Bugzilla – Full Text Bug Listing
| Summary: | Eclipse project downloads hard to find | ||||||||
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| Product: | Community | Reporter: | John Arthorne <john.arthorne> | ||||||
| Component: | Website | Assignee: | phoenix.ui <phoenix.ui-inbox> | ||||||
| Status: | RESOLVED FIXED | QA Contact: | |||||||
| Severity: | normal | ||||||||
| Priority: | P3 | CC: | bjorn.freeman-benson, caniszczyk, carolynmacleod4, daniel_megert, eclipse-bugs, eclipse.dserodio, Ed.Merks, elecharny, eric, gunnar, ian.skerrett, irbull, karl.matthias, mark.melvin, martinae, matijs, mik.kersten, Mike_Wilson, milesparker, mlists, nathan, pascal, remy.suen, slewis, snorthov, steen.lehmann, wayne.beaton, wmitsuda | ||||||
| Version: | unspecified | ||||||||
| Target Milestone: | --- | ||||||||
| Hardware: | PC | ||||||||
| OS: | Windows XP | ||||||||
| Whiteboard: | |||||||||
| Bug Depends on: | 130150, 208422, 227551, 229969 | ||||||||
| Bug Blocks: | |||||||||
| Attachments: |
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Description
John Arthorne
A good starting point might be to make it easier to find the Eclipse project download page from the Eclipse project home page. If I go to eclipse.org/eclipse it is not apparent how to find your download page. In fact, the one link does not point to the project download page but points to the main eclipse.org download page. Also, if you look on eclipse.org/projects the link for the Eclipse Project download results in a 404. I believe the project-info data is out of date. > In fact, the one link does not point to the project download page but points to > the main eclipse.org download page. Good point. This used to make sense when the SDK download was featured on the main download page, but it doesn't any more. I have updated this to point to http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/. > Also, if you look on eclipse.org/projects the link for the Eclipse Project > download results in a 404. I believe the project-info data is out of date. I don't see a generic downloads link in the project-info.xml file, but I think this is now driven from the portal. I'll try to track down a PMC member. (In reply to comment #2) > > In fact, the one link does not point to the project download page but points to > > the main eclipse.org download page. > > Good point. This used to make sense when the SDK download was featured on the > main download page, but it doesn't any more. I have updated this to point to > http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/. I think such a link needs to be more prominent. I just spent a good half-hour trying to find it, and ended up typing it in manually. I was looking for the RCP Runtime Binaries, which are hard (or impossible?) to find from the regular downloads page. The RCP downloads from the regular downloads page all link to the RCP SDK.
> > Good point. This used to make sense when the SDK download was featured on the
> > main download page, but it doesn't any more. I have updated this to point to
> > http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/.
>
> I think such a link needs to be more prominent. I just spent a good half-hour
> trying to find it, and ended up typing it in manually. I was looking for the
> RCP Runtime Binaries, which are hard (or impossible?) to find from the regular
> downloads page. The RCP downloads from the regular downloads page all link to
> the RCP SDK.
John, do you know why the RCP binary download is not on the eclipse project download page. I seem to recall it was there at one time? Also, it seems like eclipse.org/rcp should have a link to the RCP downloads?
In general, if we have too many options on the main download page, we then get complaints that it is too confusing. IMO, we are getting close to have too many options already. Therefore, I think we need to make sure the individual project pages have clear links to their own downloads. For example, if you look at Mylyn, BIRT or EMF project pages it is pretty clear.
IMO I think the Eclipse project pages could do a better job of making it more obvious how to get their various downloads.
> John, do you know why the RCP binary download is not on the eclipse project
> download page.
The RCP binary download *is* on the Eclipse project download page (download.eclipse.org/eclipse/). I think Steen is referring to the main downloads page (eclipse.org/downloads/), which contains the EPP RCP package, but not the RCP binary download.
Don't bring back the SWT/Equinox/RCP ect downloads, concentrate on the 'popular' download We lost one of our most important features: Have users follow the I-builds. It's not only adding coolness to Eclipse (always something new) but is also important to get valuable feedback. I even think the fast user feedback was one of the keys to success. It must be advertised! This is how I would modify http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ Last item: Eclipse Classic - Windows The classic Eclipse download: the Eclipse Platform, Java Development Tools, and Plug-in Development Environment, including source and both user and programmer documentation. Find out more... Latest Release: 3.3.1 (new!) Development: 3.4 Stream Integration Builds Maybe also the other EPP packages could offer link to the corresponding development streams. Or even offer the whole packages from development streams? Of course thats extra coordination work, but it really pays out in the quality of the product. Note bug 205136 deals with one aspect of this general problem (users who aren't on platforms for which EPP is built) This is clearly a regression from the previous sites. From one side, the current download page is perfect for newcomers, but on the other side, if you were to use an older version (yes, I do : 3.3.1 is not the one I like to work with, it's far too buggy compared to 3.2), then you have no other way than googling to get a pointer to http://archive.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/. It's exactly the same thing for http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ : no way to find it when it was a very interesting page for those who wants to get burnt by then latest releases. Regarding the main download page, I don't see any reason why having a link to 'previous versions' or 'bleeding edge versions' could be confusing... I just hate to spend half an hour to look for something which should obviously be present on the download page... > 3.3.1 is not the one I like to work with, it's far too buggy compared to 3.2
Too buggy? That's not at all what I experience. You have to file bugs!
