[gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

- the 'about' blurb has way too much vertical spacing == wasted

- the ad bar on the left should be thrown behind a purple bar like the 
current site does ... it helps the user visually tune the space out as 
crap they can safely ignore (at least it helps me)
- can we cut out the ads alogether for known textmode browsers ?

- the bar at the top which blathers on about what Gentoo has to offer 
i could do without completely (imo, you can read the About page)
- if people insist on keeping the aforementioned bar which proclaims 
Gentoo's strengths, can we at least tighten up all the wasted 
vertical space on it ?

- the links in the site index thingies at the bottom dont have mouse 
over behavior like the other links

- the 'gentoo' text in the upper left of the page should use the cool 
red bubble letters [1] ... or at least drop the infinity sign ... 
yeah, the infinity sign is cool, but since it is in such a 'high 
profile' location like that, it makes people think of it as a new logo
[1] http://www.gentoo.org/images/gentoo-new.gif

- the little pic of larry the cow ... could we get some tiny text 
under his head that says 'Larry' ?
- wheres the ufo guy [2] ?  at least hide him in the bottom left 
corner of the page ... it'd keep with the mysterious nature of the 
fellow
[2] http://www.gentoo.org/images/gridtest.gif
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Thomas de Grenier de Latour]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:09:55 +0000
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

> - the bar at the top which blathers on about what Gentoo has to
> offer i could do without completely (imo, you can read the About
> page)

What about keeping it on front page only? (with the vertical size
issue fixed sure)

--
TGL.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 03:49:42PM +0100, Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:09:55 +0000
> Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > - the bar at the top which blathers on about what Gentoo has to
> > offer i could do without completely (imo, you can read the About
> > page)
> 
> What about keeping it on front page only? (with the vertical size
> issue fixed sure)

that'd be much better than the current situation
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Grant Goodyear]

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Vapier wrote: [Mon Nov 21 2005, 08:09:55AM CST]
> - wheres the ufo guy [2] ?  at least hide him in the bottom left 
> corner of the page ... it'd keep with the mysterious nature of the 
> fellow
> [2] http://www.gentoo.org/images/gridtest.gif

Drobbins wanted to hang on to Znurt when he left.  You're welcome to
ask his permission to use it on the new site, as he might have changed
his mind since then.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@gentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Mon, 21 Nov 2005 14:09:55 +0000 Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| - the 'gentoo' text in the upper left of the page should use the cool 
| red bubble letters [1] ... or at least drop the infinity sign ... 
| yeah, the infinity sign is cool, but since it is in such a 'high 
| profile' location like that, it makes people think of it as a new logo

The infinity design makes us look like a bunch of ricers. Kill it!

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Look! Shiny things!)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Henrik Brix Andersen]

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On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 05:24:06PM +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> The infinity design makes us look like a bunch of ricers. Kill it!

I couldn't agree more.

./Brix
-- 
Henrik Brix Andersen <brix@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Metadistribution | Mobile computing herd

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[A. Khattri]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2005, Mike Frysinger wrote:

> - the 'gentoo' text in the upper left of the page should use the cool
> red bubble letters [1]

Never liked the red lettering - very dated.


-- 

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 15:35 -0500, A. Khattri wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Nov 2005, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> 
> > - the 'gentoo' text in the upper left of the page should use the cool
> > red bubble letters [1]
> 
> Never liked the red lettering - very dated.

I thought that Daniel was taking the red bubble letters.  I also
remember the discussion about the infinity logo way back then and the
decision was made to keep it.  For one, it is very easy to print,
whereas the bubble letters are not.  This is very useful on a CD where
you have very limited color selection.  I don't get where people think
it is "ricer" though.  Perhaps you guys forget what a meta-distribution
is and the "infinite possibilities" that it presents to the user.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead
x86 Architecture Team
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Luca Barbato]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> 
> The infinity design makes us look like a bunch of ricers. Kill it!
> 

+1

-- 

Luca Barbato

Gentoo/linux Developer		Gentoo/PPC Operational Leader
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero

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gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Diego 'Flameeyes' Pettenò]

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On Monday 21 November 2005 18:24, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> The infinity design makes us look like a bunch of ricers. Kill it!
+1
not like I love the red letters... (the 'g' actually makes it similar to 
G/FBSD logo, never noted that before)...

