Updating www.alsa-project.org?

Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

Hello. I found out that the current www.alsa-project.org pages
are not as good as they should be. They are next to nothing
for non-developers (such as vendors) who yet don't know what
Alsa is. Information is in wrong importantness order, and there
actually is not a clear explanation what is the Alsa. A good page
don't start with a ChangeLog of sorts!

I don't want write all the changes we need to do for the
webpages. I even cannot do that because I don't have php3
system. So, would somebody copy existing pages to the temporary
directory "www.alsa-project.org/new/" where we all together will
incrementally rewrite the web pages? Thanks.

My suggestions are following:

The main page would contain the contents table (on left) and should
describe (on right) clearly what is the Alsa project and what are
the contact addresses. Don't expect people to join the mailing lists
for contacting purposes. No other information.

I would rearrange the content table as shown here; the most important
information would come first.
  Press
  Vendor Call
  Search
  News
  Soundcards
  Download
  Documentation
  Mailing-Lists
  Bug Reporting  (perhaps should be elsewhere)
  Applications
  Links

I deleted the "new API" because it goes to Documentation
page. I'm also considering Development page which would contain
the devel materials. It looks like the devel material is now
distributed around the webpages.

If Development page would be added it would contain CVS source
access, documentation for non-user API, devel mailing list info,
bug reporting, ChangeLog of sorts, and link to SourceForge
(which is now badly hidden under the main title (should be removed
 from there)).

The vertical align of the contents table should be changed:
  valign="middle"  -->  valign="top"
Then readers have greater changes to access the other pages
without the use of the scrollbar everytime.

I have not yet written the texts for the main page (or the other
pages) but if this rewriting gets started, I will continue.

Suggestions? ...and I don't want to hear the webpage is good
enough now. It is worst of the kind --- think about vendors
who are looking if Alsa is good enough for them.

Best regards,

Juhana

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Kevin Conder]

On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:

> Hello. I found out that the current www.alsa-project.org pages
> are not as good as they should be.

	Amen!

> Information is in wrong importantness order

	You're assuming that information should be sorted in order of
importance [to you]. This is very subjective. Why not sort the information
on an objective criterion that visitors can deduce? How about sorting the
information alphabetically or chronologically?

> there
> actually is not a clear explanation what is the Alsa.

	I agree that this is vitally important.

> A good page
> don't start with a ChangeLog of sorts!

	This is extremely important. It lets visitors know what content on
the Web site has been updated and that the  project is still active. Also,
posting news on main page of the Web site is the best place for this
information. I'd hate to dig around just to discover new/updated content.

> I even cannot do that because I don't have php3
> system.

	Setting one up is very straight-forward if you have a spare
computer. Do you need some help?

> My suggestions are following:
> 
> The main page would contain the contents table (on left) and should
> describe (on right) clearly what is the Alsa project and what are
> the contact addresses. Don't expect people to join the mailing lists
> for contacting purposes. No other information.

	I strongly disagree with this! I would think the project was dead
and never visit the site again. News is vitally important, it's the
heartbeat of the project.

> I would rearrange the content table as shown here; the most important
> information would come first.

	Important based on what criterion? Your personal preference?
Different audiences (developers, vendors, users, etc.) have different
criteria for importance. It would be hard for others to make sense of your
order. Why not just sort things alphabetically?


-- Kevin Conder, kevin@kevindumpscore.com



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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

>From:	Kevin Conder <kconder@interaccess.com>
>
>> Information is in wrong importantness order
>
>	You're assuming that information should be sorted in order of
>importance [to you]. This is very subjective. Why not sort the information

Checking around various company pages should reveal you too
the best possible information order. It is not that subjective
as you think. We have to think about both vendors and users,
not only audio software developers as now.

The change is important if we want attract serious vendors
(both hardware manufacturers and software authors) to find
out about the Alsa. Think about what information such a vendor
as Lexicon would want to read about Alsa: a list of "news" (so to
speak) or unclear explanation what is Alsa (developers goal claim,
actually) -- NEVER!

Best regards,

Juhana

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

Both www.gtk.org and www.gimp.org looks good to me. Please check
them.

Sure everyone wants to read the news and the latest development
but it doesn't have to be in the front page. A short "latest releases:
stable 0.9, devel 0.99a" would do fine but not an extensive list.

Think about it. Could Lexicon put on their webpage a link to Alsa site
for Linux support? I'm quite sure they expect that Alsa would look
good in every aspect. Certainly this initial attitude toward an
attempt in improving the Alsa webpage would not look good.