But I agree with the rest of your comment :-)
(In reply to comment #10) > > 3.3.1 is not the one I like to work with, it's far too buggy compared to 3.2 > Too buggy? That's not at all what I experience. You have to file bugs! I'm just filling two bug reports atm :) Ok, 'too' means 'it has regressions ...' *** Bug 211134 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** Everyone is beating us up over this, so let's do it. I think something that's bothering the Phoenix team is that http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/ looks a little too old-school. Would it be reasonable to request the page be updated to look like the rest of our site before we add this fabled "All Versions" link? Nathan is also willing to help update the page if need be. Noooooo! *Please* do not change http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/ !!!! It is readable, accessible, familiar, not too crowded, just the right level of stuff, etc, etc, etc. *PLEASE* just point to it! Does anyone else here like the little mock-up I attached to the (dup) bug 211134 ? Please read that bug - I put my heart and soul into it. ;) Also, http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/ is auto-generated by our releng team. You could mess things up spectacularly if you touch it. If it ain't broke........ Good lord! Make the milestone and integration builds easy to find. We rely on the community to run and test our work in progress and making it hard to find is a bad thing for the quality of Eclipse. oldschool is not always (In reply to comment #13) > Everyone is beating us up over this, so let's do it. I think something that's > bothering the Phoenix team is that http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/ looks a > little too old-school. I agree with the others. This page is perfect as it is. Please don't change it. It can only get worse... I think by "old school" he just means it has blue/grey separator bars instead of Phoenixy purple bars ;) (In reply to comment #13) > Would it be reasonable to request the page be updated Ya'all coulda just said 'no'... So there. I did it. > Ya'all coulda just said 'no'... I wanted to make sure there was no time-consuming discussion about it <grin>. > So there. I did it. Great! Thanks! (In reply to comment #14) > Noooooo! *Please* do not change http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/ You might want to keep an eye on bug 208422. The page *structure* can stay what it is, but the page is darn old, ugly, looks nothing like the rest of the site and should be updated. Enough with these old-school monochromatic pages that were put together with vi!! (although they do look fantastic when I view them with telnet/lynx). I find it pretty lame that 99% of the web site has been converted over to the new Phoenix skin but not this project download page. Why should this page be treated as special? If the Eclipse platform project needs help converting this page, I am sure we can find resource to help with the conversion. The title of this bug is "Eclipse project downloads hard to find" (which is now fixed), not "download page looks like crap". The discussion should go to bug 208422. I am really sorry, but I have to reopen this bug, because the link is still not visible enough. It really needs to be on http://www.eclipse.org/ under "Useful Links". Call it "Download All Versions" or something. Or call it "Eclipse Classic - All Versions" if you must. Or "Eclipse SDK - All Versions". People are not finding this link, and they need to find it in order to be "bleeding edge" eclipse users (and testers). The current place on the eclipse downloads page under Eclipse Classic 3.3.1.1 is just not visible enough, and it is hidden in a misleading way, i.e. who would think that the magic link to download all versions of eclipse was the teeny font 'All Versions' link that happens to be part of the Eclipse Classic 3.3.1.1 section? Who is going to look for 3.4 M5 there? On the downloads page, the current Eclipse Classic section should be restructured so that it is not version-specific. Something like: Eclipse Classic - All Versions << link: download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads The classic Eclipse download: the Eclipse Platform, Java Development Tools, and Plug-in Development Environment, including source and both user and programmer documentation. Eclipse Classic 3.3.1.1 - Windows (140 MB) Documentation Linux Release notes Mac OS X So, to be clear, I am advocating 2 changes: 1) Add a link to http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads to the "Useful Links" list on http://www.eclipse.org/ *AND* 2) Restructure the "Eclipse Classic" section on http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ to be all about the All Versions page, so that the header itself points to http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads. Have a subsection of this for quick links to 3.3.1.1 specific downloads. Anything we do that discourages enthusiastic users from running on the bleeding edge and entering bug reports reduces the quality of Eclipse. We should fix this. Perhaps the best text to describe this magic link might be: Eclipse Platform + JDT + PDE (The word "Classic" implies "old", and perhaps people might not look there for bleeding edge builds either... and SDK is too ubiquitous and so would be confusing). One suggestion was to call it: "The download formerly known as Eclipse" and represent it with an unpronounceable symbol. <GRIN> - credit to JohnA for this great suggestion ;) +1 for opening this and +1 for Carolyn's suggestions. I always liked our separation 'Latest release' and a 'Latest stable development build' At the moment everything is below the section 'Eclipse Europa Fall Maintenance Packages' which probably nobody understands unless familiar with our build names and release cycles. What about: 'Latest release (Europa Fall Maintenance, November 3, 2007)' - Eclipse IDE for Java Developers - ... - Eclipse SDK (3.3.1.1) And after that 'Latest stable development builds' - Eclipse SDK (3.4 M5) - New! (<a>What's new</a>) I heard that there will also be EPP builds using 3.4. So they would also go in that new section. I completely agree with Martin's assessment of the Eclipse Downloads page. It is bogus to put everything under 'Eclipse Europa Fall Maintenance Packages' particularly as it also says ' - Windows' <grin>. I also agree with Martin that the separation between 'Latest releases' and 'Latest stable development builds' needs to be made clear. I would only make tiny changes to Martin's redesign: Latest releases: Europa Fall Maintenance Packages, November 3, 2007 - Eclipse IDE for Java Developers - ... (EE, C/C++, RCP/Plug-in) - Eclipse Classic 3.3.1.1 Latest stable development builds - Eclipse 3.4 M5 - New! (<a>What's new</a>) - All Versions Notes: - I am ok with the word "Classic" as long as it is only used in the 'Latest releases' section - Obviously, we would want to keep the '(compare packages)' link, and the download sizes, descriptive paragraphs, icons, and 'Find out more...' links; and the 'Windows', 'Linux', and 'Mac OS X' links over on the right - It's ok for each of the package downloads to default to Windows (and to have ' - Windows' beside the title to show this), but please remove the word ' - Windows' after '... Europa Fall Maintenance Packages' - Delete the 'All Versions' link from under Eclipse Classic 3.3.1.1 *** Bug 