Git User's Survey 2007 summary - git homepage improvements

["Jakub Narebski" <jnareb@gmail.com>]

50. What could be improved on the GIT homepage?

  TO DO
  171 / 683 non-empty responses

--
Note from the homepage, http://git.or.cz/

This website itself is tracked in Git as well - you can browse its
development history or even clone it from
http://repo.or.cz/r/git-homepage.git. The site is covered by GPLv2 and
maintained by Petr Baudis who always takes patches eagerly. ;-)
--

List of answers, without count, divided into broad categories.
Some answers were hard to classify into one section, so please read
carefully.

Generic
 * Keep it always up-to-date!
 * Catch up with the latest version in kernel.org/.../RPMS. ;-)
   1.5.3.2 is out.
 * Publicity. Until the survey I didn't know it had all that!
   There is a homepage?
 * More active movement between IRC/list and FAQs
 * Less Linux programmer focused.
 * Maybe provide translation
   Translations to other languages for better adaption elsewhere.
   i18n.
 * A dedicated domain name, easy to remember and find.
   Nicer URL? (git.org?)
 * Change the site name to have 'git' in it! Like 'TheGitSite.com'
   rather than git.qk.wkx.or (ir is git.or.cz) or whatever.
 * It could use a better url than 'git.or.cz'; the URL looks like a
   mirror and I'm not sure I'm on the official home page.
 * Git could use a real logo.

Code and design
 * Could be more sexy.
 * Graphical design.
 * Give it some nice & fresh design.
 * Make it more attractive.
 * Color scheme (?)
 * Better design and appreciation for aesthetics. For the typical
   'programmer' whose position is 'who cares what it looks like' they
   won't care. For the managers and other folks that need to be
   convinced it will look more polished and professional. Appearances
   matter.
 * Move the details on fetching the development code to the 'getting
   git' page.
 * More prominent links to documentation on how to get started with
   GIT.
 * More bling :-) but I'm not really sure about that.
   Non-technical users get scared away anyway.
 * Smarten it up with some colour and graphics.
 * Maybe get a graphics monkey and make it less dull but otherwise the
   content is OK.
 * Make it prettier. Sounds silly but it counts. Bazaar's main feature
   is a pretty website ;).
 * The layout. It's ok for me but it looks like a minor hobby
   project's page
 * Make it easier to find information.
   Reorganization to find the most important information easily.
 * The page has too much info and is hard to navigate.
   Look at http://www.mozilla.com/ for contrast.
 * Better layout. It seems busy and hard to find things. Simplify.
   Better layout to make things easier to find.
 * Move the documentation up to the top.
   It's what people want to access the most!
 * Perhaps divide it again into separate pages if it grows
 * The layout and the organization of the sections. It's pretty hard
   to know why should I use git just looking at the webpage.
 * A proper side bar for things that are currently in boxes.
 * Hide the rarer commands and special tricks deeper and emphasize the
   best usage practices.
 * Less text on the front page, less text per page
 * Web 2.0 type interface as Ruby and Ubuntu have.
 * Pictures. Fancy layout.
   Less clutter.
   I find it somewhat unstructured.
 * Modern styles look and feel.
 * Download link needs to stand out more. The homepage appears rather
   'flat' that is nothing stands out as more important than the rest.
   In order of importance, I think there should be:
     1. Download
     2. Git Quickstart Guide
     3. Documentation
 * The lines are too long. Try to find a better proportion.
 * It doesn't look like a project home page.
   Mercurial does a better job with the look of their page IMHO.
 * Make it less monolithic. Stick documentation on its own page,
   methods of acquiring GIT on its own page and so forth. That allows
   more room for each without making one huge homepage.
 * Divide content up into sets of info related to tasks a person would
   be interested in
     - getting a first setup
     - maintaining/updates
     - introductory documentation
     - reference/refresh-memory info
     - project/git-developer info
 * Make it look more modern but don't use too many web features
   (i.e. make sure it works on elinks).

