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This isn't a bug as much as it is a dumping spot for the feedback we're requesting on the Old Home Page - http://www.eclipse.org/home/index_old.php The old homepage showed latest announcements, latest spotlights, latest community news and foremost latest plugins (new one and update one). This was very very informative. The new homepage is missing this quick overview that had the effekt of showing latest "eclipse news" on one page. I checked this page every day to see what's happing related to eclipse... Markus ======================================================================= 1. It gives a glimpse of Announcements, Spotlights, New and Updated plugins and Community News in one screen. 2. The big diagram in the new page is good for a beginner to tell about Eclipse ecosystem. What is the use for a daily user? svelganesh ======================================================================= Why do I look at the old home page? It is because the old home page has convenient lists of community news, Eclipse Live, plugin central, etc. The new front page seems to be missing most of these "rolling headlines." Thanks for asking! Eric. ======================================================================= In the new homepage I can not find the link to PlanetEcplise. Best regards Giovanni ======================================================================= Even though I really dislike the new artwork and layout, my biggest problem with the new homepage is no easy access to eclipse documentation. The old page had "Useful links" pane, which let me get to the docs in one click. Hope this helps. Igor ======================================================================= I miss the overview of "Eclipse Plugin Central" and "Community News" to stay informed about the latest extensions. Jan ======================================================================= There is no content on the new home page. The old one had the information all in one page, new plugin releases, announcements, community news, etc. With new have to hunt around to find same information spread over multiple pages. If at all. Gave up looking after a few clicks and just went back to the old home. George ======================================================================= I switched to the old front page layout because it contains more direct links to news (under community news). I also prefer the direct links to the Events Calendar, EclipseLive and PlanetEclipse. Oh, and the direct link to EPIC is useful too. I suppose I could just bookmark all of those, but I prefer to use the Eclipse.org page as as a starting point when I am writing my EclipseSource newsletter every other week. Eddie ======================================================================= This is the first time I've visited your site and was curious to see if the old home page was less bad than the new one. I wasn't getting much info from the new one and was put off by that strange circular graphic with faceless icons. Old one seems much friendlier to my geeky brain. Its clearer as to where you'll end up when you click something. I was able to easily see screenshots and find info on the language IDE's I was interested in. Ellen ======================================================================= Well, I do prefer the old Homepage because it contains for information. I am missing the Eclipse Plugin Central and the Community News sections on the new Homepage - and the huge central circle (Users - Ecosystem - Members - Commiters) is imho a wast of space. Thanks a lot for the great job! Cheers Sébastien
Wow, that's great feedback. So what is the plan? Clutter the new homepage again or create http://www.eclipse.org/news/?
(In reply to comment #1) > Wow, that's great feedback. So what is the plan? Clutter the new homepage again > or create http://www.eclipse.org/news/? > I like the idea of a separate news page for those who would like to have a place to look for a summary of everything at once. Good idea. Gives people that without re-cluttering the front page.
It's too early to talk about a plan... I just want to use this bug to put the feedback in. If you have any suggestions, can you put them in separate bugs? :)
new homepage is not as vivid as the old one (Announcements, Spotlights, Eclipse Plugin Central, Community News...) Erdal ======================================================================= I couldn’t find the store on your new page. I spent about a half hour before I saw that I could revert back to the old webpage and THEN I did find the store. I am getting a gift for a friend who introduced me to Eclipse IDE and is now moving on. Chris ======================================================================= The reason I chose to go back to the old homepage is that I can find what I want easily and the useful links directly. Admin ======================================================================= I use the old page because there i get the latest news on one single site (Community, Plugins(!), Announcements, Spotlights). Gerrit ======================================================================= The new home page has little to offer for experienced Eclipse users. I use the home page to quickly check on what is going on with Eclipse. I look at the Eclipse Live and Resources boxes to see if there is anything new that interests me. I use the Useful Links box to quickly get to Eclipse online Documentation and to the PlanetEclipse site. I also look at the Spotlights and Community News sections to see if there is anything interesting there. With the new home page, I don't have access to any of these things. I have to navigate to multiple pages in order to get to the information I want. Everything is hidden behind some "wiz bang" new graphics. The graphics add very little to the experience. The Switch View button is very confusing. Stick with the old home page layout. Dave ======================================================================= The home page changed in a way I don't like - at least at the moment. And it looks like the Eclipse project moves in a direction I don't like. On the old home page I used only a few clicks and I found the "eclipse project archived downloads" page. Actually, this page is hidden behind a lot of pages that are worthless for me. [snip] In most cases I don't use the absolutely latest and most hype Eclipse edition. Well, and that is why I switched to the old Eclipse home page. In the meantime I found how to navigate to the "eclipse project archived downloads" page, even on the new home page. But, I guess that it takes me more time and more clicks to get there. Markus ======================================================================= I like the old homepage, because it shows me the recent news, plug-ins, resources, eclipse live, etc. Toan Phan