208381 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** You also may want to rethink the actual set of downloads. I came to the download page looking for something I could install Papyrus UML on top of, preferably the smallest option. I have no knowledge of the structure of the Eclipse project/system/etc. I just want to download something to try out. Hmm, let's see... Java, no. I'm not using Java. Can I only do Java with this? JEE, no. Again, I'm not using Java. C/C++.. Interesting, good to know you can do that with Eclipse. But does this mean I can have Java OR C/C++, but not both? And what about Ruby? RCP/Plugin. No idea what that is. Oh, plugins and Rich Client Applications. Find out more ... and it says: If you are building Java applications, not Eclipse plug-ins, consider Eclipse IDE for Java Developers. Soo... I can make Java applications OR Eclipse plug-ins, not both? Eclipse Classic. Sounds old. Hmm.. maybe I need that. But I don't want source, and it's big. Can I code Java with this? or C++? Now, if I read the signs correctly, you can actually download any of these, and then add other stuff later. If that's the case, then 1. Please say so on the download page. 2. Provide a minimal download. Oh, and the name Classic does seem to suggest it's for those boring people who are too used to doing things the old way. Then again, maybe that's exactly who it's for. PS: The page at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/moreinfo/custom.php actually mentions: From this starting point, using the Europa Update Site, you can add as few or as many of the features produced by the Europa release train as you need. which is good, but also makes the ridiculous statement: The Europa Experience starts with a small download in the form of the Eclipse Platform Runtime Binaries. That's a 138MB download. Not stunningly huge, but calling it small somehow seems to set a different expectation. That's all folks: A newbie's perspective. Created attachment 96353 [details] downloads-page.png Ping. OK, I am going to try this one more time. The "Eclipse Project Downloads" page is still hard to find. I still have confused users on the SWT newsgroup ask me where the latest version of Eclipse is, or why they can't see some new API that someone told them to try out. PART 1: I have attached a mock-up of what I think the 'meat' of the http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ page should look like. I mostly used the ideas outlined in comment 27 and comment 28. I think that Matijs has some extremely valid points in comment 30, but I think that they belong in a separate bug, to be opened after this bug is fixed. Please just fix this to be like the attachment. I have given it my best shot. I carefully considered every word (and every word deletion). Please carefully note each word and link, including the fine print. Created attachment 96354 [details] useful links.png PART 2: I have attached a mock-up of what I think the Useful Links section of http://www.eclipse.org/ should look like. Please just fix this too. Thanks, Carolyn Adding McQ to get his opinion. The summary, "It's hard to find the latest nightly and integration builds of Eclipse on the downloads page at Eclipse.org. This decreases the number of people running and testing our latest code which is bad for obvious reasons." !@#$!@#$%!#% Bugzilla did not add McQ. McQ, please see previous comment. I'm frustrated that this remains an issue. :-( It's clear that it's way too hard to find any of the Ganymede streams, not just the platform stream although it's certainly the most important one. We want people to test Ganymede and a major enabling condition for that is that they can find it. So not only is it way way too hard to find the platform Ganymede stream, it's way hard to find Ganymede period. As I mentioned before, I don't see how we can add so many different options to the download page. It will simply confuse people. We do have a link to the Ganymede Milestone packages in the 'Browse Download' section. Maybe we could create a logo or button to bring more attention to it. I would like to point out that the download page can't be the only way we communicate about Ganymede. If I go to the Eclipse project home page http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ it does very little to give people a reason to download the latest version. I think we've reached a stalemate in the we-want-less-clutter vs. you-want-to-showcase-something-for-a-real-small-audience-on-a-high-traffic-page debate. Let's look at what other outfits like ours are doing: Apache: milestones hard to find http://httpd.apache.org/ OpenOffice - has download right on the home, no milestones, ... http://www.openoffice.org/ ... but the Download tab (like ours) does: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html Mozilla: milestones hard to find http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ OpenSuse: milestones hard to find http://software.opensuse.org/ Ubuntu: milestones hard to find http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download Fedora: milestones hard to find http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora They can't all be wrong, can they? While I agree that the milestones need to be used for testing, I think that the small minority who wants them knows how find them easily. It's unfortunate that we have this terrible habit of cramming our pages with every little bit of information that the large majority of our audience finds 'useless'. I think what Carolyn has proposed in Comment #31 is exactly what is needed here. The problems with the current page (IMO) are: 1) Nobody knows exactly what "Eclipse Classic" is, no matter what version *number* you are talking about. Most of us can figure it out, but new people willing who are looking to contribute to Eclipse will assume it is old and probably not what they are looking for. 2) The only way to get to the magical "all versions" page containing the latest milestones (the only way from the main download links...I know there are links on the right hand side if you look hard enough), which is the version that most developers want, is to click on "All Versions" located in the "Eclipse Classic 3.3.2" section. This implies you are going to get a page showing all versions of Eclipse Classic 3.3.2 - whatever that means... What Carolyn has proposed makes it crystal-clear (at least to me). Thank-you, Mark! I see that I have some comments to respond to. Re comment 35 - Holy cow, Ed, I didn't even know that the Ganymede packages were available for testing (other than the platform, obviously). The link is basically invisible in the "Browse Downloads" box. Let me apologize for not working Ganymede development builds into my mock-up somehow. It could go just under the "Eclipse - All Versions" row in the new section. All it needs is an icon (does Ganymede have one?) and a descriptive sentence, and there you go. Re comment 36 > "It will simply confuse people" That's ok, people are already confused <g>. Seriously, I agree that we need to make it clear that these new things are "bleeding edge" downloads, so that newbies or "just end-users" aren't tempted to download them. (Although I would argue that any stable build of the Eclipse platform is a perfectly good product for any newbie end-user to use). > "We do have a link to the Ganymede Milestone packages in the 'Browse Download' section." It doesn't belong