[News.eclipse.technology.packaging] Re: Downloads page is confusing - qu

[Markus Knauer <mknauer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Kevin,

as a first approach, I've created 3 categories: release, milestone, nightly
builds. These are linked from the main EPP page http://www.eclipse.org/epp. 

All 3 pages contain links to the other categories: The main eclipse.org
download page lists the Ganymede Milestone packages in the top right
corner, the EPP milestone and EPP nightly build pages contain links to each
other.

And last but not least the menu on the left is pointing to the milestone and
nightly builds.

At this point, I cannot change the naming too much, because these pages are
linked from many places.

Stay tuned (and send comments), there will be more changes in the next
weeks.

Thanks
Markus




Kevin McGuire wrote:

> Hi Markus,
> 
> Thanks for the reply.  I do think the packagings are the way to go so am
> happy to provide feedback and ideas.  I want to see this stuff successful!
> 
> In your reply you pointed me at the milestone page, which I didn't know
> existed.  This is really what I was looking for, so we're actually close!
> 
> Some comments/suggestions:
> 
> 1) I never found that milestone page. You've added the link from the
> downloads to the milestone page and that would've solved it for me.  It
> could also be added to the "Important Links" list on the left hand side.
>   It may need to be sprinkled in other locations (e.g. see #3 and #4).
> 
> 2) The URLs are a bit misleading because the daily build page is called
> "\downloads" so I was expecting to find everything there (or rather,
> didn't believe that another page existed).
> 
> 3) As you noted, other projects should point to the milestone page.
> This should be promoted as the "public" entry point, with the current
> downloads (daily) page providing build health feedback to the teams.
> 
> 4) On the main EPP page (http://www.eclipse.org/epp/), the "Downloads"
> link in the left hand side (dark blue nav list) points to the daily
> builds.  I'd suggest it point to the milestones page instead, with the
> the milestone page having a link to the daily builds.  Again, first stop
> for consumers should be milestone so this page should be promoted.
> 
> 5) The main Eclipse downloads page (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
> gives all the Europa packages but I couldn't find a link to the current
> milestones.  But then, maybe you don't want to do that, with the idea of
> splitting "consumer level" products from "developer testing" milestone
> builds.  Dunno.  This split is something that we've never properly
> established in Eclipse.  Mind you, I think the great opportunity for the
> packaging project is exactly around making this division clearer.
> 
> Best Regards,
> Kevin McGuire
> 
> Markus Knauer wrote:
>> Hi Kevin,
>> 
>> that's what I like to hear... in fact, these are the first comments on
>> those download pages. Well, I would have preferred something like... hey,
>> everything looks pretty good. But at least there are many suggestions on
>> how to improve the pages. Thanks.
>> 
>> See my comments in the text below.
>> 
>> Markus
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Kevin McGuire wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi guys,
>>>
>>> I'd like to be a good sport and try out the EPP projects because I think
>>>   they're a great idea.  But I find the EPP downloads page
>>> http://www.eclipse.org/epp/download.php
>>> confusing and I couldn't actually download what I was expecting I could.
>>>
>>> Some comments:
>>>
>>> 1) Should be organized by project:
>>>
>>> The reason that I went to this page is not that I care about every EPP,
>>> but that I care about a particular one. In this case, I was referred
>>> here by the webtools 3.4 M5 page
>>>
>>
http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/downloads/drops/R3.0/S-3.0M5-20080218021547/
>>> that asks if folks could please try out the EPP project occassionally.
>> 
>> Cool.
>> I didn't know that they already have a link to the EPP pages.
>> 
>> 
>>> The resulting EPP page thus confused me initially because I was
>>> confronted with a table with build IDs along the top.  I'd suggest that
>>> there be a different build/download page for each packaging project to
>>> focus on the packaging the person cares about - less overwhealming and I
>>> could've been linked to the right spot from the webtools page.
>> 
>> Well, my thoughts when I created that page were quite different. I wanted
>> to create a page which allows to see the build status (red/green) at a
>> first glance.
>> 
>> => I will talk with the webtools people and see what we can do. At least
>> we should clarify the meaning of this 'nightly build page' and the
>> 'milestone release page' (www.eclipse.org/epp/ganymede.php)
>> 
>> 
>>> 2) Couldn't find the download:
>>>
>>> If I click in the table on the topmost "Success" for say JEE, or any of
>>> the other successes, I get what appears to be the build result script.
>>> Where's the actual download?
>> 
>> Correct. I knew that before, but I had no time to change that in the
>> scripts that re-generate the page content after every build.
>> The download itself is on a separate download page that is linked from
>> the build id. I have to admit that this is not really intuitive ;-)
>> 
>> 
>>> 3) Missing milestone granularity:
>>>
>>> I really don't want to download a nightly build, what I'd like to
>>> download is something that represents a given milestone of the contained
>>> projects, just like I would for those individual projects.  That way
>>> there's at least a chance that it'll work, and there's something known
>>> to log bugs against. But the table only shows the last four autobuilds
>>> that only takes me back two days, and I didn't see an archive.
>> 
>> Yepp. You are right again - this is not clear on this page. As a quick
>> fix I've added a note on the top of that page that points to a location
>> with the 'stable' Ganymede milestone releases.
>> 
>>> So in total the page was a complete failure for me, which is a shame.
>> 
>> Let's try to change this!
>> 
>> 
>>> The more we can increase the consumability of this page, the more we can
>>> increase use of the packaging projects prior to GA, which seems a good
>>> thing.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Kevin
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks again for the comments. I'll work on an improvement, but let us
>> know if you have more suggestions.
>> 
>> Markus
>>