gEDA-user: Mind the user

[Karel Kulhavy <clock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

When a user comes to geda.seul.org, in 90% cases he wants to
draw schematics and make printed boards from them. If he didn't work
with gEDA before, what he wants to do in 90% is draw a simple schematic
with resistor, LED and connector, make a PCB from it and generate
Gerber RS274-X and netlist from that.

So please keep optimizng the website and the software for that. How many
users are there and how many developers?  If the user comes and is not
able to make Gerber RS274-X within hour, something is wrong. In the
current state it takes like 14 days until he learns to skip over all the
unnecessary hurdles.

Like: I go to http://geda.seul.org/download.html. There should be
instruction what the user should do to download the software. Is
there such one? Isn't. There is like 200 various links to various pieces
of the software. Everytime I visit that page I never know what I should
download!

What the heck did you expect the user wants to do when he comes to
Download? Plant potatoes in his garden? And where do you think he should
take the information how to download gEDA? Decode it from cosmic
background radiation using Arecribo radiotelescope?

Can't you write instructions like that?
http://links.twibright.com/download.php
If I was able to write them, why can't you?

For a first-time visitor, this is a stumbling block.
For a many years experienced user like me, this is *still* stumbling
block! How quickly do you think the first-time visitor will be able to
install the software when it's a stumbling block even for me, who
already designed 4 PCB's in gEDA+PCB?

Everywhere I go to software X it's Download: download
software-x-1.2.3.tgz. Period. Why does it have to be so complicated
in case of gEDA? And if there are technical reasons for complication,
why there cannot be a clear guide what to do to download it all?

Please change the download page so it's "to download gEDA do this and
this.".

Then the bottom of the page should read
"Now you can proceed with <a href="...">Installation</a>.

And the Install page should be the same: tell the user what he should do
to install. I didn't find any install page. And install
complete environment to make Gerber RS274-X and part shopping list
from circuit idea in the head, not just a half of it (schematic editor).

What's the point of 100 people wasting each 14 days trying to install
and learn basic usage of gEDA when they could do it in 1 hour and invest
those 14*100 days into developing some other free software project?

CL<