there. It belongs in the new 'Development builds' section. > "the download page can't be the only way we communicate about Ganymede. If I go to the Eclipse project home page..." Please open a bug, but I would argue that people aren't going to go to that page when they want to download something. Re comment 37 > "real-small-audience" How small? Real numbers, please. And no fair counting hits on http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads because as this bug points out, that page is hard to find. > "Let's look at what other outfits like ours are doing..." I would argue that none of those outfits is exactly like ours, because Eclipse is an *IDE*. This means that even the newbie end-users are *developers*. If you really want to do comparisons, let's compare apples to apples... NetBeans: milestones easy to find http://www.netbeans.org/ Click on the great big (orange!) "Download NetBeans IDE" button to get to the NetBeans download page: http://download.netbeans.org/netbeans/6.0/final/ This is a very well laid-out downloads page. 1) It is clear that what you are downloading is NetBeans 6.0.1 - the latest release. 2) The table shows the differences between the "Download Bundles" at a glance - no need to read a descriptive sentence or click on a comparison link to figure out exactly what you are getting. 3) There is a ComboBox for the operating system, so that you do not have to have all of them listed on the same page. 4) There are "Download" buttons to start the download - not links - which makes it clearer that you have crossed the line from "browsing" to "downloading". 5) And what I would like to point out is that it is very easy to click on "6.1 Release Candidate", or "Development" (which looks like it is a nightly build), or "Archive" to get to all of the other downloads. The "Archive" downloads page is very interesting - it also uses ComboBoxes to make the page very minimal. You select the NetBeans version and the build type and then click the "Continue" button and then you are presented with the nice table with the "Download Bundles" and the "Download" buttons. All very clear and simple. The point is that NetBeans treats all of their builds - even the lowly nightly builds - as first-class citizens. We don't. But we should. > "I think that the small minority who wants them knows how find them easily." You are missing the point. Sure, every one of us old Eclipse developers bookmarked the useful downloads page long ago. So why do we keep coming back to this bug report? The point is that people who are just trying to develop their Eclipse plugin, who have a problem and they trip over the newsgroups and ask a question, and someone says "have you tried it in the latest?" or "there's new API that will solve your problem" - it's these people who don't know where the latest is. Or the guy who just wants to see the feature his friends are raving about. Or the guy from Adobe who is an expert in image processing who has something to contribute if he can just find the latest code. Some of these people don't want to ask because they don't want to look like newbies. Some newbies don't even have a clue that there's more out there. If they could just see the magic downloads page, then they would know. The bottom line is this: Do we - or do we not - want people to contribute to Eclipse? If the answer is "we do", then we'd better make it easy for them. Better still, make it an idea that they just trip over... ("Say, look, this download is from yesterday! This is a vibrant community! Cool! Maybe I can implement my pet feature!") > "It's unfortunate that we have this terrible habit of cramming our pages with every little bit of information that the large majority of our audience finds 'useless'." Yes, it is. Let's have a look at http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ to see what we can cut out. The "Browse Downloads" box (I personally find this box 'useless') is almost completely redundant with the sidebar, and I would argue that the sidebar doesn't even contribute enough value to merit being included on a downloads page (particularly as 'Committers' and 'Downloads' is redundant with the menu across the top) but for now, let's assume we keep it. If we move "Bit Torrents" to the sidebar, and the Ganymede downloads link into the center as I suggested earlier, then we can delete the "Browse Downloads" box. Why do we have an ad for Eclipse RCP Training on this page? It is already on the home page. The "Popular Projects" box is good - it should stay. But the "Related Links" box, with it's "Donate" link, is embarrasing. The "Europa" link in this box can be in the "Eclipse <a>Europa</a> Packages" section instead, and 'Newsgroups' is redundant with the sidebar. The Update Manager article and the link on how to become a mirror site are useful, but they can move to the sidebar if it is kept. The bit about the license agreement at the top can be a footnote. Maybe the bit about needing a JRE could be a footnote, too. And the problem extracting a ZIP. And you wouldn't need to tell people to 'select a package below' if there were "Download" buttons instead. We can make all of the "Windows", "Linux", and "Mac OS X" links into a single ComboBox, and include all of the rest of the platforms on it so people can find them more easily. And delete all of the " - Windows" labels. The sentence describing each package can be a hover on the package name, and the download size can be a part of the "Download" buttons' labels. (Can a button label be dynamically updated when the user changes a ComboBox value?) Are we having fun yet? Anyway, I hope I have made enough of a point that we can stop stonewalling about getting the useful links in. Comment #37 is hilarious! Other open source projects make it hard to find so we should too? Please just fix this. I like Carolyn's (I think) well thought out suggestion but any resolution that gets people running the latest will do. I think Carolyn has given this a lot of detailed thought and that we ought to pursue these excellent suggestions. I would be saddened to think that so few users really want to use our milestones to help us test them or to get bleeding edge fixed and new features. I too would like some hard numbers that argue based on data that it's a small audience whose needs should not be met because it will necessarily impact the larger more important audience; keeping in mind that of course those numbers could be distorted by the difficulty of finding the latest and greatest stuff? I find it a little incredible to argue that our target audience (technically savvy developers) would be so easily confused by useful information... (In reply to comment #41) > I find it a little incredible to argue that our > target audience (technically savvy developers) would be so easily confused by > useful information... You know, I totally agree with that statement. I can't possibly imagine how anyone could be confused, but I don't make up quotes like this one: http://dev.eclipse.org/mhonarc/lists/phoenix-dev/msg00822.html Steve, Carolyn, as Eclipse Platform committers, if downloading milestone builds is so important to the Eclipse project team, why are they NOT featured prominently on these two pages? http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ http://www.eclipse.org/platform/ The former being the Platform home page -- linked to from Help/About inside Eclipse, where developers go the