-- 
Diego "Flameeyes" Pettenò - http://dev.gentoo.org/~flameeyes/
Gentoo/ALT lead, Gentoo/FreeBSD, Video, AMD64, Sound, PAM, KDE

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Grant Goodyear]

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It's interesting to compare http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org/ with
http://www.aaronshi.com/gentoo/mainindex.html.  One of the things that I
always liked about the original design was the fact that the front page
held a considerable amount of information without needing much vertical
scrolling.  On the other hand, I like the fact that the current
iteration says something about what Gentoo actually is, which just seems
like a good idea on the front page.  (Although I'd prefer to modify the
text a bit so that it starts with "Gentoo is" and is limited to just one
or two sentences.)  

In fact, I've been thinking that it might be nice to remove the news
from the front page altogether (we could always have a news.gentoo.org for
people who mainly use the site for news), which would leave plenty of
space for the "Documentation", "Resources", and "Community" panels with
limited scrolling.

As an aside, I would prefer to see something fairly soon, even if it's
more a face lift than a redesign, than wait another year before we
update the site.

-g2boojum-
-- 
Grant Goodyear	
Gentoo Developer
g2boojum@gentoo.org
http://www.gentoo.org/~g2boojum
GPG Fingerprint: D706 9802 1663 DEF5 81B0  9573 A6DC 7152 E0F6 5B76

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Corey Shields]

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On Monday 21 November 2005 01:07 pm, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> I thought that Daniel was taking the red bubble letters.  I also
> remember the discussion about the infinity logo way back then and the
> decision was made to keep it.  For one, it is very easy to print,

I thought that the vote was for a website redesign, not a logo redesign.  I 
agree that the infinity sign should go.  No other "Gentoo" text on that page 
has the sign, so it looks out of place and inconsistent to have it in one 
spot.

-C

-- 
Corey Shields
Gentoo Linux Infrastructure Team
Gentoo Foundation Board of Trustees
http://www.gentoo.org/~cshields

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Ingo Bormuth]

- Where is the "Search for ______ in section ______" field ? I would expect it
  somewhere on the top.  See http://php.net for a good and tiny one.

- I like the infinity sign. It looks cool and professionel (not too commercial).

- I don't like the big, purple bar (portage, packages, get gentoo, forums,
  donage). Get rid of it. Instead, put the headliners from the bottom
  (documentation, resources, community) here. It just has to be a bit smaller
  in height (multi column instead?).
  You could add another Headline (maybe 'Introduction') for new users (topics
  could be 'Why Gentoo Linux', 'Download', 'Handbook', 'Packages', 'Portage').
  
- The mentioned headline panel should only be visible on the first page.
  BUT make sure it doesn't go away if you click one of that panel's links.
  In that particular case the reader probably is willing to try another link and
  should not be forced to go back to the main page.

- The ads pannel should have a different background color.

See a hacked Screenshot at http://public.efil.de/gentoo-www.png



-- 
Ingo Bormuth, voicebox & telefax: +49-12125-10226517          '(~o-o~)'
public key 86326EC9, http://ibormuth.efil.de/contact     ---ooO--(.)--Ooo---

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2005 at 06:14:15PM -0600, Grant Goodyear wrote:
> One of the things that I always liked about the original design was
> the fact that the front page held a considerable amount of
> information without needing much vertical scrolling.

on that note, here is another opinion of mine that occured to me:
- the stuff on the bottom is nice (sweet pics btw), but i think it'd be
more useful if it replaced the left sidebar we use now ... i.e. just
stack em on the left ...

> In fact, I've been thinking that it might be nice to remove the news
> from the front page altogether which would leave plenty of
> space for the "Documentation", "Resources", and "Community" panels with
> limited scrolling.

my opinion above would address this concern (which i agree with)
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 01:53:01AM +0100, Ingo Bormuth wrote:
> 
> - Where is the "Search for ______ in section ______" field ? I would expect it
>   somewhere on the top.  See http://php.net for a good and tiny one.

ah, excellent idea ... we get people who ask for this from time to time
in bugzilla ...

> - I don't like the big, purple bar (portage, packages, get gentoo, forums,
>   donage). Get rid of it. Instead, put the headliners from the bottom
>   (documentation, resources, community) here. It just has to be a bit smaller
>   in height (multi column instead?).
>   You could add another Headline (maybe 'Introduction') for new users (topics
>   could be 'Why Gentoo Linux', 'Download', 'Handbook', 'Packages', 'Portage').

condensing the big purple panel into a smaller one would work nicely
i think ... and it'd help condense information without losing too much
-mike
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Thomas de Grenier de Latour]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:11:14 +0000
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 01:53:01AM +0100, Ingo Bormuth wrote:
> > 
> > - Where is the "Search for ______ in section ______" field ? I
> > would expect it somewhere on the top.  See http://php.net for a
> > good and tiny one.
> 
> ah, excellent idea ... we get people who ask for this from time
> to time in bugzilla ...

