[sword-devel] New front page CrossWire

[Chris Little]

Just some quick notes:

*please* dump the whole Diatheke section. As a CLI, it's fine, but it's 
really part of the library/utilities distribution. The ActiveX control, 
PQA, and CGI stuff are all way out of date.

Looking through the list as a whole, I find the screenshots very 
underwhelming. Some big icons/logos would be a nice alternative, though 
I realize this might be asking a lot in some circumstances. (E.g., what 
do we use for a SwordWeb logo? The BTG/OSIS logo maybe?)

I would agree with DM that in-development stuff shouldn't be on the 
front page yet. If the developers don't feel their work is up to version 
1.0 status, I don't think we should be directing traffic there yet. 
BPBible is the only one I spot in this situation.

I like DM's suggestion of using platform logos (Tux, an apple, the wavy 
windows flag, (others?)). I don't think we need to be too specific 
though. Tux can stand for BSD, Solaris, Linux on PS3s, etc.

Troy might have a better feel for the current state of Linux on 
handhelds (QPE/Linux on iPaq). I don't know whether it was necessarily 
time to remove these yet.

The PalmBiblePlus link was there essentially to point people to a Palm 
Bible project in line with our goals. The UniBible link was added at 
their request. We wanted to point people *somewhere* since we had 
decided not to serve PalmOS ourselves. I think we should evaluate 
whether anyone still uses PalmOS. If so, we should keep these links. If 
not, we can dump them. My suspicion, given the state of Palm, even as a 
smartphone manufacturer, is that they aren't very relevant any more.

I think BD & Alkitab should definitely go on the main page.

More broadly, we might want to go with a 2 column (plus the existing 
sidebar) layout. As it is, I've got a very long page, but with a lot of 
whitespace.

--Chris

Peter von Kaehne wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Following previous discussions on the list I have started reworking the front page of the project. I have no ambitions as a web designer, but simply wanted to update the page, remove dead links (micros, diatheke CGI, BibleStudy) and add links to active projects which compile on the current library (Rapier and BpBible)
> 
> Problematic for me - and I would like your consensus - are two groups of applications linked previously
> 
> 1) 2 non CrossWire applications for Palms. At least one was kickstarted by CrossWire:
> 
> http://www.crosswire.org/pipermail/sword-devel/2003-January/017741.html
> 
> but the link has always been tenous and has become even more tenous since an export facility for Sword modules to the format for Palms has been removed from our site (diaspora.exe). 
> 
> My suggestion would be to remove these two programmes totally, but create a link section to programmes not associated with CrossWire for other platforms
> 
> 2) several old programmes which were last updated a few years ago - Dagger and QPSword which worked for various Linux handhelds. I have found in one of teh crevices of our site a folder with downloadable modules etc for Dagger, so i guess it would be worthwhile to link the programme somehow,  but I feel bad to have it on the front page when we have increasing numbers of modules which will not work on it and when no one feels responsible to sort out bugs etc.
> 
> And then there is LCDBible - is it still under development? Last i heard was the guy who wrote it went proprietary with his front end and a different engine - if it is not anymore updated, i think I take it out too.
> 
> And obviously also GoBible. I am not sure whether it was announced or not, but we have started hosting here on CrossWire, David Haslam has an account and plan is to continue development by CrossWire as the original developer is too busy. So it needs to go somehwere on the front page, even if it is not a sword engine based programme.
> 
> Finally - is Manu Mittal still about and developing? LCDBible's guy wrote me that Manu has joined forces with him and stopped developing his programme. 
> 
> Other than this - I am going to put up Bibledesktop up and I think I should put it up separately from JSword as there are now three Jsword front ends (BD, Al Kitab and a firefox toolbar)
> 
> The currenty page is at www.crosswire.org/index.jsp (it remains under development) the one that was is under www.crosswire.org/oldindex.jsp
> 
> Further - the strict separation of Windows, Mac and Linux application has become increasingly wrong. There is BD and AlKitab, but also BpBible has aspiration of being cross platform, gnomesword is on its way to a windows release (it compiles and works to a fashion) BT is apparantly aso going this way.
> 
> Suggestions and comments are welcome.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
> 
> Your thoughts please.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
>