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The JDT project website [1] is not up to date. For JDT core it refers to Eclipse 3.7 in "What's happening". There is also no comprehensive website that shows all features of JDT. The Eclipse Help center (namely Java development user guide) is incomplete in this regard as well. The Java tools are certainly THE core of the Eclipse IDE and as such the Java tooling needs an adequate website with a decent look-and-feel - and content. Hereby I propose to pay (i) a web designer to build a decent Java Tools website that matches todays user expectations, and (ii) one or many documentation writers that provide a recent and comprehensive manual of the current JDT features. [1] https://www.eclipse.org/jdt/
(In reply to Marcel Bruch from comment #0) > The JDT project website [1] is not up to date. For JDT core it refers to > Eclipse 3.7 in "What's happening". There is also no comprehensive website > that shows all features of JDT. The Eclipse Help center (namely Java > development user guide) is incomplete in this regard as well. > > The Java tools are certainly THE core of the Eclipse IDE and as such the > Java tooling needs an adequate website with a decent look-and-feel - and > content. > > Hereby I propose to pay (i) a web designer to build a decent Java Tools > website that matches todays user expectations, and (ii) one or many > documentation writers that provide a recent and comprehensive manual of the > current JDT features. > > > > [1] https://www.eclipse.org/jdt/ If a redesign is done, then it should be made for all web pages, at least for the Eclipse top-level project and it should match with the overall design of eclipse.org.
It has been discussed on ide-dev. Ian can provide marketing budget to create a decent website design for the IDE [1]. CDT (Marc, Doug) [2,3] and JDT (Dani) [4] agreed the can provide content for that page. [1] https://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/ide-dev/msg00820.html [2] https://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/ide-dev/msg00821.html [3] https://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/ide-dev/msg00823.html [4] https://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/ide-dev/msg00848.html
+1 I think we can solve this without using FEEP funding. I can help fund the graphic design but JDT and CDT will need to provide the content.
I like the idea of redoing the JDT project page to bring it up to date, but I'm wondering what is the target audience for this, and what we expect to get out of it?
(In reply to Pascal Rapicault from comment #5) Target audience: All Java and C developers how want to OR consider to use Eclipse as IDE. I'm mostly thinking of new or almost new users first. Team leads and mangers my be second. Long term users are secondary as well but could benefit from comprehensive New and Noteworthy pages. IMO the web page should address two issues. First, it should deliver a professional front page of the products with key feature highlights etc. Second, it should contain a comprehensive reference of all noteworthy features of the product. It may be worth discussing whether it should actually be a reference manual (reference manual means *everything to know* about a product should be in this manual) versus a key feature overview (key features are a selection of interesting elements but, by nature, will be incomplete). I prefer having a reference manual AND listing key features only on the "marketing part / front pages" of the web site - likely with a ”read more" link to further information. I'd also propose to have a blog directly integrated into these websites since I feel uncomfortable with finding manual-like blog posts in dozens of blog posts scattered all over the world. Instead I'd invite users to share their articles directly at Eclipse.org (as done in the early days of Eclipse for articles about how to use Eclipse framework/technology x - but this time for documentation) At the end of the day I'd like to see that users get the feeling of a commercial quality product (for C and Java) - which IMHO they don't have when looking at the current JDT web page (no pun intended). To be honest: We are going through this process for ctrlflow.com. From my personal experience I strongly believe that the content design and final say on what goes on which page, is a task that should not be 'managed' by a developer. And it's time consuming. Committers are great in finding the content and proposing the initial content but professional (documentation) writers should make a pass over the text. To be clear (and maybe by being too offensive): There is not one Eclipse committer I know of who has the writing skills needed to complete this task alone. In addition there is not one committer who, in the past, invested the time needed to keep his own project web page up-to-date. This is a product manager's duty. But Eclipse committers are technical leads. Technical leads see the need but don't have the time nor the ability to drive the changes needed for this - and keep on track. Ian, as outlined in the above paragraphs, I don't think that providing the initial design skeleton will be enough to ensure the page looks like a "professional product" and stays so. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
(In reply to Marcel Bruch from comment #6) > It may be worth discussing whether it should actually be a reference manual > (reference manual means *everything to know* about a product should be in > this manual) versus a key feature overview (key features are a selection of > interesting elements but, by nature, will be incomplete). BTW, how does the idea of a reference manual relate to the help pages we already maintain? There're tons of valuable information which only few people seem to read. Shouldn't we think of integrating this with redesigned web pages and thus further encourage committers to keep their help pages fresh?
