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Re: New user observations [message #4186 is a reply to message #4179]

Fri, 28 July 2006 05:14

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rbmatt wrote on Thu, 27 July 2006 18:04

I’ve been using Ultimate++ for about a week, and I love it. I’m already looking for ways that I can give back to the project. Here are some of my observations/suggestions that you can choose to implement, ignore, discuss, etc.
1. Unify website parts locations: Content seems to be spread over too many places. Right now the main website is at http://upp.sourceforge.net, there is good content on the SF page http://sourceforge.net/projects/upp , the forums are at http://www.arilect.com/upp/forum/, and there are wikis at both http://www.arilect.com/mediawiki152/ and http://upp.wikispaces.com/. This is confusing to new users.

Put it all under one domain name.

Thanks for your enthusiasm.
Some comments:

Sorry, but one domain name is bad.
Reason 1:
Most of good open source projects are hosted on sourceforge.net. This is one of the best ways to find them. Do you propose to remove Ultimate++ from there?

Reason 2:
On the other hand, sourceforge is slow and not reliable. Updating, installing etc. is a big headache and a waste of time. Both for users and admins. That's why most of sourceforge good projects have their other domains.

P.S.
Btw, somehow wxWidgets etc. users are not confused. Smile

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2. Add a “New Users Guide”: Very simple, but it would explain the basics to new users. First a VERY basic feature set that hooks the reader and makes him want to read more. The guide would point them to the forums, wiki, tutorials, and Assist++. It would do a very basic overview of TheIDE. There is some good information out there, it just needs to be compiled into one place and labeled for new users.

You (and anyone) can start writing (and editing) it here on forums. I'll make it sticky.

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3. More user interaction: Mirek, you have been awesome helping me. But I’m afraid if we get a lot of new users you won’t be able to help everyone. It would really help if some of the people familiar with U++ would stand up and be a little more active in the forums.

How many "familiar with u++" do we have here?
And how long does it take to become "familiar"?

P.S.
After some intensive 6 months I'm still not confidently familiar with u++. Because it's a Guisberg... Smile

. On the other hand, do not expect a lot from other (on average 15) regular forum visitors. 10 of which are regularly changing newbies...
Also, there was an opinion that u++ users prefer not to participate in forum communications...

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4. Put help menu in TheIDE: Yea, I know there’s plenty of good stuff built-in. But there is no help menu. New users will hit the F1 key and look for the help menu in the top right of the menu bar. F1 doesn’t do anything and there’s no help menu. I suggest moving at very minimum “Help Index” and “About” to the help menu.

Fixing F1 help is against PR "strategy" and you can do nothing about it... Wink

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5. Describe and screenshot examples on website: New users that have no clue about U++ API typically have no clue what the examples are doing. Explain the code (simple is fine).

Who can and has time?

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6. Make packages for Linux: I know you’ve mentioned this before, but I think it’s quite important. Try to get a package in the Debian repository so users can apt-get it.

Who can and has time (the Debian repository)?

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7. Make it run on Mac: I know it’s on the roadmap. I know it’s going to take a lot. I just think it’s really important.

Who can and has time?

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8. Get some more PR from digg: I see that U++ was dugg once before over 150 days ago. I’ll be glad to submit to digg if there is something “newsworthy.” Note digg users love Ubuntu and Apple- so making a native Debian package (that can be gotten with apt-get) and Mac version would be huge.

Who can and has time?

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9. Wikipedia article: Mirek posted that this was needed back in February. I say why not?

You (and anyone) can start writing (and editing) it here on forums. Then we will post it. Otherwise, some language and PR strategical mistakes might be fatal... Smile

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10. Setup development “blog”: New users (and Google) love to see news on the main page. It makes the project look alive. Basically, someone (a developer, a PR person, or a programmer) needs to post dated material to the site.

11. Make website more search engine friendly: Ok, I saw that this has been discussed on here before. I would definitely go towards a CSS-based site with emphasis on heading tags and compliant markup. You’d be surprised how much it helps (I used to work for a web host). But not really a big deal, I think the website is fine visually.

I think those 2 last things are the most important if you have skills and understanding. I've spent a lot of time experimenting here on arilect with different software for these kind of purposes but didn't want to make those experiments public (partly due to possible confusion you mentioned in the beginning Smile

)

What could you do? And where your heart lies?
P.S. Web...? Smile

Edited:
Aris.

[Updated on: Fri, 28 July 2006 05:24]

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