copy/paste the Build ID into the bugs they open. There is no doubt in my mind that Carolyn's suggestions are well thought-out, but I simply don't agree that something is in need of being fixed. As often as you say "just fix it" I'll keep arguing "it ain't broken". And come on, using the NetBeans download page to prove that their milestones are easier to find is hardly convincing. Perhaps the word "Developers" means more to the target audience, so I've changed 'All versions' on our page to Development and Archives. How's that? Also, Carolyn, there are many other design suggestions in your comment 39 that I think are great, but beyond the scope of this bug (this one being Eclipse project downloads hard to find, not page layout sucks). Can you open separate bugs for them? > but I simply don't agree that something is in need of being fixed. Sorry, I should clarify: "but I simply don't agree that something is in need of being fixed on the main download page, http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/, which is targeted at end-users and newcomers, all of whom we want to make getting Eclipse as painless as possible." > if downloading milestone builds is so important to the Eclipse project team, why are they NOT featured prominently on these two pages? I guess it's because people are unlikely to go there to download, because there's already a very prominent downloads page. There are 3 links to the development downloads page near the top of http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ but I can open a bug to request that this be made even more clear somehow. As for http://www.eclipse.org/platform/ I suspect that it's also because very few people download the platform by itself without JDT/PDE or CDT, etc. I'll open a bug to add a link anyhow. > I've changed 'All versions' on our page to Development and Archives. How's that? It still looks like it's only for the 3.3.2 download, but thanks for trying. :) > there are many other design suggestions in your comment 39 that I think are great, but beyond the scope of this bug Actually, I'll argue that fixing the things I mentioned is entirely within the scope of this bug. I think that reducing the clutter on this page and making sure that all downloads are accessible from here can make everyone happy - hopefully even the guy Milink quoted who said that NetBeans was easier to download. <g> Let's work together on this, Denis. I think it may be possible to satisfy seemingly conflicting requirements. (In reply to comment #39) > Seriously, I agree that we need to > make it clear that these new things are "bleeding edge" downloads, so that > newbies or "just end-users" aren't tempted to download them. These are the corner cases that we avoid by simply not having links to milestones on a user-oriented downloads page. I've been here since 2004, so the current page reflects the many comments, complaints, insults and feedback from our end-users. > The "Browse Downloads" box (I personally find this box > 'useless') Agreed. I've removed it, and moved the links into the sidebar. Note that the only clutter this removed is at the *bottom* of the page as everything shifted up, but it's a great start. > Why do we have an ad for Eclipse RCP Training on this page? It is already on > the home page. Marketing, Marketing... Where would we be without them. > The "Popular Projects" box is good - it should stay. But the "Related Links" > box, with it's "Donate" link, is embarrasing. Some people greatly appreciate being able to donate money, as they have no time or code knowledge to contribute otherwise. No shame there. > The bit about the license agreement at the top can be a footnote. Maybe the bit > about needing a JRE could be a footnote, too. Funny you mentioned that. Between two office walls we were thinking about doing just that, but our tiny process requires us to open a bug first. bug 227656 > And the problem extracting a ZIP. Actually, that's an IRC FAQ. We would annoy many people by moving it. > We can make all of the "Windows", "Linux", and "Mac OS X" links into a single > ComboBox, IMHO ComboBoxes are typically bad usability and accessibility practices. > The sentence describing each package can be a hover IMHO Key information in a hover is also bad usability. > stop stonewalling about getting the useful links in. That is a bit harsh. I'm simply disagreeing which, as far as I know, is permitted. I think we're making progress here, and certainly healthy discussion ensues from it :) and I'm sure you guys don't just go ahead and change the Eclipse Platform UI every time someone opens a bug to say 'this should be there'. (In reply to comment #45) > > stop stonewalling about getting the useful links in. > > That is a bit harsh. I'm simply disagreeing which, as far as I know, is > permitted. I think we're making progress here, and certainly healthy discussion > ensues from it :) and I'm sure you guys don't just go ahead and change the > Eclipse Platform UI every time someone opens a bug to say 'this should be > there'. Amen to that. I've just read through all the comments and it is fairly obvious to me that this is a matter of opinion. I can't tell you how many feature or API requests I've made in Bugzilla that have been rejected because the owner(s) of that area disagreed about the necessity or appropriateness of my suggestion. Those who are beating up on Denis should remember that its easy for us to fall into the trap that makes us think we are all web-design experts. We are not. We *do* all have ideas and opinions and its good to disucss them in an open forum like this. But at the end of the day, just as there are people who are the gatekeepers of the UI, features, API, etc. of things like Platform, EMF, JDT, etc and those gatekeepers have final say, so goes the web site. It's no different and you don't see me (the user community at large) beating up on the comitters when one of my ideas is turned down or argued against. I'm frankly disappointed that the open discussion and exchange of ideas got a little out of hand and impatient, especially coming from Eclipse committers who understand the importance of carefully controlling changes. Guys, I don't think anyone intended any insult (I know I didn't). However, when the dust has settled, we still have a problem. The problem: It's hard for people to find and download the bleeding edge Eclipse and help with Eclipse testing. The solution: Don't care what actually happens, just as long as it's easy for people to find and download the bleeding edge Eclipse and help with Eclipse testing. How about a single link that is big enough for people to see that says something like, "Living on the edge? Get the latest Eclipse nightly and integration builds here!" It can have a suitable warning if this isn't enough. There is currently quite a bit of discussion on the phoenix list about how cluttered and difficult our web pages are to use. Personally I think we could use a heavy douse of link-whacking on just about every page of our site. I do think it's important to make it easy to download nightly builds, but every project for every new thing seems to want something new on the downloads page. I think we could do with some rethought as to how we arrange the page, but I don't think adding anything additional is going to promote anyone's interest. Frankly the feedback we continue to get in the webmaster box, in publications, on bugs, etc is generally