A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks to
Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other black
magic in the query terms). It saves implementation of a real local
search engine, and actually works surprinsingly fine. That's what i
use in some ConQuery search plugins (a Firefox extension):
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-380310.html
This screenshot shows the filters i have for www.g.o:
http://tdegreni.free.fr/gentoo/conquery/gentoo-simple-google-screenshot.png
(mailing search et al. are in other plugins, but sure in the case
of something like what is on php.net, it would be better in a
single form)

--
TGL.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Georgi Georgiev]

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maillog: 22/11/2005-03:53:22(+0100): Thomas de Grenier de Latour types
> On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:11:14 +0000
> Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 01:53:01AM +0100, Ingo Bormuth wrote:
> > > 
> > > - Where is the "Search for ______ in section ______" field ? I
> > > would expect it somewhere on the top.  See http://php.net for a
> > > good and tiny one.
> > 
> > ah, excellent idea ... we get people who ask for this from time
> > to time in bugzilla ...
> 
> A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks to
> Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other black
> magic in the query terms). It saves implementation of a real local
> search engine, and actually works surprinsingly fine. That's what i
> use in some ConQuery search plugins (a Firefox extension):
> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-380310.html
> This screenshot shows the filters i have for www.g.o:
> http://tdegreni.free.fr/gentoo/conquery/gentoo-simple-google-screenshot.png
> (mailing search et al. are in other plugins, but sure in the case
> of something like what is on php.net, it would be better in a
> single form)

And just in case someone decides to do it and is thinking about using
JavaScript or some other magic to add "site:gentoo.org" to the query
(the "q" parameter), you can supply "as_sitesearch" and "as_q"
parameters instead of "q":

<input type="text" name="as_q"/>
<input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" name="gentoo.org"/>

It would be cooler to get a personalized Google search, though.

-- 
()   Georgi Georgiev   () Sometimes a man will tell his bartender    ()
()    chutz@gg3.net    () things he'll never tell his doctor. -- Dr. ()
() http://www.gg3.net/ () Phillip Boyce, "The Menagerie" ("The       ()
() ------------------- () Cage"), stardate unknown.                  ()

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Georgi Georgiev]

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maillog: 22/11/2005-12:05:38(+0900): Георги Георгиев types
> <input type="text" name="as_q"/>
> <input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" name="gentoo.org"/>

That ought to be 
<input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="gentoo.org"/>
of course.

-- 
(*   Georgi Georgiev   (* Mr and Mrs PED, can I borrow 26.7% of the  (*
*)    chutz@gg3.net    *) RAYON TEXTILE production of the INDONESIAN *)
(* http://www.gg3.net/ (* archipelago?                               (*

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Monday 21 November 2005 10:08 pm, Georgi Georgiev wrote:
> maillog: 22/11/2005-12:05:38(+0900): Георги Георгиев types
>
> > <input type="text" name="as_q"/>
> > <input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" name="gentoo.org"/>
>
> That ought to be
> <input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="gentoo.org"/>
> of course.

or you could make it the dropdown list so people can pick 
bugs.gentoo.org/gentoo.org/forums.gentoo.org/whatever
-mike

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Luis F. Araujo]

Grant Goodyear wrote:

>It's interesting to compare http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org/ with
>http://www.aaronshi.com/gentoo/mainindex.html.  One of the things that I
>always liked about the original design was the fact that the front page
>held a considerable amount of information without needing much vertical
>scrolling.  On the other hand, I like the fact that the current
>iteration says something about what Gentoo actually is, which just seems
>like a good idea on the front page.  (Although I'd prefer to modify the
>text a bit so that it starts with "Gentoo is" and is limited to just one
>or two sentences.)  
>
>  
>
I agree. Why we don't use that original design? , i think removing all that
vertical scrolling for the front page is a good thing, and the search 
box looks
handy too.

