail in the first 2 years.
Innovation is crucial and we seldom get that from 1 single leader. The trick is
getting people empowered, perhaps helping finding/developing their best area, so
they can work on the projects too.

I don't really think we need to discuss this now and it might be disruptive to
do so. It is worth considering that we need a more fluid dynamic here than most
people are used to in the outside world.

I hope this helps otherwise just ignore it!
Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Tom, :slight_smile:

Interesting thoughts. :wink: But, actually, the site under discussion is
http://test.libreoffice.org

What are your thoughts on that one?

David Nelson

Hi David :slight_smile:

I prefer
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bbnG0Hny0SpccJIZsGp72A?feat=directlink
because it has less information and looks prettier.

Sadly, that seems to be what people want. Information confuses people and seems
to need to be on subsequent pages. Also the picture on

http://test.libreoffice.org
took ages to appear and people don't seem to have patience beyond a couple of
milliseconds and when it appeared the first image was 'horribly' complicated.
Isn't it a gif? Could it be less size byte-wise?

By contrast competitors websites show almost nothing and give almost no
information. We see pictures of smart people in suits looking at a flashy
computer. We see pictures of grannies leaning over toddlers both engaged with
whatever is going on on a more sensible looking computer. We see a young
attractive 'housewife' sitting on over-large creamy coloured sofa either posing
sexily or demurely (or both) and looking at a flashy laptop. If we ever see the
screen then there is some simple pie-chart of bar-graph or sometimes they risk
showing a line-graph (for business users).

Personally i do like the narrower format because i have not yet followed
'everyone else' to widescreen. Also for me personally (probably fairly
typically for a linux user) i do prefer having useful information right there
fast without having to dig around for it and the picture is what i personally
like as a linux-user because it show me useful stuff. The info was well
written, compelling and succinct, telling me exactly the sorts of things that
people ask whenever they find me using OpenOffice (one that still has the Sun
logo). However, while it may be great for existing linux-users we are not
typical of the general population out-there that we need to reach.

I do think both are great and both do the job of easy access to the download.
The text needs to be somewhere on the site and preferably just 1 click away or
reached when the page is scrolled down, something easy.

I would say keep the one we have already or switch to the one that is closest to
completion whichever one that is.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

PS this is only my opinion and i might be a little bitter and twisted nowadays

Hi Tom!

Hi David :slight_smile:

I prefer
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bbnG0Hny0SpccJIZsGp72A?feat=directlink
because it has less information and looks prettier.

Sadly, that seems to be what people want. Information confuses people and seems
to need to be on subsequent pages. Also the picture on

Well, there is no "the people" ... there are people having different
requirements and living/working in different environments. Some guys
want to have in-depth information in advance, some consume basic
information and just want to give things a try.

Thus, it is not about hiding information, but to provide it step-by-step
- managing the concept what people can grasp. That is why I think that
we miss the requirements of quite some users at the moment ...

http://test.libreoffice.org
took ages to appear and people don't seem to have patience beyond a couple of
milliseconds and when it appeared the first image was 'horribly' complicated.
Isn't it a gif? Could it be less size byte-wise?

Same for me ...

By contrast competitors websites show almost nothing and give almost no
information. [...]

I do think both are great and both do the job of easy access to the download.
The text needs to be somewhere on the site and preferably just 1 click away or
reached when the page is scrolled down, something easy.

Yep.

I would say keep the one we have already or switch to the one that is closest to
completion whichever one that is.

I'd say ... whatever helps us to satisfy the needs of the majority of
our users. So even if it might take some additional work, it seems worth
the effort.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

PS this is only my opinion and i might be a little bitter and twisted nowadays

Sorry to hear that :-\

Cheers,
Christoph

Hi Tom, :slight_smile:

It was an interesting and thoughtful perspective, and thank you for
taking the time to recount it.

I prefer
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/bbnG0Hny0SpccJIZsGp72A?feat=directlink
because it has less information and looks prettier.

Sadly, that seems to be what people want.  Information confuses people and seems
to need to be on subsequent pages.  Also the picture on

Well, that is the way we'll probably go. This content was an
"emergency job" intended to allow the site to be launched, and
everything will be up for review.

http://test.libreoffice.org
took ages to appear and people don't seem to have patience beyond a couple of
milliseconds and when it appeared the first image was 'horribly' complicated.
Isn't it a gif?  Could it be less size byte-wise?