that there is too much on our site, it's too confusing, and people don't know where to start. Getting more feedback for the projects on the quality of builds (ostensibly the reason for this bug) is going to have to come from having a larger and better educated user base. IMHO the best service we can provide to the membership-at-large is to focus our site on providing a great experience to that pool of users--primarily those who are not already coding components on Eclipse. If no one ever begins to use the technology they will never reach the stage of testing a nightly build in a meaningful manner. Nor do we ever want their first experience with our technology to be a nightly build. We do have a complex mix of audiences to serve, it's true. But it's my opinion that we should always err on the side of simplicity unless it can clearly be demonstrated that increased complexity would serve the community better. Toward those ends we have been working on things like the standardized project summary pages e.g.: http://www.eclipse.org/projects/project_summary.php?projectid=eclipse.equinox We could easily add more information to that page to include links to nightly builds. Anyone exploring the project from the /projects/ page in the site should then have no trouble finding nightly builds. These pages are already designed to promote lots of information about a project and it seems to me that this would be an ideal location for this information without further clutter or confusion on the downloads page. (In reply to comment #44) > > if downloading milestone builds is so important to the Eclipse project team, why are they NOT featured prominently on these two pages? > > There are 3 links to the development downloads page near the top of > http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ but I can open a bug to request that this be > made even more clear somehow. > > As for http://www.eclipse.org/platform/ I suspect that it's also because very > few people download the platform by itself without JDT/PDE or CDT, etc. I'll > open a bug to add a link anyhow. Carolyn, would you be so kind as to cc me on those bugs, or post the bug numbers here? In the light of cool URLs, can't we setup a simple URL that everybody remembers and can give out to people? http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/milestones/ I don't mind if we directly link to it from some of the useful links sections. Another potential solution is that the Platform team starts an RSS feed that documents all the builds. People who want to live on the edge can easily subscribe to this feed. I've open bug 227764 to document this. > The problem: It's hard for people to find and download > the bleeding edge Eclipse and help with Eclipse testing. Yep, but the problem is that "Eclipse" no longer means "Eclipse Top-Level Project's SDK". "Eclipse" is bigger than that now and there are about a hundred different projects. The main downloads and the bleeding edge of every one of those projects should be easy to find and help with testing. The "eclipse.org download page" is about the larger "Eclipse", not about the "Eclipse Top-Level Project a.k.a. the Platform". Thus the "eclipse.org download page" is under the control of the Foundation for the benefit of the whole ecosystem. Each project has control of its own project and download pages - http://www.eclipse.org/platform is the Platform team's. I suggest the Platform team modify that page as per comment #37 - go for it! > That is a bit harsh. You're right, and I apologize. Poor choice of words. It was 4am... >> The "Browse Downloads" box > Agreed. I've removed it, That does look better. Do you think that Marketing would be ok with moving the RCP Training ad over to the right, i.e. in the same column with the Popular Projects? (I'm not sure if it would help, but maybe worth a try). > Carolyn, would you be so kind as to cc me on those bugs, or post the bug numbers here? Turns out Ian opened bug 227551 and I was cc'd. I'll add you. Regarding this, I was talking with JohnA yesterday (he has commit rights to both pages) and we'll try to come up with something. Suggestions welcome. I was thinking that we need an icon. Something like "No Fear" or someone diving off a cliff. <g> (Know any good graphics designers?) Then anywhere that links to http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads could have this icon beside it, to give a visual clue that "beyond this point lay dragons". This would make the links on http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ and http://www.eclipse.org/platform/ more prominent. Do you have any data on how many hits there are to those 2 pages? I suspect that the number is pretty small, so I'm not sure that spicing up these pages will help a whole lot to solve the problem, but it's worth a try. On http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ we could pair the icon with a well-worded link, similar to the words in Steve's suggestion in comment 47. The link does need to be separated from 3.3.2 and given a slightly larger font <g>, because it really does deserve to be by itself (maybe with a separating line?). With some carefully-chosen words we can make it clear that you need to know what you are doing if you click on it. Regarding Ganymede testing, and any future moons on the horizon, the M6 link is currently more visible in the sidebar. Ed, do you think this is sufficient? I wonder if we should consider adding a "Test the latest [moon] packages" link to the top of http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads? But that's for another bug. Re comment 50, unfortunately there's more than just milestones on http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads. There's: - milestone builds - nightly builds - past releases - current releases - various other "stand-alone" project downloads, such as the RCP binaries and the SWT stand-alone download, the Eclipse Platform by itself without JDT and PDE, the full set of Eclipse Examples, etc. - and all OS platforms for all of the above What it does not have on it is anything that has been built on top of the Eclipse platform, such as any of the packages delivered with Callisto, Europa, Ganymede. The RSS feed in comment 51 is a good idea, but we really want the fact that 'there are test builds available' to be visible, so that people see the link when they're downloading the product, and they make a note of the fact that the link exists, and test builds exist, should they ever want to investigate. Bjorn, Of course Eclipse is more than the "Eclipse Top-Level Project's SDK". At this point, I give up. We will live with less testing and development downloads that are hard to find, just like all the other open source projects in comment #37. Bjorn has proved a point. Many people agree with him so we must be wrong. Carolyn, please stop trying to be helpful (and insulting at the same time?) and go fix a bug. The time you have spent on this bug report is a waste. Steve The navbar link for the ganymede packages is helpful. The RCP training thing is certainly very distracting (I guess that means it's well marketed) but I'd rather users be distracted into testing Ganymede... :-P > Carolyn, please stop trying to be helpful (and insulting at the same time?)
Now I'm the one causing trouble. Of course Carolyn was not trying to be insulting and neither am I. I just think we should end this discussion and move on.