>In fact, I've been thinking that it might be nice to remove the news
>from the front page altogether (we could always have a news.gentoo.org for
>people who mainly use the site for news), which would leave plenty of
>space for the "Documentation", "Resources", and "Community" panels with
>limited scrolling.
>
>  
>
I also like this suggestion. We probably could make better usage of the 
front page
other than posting a bunch of GWN.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Monday 21 November 2005 15:09, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> - the 'about' blurb has way too much vertical spacing == wasted

agreed

> - the bar at the top which blathers on about what Gentoo has to offer
> i could do without completely (imo, you can read the About page)
> - if people insist on keeping the aforementioned bar which proclaims
> Gentoo's strengths, can we at least tighten up all the wasted
> vertical space on it ?

While at small resolutions the bar is too big, I do think that in any case 
we should limit the contents of the front page. It's not our purpose to 
select users by trying to cause an information overload on prospective 
users that check out the site.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Tuesday 22 November 2005 01:32, Corey Shields wrote:
> On Monday 21 November 2005 01:07 pm, Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> > I thought that Daniel was taking the red bubble letters.  I also
> > remember the discussion about the infinity logo way back then and the
> > decision was made to keep it.  For one, it is very easy to print,
>
> I thought that the vote was for a website redesign, not a logo
> redesign.  I agree that the infinity sign should go.  No other "Gentoo"
> text on that page has the sign, so it looks out of place and
> inconsistent to have it in one spot.

What about replacing the infinity sign by two o's that have been nudged a 
bit together to approximate an infinity sign without breaking the 
continuity of the text?

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Lance Albertson]

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Luis F. Araujo wrote:

> I agree. Why we don't use that original design? , i think removing all that
> vertical scrolling for the front page is a good thing, and the search
> box looks
> handy too.

They would need to coordinate with infra on how they would like to
implement a search function. For now, I think its best if they focus
their attention on the design and navigation and try to work on the
search box later.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operations Manager

---
GPG Public Key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 08:09:44AM -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
> Luis F. Araujo wrote:
> 
> > I agree. Why we don't use that original design? , i think removing all that
> > vertical scrolling for the front page is a good thing, and the search
> > box looks
> > handy too.
> 
> They would need to coordinate with infra on how they would like to
> implement a search function. For now, I think its best if they focus
> their attention on the design and navigation and try to work on the
> search box later.

why does infra need to be involved ?  cant we just have the form send
users to google ?
-mike
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[gentoo-dev] Re: opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Duncan]

Mike Frysinger posted <20051122150331.GD2628@toucan.gentoo.org>, excerpted
below,  on Tue, 22 Nov 2005 15:03:31 +0000:

> On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 08:09:44AM -0600, Lance Albertson wrote:
>> 
>> They would need to coordinate with infra on how they would like to
>> implement a search function. For now, I think its best if they focus
>> their attention on the design and navigation and try to work on the
>> search box later.
> 
> why does infra need to be involved ?  cant we just have the form send
> users to google ?

Actually, that's useful in a couple ways.  Not only is it easy to do, but
I'd guess there's a fair chance Google could be talked into some sort of
sponsorship, in exchange for a 'Search by Google", which at the same time
will serve as the disclosure of who it's piped thru.  As someone (you?)
mentioned earlier, letting Google do all the hard work means it's both
easy implementation, and easy on our hardware since it's just passing thru
to Google.  If we can finagle a box or two (or mirroring, hardware and
bandwidth and benefitting from their connectivity!, directly located at
two or more Google locations worldwide) out of the deal as well, that's
even better!

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Sven Vermeulen]

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On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 03:53:22AM +0100, Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
> A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks to
> Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other black
> magic in the query terms).
[...]

Two major obstacles are 
- Google bases its search functionality on cached pages. 
  I would assume that most people use the search functionality to find
  documentation which gets updated quite a lot. Google might offer outdated
  links or forget to point to a valuable resource
- We would depend on Google a bit

Now Google might be a reliable web site/service, I'd rather have the search
functionality of our web site implemented on the Gentoo infrastructure. I
would even hope that we can have some tweaking possibilities in our search
functionality, such as:
- Restricting pages to /doc (documentation), /main (Gentoo information),
  /news (News items+GWN), /proj (project stuff)
- Restricting languages (en, fr, ... and any combination)
- Have the search points assigned so that hits are calculated with certain
  weights:
    * title's get most of the points, unless many titles are selected
    * abstract's get the second most points, yada yada
    * content get third most points

Wkr,
      Sven Vermeulen

-- 
  Gentoo Foundation Trustee          |  http://foundation.gentoo.org
  Gentoo Documentation Project Lead  |  http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp
  Gentoo Council Member  