It's a .png. I did all the other screenshots as high-quality .jpg
files because they are half to a third of the size, but the site's
lead admin prefers .png because of resizing considerations.

By contrast competitors websites show almost nothing and give almost no
information.  We see pictures of smart people in suits looking at a flashy
computer.  We see pictures of grannies leaning over toddlers both engaged with
whatever is going on on a more sensible looking computer.  We see a young
attractive 'housewife' sitting on over-large creamy coloured sofa either posing
sexily or demurely (or both) and looking at a flashy laptop.  If we ever see the
screen then there is some simple pie-chart of bar-graph or sometimes they risk
showing a line-graph (for business users).

Maybe you're right. We'll have a think about it over Christmas,
because it looks like the site won't roll out until January.

Personally i do like the narrower format because i have not yet followed
'everyone else' to widescreen.  Also for me personally (probably fairly
typically for a linux user) i do prefer having useful information right there
fast without having to dig around for it and the picture is what i personally
like as a linux-user because it show me useful stuff.  The info was well
written, compelling and succinct, telling me exactly the sorts of things that
people ask whenever they find me using OpenOffice (one that still has the Sun
logo).  However, while it may be great for existing linux-users we are not
typical of the general population out-there that we need to reach.

Well, where I live, very few people have wide screens. So what you say
in that respect is an important consideration. I'm glad you liked the
content. Maybe I'll just move it off the front page to another
location, as you suggest.

I do think both are great and both do the job of easy access to the download.
The text needs to be somewhere on the site and preferably just 1 click away or
reached when the page is scrolled down, something easy.

See above...

I would say keep the one we have already or switch to the one that is closest to
completion whichever one that is.

There are actually going to be two sites. One for LibreOffice, the
software, and one for The Document Foundation, the "umbrella
organization" fostering the project.

PS this is only my opinion and i might be a little bitter and twisted nowadays

Your thoughts were interesting and very enlightening. Please do stay
around the project.

If you'd like a suggestion of an area to get involved in, you might
like to consider the documentation team. Do sign up for the list at
documentation+subscribe@libreoffice.org if you have time to give.
We're a small team, but we are acquiring some fine members - we don't
discuss quite so much as on the other lists, but the team members are
cooperative, friendly people who quietly *produce* high quality work.
:wink:

Thanks for your feedback, and read you next time. :slight_smile:

David Nelson

Hi :slight_smile:

I think it is more important to tantalise our target market, to get them keen to
try it. Satisfying people is unhelpful as we need people motivated rather than
complacent.

Curiosity enticed me into trying Linux and then outrage at the realisation of
the amount of time wasted for me by MicroSquish systems (that are designed to be
vulnerable and difficult to fix) encouraged me to stay. The question is how can
we encourage others to try OpenSource? Perhaps a similar route to mine or a
different one per person. How do other products market themselves? Our/your
product is better but how do we get people to want to try it?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi, :slight_smile:

PS this is only my opinion and i might be a little bitter and twisted nowadays

My favorite cartoon is Dilbert [1] ... At least one knows one isn't
alone in one's views. ;-D

[1] http://dilbert.com/register/

David Nelson

Hi David :slight_smile:

Thanks :slight_smile: I have a very specific agenda at the moment and got side-tracked by
the website issue because of the sites i work on. The ones here look great.

Images
I really dislike jpgs because of the distortions they go through in editing.
Png seems to get much less errors in compression and allows transparency and
animation (obviously) and it's not a proprietary format but it is large. I tend
to keep originals in png or high-quality jpg. Gif is very light-weight better
for websites and is usually best for logos but its colour-range and other
limitations means it can't always be used. With Gimp it is usually quite fast
to "Save As.. " png first and then as gif so that you can fall-back on the png
if the gif goes pixellated or weird.

I hesitate to show the site i work on because my bosses actually prefer some
very clunky and nasty things and i still haven't quite worked out how to sort
templates in joomla so that article pages are restricted into the page defined
in the template. They are fun to work with and a very noble & worthy cause tho
:slight_smile:
http://www.cecf.co.uk

Hmm, now you wont respect me lol. My criticisms of that site would fill
volumes.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi all,

just for the record - there has been another proposal for a menu and the
front page of the new website.

