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Lobster
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Puppy Website News

#1 Post by Lobster »

Image

New ideas for website welcome
New blogs available
http://www.puppylinux.org/

more moderator positions available
Are you a PHP coder?
great way of learning about Puppy and joining 'Bob the builder'
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3IWKhYQarJU
Yes We Can
please leave a message on this thread if interested :)

Plans so far:

* Change colour scheme to light orange to match Zigberts scheme for Puppy 4.2
* Better wiki indexing page
* Shorter URL links to web pages
Last edited by Lobster on Tue 20 Jan 2009, 05:57, edited 1 time in total.
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

DialupDude
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#2 Post by DialupDude »


raffy
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current mods

#3 Post by raffy »

The current people with roles at puppylinux.org are:

Translators

nyu, hairywill, BillWho, caka, vk, slapshot, tombh, oli, Puppyluvr, alexthedragon, cecc2, urbansoul, craftybytes, AC

Editors

WhoDo, tronkel, J_Rey, playdayz, LOF, Irihapeti, aitch, SunBurnt, jhecht, pakt, ttuuxxx, cb88, prehistoric, disciple, darreljon

Admins

WhoDo, hairywill, lobster, oli, prit, raffy

So there are already a good number of people with roles. Probably, let's first invite suggestions about what should be changed in the current website.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].


Caneri
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#5 Post by Caneri »

Hi darrelljon,

Hey that's a good looking web page.

Eric
[color=darkred][i]Be not afraid to grow slowly, only be afraid of standing still.[/i]
Chinese Proverb[/color]

raffy
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nice

#6 Post by raffy »

Yes, nice, simple and functional. It even displays 3 columns well in 800x600 resolution.

Only problem in 800 width is the banner - have a look.

I guess darreljon needs higher admin privilege to play with the site's looks (Will check on that). Meantime, let's hear other people's views.
Attachments
banner800.jpg
darreljon's banner at 800 px width
(9.71 KiB) Downloaded 2698 times
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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Flash
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#7 Post by Flash »

It looks nice to me, at 1024 x 768 display resolution, but I take issue with the info that Puppy 4 is only for newer processors. The latest Puppy (4.1.1) runs fine on my old Pentium 3. :D
[url=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=69321][color=blue]Puppy Help 101 - an interactive tutorial for Lupu 5.25[/color][/url]

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darreljon

#8 Post by raffy »

darreljon's access at the site has been upgraded, so let's wait for his suggestions.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#9 Post by darrelljon »

Okay I've added a few features to my own site but its still in alpha. I fixed the top menu on 640x480 hopefully and added a nice button to download the latest version (which doesn't work in Opera!) and a Google Search of PuppyLinux.org.

At PuppyLinux.org I've added Wiki categories "Getting", "Installation" and "Connecting to the Internet". I know these are in the Manual but beginners might like them in the Wiki (or users might like the option to edit them). Beginners instructions like these should be the most accessible things on the site. Some of the WiKi categories seem to have a prominence they didn't get in the old wikka wikki. Puppy 1 (yes really!), Old Wikka Wiki and Development for example should take lower positions compared to basics for beginners like downloading, booting, installing, connecting to the internet etc.

Some things I think could be improved. Localization flags, for example - once I've left the start page, these don't seem necessary. Why would I suddenly want to be one-click away from the Chinese localization (rather than say one-click away from the English forum) while I'm reading the blog for example?

Google translate gadget. Non-English speakers might not understand "translate" or "Select Language". Its also been conceded that a computer translation is inferior to a human localization. If a non-English speaker googles for Puppy Linux they will get the opportunity to computer-translate the page from the search results. Doing it from the search results is a option they are probably more familiar with. So I think the Google translate gadget adds clutter and duplicates localization pages in an inferior way.

Professional sites can detect the country I'm accessing it from and then direct to the localization. How difficult is this to do for Puppy (I imagine quite difficult) and relegate the localization links to obscurity? OpenSuse.org does this I think.

Although I use a home button on my own alpha website, being able to click on a big title or the site logo to get to the homepage is preferable. Unfortunately, the site logo on PuppyLinux.org can't be clicked on. It also takes up a lot of screen space for something that cannot be clicked on.

Greater use could be made of the top level menu - currently only "Home, Downloads, Manual, Wiki, Community". Everything else is currently minimum two clicks away rather than just one-click away. Among the things that could be added I think maybe Chat (the IRC channel), Blog (Community blogs), Forum, maybe World Map (the Frappr map), maybe even Facebook group?

Ultimately PuppyLinux.org should be competing with Mandriva.com, OpenSuse.org and FedoraProject.org for a usable, accessible, attractive website which you shouldn't need a massive amount of bandwidth limits to manage.

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one click

#10 Post by raffy »

One click on the front page (for accessing a desired page) is a great idea.

For available localization*, perhaps one page can be dedicated to this, containing the links to the available translations as well as a how-to about the google technique you described.

Another link could be added, that of the Puppy desktop project c/o technosaurus. (I've suggested that he uses desktop.puppylinux.org for this. Right now it is at pupweb.org/desktop.)

Thanks for working on this, darrelljon.

------------------------
* In the meantime that auto language detection is being worked on, that is.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#11 Post by HairyWill »

A lot of this makes sense to me.
It has been a learning process working out which parts of the site are most important and trying to make these accessible to as many people as possible. It is possible to be a lot more economical with the screen space.