I do not know if it is actually possible for you to change anything on the homepage since the new look might be already agreed internally. But anyways I would like to make a recommendation. Most of the people seem to complain that they cannot see Announcements, Spotlights, New and Updated plugins and Community News on the home page (me too, my comment was the first one mentioned here). Since most of the daily users actually look especially for these information it does not make any sense to show a "kind of homepage for beginners" (mean no harm to anyone). Maybe a good solution would be to revert to the old homepage and integrate the "New to Eclipse?"-box from the new home page. The big diagram is just a waste of space. Maybe, if it is a must to have some "cool" digrams on the new homepage, you could spice up the top "Eclipse - an open development platform"-box, but not as space-consuming as the digram on the new home page. I hope this recommendation will be considered in any way. Regrads, Markus Krüger
Your old home page has significant content, especially recent events and links to subprojects that are not obviously available from the new one. A giant graphic of an oversimplified development process is NOT what I was looking for. I suggest you seek design inspiration from google.com not pets.com. Mark ======================================================================= I've chosen to view the old Eclipse home page because much more information can be caught in a single view. Thank you all for your great work, Chris ======================================================================= I am a technical editor and technical writer. I saw the link on the new home page and was curious. This is my first time on the site and I was wondering what the old page looked like, since you gave me the option. I think I like the new one, but will soon find out. Preston ======================================================================= less static pictures, more information David ======================================================================= I used the old homepage because I am used to it. The new one is a little bit to fance for me with less needed information on the opening page. Holger ======================================================================= I prefer using the old homepage because it gives me * latest plugins * latest community news * latest resources * latest announcements in one page. With the new homepage I have to visit 3 different pages. Lewis ======================================================================= I very much prefer the old style homepage oer the new one since it gives me an instant view on activities around eclipse. sorry for the bad news :) Torsten ======================================================================= I am a Java developer in a small shop and as a hobbiest who sometimes participates in newsgroups of which ever project my work has me exploring, who has submitted an occasional bug report and has donated a couple of my solutions to Eclipse through bugzilla. So where do I start on the new home page? I suppose it irritates me to have to ask myself “what hat am I wearing today” and start exploring. I don’t mean to criticize but the design of the new home page puts me off. Before I saw the link to the old home page I’d either start searching from the home page or just start in Google. The old home page has many links that I casually visit when I have a few minutes to “keep up.” When I am solving a problem some of the “useful links” on the old home page take me right where I want to go. I don’t mean to rant but you did ask. And I appreciate that Eclipse wants our opinion. Bill ======================================================================= I wanted to go to the bug database and I had no idea how to get there from the new homepage. Matt ======================================================================= Hi, webmaster. On new home page it is hard to understand organization logic. It looks good but useless. ======================================================================= it support group is having difficulty viewing new web site in IE7 Thomas ======================================================================= The old layout is easier to use -- it exposes more information and structure than the new page which hides a lot. ======================================================================= The new layout is a much less efficient use of space. Stay with text as much as possible (e.g. slashdot and ibm developerworks). Beng ======================================================================= because I like the old one better. However, for Eclipse Newcomers the new entry page will be probably better... Kristian
At this point, I think we get the message. We likely went too far the opposite direction of 'too much clutter'. I believe Nathan is working on a new home page which will likely be a compromise between too much information/not newcomer friendly and too newcomer friendly/useless for veterans. Stay tuned. In the meanwhile, Nathan, can you change the Request for Feedback notice on the Old Home page to point to this bug? The message could be something like: You have chosen to view our old home page. After <a href to the bug>gathering feedback</a> from our community, we've begun work on a new home page to address the issues.