Some of you might know Nikash, who already worked within the OOo days on
designs - and usually they are simply great :slight_smile: However, he wrote a very
kind mail, proposed some changes, and published a website mockup:
http://www.mail-archive.com/design@libreoffice.org/msg00217.html

Cheers,
Christoph

Hi, :slight_smile:

Hi all,

just for the record - there has been another proposal for a menu and the
front page of the new website.

Some of you might know Nikash, who already worked within the OOo days on
designs - and usually they are simply great :slight_smile: However, he wrote a very
kind mail, proposed some changes, and published a website mockup:
http://www.mail-archive.com/design@libreoffice.org/msg00217.html

I think it looks really good [1].

As a secondary project, the basic
design could also easily be adapted for the wiki and
documentfoundation.org (nabble, too?), using the same
design with other colors from the marketing color scheme.

I've got SSH access to work on a sandbox at pumbaa.ooodev.org
(http://188.40.32.145:7780/), so we could implement the design as a
SilverStripe theme there, and Christian could move it across to the
upcoming libreoffice.org site when ready.

I'll be happy to collaborate with him out with the theme
implementation aspect, and to do the necessary content adaptation /
design to fit in with it.

@Christoph, it sounds like you're agreeable to the idea.

@Bernard: you too?

@christian: you too?

If so, when can we give Nik a green light to start work? :wink:

[1] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:Nik#Interim_Website_Design_proposals

David Nelson

Hi David,

thanks for your mail ... I think the best thing is to also forward it to
the Design team list, and to him (BCC). Let's see how it evolves :slight_smile:

And to all: Sorry for constantly spamming multiple lists at the same
time - the remaining work should be done on one list only.

Cheers,
Christoph

Hi, :slight_smile:

thanks for your mail ... I think the best thing is to also forward it to
the Design team list, and to him (BCC). Let's see how it evolves :slight_smile:

Sure. I just hope we manage to take a fast decision about this, and
*get it done* without too much futzing around. :smiley:

David Nelson

Hi David, *;

It's a .png. I did all the other screenshots as high-quality .jpg
files because they are half to a third of the size, but the site's
lead admin prefers .png because of resizing considerations.

That was a misunderstanding then. I wrote for origininal size
screenshots, png is almost everytime superior to jpeg. But the more
you resize, the more "fuzz" is added to the image, jpeg then provides
better compression.
So to summarize:
* png for real-size screenshots, never jpeg (unless the screenshots
shows draw showing a photograph or similar)
* jpeg is OK for thumbnails, resized screenshots

Maybe you're right. We'll have a think about it over Christmas,
because it looks like the site won't roll out until January.

Ho ho ho :slight_smile: Santa has a present for you :slight_smile: - site is live - yay :slight_smile:

[...]

Merry Christmas to everyone :slight_smile:

ciao
Christian

Hi Christian, David, all!

> Maybe you're right. We'll have a think about it over Christmas,
> because it looks like the site won't roll out until January.

Ho ho ho :slight_smile: Santa has a present for you :slight_smile: - site is live - yay :slight_smile:

A lot of thanks - to all the people who participated :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Christoph

David, you've really done an outstanding job, and I've not been able to support you as much as I would have liked to (but I have been killed by my work burden). If you need some help I am available next week, as I'm at home resting as much as I can before another year of duty.

Hi Italo, all, :slight_smile:

I'm very happy to see the site launched. A really big thanks to
Christian for making that happen. :slight_smile:

It currently looks like I might get a go-ahead to work on a really
great new theme for the site with Nikash Singh, to be ready by the
early days of the New Year... So there's still more work to do, but
the site could look really Web 2.0 and good.

I'm waiting for a response about that from Florian, Christoph and
Charles in a mail that's awaiting their urgent attention in their
mailboxes. :wink:

Italo, as a key player in marketing, I created an account for you on
the site. I mailed you your password, etc. I can tutor you online
concerning working on content, if you like, via Skype. Just buzz me if
you want that. Until then, you *might* like to submit me any content
you want published, until such time as the SC takes decisions about
editorial organization, etc.

David Nelson