Hi Luke
indirectly replying to Steven too.
I like that you are pulling this discussion out of just "looks" of design.
Luke Lollard via Discussion list for the GNUstep programming environment
wrote:
On Tue, May 06, 2025 at 07:56:03AM -0400, Steven wrote:
1. Update the wiki content
2. Update the website content
3. Create a new, default theme for GNUstep
4. Redesign the website
5. Create a developer subdomain
6. Get the word out!
I like this structured approach and share some pain points. The
important thing is content before design first.
I share 1&2 especially because without content there is a limited extent
on how a design may work.
I don't share 3, but I have ideas on this.
I oppose 5, but with good content I might change idea
6 can be done continuously :)
Updating the content includes cleaning up many dead links, outdated
guides, etc. and will drive the structure and visual design. All of
these work together, and some of the rest of this email explains why I
think this order should be used in a little more detail. Please let me
know if I've missed something that should be on this list.
Right. Things are interrelated. We are not a company were you start with
a design and fill in: there are no "contents creators", on the contrary
we must display and evolve what we have and most importantly know the
limits of what we maintain.
I tinker on the site since 2 of its designs and just can note that
certain things don't get out: our community does not produce the content
for it.
In other words, if in 15-20 years certain sections never have seen
significant content creation or update it makes no sense to put them in
a prominent place on the website: it will fail quickly.
I don't think it is described effectively. There's a lot of conflicting
information and confusion about GNUstep on the Internet, and I believe
that's mostly due to GNUstep's own marketing.
On one side it is not so easy to describe GNUstep, but if there is
conflicting stuff, please just reach out to me and let's work on fixing
it until we fix our Wiki account access, I can do it on your behalf.
I think the more important part is updating the information first (1.
and 2. above). The looks don't matter if the content doesn't communicate
effectively.
Correct.
Official GNUstep YouTube channel containing organized playlists
This sounds great. A video demo could even be put on the main page of
the website: look at how [CoreObject][1] did this. Within a few minutes
of first visiting that site, I wasn't confused about what CoreObject
could do. It took me hours to figure out what GNUstep can do. Most
people won't spend this much time researching GNUstep.
Sarcasm: 20+ years on it and I still figure out what GNUstep can do: it
is a lot.
I cringed about the idea of an "official GNUstep channel". What is
"official" and who should work on it?
"official" feels that the content should be done or at least created by
some core members and shared with.
If somebody creates just cool videos out of good will, it might still be
interesting, but less inclined to call it official.
Risk of conflicting info is great.
It is like "official theme" or "official distro".
However, the default theme for GNUstep is repulsive to nearly everyone
who isn't a NeXT enthusiast. Media would be best to update and display
after GNUstep apps look attractive, _by default_. One of the most common
criticisms about GNUstep is that it looks stuck in the 90s. People don't
care that it can be themed, because all they see when they search for it
is the classic NeXT look.
True... but False. e.g. lot of people interested in GNUstep come for the
classic look: just check the two last major prominent desktop efforts
are "classic". Others may want a "modern look desktop" instead.
On the other hand we also know that person who just use GNUstep apps
inside e.g. Debian & KDE wants a smooth integration
But please, please let's keep this "hot topic" out of the discussion of
the web presence! You can also contact me on this personally...
Otherwise things might get out of hand :)
A main "Blog" section on the website would help immensely with news,
announcements, and articles (see my final comment). Although, someone
would need to be responsible for managing the posts in this section. If
the developer blogs were unified, it would consolidate quality content
that can educate others on GNUstep and its progress.
To be honest, a news section once existed, but I removed it, it was
always obsolete.
Then we had various news and blog links in the Wiki, but most are dead,
I removed them, those who are there are "old" (mine included, I must admit).
This has always have been so, sometimes somebody has a burst with a blog
update, but in the long run... no real news.
Old news is much worse than "no news". So I prefer no news section on
the main web site.
ON the Wiki we have a prominent release section, where all ecosystem
apps listed in the wiki can be announced. Not really the same, but it
gives a bit of hear-beat. However, since the wiki was not available for
almost two years, many apps and libraries are obsolete. I started fixing
them and also regenerating the news retroactively, to show that the
project continued to work and we were not in coma for years, just our
web presence!
I don't think this is applicable, since GNUstep isn't a distro. If there
are GNUstep-based distros out there that want to be on DistroWatch,
that's up to them to do.
Exactly. We have no official distribution. I don't know if we even have
any kind of distribution up-to-date currently.
Honestly, I would prefer not to put on the website "non-official"
things, in any case.
Re-launch the [objc retain] campaign
Sounds good, but as far as I know, this wasn't part of the GNUstep
project officially, so it's up to the original authors on that.
As many other things, campaigns efforts, go beyond our "core" team... as
we cannot force contributors to write blog entries, so are campaigns. it
is all organic and is all done for the fun. And should remain fun!
The general feeling that I get is that a redesign of the site was
started, but never completed. This makes the website feel worse than
just sticking with the old design throughout. It failed, and another
redesign is now desired.
Sorry? The style has been applied to most page, if one slipped through,
that's an error... it also means that it is a page that hasn't been
updated in like 15 years? That's either a bug or something that needs to
be tackled
There is an update to the redesign, but it shouldn't "stick out" since
it is more a cleanup and a reorganization.
Some "content" doesn't fit well in the newer design... but that is a
content vs. design issue and should also be tackled.
Please point me to such a page, it would be a "bug". Just send me a
quick note with a link
An additional thought... The main audience that will hit the GNUstep
website now is developers: the average end user never does a web search
for "Cocoa" or "Qt" to find apps. Power users might look it in time, but
that won't happen until more GNUstep apps are created.
Just for the debate: average user might either just look for a random
app and land on a gnustep app "by chance" (not really interesed in GS
itself)
Or he might be setting up some kind of GS environment and looks for
GNUstep apps, more power user perhaps.
For developers, read instead below.
The content I see on the developer.gnustep.com site is documentation
(API reference, tutorials, etc.), but my gut feeling is that this is _a
lot_ more work than improving the main website. Developers won't care
about the documentation if the website doesn't give them a compelling
reason to spend the time to look at it.
Depends on the developer? Someone already involved who knows GNUstep
just looks directly for a specific reference, example or tutorial: Very
utilitarian.
They will not care much about the look but on the content: think about
sites like libpng.org!
Those who need a compelling reason are "potential" developers. Those you
need to appeal to show the power of GNUstep.
Those again might come for different reasons:
Developers wanting to contribute to GNUstep for the sake of OpenSource,
maybe interested in expanding one of the existing desktop environments.
Those may need everything from "hello world" help, to building, theme
integration, whatever.
Others might just want to "use" GNUstep for a port... those possibly
don't care a dime about the whole ecosystem around. They just want it to
be powerful enough, might want to check if it supports this or that
Apple function and from the "looks" arena they maybe just care it blends
to GNOME, Windows, KDE or wherever they think to deeply.
Very different scenarios, just to make you think!
Now I see why you brought up the other thread I started, "Wiki Updates".
This certainly seems to go in line with that, as I am trying to find out
how and where to start organizing projects and tasks for the website and
wiki. I guess I thought the discussion part of this thread was done and
the planning needed to move to something more actionable and accountable
than an email thread. The problem with mailing lists is that things get
talked about ad nauseam, but action isn't taken on what was discussed.
That is a classic problem... copies to forums, chat, meetings... :)
Riccardo