I agree with you entirely. Committers will be great to list the features which should be highlighted on the product page, but not at writing content. Since we seem to be agreeing that EPP packages are products, then I think we need a number of distinct product pages. I would first start with the Java IDE and the C++ IDE; both being separate; like the two products that they are.
(In reply to Marcel Bruch from comment #6) > (In reply to Pascal Rapicault from comment #5) > Ian, > as outlined in the above paragraphs, I don't think that providing the > initial design skeleton will be enough to ensure the page looks like a > "professional product" and stays so. But I'd be happy to be proved wrong. LOL, you have little faith. There are some Eclipse projects that do a very nice job. Xtext, Eclipse Smarthome, Eclipse PDT, Eclipse Sirius comes to mind. One thing I do know, is developers are very opinionated about what is good marketing and web design. Also developers will have widely different opinions on what is good marketing and web design. Eclipse projects are empowered to make their projects successful so if they aren't leading this initiative to create a good web site then it won't be successful. The good news is that JDT and CDT appear to be keen on trying to improve their web sites so I am more than happy to help where I can. Hopefully they will prove you wrong.
(In reply to Ian Skerrett from comment #9) Ian, I really like the pages you mentioned. Is there a way for the other projects, to reuse the material in Sirius, Xtext, Smarthome or PDT homepages ? > One thing I do know, is developers are very opinionated about what is good > marketing and web design. Also developers will have widely different > opinions on what is good marketing and web design. Eclipse projects are > empowered to make their projects successful so if they aren't leading this > initiative to create a good web site then it won't be successful. As contributor to one Eclipse project, I suggest to avoid having heavy pages containing both documentation "for developers" and "getting started" documentation. If you search for new contributors / adopters, you'll need to have a very good / easy to spot "getting started" section, in your homepage. (it a first time visitor can not spot the existence of stgh., it ~does not exist ;) As example, looking at the Xtext page, you'll see they have a big section with very clear getting started videos. Then the specific documentation is apart, to the top of the window. > The good news is that JDT and CDT appear to be keen on trying to improve > their web sites so I am more than happy to help where I can. Hopefully they > will prove you wrong. For main website, the Project leads should agree on which are the key points to highlight in their homepage. If the project is actively searching for more adopters and contributors, it is good to have a very good section to introduce the new technology, and to explain how to use the main artifacts/modules. Concluding, as tech-doc reader, I think it is important to have a good visual impact: - to clearly understand the contents - to easily remember the key points PS: I'd like to contribute, with a some getting started video for JDT and CDT.
> I really like the pages you mentioned. Is there a way for the other > projects, to reuse the material in Sirius, Xtext, Smarthome or PDT homepages > ? All of the web content on www.eclipse.org is available through git: https://git.eclipse.org/c/www.eclipse.org/xtext.git/
> All of the web content on www.eclipse.org is available through git: > https://git.eclipse.org/c/www.eclipse.org/xtext.git/ Sorry, that should be: https://git.eclipse.org/c/www.eclipse.org/Xtext.git/ XText uses a build job on Hudson to build their website... But Sirius and SmartHome do not: https://git.eclipse.org/c/www.eclipse.org/sirius.git/ https://git.eclipse.org/c/www.eclipse.org/smarthome.git
What I'm trying to get to is not about the look and feel but it is about breadth and depth of the content. It is my understanding that around the IDE we no longer want to communicate in terms of projects, but instead in terms of *products*, a complete solution to perform a set of development tasks. Therefore I think that what we need to build is a "Java IDE" page, a "C/C++ IDE" page that talk about the key features of the IDE but also all the integrations that are possible featuring the ecosystem. This is not to say that the JDT page should not be improved but in such a scenario they should only be talking about project development, how to get the code, etc. Also these pages could then be used as doc / feature description for the EPP packages rather than pages such as http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/mars1
This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet. If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant. -- The automated Eclipse Genie.
This issue has been migrated to https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/issues/213.
