[sword-devel] Presentable portfolio

[Peter von Kaehne]

DM Smith wrote:

> I agree with Troy that the http://www.crosswire.org is our first
> impression and needs to be a great one. I think that much of what you
> have done has moved that direction.
> 
> I think that our audience is multi-faceted:
> (IMHO)
> - Our biggest target audience is the front-end user.
> - Our core audience is volunteers and developers.
> - Our service and collaboration audience are Bible Societies, Outreach
> Ministries and Publishers.

It is extremely hard to combine this in one front page - and previously
we did not well either. Once people click the first time onto a
subsequent link it is fine - we can direct them into the correct
section. My personal target would be to have enough on the front page to
make them click once more, but not so much that they think they have
seen everything.

> 
> I think the front page should list the "Big Five" applications. And I
> think that they should be listed according to OS penetration: Windows,
> Mac, Linux. So I'd suggest mentioning them in the following order:
> BibleCS, BD, MacSword,  GnomeSword and BibleTime (though the order of
> the last two can be flipped.) When GS and BT are "native" Windows apps,
> I'd move them up.
> 
> At some point Alkitab should be added, too. It is a great app.

and BpBible - its download statistics are impressive. It is on
PortableApps, which is extremely frequented. i know that BD and BibleCS
can do the same practically, but PortableApps is a massive download driver.

It has admittedly a specific and big short coming around its rendering
of RtoL texts which stops me recommending it but I understand that this
is in work (and BibleCS had the same problem until 1 year ago)

> I'd also suggest that the title banner have miniature platform icons
> after the app name. 

You mean on applications.jsp ?

And the text for cross-platform applications should
> list the platforms on which it runs.

ok.

> So, yes, I'd suggest a two-tiered approach: an initial first page
> listing and what you have for the break out by platform.

My main problem here is screen estate. I am not sure how important it is
to avoid all vertical scrolling - certainly a lot less relevant than
horizontal scrolling. But i do not want to be back in the situation
where we were before I started with everything - one endless scroll.

peter