[sword-devel] New front page CrossWire

[Peter von Kaehne]

Chris Little wrote:
> 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 PQA, and CGI stuff are all way out of date.

Thanks for suggesting this. I thought everyones' heart was set on
Diatheke, I could not bring up the courage to suggest this ;-)

> 
> 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 agree with logos. But we might not have any for some applications.
Will look.


> 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 thought about this - reasons I thought I include it were a) the status
of BpBible in portable apps - which is a very important site for many
windows users b) the fact that it is a stable and nice application
irrespective of the low version number. Considering what kind of garbage
sometimes carries a 1.0 (none of us - just general) I thought 0.3.1 is a
nice understatement. But anyway, consensus shall rule.

> 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.
> 

I agree.

> 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.

To be honest i always thought this was a hobbyists field - no Linux PDA
ever made it, Zaurus just (kind of) excepted and now it is dead too.

> 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 would agree.

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

OK.

> 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.

I will see what I can do. The current layout is a massive table. I will
see whether i can get a basic CSS column design going.

Oh. and sorry for the poor wrapping of my first post - it came from a
webmail provider. I was not aware of that.

Peter



> --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
>>
>>
>>  
> 
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