I do like the roles and infrastructure provided by drupal. Tom did a good job of defining different classes of user and their access rights.

Darrelljon have you ever done any php or other server side scripting?
Will
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#12 Post by darrelljon »

I don't have PHP or server side scripting skills and haven't used Drupal until the Puppy website. I'm an enthusiastic amateur with an eye for usability.

I added a Forum link at the top of PuppyLinux.org but it might be a bit wrong at the moment (it appears lower down when the window isn't wide enough).

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theme

#13 Post by raffy »

@ darrelljon: No problem if you have no PHP skill (yet). The site's looks are controlled by the theme files (most likely in /themes/puppy).

You could have renamed the "Community" with "Forum" as the URL goes to the same place. :)

@all: After we've had a number of feedback about darrelljon's design, we can start implementing it at puppylinux.org.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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Re: theme

#14 Post by HairyWill »

raffy wrote:You could have renamed the "Community" with "Forum" as the URL goes to the same place.
I don't think it does.

@Darrelljon
Good to have you on board.
I suspect the problem with the forum link is todo with various bits of css that are hardcoded to certain widths. I find the firefox firebug extension very good for debugging css. Your new forum link also breaks the appearance of the existing menubar.

A list of possible improvements is at http://www.puppylinux.org/wiki/miscella ... -todo-list
I personally would like to see.

less cluttered title bar using less vertical space.
some mechanism of using the existing 2 tier menu bar that doesn't require loading two pages to get to the final destination.
The wiki to look more wiki like. (remove categories, use wiki markup)
removal of hard coded widths
export of the manual to pdf

One hard issue that the existing site attempts to address is allowing as many people as possible to collaborate on maintaining the site content. Whilst drupal makes life harder in certain areas it is very useful for managing user rights.

I notice that on your page you have linked to a wiki books page for puppy. I wonder how easy it would be to duplicate this functionality on puppylinux.org rather than externally.

I do like the way that you have provided forum links into the different sub forums.
Will
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#15 Post by darrelljon »

Thanks guys.
There are 3 reasons I link to WikiBooks on my unofficial site.
1 WikiBooks has more users than the Puppy website
2 It uses MediaWiki
3 Content is GFDL

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Forum URL

#16 Post by raffy »

What I really mean is that following the one-click principle, the Forum link could have simply gone into the Murga Forum (or opened a new window to the Forum).

A number of requests in the wish list concerns the TinyMCE editor. IMHO, there are simpler and faster editors around, like widgEditor. This would require hard-coding in the appropriate page/s. If this is very difficult to do, perhaps just remove the TinyMCE module - this will speed up the editing interface.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#17 Post by HairyWill »

I like mediawiki. There are drupal modules that could make the drupal wiki more wiki like. There is also a mediawiki extension called authdrupal which could be used to achieve single sign-on with an inhouse mediawiki installation. Both drupal and mediawiki support openid as well.

Whilst I dislike tinymce I think that widgeditor may be a little too simplistic. I'm certainly not sure how the image insertion would integrate with drupal. My beef with tinymce is speed and also the way that it encourages people to add a lot of unnecessary presentational instructions when they would be better focusing on clear writting instead.

An open license for the site content would be a good thing.
Will
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#18 Post by Lobster »

I like mediawiki.
Me too
Would much rather be using something similar to mediawiki
An open license for the site content would be a good thing.
The whole bottom line of the wiki page (which includes licensing). Serves very little purpose and if you know how to get rid of it, please do or at least modify. the licensing can be moved to a licensing wiki page. It is not worth a line of screen space. Nor is the repetition of the top title bar in my opinion..

I am loath to modify any part of the site until I have practiced with a test Drupal site I have set up. I would also recommend DarelJohn is given more access so his 'plain English' ideas can be incorporated.

I'm resisting the urge to revive the old wiki (which I have abandoned editing) to give the new site a fair chance of adoption.
http://pupweb.org/wikka/

Our previous CMS website was abandoned by the main developer (Puppian) because setting it up is easy (relatively) what makes it worthwhile is adding content consistently.

The new site is far more attractive, with more content and integration and deserves more support. :)
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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test drupal

#19 Post by raffy »

Lobster wrote:I am loath to modify any part of the site until I have practiced with a test Drupal site I have set up. I would also recommend DarelJohn is given more access so his 'plain English' ideas can be incorporated.
Indeed, darrelljon has the appropriate access to puppylinux.org, but he needs a test Drupal setup for practice. (Am planning to create a practice site at pupweb.org over the weekend. But if you have one already, darrelljon can use an FTP account to access your Drupal folder. BTW, it should be Drupal 5.xx.)

Add: Done as of November 24 2400 GMT. Sent PM to darrelljon. The URL is pupweb.org/book1.
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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#20 Post by vtpup »

Flash wrote:...... but I take issue with the info that Puppy 4 is only for newer processors. The latest Puppy (4.1.1) runs fine on my old Pentium 3. :D
I've got a 4.1.1 retro file server running fine on a 400 mhz Pentium II Thinkpad 600E Laptop.

It VPNs fine and you can do anything in it over the LAN (even while serving files) that the T30 1.8 Ghz P4 does . . .and seemingly not a lot slower.

I guess if I wanted to run some form of windows (I don't often) and Puppy concurrently this is another way you could do it without a frugal install, CD, or virtual machine.

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