You have the ball. Create the draft new webpage at alsa-project.org,
and then I will contribute to there. There is absolutely no point to
place the new webpages anywhere else than to www.alsa-project.org.

Best regards,

Juhana

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Takashi Iwai]

Hi,

At Fri, 8 Feb 2002 16:42:03 +0200,
Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
> 
> Hello. I found out that the current www.alsa-project.org pages
> are not as good as they should be. They are next to nothing
> for non-developers (such as vendors) who yet don't know what
> Alsa is. Information is in wrong importantness order, and there
> actually is not a clear explanation what is the Alsa. A good page
> don't start with a ChangeLog of sorts!
 
Agreed that a short introduction comes at the first place.
And a direct link to the card matrix from the top page would be nice.
Then everybody can see whether his card is supported.
(It's one of the greatest importance for normal users, I guess.)

But I like to see a couple of the latest news (at least version
update, etc.) on the front page at the same time, so that I can know
what happened in these days at the first look.


> I don't want write all the changes we need to do for the
> webpages. I even cannot do that because I don't have php3
> system. So, would somebody copy existing pages to the temporary
> directory "www.alsa-project.org/new/" where we all together will
> incrementally rewrite the web pages? Thanks.
> 
> My suggestions are following:
> 
> The main page would contain the contents table (on left) and should
> describe (on right) clearly what is the Alsa project and what are
> the contact addresses. Don't expect people to join the mailing lists
> for contacting purposes. No other information.
 
The contact address to the web master would be fine.


> I would rearrange the content table as shown here; the most important
> information would come first.
>   Press
>   Vendor Call
>   Search
>   News
>   Soundcards
>   Download
>   Documentation
>   Mailing-Lists
>   Bug Reporting  (perhaps should be elsewhere)
>   Applications
>   Links
 
Hmm, on what stand point was this list created?
from the users side, Press and Vendor Calls are not so interesting.
Their interest would be to get the latest info, the current status of
their cards, download and instructions.

And I now realized that from this viewpoint, we lack the on-line doc
for installation, too..


> I deleted the "new API" because it goes to Documentation
> page. I'm also considering Development page which would contain
> the devel materials. It looks like the devel material is now
> distributed around the webpages.
 
That's good.  Links to API, CVS info, and on-line docs can be sorted
in the "development" page.


> If Development page would be added it would contain CVS source
> access, documentation for non-user API, devel mailing list info,
> bug reporting, ChangeLog of sorts, and link to SourceForge
> (which is now badly hidden under the main title (should be removed
>  from there)).
 
I like bug reporting being on the top.
Otherwise people will send all bug reports to the address of web
admin - that's quite bad for us.


> The vertical align of the contents table should be changed:
>   valign="middle"  -->  valign="top"
> Then readers have greater changes to access the other pages
> without the use of the scrollbar everytime.
> 
> I have not yet written the texts for the main page (or the other
> pages) but if this rewriting gets started, I will continue.
> 
> Suggestions? ...and I don't want to hear the webpage is good
> enough now. It is worst of the kind --- think about vendors
> who are looking if Alsa is good enough for them.

looks like you really want to rebuild the page mainly for hardware
vendors? ;)

Anyway, I think it would be really good to have other web
administrators.  Jaroslav is obviously overloaded to update/fix the
web page frequently.


ciao,

Takashi

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Steve Harris]

On Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 10:45:37 +0200, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
> >From:	Kevin Conder <kconder@interaccess.com>
> >
> >> Information is in wrong importantness order
> >
> >	You're assuming that information should be sorted in order of
> >importance [to you]. This is very subjective. Why not sort the information
> 
> Checking around various company pages should reveal you too
> the best possible information order. It is not that subjective
> as you think. We have to think about both vendors and users,
> not only audio software developers as now.

I agree, but I would say that the webpages should be easiest for end users
wanting to install ALSA, that is why most people will be going to the
website for the first time.

You could provide obvious links for vendors and developers which shows
information most useful to them prominantly.

- Steve

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Juhana Sadeharju]

>From:	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
>
>Hmm, on what stand point was this list created?
>from the users side, Press and Vendor Calls are not so interesting.

Yes, if Alsa stays as a private corner for Alsa developers and
existing audio developers. But it is total turnoff for vendors and
new audio developers. Think about it from their side.

Press section is for carefully written press news for all of us;
the word "press" is just used for differentiate from "news".
The minimalistic news you have seen so far goes to the News section.
I'm personally interested in to read only about major releases
and all the things via Press pages (even I'm not a vendor).

