| [cross-project-issues-dev] Feature names and descriptions |
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Greetings folks! We're working on some updates to the packages pages. As part of this, we're going to display actual feature information rather than just a bunch of ids. e.g on the "details" page for the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers [1], instead of showing the feature id, " org.eclipse.jdt", we'll show the feature label, "Eclipse Java development tools (binary runtime and user documentation).". We haven't quite decided yet, but we may try to work in the description. I've written a little script to extract this information directly from the features as they exist in the Kepler repository. I've done a quick review, and have found a few misspelling and some other odd things. Since this information is used in other places, I think that it's pretty important to get it right. For example, the description for "Acceleo" (org.eclipse.acceleo) is "Acceleo". I'm not sure that this provides anybody with a compelling reason to install this feature. There are several features with descriptions that seem to assume that the reader will know what it is based on the project name (MoDisco, QVT, and some of the Mylyn subprojects stand out). IMHO, these descriptions should give me a reason to look into the project and find out more. There are inconsistencies in format as well. Some are a few words or a phrase, some are complete sentences, some are short paragraphs, and some use bullets. I'm a fan of providing one or two sentences (no bullets or newlines) to concisely describe the feature. Please take a few minutes to look at your feature labels and descriptions to make sure that the information that you're providing is helpful for your intended audience. Please take a few minutes to makes sure that the descriptions use correct spelling and grammar. Thanks, Wayne [1] http://eclipse.org/downloads/packages/eclipse-ide-java-ee-developers/junosr2 --
Wayne Beaton Director of Open Source Projects, The Eclipse Foundation Learn about Eclipse Projects |