[sword-devel] Announcing FireBible 0.5.1 - GPLed Firefox font-end

[DM Smith]

On Mar 30, 2008, at 9:12 AM, Chris Little wrote:

> Jonathan Morgan wrote:
>> This kind of announcement really raises in my mind the question "How
>> much does a piece of software require to be listed on the CrossWire
>> pages as a project? (such as on the main CrossWire page and the Wiki
>> sidebar)"  Not all initial concepts that are displayed here reach  
>> that
>> stage, but I certainly think that BPBible has reached it.  Is there
>> any policy, or is it more along the lines of "Ask and you will
>> receive?"
>
> I think we ought actually to move in the opposite direction from what
> you suggest and weed out software that is inappropriate to the  
> CrossWire
> front page. In particular, I'd like to remove dead projects and  
> projects
> affliated with neither Sword nor CrossWire.

I find that any Google for "free Bible software" or the like will  
bring up this page near the top of the list. So, I think this page is  
critical as a "first impression". I think that most people finding the  
home page are not interested in software development, but rather in  
the software itself.

> I would probably cut out
> everything but the actual active CrossWire projects (Sword, SwordWeb,
> FlashCards, etc.) and the major frontends.

I agree. The page should reflect a clear, dual personality. One for  
users, the other for developers, as you have listed it.

And the users should be put first. This would be a listing of the  
major applications, with platform icons, and directions/links to those  
projects. I say "applications" because I think BibleTool and  
FlashCards should go here.

I don't see the point in the page being a jsp, unless it serves up  
something dynamic. Does it?



> We can create a more
> extensive frontends page WITHIN the Sword website, where we can do a
> more extensive breakdown of all the frontends, current and obsolete,  
> for
> all platforms. This should really not be considered a decrease in
> exposure since the CrossWire main page really shouldn't get much  
> traffic
> compared to the Sword pages.

I think that traffic due to Google will be to the main page. But your  
contention I think is true for developers.

Much of the crosswire.org pages are old and need of updating. I'd like  
to see all the developer pages moved to the wiki and the old pages  
replaced with redirects. One that can be done right now is the "module  
making" page, http://www.crosswire.org/sword/develop/swordmodule. All  
of it is reproduced in the wiki and up to date (the old page is out of  
date).

>
>
> Regarding the Wiki, I think we need a front page redesign more than
> anything. An absurdly long list of frontends, most of whose Wiki pages
> are completely blank, is poor Wiki layout. When we set it up, of  
> course,
> everything was blank and we didn't necessarily know how the Wiki would
> grow. But it's apparent by now that info is never going to come for
> certain frontends. We can give a full listing of frontend Wiki links  
> on
> the front page, though (for those that actually have pages).

Ditto.

The wiki is fairly useless as it stands. Just clicking around is a  
frustrating exercise in finding a page that actually has contents.

What if the "sidebar" were changed to have one set of entries for  
users and one set for developers.

The user set would have a small number of links: FAQ, Applications.  
The Applications page would list actively maintained projects. If  
those have active wiki entries, that would be referenced. Otherwise,  
the appropriate website would be referenced. Inactive/orphaned/dead/ 
not-yet-1.0 applications would be another page reachable from the  
bottom of the Applications page.

The developer set also would be limited: FAQ, Projects.
The FAQ does not exist yet. Projects would be like Applications, but  
reference the home of the project and perhaps have it's own wiki.  
Pages such as for BibleTime are currently useless and should be deleted.