Hi, Bjorn. My feeling is that nobody ever goes to http://www.eclipse.org/platform. We'll modify it, as well as http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ (bug 227551) but I am not hopeful that it will solve the problem. Steve, I am reopening - sorry. Denis and I are working together to find a solution that works for everybody. My inertia is coming from the fact that I am one of the moderators for the SWT newsgroup (in addition to reading a lot of SWT bug reports). I really do speak directly to a lot of end users. There have been many times when I have had to hand out the http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads link to some poor soul who couldn't find it. Those were rather harsh comments Steve. Thank goodness you were holding back. I'm sure you'll feel compelled to apologize. :-P After all, look at what a conscientious and constructive job Carolyn has done. It seems we're all getting a little frustrated, but I so have to agree with Carolyn. When you monitor the newsgroups, you notice things that you won't notice any other way... (In reply to comment #54) > We will live with less testing and development downloads > that are hard to find, just like all the other open source projects Well, that's no way to react. How about a better solution for everyone? The RSS feeds of new things (comment #51) so that early adopters can subscribe to that? A better Platform team web page (comment #42)? Perhaps an "eclipse.org/earlyadopters" page that lists the latest I-builds and milestones of all the Eclipse projects with a link on the main downloads page to "Early Adopters, Go Here"? Maybe a main downloads page that is customized based on the search keywords used to find it (i.e., if someone goes to Google and searches for "Eclipse IDE download", perhaps the download page has a "looking for the Eclipse Java IDE, click here" link at the top)? I'm for solving the problem of getting the new milestones in front of early adopters for more community-based usage/testing, I'm just against solving that problem by taking over the main eclipse.org community downloads page. (In reply to comment #37) > Fedora: milestones hard to find > http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora I am sorry, but I have to correct this. Fedora is very focused in getting users to help test the distribution and you will notice that the _first_ line after the headline in the central panel has a link to the latest beta downloads page (even before the links to the current downloads). Not that this affects Eclipse in any way, but incorrect data is worse than no data. :) I apologize (sorry CAR!). I'd just wanted to see less effort spent on this bug, that's all. > Agreed. I've removed it, >That does look better. Do you think that Marketing would be ok with moving the > RCP Training ad over to the right, i.e. in the same column with the Popular > Projects? (I'm not sure if it would help, but maybe worth a try). I am fine with moving the logo. I would like to point out the logo is there to support our Member companies. > dragons". This would make the links on http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/ and > http://www.eclipse.org/platform/ more prominent. Do you have any data on how > many hits there are to those 2 pages? I suspect that the number is pretty > small, so I'm not sure that spicing up these pages will help a whole lot to > solve the problem, but it's worth a try. In April, so far the /eclipse page is rank 150 (9000+ hits) and /platform is ranked 110. The data is available on committer tools. However, this is a chicken and egg, if there is no interesting content on these pages, no one will be visiting. By way of comparison WTP is rank 40 and PDT 44. > The RSS feed in comment 51 is a good idea, but we really want the fact that > 'there are test builds available' to be visible, so that people see the link > when they're downloading the product, and they make a note of the fact that the > link exists, and test builds exist, should they ever want to investigate. Maybe you could make the rss feed visible on the project page. So in comment #48 I proposed that we add this information on the project_summary pages. Does that not accomplish getting the information where it's easier to find? I don't see any replies so I'm not sure anyone noticed. IMHO we ought to be promoting the summary pages hard because they do give people a lot of the info they need right in on place for each project, in a standard format. (In reply to comment #59) > to that? A better Platform team web page (comment #42)? Perhaps an > "eclipse.org/earlyadopters" page that lists the latest I-builds and milestones > of all the Eclipse projects with a link on the main downloads page to "Early > Adopters, Go Here"? Maybe a main downloads page that is customized based on the > search keywords used to find it (i.e., if someone goes to Google and searches > for "Eclipse IDE download", perhaps the download page has a "looking for the > Eclipse Java IDE, click here" link at the top)? I like the idea of the early adopters page. It similar similar to comment #50. It would be cool if we could automate this with a series of RSS feeds. Adding these as blockers: 208422 - http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse needs love, doesn't integrate into eclipse.org website at all. 227551 - Eclipse Project Site need more information on how to find downloads Added bug 130150 as a "depends on" for an implementation of the /earlyadopters idea. Bjorn, when I read through the comments, I was wondering if anyone was going to point out that Eclipse and Eclipse Platform + PDE + JDT are two different things, and the eclipse downloads page is about the ecosystem as a whole. I completely agree with you. But then it hit me... Here is an exercise: walk around the average office and ask people (who are currently using the Eclipse IDE: "why they like Eclipse?"). I'm sure you will get answers about look and feel, how well refactoring works, what great CVS support it has, etc... (those answers have nothing to do with: community, the foundation, Ed's blogs, etc...). The point is, most people associate "Eclipse" with the Eclipse SDK + PDE + JDT, and when they go to eclipse.org/downloads (or click on the big orange button that says "download eclipse"), they probably expect to get what *they* consider "Eclipse". As an example, I tried to explain our problem to my office mate today (who is an Eclipse SDK + JDT + PDE user). I used BIRT as an example (which like the Eclipse project it is a top level project). I said, if we put milestone builds for Eclipse Platform + PDE + JDT on the eclipse.org/downloads page then we have to put BIRT ones there too. He said, *NO*. "If BIRT wants milesone builds, they can put them on the BIRT page, not the eclipse page!" He is just one user, but he is probably not alone in his confusion. Even those who have been using eclipse for years probably can't explain the difference between: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ - Ian (In reply to comment #67) > "If BIRT wants milestone builds, > they can put them on the BIRT page, not the eclipse page!" Precisely the problem we are slowly trying to solve. Apache was successful in changing the perception of "Apache == http server" to "Apache == lots of cool stuff" - we are trying to do the same. It's not a quick process. It would have been easier (in hindsight) if the Foundation were not named the same thing as the IDE, but what's done is done. Your office mate agrees with me, actually: the BIRT project can put their milestones on the BIRT page (http://www.eclipse.org/birt) and the Eclipse project can put their milestones on the Eclipse page (http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse). The disagreement is that http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ is not the "Eclipse page" - well, it is "the Eclipse (collective) page" but not "the Eclipse (IDE) page". (In reply to comment #68) > Your office mate agrees with me, actually: the BIRT project can put their > milestones on the BIRT page (http://www.eclipse.org/birt) and the Eclipse > project can put their milestones on the Eclipse page > (http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse). The disagreement is that > http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ is not the "Eclipse page" - well, it is "the > Eclipse (collective) page" but not "the Eclipse (IDE) page". > Exactly! But