>And I now realized that from this viewpoint, we lack the on-line doc
>for installation, too..

We barely have any proper documentation. Checking source code is also
outdated.

If Jackit and some central audio engine becomes popular, then
no applications access Alsa directly (or have I misunderstood?).
That means that less user specific documentation is needed for Alsa.

>looks like you really want to rebuild the page mainly for hardware
>vendors? ;)

No, but getting vendors interested is an important part of the project;
not everything comes as easily as currently supported cards. 

Good webpage is always a plus for all of us. I'm willing to put
material to the webpages but I just don't want to know about php3;
somebody else could handle them. 

Best regards,

Juhana

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Takashi Iwai]

Hi,

At Tue, 12 Feb 2002 16:22:35 +0200,
Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
> 
> >From:	Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>
> >
> >Hmm, on what stand point was this list created?
> >from the users side, Press and Vendor Calls are not so interesting.
> 
> Yes, if Alsa stays as a private corner for Alsa developers and
> existing audio developers. But it is total turnoff for vendors and
> new audio developers. Think about it from their side.
 
My opinion is that users stand over vendors.
I didn't mention ALSA developers nor existing audio developers.

> Press section is for carefully written press news for all of us;
> the word "press" is just used for differentiate from "news".
> The minimalistic news you have seen so far goes to the News section.
> I'm personally interested in to read only about major releases
> and all the things via Press pages (even I'm not a vendor).
 
Ok, understood.
Well, I, as a developer, in general prefer to see some news (or press,
whatever called :) in the top section as found in gimp's web page,
though.


> >And I now realized that from this viewpoint, we lack the on-line doc
> >for installation, too..
> 
> We barely have any proper documentation. Checking source code is also
> outdated.

We have the INSTALL file, but it's not prepared for on-line, and not
so-called user-friendly.

Anyway, poor documentation has been always a big problem around us.
An easy-installation manual would be greatly appreciated.


> If Jackit and some central audio engine becomes popular, then
> no applications access Alsa directly (or have I misunderstood?).
> That means that less user specific documentation is needed for Alsa.

You misunderstood my point.
I mean users as ones who own soundcards and use ALSA on them.
It doesn't matter what audio engine runs.  It doesn't matter whether
ALSA is accessed directly or not.
Before starting your appliations, there are always basic questions:
whether and how your soundcard is supported, what ALSA requires, how
to install it, and so on.
Such information has been most frequently asked (I guess), and will be
in future, too.  There are much more users than developers and
vendors.

I agree to move rarely-referred docs such as API into a specific
page.  But less documentation..?  Why must we reduce?

BTW, for hardware vendors, the information like Dan's soundcard matrix
is quite important, too.  They can make a link and show that their
products actually well supported on ALSA.


> >looks like you really want to rebuild the page mainly for hardware
> >vendors? ;)
> 
> No, but getting vendors interested is an important part of the project;
> not everything comes as easily as currently supported cards. 
 
Agreed.  I really hope it, too.

What I don't agree in your suggestions is the priority of vendors over
users (don't be confused; we discuss here only the web design, not
developer's perspective :)
Other suggestions sound reasonable.


ciao,

Takashi

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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Kevin Conder]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:

> Both www.gtk.org 

	Good example! *Exactly* what I was talking about! When was this
site last updated? You don't know. I know there is a new GTK+ 2 API but
this site doesn't mention it. Without news, it's hard to tell a dead
site [like this] from a live one.

	BTW, to read GTK 2.0 documentation, try this site instead:
	http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/

> www.gimp.org looks good to me.

	Me too, scroll down to the bottom. ;-)


-- Kevin Conder, kevin@kevindumpscore.com



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Re: Updating www.alsa-project.org?

[Kai Vehmanen]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:

> We barely have any proper documentation. Checking source code is also
> outdated.

We do have quite detailed documentation in the form of javadoc comments.  
Not perfect but actually much better than docs of many other kernel
subsystems.

Improving the documentation, writing howtos, updating the web site has
been discussed many times here but so far not much has happened. What
really is missing is coordination, or should I say leadership. The ALSA
core dev team have they hands full with coding and kernel-integration work
and many of us active alsa-devel members have our own projects that take
our time.

A prime example of what we need is the LAD web pages. Jörn Nettingsmeier 
took the job and made it happen (with excellent results should I add). 
In other words, we need someone who "leads the ALSA documentation 
project" and someone who is the "ALSA website maintainer". 

Any takers for these jobs?

-- 
 http://www.eca.cx
 Audio software for Linux!


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