I like the new Nova homepage a lot! The layout is clearer for me to navigate and I especially like the prominent "Get started now... Download Eclipse" link. The only request I have is that it is still hard to figure out how to search and report bugs. Personally I'd love to see this on the home page (because I want users to search Bugzilla before reporting bugs on the newsgroups, and because I think bug reports are part of the lifeblood of OSS) but at least it should be easy to find on the Users landing page. I can't find it at all on the homepage, and on the users page it is in a font I can barely read.
I've tried Nova on a few of the sites I manage. The /articles landing page looks okay, but the articles themselves don't render well at all. The font size is too small and the headings don't have enough space above. The look is very cramped. I'll see if I can sort out some tweaks to the style sheet. The /resources page needs some tweaking. The "live" graphic is too large and overlaps the table. The /evangelism and /technology pages don't look at all bad. The /examples page looks okay at first glance. I've noticed some different font sizes which I'll resolve. I find that the line spacing doesn't seem to be large enough giving most of these pages a very cramped look. I did notice that on a couple of pages I had multiple "rightColumn" divs which rendered okay on Phoenix, but not with Nova. Once fixed, they worked fine. This is just FYI.
I have not found too many follow-up articles or pages in the same design. The landing page looks nice and even less "CMS-generated" than some of the previous upgrades to the L&F. Also at least this preview on the eve of the worldwide launch of "Project Valkyrie" finally manages to get rid of this Hitler lookalike icon on the frontpage of "Project Eclipse". That is not my personal opinion. Everybody including a whole lot of committing members had that impression without a hint from others. So I'd say "Yes we can" ;-)
The Nova design is clean, elegant, and modern. This is great progress.
(In reply to comment #9) > I've tried Nova on a few of the sites I manage. > > The /articles landing page looks okay, but the articles themselves don't render > well at all. The font size is too small and the headings don't have enough > space above. The look is very cramped. I'll see if I can sort out some tweaks > to the style sheet. I've increased the font size of most elements to .midcolumn this should help > I did notice that on a couple of pages I had multiple "rightColumn" divs which > rendered okay on Phoenix, but not with Nova. Once fixed, they worked fine. This > is just FYI. > you should only have one rightColumn even under the old skin. it works but its really something you don't need to do. Multiple .sideitem are the way to go.
Congratulations, the new Nova looks great! Especially the lefthand navbar seems MUCH more usable thanks to better separation of groups now. The only thing I can't understand, is why we waste so much screen real estate on the top, left and right? - With typical laptop widescreens, the large unused space on top hurts; I've been using the Lazarus theme in the past on my pages to avoid this. Could we have a variant of Nova that's more compressed at the top, similar to what we had with Lazarus?
I think the new page is missing an obvious answer to "What is Eclipse" for those that don't know. The old page had the sentence "Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle."
(In reply to comment #14) > I think the new page is missing an obvious answer to "What is Eclipse" for > those that don't know. The old page had the sentence > > "Eclipse is an open source community whose projects are focused on building an > open development platform comprised of extensible frameworks, tools and > runtimes for building, deploying and managing software across the lifecycle." > I see how this is useful, however i'm not sure how many people come to www.eclipse.org that have no idea at all what Eclipse is about. The first paragraph on the About Us page has the sentence you mention. I'm not sure if adding this text back would be useful to a large enough percentage of the people that come to the website, but let's start that discussion.
I see at least one improvement for the new look and feel, the "other eclipse site" icons : - plugin central -> an RJ45 or RJ11 plug is used, but the site used an AC power plug. - bugzilla -> a magnifying glass is used, but the site used a bug. - planet-eclipse -> a loudspeaker is used, but the site used a megaphone - wiki -> a notepad is used, but the site used a foutain pen
(In reply to comment #16) Agreed. I've entered Bug 261738.