  The Gentoo Project   <<< http://www.gentoo.org >>>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Thomas de Grenier de Latour]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 00:04:53 -0500
Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org> wrote:

> or you could make it the dropdown list so people can pick 
> bugs.gentoo.org/gentoo.org/forums.gentoo.org/whatever

Exactly, that's what i would like too. More specificaly, it
could be something like this:
http://tdegreni.free.fr/gentoosearch/
(from a feature pov sure, i'm not talking about ugliness of the
code or the missing CSS)

The search form has a keyword field and two levels of sections to 
target the search. First you can choose beetween:
 - web search (using Google)
 - mailing-lists search (using Gmane)
 - forum search (using the f.g.o CGI)
 - packages search (using the p.g.o CGI)
 - bugs search (using the b.g.o CGI)
And then, depending on what you have selected here, you can refine
your search on the 2nd selection list (page type for web search,
specific ML for gmane, forum section, etc.)

Sure the problem is that it takes a bit more space than a simple
text field.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Mike Frysinger]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 06:51:44PM +0100, Sven Vermeulen wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 03:53:22AM +0100, Thomas de Grenier de Latour wrote:
> > A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks to
> > Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other black
> > magic in the query terms).
> [...]
> 
> Two major obstacles are 
> - Google bases its search functionality on cached pages. 
>   I would assume that most people use the search functionality to find
>   documentation which gets updated quite a lot. Google might offer outdated
>   links or forget to point to a valuable resource
> - We would depend on Google a bit

i dont think these are real issues ... but no reason we cant use this as
the quick 'now' solution and then follow it up with stuff on our own
infrastructure later on down the road
-mike
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Re: [gentoo-dev] opinion on how to improve the website redesign

[Thomas de Grenier de Latour]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 18:51:44 +0100
Sven Vermeulen <swift@gentoo.org> wrote:
>> A good start could be to do that the quick and ugly way, thanks
>> to Google (with some "site:www.gentoo.org/some/thing/" and other
>> black magic in the query terms).
> [...]

> - Google bases its search functionality on cached pages. 

Bah, yes, theory is that it's not 100% perfect, but in practice i
find it satisfying.

> - We would depend on Google a bit

Yes, but if other engines offer similar functionalities, in which
case it would just be a matter of changing the forms params names
and posting it elsewhere. But i don't know much about other public
search engines, so i have no idea about what kind of queries they
allow.

> Now Google might be a reliable web site/service, I'd rather have
> the search functionality of our web site implemented on the
> Gentoo infrastructure.

Sure, if that's doable in terms of workload and time to implement,
then it could be the best method.

My only concern would be on the choice of that engine: i mean,
i would still prefer Google over an internal engine which doesn't
allow mixing of exact strings and keywords in queries, or which
drops non-alpha chars, etc. I'm suffering enough with the forum's
one already :)

> - Restricting pages to /doc (documentation), /main (Gentoo
> information), /news (News items+GWN), /proj (project stuff)

Not a problem with google, that's the "/some/thing/" part of
the above cited fake query. I've put some real examples in the
proof-of-concept form i've posted about in an earlier message
somewhere else in that thread:
http://tdegreni.free.fr/gentoosearch/

> - Restricting languages (en, fr, ... and any combination)

Same as above for searching in a single language, adding some
"/fr/" to the base URL (or also possible using the lr=lang_fr
parameter, although it's less reliable). But for arbitrary
combinations, yes, that's probably a limitation (or a really ugly
query...).

What i've thought for i18n of the above JS code was to:
 - always at least propose search on the english pages
 - if user has defined in his browser a non-english preferred
language, also add some localised choices to the dropdown list.
(I'm not sure how to detect the user preferred lang from Javascript
though).

> - Have the search points assigned so that hits are calculated
> with certain weights:
>     * title's get most of the points, unless many titles are
> selected
>     * abstract's get the second most points, yada yada
>     * content get third most points

Here again, i think google is good enough for the needs, especially
if you target the search on some "/doc/en/" or alike sub-parts of
the website, which don't let that many pages anyway. I mean, i
often do that kind of searchs on the docs or the dev handbook with
a conquery plugin, and i don't remember having ever seen the page i
was looking for not beeing in the top 5 results. But yes, at least
in theory, a tweaked local engine could be even better.


Hmm... re-reading the above message, i realize i may sound like
some kind of google-zealot: so just to make it clear, i'm not, and i
would be pleased to see anything better implemented. It's really
just that i think it could do a rather good job and that using it is
easy enough to be a really short-term solution.

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