Documentation
 * Link to Git User's Manual and not only to crash course/tutorial
   Feature the User Manual more prominently
 * More documentation.
   More tutorials and examples.
   More workflow examples, more crash courses.
 * More links to documentation/tutorials/howto
 * Recipes for how to do things with git.
   Examples and workflows.
   Common pitfalls.
 * More visible link to the tutorial.
 * Old documentation removed / updated (index, staging, cache).
   Less emphasis on cogito / Remove Cogito references.
 * Remove more aggressively outdated documentation for historic tools
   (like cogito).
 * Fluxograms describing some use cases.
   Perhaps some diagrams.
 * More comprehensive tutorial with optional boxouts.
 * Up to date information about best practises and recommended tools.
 * Add a new users section with some walkthroughs that show how to use
   git practically on a real repository. Maybe add comparable commands
   from other SCMs. (git clone -> cvs checkout)
 * 'git for svn/cvs people' could use an overhaul
   (at least they did a few months ago)
   The Git for SVN users tutorial is incomplete and does not explain
   for example how the index works and why it's there. Thus people end
   up thinking that 'svn add' is like 'git add' whereas it's not.
 * A 'git features tour' showing the great features git has.
 * Add some material for presenting git to others (slides)
 * Add a tutorial helping deal with a conflict merge.
 * Feature-driven help: a list of features with short tutorial on how
   to use each one.
 * Example of interacting with CVS repository
   (import, export, cvsserver)
 * Highlight those pieces of documentation that aren't easily
   available through --help and man 'git-something'.
 * Getting started for new users.
 * Simple online demo and beginner Tutorial on one page.
   The demo could be an applet giving access to a terminal of a
   running virtual machine with git and some demo repositories.
   The virtual machine is reset every full hour.
 * Some way to indicate which version of Git a specific piece of
   documentation refers to.
 * Missing information: examples of ways diffent (real) projects use
   Git.
 * More details on how to make a centralized workflow work
 * A prominent 'Why git?' or 'Why distributed?' section might be good.
 * Better SVN -> Git

Downloads
 * It could be more up-to-date about new git versions (sometimes it
   lags behind a bit).
 * Catch up with the latest version in kernel.org/.../RPMS. ;-)
   1.5.3.2 is out.
 * Current official version should include the one on master.
   Snapshots. Results of nightly builds and tests.
   There should be links to download pu/next/master/maint branches
   tar.gz trees (snapshots) from gitweb.
 * Information about Windows version(s).
   Easier for windows users to find msysgit (maybe with a development
   warning) under 'Getting git'.
   Links to windows ports: http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/
   and a plea for help.
 * Download link needs to stand out more.
 * Download repository for the most common distros (Ubuntu, RedHat /
   Fedora Core, SuSE).
 * Provide processed man pages to install
   Provide PDF documentation

Information, new links, new features
 * What's New section
 * News and info about where things are going (roadmap).
 * Link to the latest release announcement. Now you can only find a
   link to the tarball but most of the time I only want to take a
   quick look at the announcement (RelNotes).
 * Add a news section and maybe some pointers to interesting
   user-contributed HOWTOs or something.
 * Add more external porcelains like Guilt to the frontpage.
 * Recommended 'out-of-the-box' package of GUI or CLI interface.
 * Cogito state should be better clarified.
 * Bring the porcelains list up-to-date -- in particular mark
   Cogito (cg) as outright deprecated.
 * More information on project around GIT (like GUIs etc).
 * Perhaps making some pages like FAQ or Tips and Tricks, or
   discussion about nature of branches in git taken from GitWiki when
   they are mature enough
 * I wish for Git Traffic: digest of git mailing list discussions
   (there was one at http://kerneltraffic.org/git/index.html but it
   stopped after one issue; KernelTraffic is also no longer updated)
   Some type of recent news collected from the mailing list 'what's
   new in the latest release' or coming-soon previews would be nice.
 * The layout and the organization of the sections. It's pretty hard
   to know why should I use git just looking at the webpage.
 * More marketing on what projects use git and perhaps more blurb on
   why git is better than other SCMs.
 * Easier access to release notes and changleogs (i.e. the history)
   without having to browse the git repo or read separate pages from
   the documentation.
 * A blog or news page (not everyone enjoys mailing lists),
   perhaps link to mailing list archive
 * Provide 'A note from the maintainer' as a prominent link probably
   named as 'How the git project is managed and how to participate'
 * Place links to direct git's plugins core and tools source tree.
 * Link to some good GUIs. Giggle is a good GUI that serves my needs.

