Re: GNOME 2.20 release notes

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Sun, 2007-08-12 at 22:34 +0300, Quim Gil wrote:
> On 8/10/07, Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com> wrote:
> > Maybe you could give a quick example of something that we wrote in the
> > past that was suitable for end users but not for enthusiasts.
>
> Good exercise. Note that it is not only about writing but also about
> how you organize and prioritize the information.
>
> Taking as an example http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/ and pages underneath:
>
> - Everything before "Getting GNOME 2.16" tells nothing new to anybody
> not new to GNOME. Always the same, yawn. Then the Get Footware
> reference is good but the rest (building GNOME) is of little use of
> 95% or people. My conclusion: the /start page hasn't served well our
> primary targets.

I do want to combine that start page and the release notes themselves,
instead of having a start page with a link to the release notes. Just
requiring an extra click probably loses half of the people.

> - The whole http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/ is dedicated to
> potential people new to GNOME. It even says "If you're already
> familiar with GNOME, you may want to skip ahead". Second page in the
> sequence that has failed to serve our primary targets. Two extra
> clicks before you get into the real stuff.

Yeah, I guess we can have a very short "GNOME is" sentence and just link
to an About page on the regular web site pages.

> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnfrontpage.html is a good
> page. I would only add a message more specific to distro maintainers
> since they were the main ones to build GNOME with the new Metacity
> effects.
>
> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnfeatures.html is
> relatively ok. Well, normal end users are clearly taken in mind in the
> first place. That page could serve better our main targets by having
> less text like "a powerful new note-taking application called Tomboy."
> (Tomboy was not new at all for our targets" and more like "By
> providing hooks via standardized DBUS methods, other programs are able
> to interact with power saving...". Developers talking to developers
> about why the new cools stuff is cool.

I think that's something for the For Developers section. That wasn't in
2.16, but I want to bring it back.

Oddly, I guessed that it was you who changed that structure for 2.16. I
guess you're not guilty.

> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnusability.html is also ok
> but also has primarily end users in mind. What about a mention to
> application developers about how these usability improvements affect
> their development and how can they benefit from them?

Again, that would be good for the For Developers section, though I don't
know what we could say in this case.

> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnbackend.html - this is
> what I'm talking about!
>
> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rni18.html ok, good one.
>
> - http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnlookingforward.html not
> bad, and now with the roadmapping work it will be much better. Let's
> concentrate in the novelties our primary targets are waiting for.

Thanks for this.

-- 
murrayc murrayc com
www.murrayc.com
www.openismus.com