Re: Software Page -- Version 2

[Bill Tihen <bill@tasis.ch>]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the feedback.  It took a long time to find good colors.  At the end I started giving up.  I think the thing to do would be just to use 2 colors and alternate between them.  Which 2 colors did you like the best?

I didn't play with the table layout until the second version.  I don't know why it would be too wide, but it also printed to wide.  So I did change the table so that I would print nicely.  Tell if V2 looked better. 

I don't want to use the font tag -- it can mess up the printing, but I will try boldfacing the project titles.  Adding a link to the web page is a good idea.  But not a high priority yet.  I don't maintain the official page anyway -- will@seul.org does.  I made this list so I can get going with the teachers at this school.  If it doesn't make it on the seul-edu site I will maintain a list for me and my teachers on my site.

I the naming isn't consistent between my and Wil's web page for getting the software because he links directly to a tar or gziped version.  I didn't want to do that because then the web page needs to be updated with each new release.  So I just link to the ftp site and the person has to choose which version they want on their own.  Maybe the name should be changed to "get_software" that way it doesn't matter if it is tared, zipped, or a source file.

As far as the liscences go -- I must admit I didn't research that very well.  I was too lazy.  I just needed a good list for teachers.  As long as I can use the software without paying I don't care much about the liscence anyway.  So I hope someone else wants to sort out that issue.  I will be glad to fix it if someone else gives me the info.

Thanks for the feedback.  We'll see what Wil does with the info.

On Tue, 3 Aug 1999 17:20:48 -0500, "Ian Bicking" <bickiia@earlham.edu> wrote:
>
> The page layout looked really good.  The colors are all a bit too 
> bright, though -- I think it works well to have different colors, but 
> they should be a bit more subdued.  I like the dark/light/dark 
> column thing, though.
>
> Also, I viewed the first version on a Mac (640x480) and it was way 
> too wide.  A problem with the way the table widths are given, 
> probably.
>
> The project titles (the left-most column) could probably be in a 
> bigger font.
>
> The src/src tarball/download could probably all be called "source 
> page" or "source"/"source .tar.gz"
>
> The title could link to the project web site, even though it's 
> redundant with the links.  There's no reason it can't be redundant.
>
> Maybe the license names could be links to better descriptions.  
> And "license unknown" is easier to understand than (???) if you 
> don't notice the pattern "(License-type)".  With (???) it looks like 
> the description is in question.
>
> So those are just a few thoughts on the layout.  I really like the 
> layout -- it makes Linux educational software look much more 
> impressive and complete :)
>
>
> --
> Ian Bicking <bickiia@earlham.edu>
>