Re: Missing "Art & Themes" link in gnome.org home

[Curtis Hovey <sinzui cox net>]

On Sat, 2004-09-25 at 20:10 +0100, Thomas Wood wrote:

> > > I don't think users would look for art/themes under downloads, as 
> > > downloads usually means downloading of software. Also the art site is 
> > > totally separate from the download information for GNOME.
> > 
> > Maybe not.  The question I am asking is, do users see art and software
> > are separate things since they must browser, download, and install them.
> > Theme engines are software.  Would users prefer one site?  I don't have
> > an opinion, and I don't think art.gnome.org and software.gnome.org are
> > the same thing.
> 
> Interesting point raised about theme engines. They definitely are
> software (since you have to configure, make, install), so perhaps should
> go on a software site. I think perhaps what you where asking is about
> where people get downloads. Art.gnome.org actually uses ftp.gnome.org
> for it's repository anyway, and I presume a software.gnome.org would
> too. So as far as a user is concerned, downloads are in fact all located
> in the same place (as would make sense), and art.g.o and software.g.o
> are just separate interfaces for the different categories (software and
> art).

Indeed art and software are separate interfaces, each with its own
requirements to serve the user best.  They may be mergeable as one
website, but they need not, we really just need to recognized some
features intersect and if we can make the behave the same, and move the
user easily between software and art, then there is no issue.  


It is better to take this in steps, and not fear if we need to change
something back if it does not work.  Software isn't even available at
this time so I don't think it should hold up Art.  Putting a link to
art.gnome.org in the site links is the first doable thing.  Getting a
software catalog is a longer task to complete.  When it is we need to
evaluate if we wish to keep adding sites, or look to unify them.
Unifying them may mean a superficial presentation, or a true merger of
the sites.

We envision the software catalog to offer a single page that sells the
product/project to users/developers.  As many of the art theme are
projects, there is no reason they would be rejected from being listed in
the software catalog.  The page will be a brochure to introduce the
software to the user.  The user would visit the project's homepage to
locate packages for their distro.

There is on crucial difference between art and software, art is
installable without sys-admin privileges.  We wont host the software on
our site, because the average user requires a native package to install
the software.  In the case of theme engines, I would not be surprised if
users hunted through their package system first before resorting to
download and compile the package.  Even amongst ourselves we recommend
jhbuild for developers and garnome for testers.  We don't really use
ftp.gnome.org directly for distributing packages.

> > > > I'm going to begin an effort to organize our use cases.  I aim to get a
> > > > good definition of what the gnome site should do for users, and who
> > > > those users are.
> > > 
> > > Any progress on this? Do we even have any use cases anywhere?
> > 
> > I posted some use cases last year.
> > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-web-list/2003-October/msg00048.html
> > I have an Evo task reminding me to take that post and start a use case
> > collection in the GNOME Webhackers.  I believe there is an older set
> > sitting on someone's HD.
> > 
> 
> So with regards to art and themes, users would go to the website
> (www.gnome.org), find a link to the art and themes site, and then go to
> the downloads site to get the theme they want. Currently all that is
> missing for the user is the ability to find a link to art.gnome.org from
> www.gnome.org.

Yeah.  And that is the easiest thing to address right now.

> If I get some time, I'll look at the other use cases and see what (if
> any) other changes need to happen.

-- 

__C U R T I S  C.  H O V E Y____________________
sinzui cox net
Guilty of stealing everything I am.