Hi, the new desgin of the homepage is awesome. Good work and thanks to all who participated. Three things left: 1. I would place the "Featured Strategic Member"-Box below the "Eclipse Live"-Box, since a lot of users still have a resolution of 1024x768 and have to scoll down because they just see the "Featured Strategic Member"-Box and mostly none of the "New Plugins"-Box (depending on the image size of the strategic member). 2. There is a Bug in IE7 (Window Server 2003 and Windows XP Professional): The Searchbutton is not fully visible (it seems to go out of the menu bar) and there is a mysterious white space at the left of the Searchbutton (maybe this is the reason why the Searchbutton is not fully visible as it uses some space) 3. Keep the design in all pages! I clicked through "Home - Users - Members - Committers - Downloads - Resources - Projects - About Us" and the design changes for some Items to the old one. Again thanks to all and keep up the good work, Markus
This new home page is great!
(In reply to comment #18) > 1. I would place the "Featured Strategic Member"-Box below the "Eclipse > Live"-Box We like the Strategic Member box just where it is :) > 2. There is a Bug in IE7 Would you open a separate bug for this (and perhaps attach a screenshot)? Thanks. > 3. Keep the design in all pages! I clicked through "Home - Users - Members - > Committers - Downloads - Resources - Projects - About Us" and the design > changes for some Items to the old one. The new Nova theme isn't 100% compatible with all pages, so we're giving projects time to migrate (and it allows us to find bugs in the theme).
I really like new homepage (as of 22 jan). Previously got bored to click "old homepage" every time. Headlines are really important to see overall processes in ecosystem. As a real feedback: Super new homepage web design has very serios and common mistake. HYPERLINKS MUST BE COLORED BLUE AND DECORATED WITH _UNDELINE_ !
(In reply to comment #21) > I really like new homepage (as of 22 jan). Previously got bored to click "old > homepage" every time. Headlines are really important to see overall processes > in ecosystem. As a real feedback: Super new homepage web design has very serios > and common mistake. HYPERLINKS MUST BE COLORED BLUE AND DECORATED WITH > _UNDELINE_ ! > Thanks for your comments, however i disagree that all hyperlinks must be blue and underlined. Even the old phoenix skin has purple links that weren't underlined. We're not in 1999 anymore. I will add underlines to links when you hover over them however.
(In reply to comment #22) > Thanks for your comments, however i disagree that all hyperlinks must be blue > and underlined. Even the old phoenix skin has purple links that weren't > underlined. We're not in 1999 anymore. > > I will add underlines to links when you hover over them however. +1
(In reply to comment #15) > I'm not sure if adding this text back would be useful to a large enough > percentage of the people that come to the website, but let's start that > discussion. +1 for adding the text back. As a data point, look at the home pages of similar entities (http://www.apache.org, http://www.linuxfoundation.org, http://www.dojofoundation.org) - they all have at least one sentence describing what they are.
(In reply to comment #18) > 3. Keep the design in all pages! I clicked through "Home - Users - Members - > Committers - Downloads - Resources - Projects - About Us" and the design > changes for some Items to the old one. > > Markus Home - Users - Members - Downloads - About Us are all now up to date. Committers / Projects / Resources are up next.
(In reply to comment #22) > Thanks for your comments, however i disagree that all hyperlinks must be blue > and underlined. Even the old phoenix skin has purple links that weren't > underlined. We're not in 1999 anymore. > > I will add underlines to links when you hover over them however. > Thanks for understanding. In 1999~ it was extremely popular to color hyperlinks in any bizarre color. Nowadays usability aware designers are likely honor an established hyperlink look. Purple color suggests 'visited link' Anyway you are free to choose any blue-like color tone, and hover underlines are definitely better than no underlines at all.
In the "Nova" look, why is every think on 80 columns (or it looks like it)? It makes user scroll down for no reason. The space on the left and the right of my browser seems wasted.
It seems to me that modern-looking web pages actually do look more like book pages so I'm really happy to see that design feature in the Nova look. Have a look at your own company's web site, e.g., http://www.ibm.com/ And then ask yourself why IBM would choose to "waste" the space? Personally I have one of those really nice wide monitors and those width filling pages just seem dated. I'm pretty sure that the human eye is better at reading narrow lines of text because it's easier to visually track to the next line...
(In reply to comment #28) Thanks for the reply. I had not realized that this was the current trend. I checked the web sites of many other companies's and they all waste space. Oh well. I'll live with that.
FWIW... http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?TenWordLine
I'm going to close this as 'fixed' as we've gathered feedback for the old home page and drew up a new one. Any remaining issues can be discussed in separate bugs. Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback. I really like the new home page!
