Re: Moving to a new PEAR website

On Sun, 2011-05-01 at 14:20 +0400, Alexey Borzov wrote: > Hi Michael, > > On 01.05.2011 9:00, Michael Gauthier wrote: > > I propose we replace the existing website at pear.php.net with the new site. > > This will accomplish several objectives: > > > > - better promote pyrus as a tool for managing pear packages > > - let people know there's a pear2 > > - let people know pear is still alive > > - incentivize people to add features to the new site > > This will also break all links to the old site... Of course, rewrite magic you > describe will work, but what's the point of breaking and fixing? > Unless we want to keep the old site forever (look at the code and you'll agree we don't), we've got to get people using the new site. I outlined the reasons I think we should switch in my email. > > Of course the new site is missing several important features, but I think we can > > move over without them, provided we still make the old site available. The > > features we would lose are: > > > > - docbook documentation integration > > - phpdocumentor integration > > - pepr > > - bug tracker > > > > These can all be added to the new site later on. It currently functions quite > > well without them. > > Maybe that's because no one uses the packages hosted there? What are the > download stats for PEAR2? I can't imagine users not needing to read docs and > report bugs, if such users did exist. I spent quite a bit of time myself digging > around before I was able to run Pyrus on recent FreeBSD (detect_unicode problem). > Agreed. No one knows about them or uses them. How can we improve that without exposing PEAR2 more? > That being said, current PEAR website may definitely benefit from a face-lift, > as having year-old "news" on the front page doesn't exactly convey the > impression of a thriving project. > That was the reason for the new site design in the first place. The site design was intended for pear.php.net but since PEAR2 was the cool new thing at the time, the new design went there. In retrospect it was a good decision, because the old site's code base would have made it a much larger task (re: impossible for the amount of volunteers working on the site) to implement the new design. > I think We need to highlight the following on the front page: > 1) PEAR is an installer. You can install packages from the following vendors: > [list of top channels] > 2) PEAR is a library. We have the following high quality components: [link to > packages]. I also think that we need to hide unsupported packages by default in > the ma list. > 3) Next-generation PEAR is here: [link to PEAR2 website, description of top > features] > That's what the pear2 site tries to accomplish. Regarding the site switch, what are you most concerned about losing? - featured packages - pepr - bug tracking - integrated docs We could, for example, fairly easily include all the pear1 packages on the new site. > Also both PEAR2 and PEAR websites look "designed by professional programmers". > PEAR2 is nicer, but that's because it has about zero navigation, when you add > navigation for all features it will become as overcrowded and hard to use as > PEAR one. I'd suggest finding a designer and usability specialist first and > foremost. > I'd be happy to hear your suggestions for the pear2 site. I posted to the list several months ago looking for feedback. The current design was done by designers, i.a. and usability specialists. There is no navigation on pear2 atm because those features don't exist. Designs exist for adding navigation that is similar to the pear1 site.