One person seems to mistake git documentation page ("reprint of the
man pages") at http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/
for the homepage, another mistook (kernel.org?) gitweb for it.


Here is short summary of most common answers, with a short comment if
appropriate:

Generic:
 # Dedicated domain name / site name, e.g. git.org or git.com
   to have it look less like mirror or unofficial page

   (git.or.cz still comes first when searching Google for "git";
   current domain name was available to homepage admin - historical
   reason)

 # Better design: make it prettier, easier to find information,
   move more important things first, use sidebar instead of boxes,
   perhaps divide it into separate pages (again). But make sure it
   works on Elinks for example.

   (IIRC pasky is not web designer, so help is appreciated)

Documentation
 # More documentation: tutorials, workflow examples, walkthroughs,
   SCM commands comparison, interacting with other SCMs, HOWTOs, best
   practices, recommended tools, fluxograms describing use cases
   (graphics).  Make link to Git User's Manual stand out better.

 # Less emphasizis on Cogito, mark it more explicitely as deprecated
   and slowly try to get rid of Cogito references in documentation
   (e.g. crash courses).

   (Cogito is officially deprecated from not a long time; the process
   of removing references to cg in crash courses is AFAIK ongoing)

 # More emphasizis on "Why git?" and "Why distributed SCM?".
   A 'git features tour' showing the great features git has.
   In short: why and when to choose git.

   (Someone would have to write it)

 # Simple online demo. The demo could be an applet giving access to a
   terminal of a running virtual machine with git and some demo
   repositories.  The virtual machine is reset every full hour.

   (This might be a good idea, but I think it is a bit hard to do from
   technical point of view; at least securely, securing against
   intrusion and, perhaps accidental, denial of service)

Downloads:
 # More up-to-date about new git versions.

   (With one person updating homepage, who is not git maintainer...)

 # There should be links to download pu/next/master/maint branches
   tar.gz trees (snapshots) from gitweb.

   (The source snapshot part is quite easy to do, but it might
   increase load on kernel.org / repo.or.cz, unless snapshots are
   somehow cached)

 # Results of nightly builds and tests.
   Static binaries for other OS (FreeBSD, MacOS X).

   (There is a matter of machine park. Somewhere those nightly builds,
   perhaps together with nightly running of test suite, have to run.)

 # Information about MS Windows version(s). Link to MSys Git, marking
   it as under development; perhaps plea for help?

 # Provide processed man pages to install. Provide PDF documentation,
   at least PDF version of Git User's Manual.

   (Having PDF version is quite new; there is no manual.pdf target in
   official Makefile.)

Information, new links, new features
 # Link to the latest release announcement (RelNotes) on download page.

   (Links to relnotes are in HTML version of git(7) manpage, but I
   think it is not enough. Happily we _have_ release announcements)

 # News section, info about where things are goung (roadmap)

   (Junio has a hard time maintaining TODO, and git doesn't have
   roadmap AFAICT)

 # Provide 'A note from the maintainer' as a prominent link probably
   named as 'How the git project is managed and how to participate'

   (That is a good idea I think, better than having it on GitWiki.
   We can put direct link to SubmittingPatches nearby.)

 # I wish for Git Traffic: digest of git mailing list discussions
   Some type of recent news collected from the mailing list 'what's
   new in the latest release' or coming-soon previews would be nice.

   (There was one at http://kerneltraffic.org/git/index.html but it
   stopped after one issue; KernelTraffic is also no longer updated.
   Do you volunteer?)

 # Links to more tools, GUIs, version control interface layers.
   A somewhat related request: copy pages like FAQ or Tips and Tricks,
   or discussion about branches from GitWiki when they are mature
   enough.

   (For example there was requests to put links to / info about Guilt
   and Giggle on git homepage. Giggle has quite a bit of users among
   GUIs).


-- 
Jakub Narebski