New design of the website

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nowind_lee
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:11 am

New design of the website

Post by nowind_lee »

I think the www.ecere.com's frontpage needs to be improved, it's complex and not easy for new visitors to find the information they need. And ... it looks like it's unmaintained.

So my suggest we should improve the front page, it should be simpler and clearer. I have designed a simple prototype, please see the picture below:

Image

I'm not very good at web page designing, but I would help if you ask.
jerome
Site Admin
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:16 pm

Re: New design of the website

Post by jerome »

nowind_lee,

I love our current front page, and I'm very attached to it, we designed/worked quite hard to get it done that way :P

But I must admit you're right, and I like how your design gets straight to the point.

Help is always appreciated. We're planning website improvements anyways.

The key things we want to improve on the website:

- Redo the 'Learn More' section (technical overview), including a straightforward introduction to what the eC language is like and why you might want to learn and use eC
- Redo the Action Gallery ( demos / screenshots ) and Applications

We could fit in some overhaul of the front page as well as part of that.

I really liked hour reflective floor layout and a Big Download button though, do you think we can keep that? And our new mascot Oliver the Sea Otter :D

-Jerome
nowind_lee
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:11 am

Re: New design of the website

Post by nowind_lee »

Oliver should be kept of course, but the "big download button"...

I think I won't download it before I see some screenshots or try some sample applications. Because downloading will cost me:

1. download it
2. install it
3. try it ... But can do nothing before I learning it.

I think the visitors would like to know:

1. What kinds of applications can Ecere build? ( Screenshorts and sample applications )
2. What's the language looks like? ( Some sample code with syntax highlight )
3. Is it hard to learn it? ( A Quick get started guild )
4. If I'm interested in, I will download it
nowind_lee
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:11 am

Re: New design of the website

Post by nowind_lee »

So what can I do now? Improve the design, or wait?
jerome
Site Admin
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:16 pm

Re: New design of the website

Post by jerome »

The thing with design is that it is very hard to please everyone :D

Of course you can improve it, but I wouldn't want you to be upset if we end up changing it or going in a different way...

Also we had a thought that this could be the layout for the Community Wiki first page, what do you think? Maybe it could be at http://ecere.com/sdk/

One worry is whether your design will accommodate all the contents the main page currently links to (Even though at the moment, a lot of those links on the front page point to temporary contents, and we might get rid of some links)

About the Download button, as a home page for a piece of software, I still want to have an easy big download button to:

1. Make it clear that the software is readily available, for free
2. Make it easy for people who already know and use the software and want to install it on a new machine, or upgrade to a new version
3. If the rest of the page is convincing enough, e.g. with your design that makes it so clear that Ecere is what everyone sohuld use, one might want to just install it and try it out (The SDK comes with the programmer's guide, samples, API reference, the IDE which has a relative intuitive interface for creating new projects and bringing up the form designer)

What I liked about my reflective floor design was that it scales nicely to big displays, taking up the whole space, yet still looks fine on small resolutions.

I think your page design is kind of what we want for our 'Learn More' page.

Regards,

Jerome
nowind_lee
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:11 am

Re: New design of the website

Post by nowind_lee »

:cry:

I think I'd better just be waiting.

A bad news, I just joined a QQ group in China, which was created 3 years ago. But there is nobody talking about Ecere anymore.

Jerome, are you creating Ecere all by yourself? Is there a team?
jerome
Site Admin
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:16 pm

Re: New design of the website

Post by jerome »

nowind_lee,

There was a lot of people in those QQ groups (there was more than 1 because it was limited at 99 users), but there never was much serious discussion about Ecere there.

The development team is me, Redj, and whoever else is willing to contribute.

Cheers,

Jerome
redj
Posts: 105
Joined: Sun Jan 17, 2010 10:03 am

Re: New design of the website

Post by redj »

hey nowind_lee,

ni hao? is it? :)

Our wiki is back online and I've done a bit of freshening up. Thank you for your website design suggestion. As you can see on the wiki's main page I've tried to follow your design a little bit.

See the updated Ecere SDK Detailed Overview page as well!

I will continue filling the main page, the quick overview page and especially the start-up guide pages in the next week.

Have a good day!

-redj
jerome
Site Admin
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jan 16, 2010 11:16 pm

Re: New design of the website

Post by jerome »

Hey guys, what do you think of the new wiki?

http://www.ecere.com/wiki#Ecere_SDK
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