my office mate does think that Eclipse SDK Milestones should be on eclipse.org/downloads, because in his mind, "Eclipse" is the IDE. So the question: Should our website cater the *expectations* of our users, or should our website correct our users *misconceptions*? Note: This is only one data point, but I think we can (or have) agreed that this naming issue is a problem. (In reply to comment #69) > So the question: Should our website cater the *expectations* of our users, or > should our website correct our users *misconceptions*? Yes. The problem with catering only to the expectations of the current downloaders is that then we optimize for the past and lose the ability to direct our (collective) future. My programmer analogy is writing unit tests: if you write the unit tests for the code you have written, you verify that the code works as written, but you don't verify that the code accomplishes the use cases; hence TDD says "write the tests first" in order to verify the code solves the problem. We need our (collective eclipse.org) website to solve the current and future goals, not just optimize for the past. The project-specific sub-websites are welcome (encouraged) to optimize for their own audiences. That's why I thought my proposal of /earlyadopters with a prominent link on /downloads pointing bleeding edge types to /earlyadopters is a good compromise: it supports the current mis-conceptions (by directing them to a more appropriate page) and it supports the correct future Eclipse-is-larger structure. Over time the early adopters will switch to the other page and we will have two locations for the two audiences. We could even have an earlyadopters.eclipse.org ... My $0,02 regarding Ganymede milestones download: Why don't you have a simple URL: http://www.eclipse.org/ganymede redirecting to somewhere you can download it? Every time I want to download <something> from Eclipse.org, I usually try going to http://www.eclipse.org/<something>, and expect to find pointers in there. This is not the case of ganymede. Until some time ago, you had to go to http://www.eclipse.org/epp/ganymede ("WTF is epp?" most people would say). Now you have to go to "more intuitive" URL: http://phoenix.eclipse.org/packages/ If you search google for "eclipse ganymede" you get a lot of wiki pages and blog posts which DON'T point to ganymede downloads! Actually, the milestones download page only appear in the 7th position! I remember I tried searching months ago, and it didn't even appear in the results. I believe that if even google have difficulties to find it, something is wrong. (In reply to comment #71) > Actually, the milestones download page only appear in the 7th position! I 7th position? Wow, I'm impressed. Have a close look at this page: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ - no use of META Keywords - no META description tag - 'milestones' doesn't appear at all on the page, neither does 'development build', which are more search-friendly than '3.4 stream stable build' Google amazes me sometimes. > > Actually, the milestones download page only appear in the 7th position! > 7th position? Wow, I'm impressed. Have a close look at this page: > http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ He wasn't referring to the eclipse project download page. He was referring to the ganymede milestone page: http://phoenix.eclipse.org/packages/ (In reply to comment #71) > My $0,02 regarding Ganymede milestones download: > > Why don't you have a simple URL: http://www.eclipse.org/ganymede redirecting to > somewhere you can download it? > This is a good idea and I will take the action item to set this up. For now we can point to the EPP Packaging site but for the release we will probably go with something like we did for Europa http://www.eclipse.org/europa. (In reply to comment #69) > So the question: Should our website cater the *expectations* of our users, or > should our website correct our users *misconceptions*? > > Note: This is only one data point, but I think we can (or have) agreed that > this naming issue is a problem. > 'Expectations' or 'misconceptions' is a point of view of the individual. For instance, if you worked for an RTOS or embedded company, your office mate may think of Eclipse as being CDT. Or a company that does lots of PHP, then Eclipse may mean PDT. Therefore, I hope we continue to try to do is make Eclipse be a community for lots of interesting and different 'expectations'. *** Bug 232947 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. *** Just got back from vacation and had a hard time finding Eclipse M7. The header 'Eclipse Classic 3.3.2' with the tiny little 'development' link threw me. Of course you find 3.4 under 3.3 development. (In reply to comment #77) > Just got back from vacation and had a hard time finding Eclipse M7. The header > 'Eclipse Classic 3.3.2' with the tiny little 'development' link threw me. Of > course you find 3.4 under 3.3 development. Good thing you couldn't find it -- I just got an email on eclipse-dev that sais RC1 is out, so you just saved yourself a 140MB download =) Always look on the bright side! With the release of the new downloads page i'm hoping that we can close out this bug. I've tried to make it easier for projects to get some screen time on the downloads page. Now the onus should be on the projects to put there milestone / latest releases up on there homepage / downloads page fields (read update project info meta data fields). The link for the Platform SDK (Classic) download for other downloads is intact as well. I've opened bug 245350 to improve the "Eclipse Classic 3.4 (151 MB)" section. I don't know if it makes sense to re-open this bug or open a new one, but I'm still finding the current approach really unsatisfactory. I'm at Eclipse downloads a few times a week and building screencasts for install process and I still don't get the design; in fact the only way I figured out where the link was was by searching for this bug. So I end up just having people type the url directory directly: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ AFAICT, the only way to get to the milestone releases is to find the Eclipse "Classic" release at the bottom of the page, and then know that "Other Downloads" somehow applies. Meanwhile, there is a call out on the main menu bar for "looking for older versions of source code"? The case where the user would be looking for *newer* versions seems much more common. Miles, note you can also click the "Projects" tab at the top, and then scroll down to find the Eclipse project. I had a similar problem today trying to find the latest milestone of the EPP packages. While the "no special treatment" argument says we shouldn't promote one project over another, I think having a prominent link to newer pre-release milestones of the Galileo EPP packages is important. This is slightly different from the original discussion here so I have entered bug 272978 for it. (In reply to comment #82) > bar for "looking for older versions of source code"? The case where the user > would be looking for *newer* versions seems much more common. I realize you are an exception here, but that is not generally the case. People want old releases *all* the time. We (webmaster@ and emo@) get lots of requests for old versions. I'm not saying it shouldn't be easier to find milestones but labeling it something like "newer versions" would produce no end of exasperation among users. One can imagine questions like, "Why are you showing me old versions?" and "Why are complete packages not available for these *newer* versions." What we have now is a compromise. One that could perhaps be improved, but a lot of caution is needed here. (In reply to comment #84) > (In reply to comment #82) > > bar for "looking for older versions of source code"? The case where the user > > would be looking for *newer* versions seems much more common. > > I realize you are an exception here, but that is not generally the case. > People want old releases *all* the time. We (webmaster@ and emo@) get lots of > requests for old versions. I'm not saying it shouldn't be easier to find Fair enough; I realize that folks with corporate IT or other compatibility issues would be candidates. I'll just add that there are also ;) a lot of cases where relatively casual users need or are directed to milestone builds and there should be a place to get them. Follow-ups to bug 27298. |