Proposed RAA update plan

Hello,

I’d like to propose a very simple improvement plan for RAA. I am
confident that everyone would agree to the first 3 at least.

It is ordered in the suggested sequence, puttig what I think is easiest
first (steps 1 and 3 are from Mark’s email):

  1. Move the search to the top of the page.

  2. Turn the “What’s new” section into a right tab, as depiced in the
    mock-up

  3. Combine redundant subcategories:

In Application:

devel, Devel, Development, development => Development   
MIdi, midi          => MIDI
util, Util, Utility => Utility

In Library:

devel, Development         => Development
graphics, Graphics         => Graphics
Regex, Regular Expressions => Regular Expressions
  1. Purchase the ‘rubyarchive.org’ domain and assign the
    libs, apps, docs, and info subdomains as I suggested in
    my previous email.

    www.rubyarchive.org can be a “splash” site linking to
    the other subdomains, as Dwayne suggested.

  2. In the mid-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library

Remove the last column and use the space for having two columns
of links.  Like so:

AI         6 projects   |  Hardware   4 projects
Algorithm  3 projects   |  HTML      14 projects
Array      1 project    |  I18N      10 projects
...                     |  ...
  1. In the lowest-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Algorithm

1.- Delete the version number, date and file name (e.g. diff.rb).
Those are available at the individual project sections like:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/list.rhtml?name=diff

2.- Replace the state (alpha/beta/stable) by icons
(bronze coin/silver coin/ruby) respectively.

3.- Perhaps use the new-found space for more complete descriptions.

···


Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assistant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

Hi, Daniel,

Thank you for the summary. And also thanks to your effort about
creating mockup site. The site brings forward descussion of site
design and categorization.

From: “Daniel Carrera” dcarrera@math.umd.edu
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 7:41 AM

I’d like to propose a very simple improvement plan for RAA. I am
confident that everyone would agree to the first 3 at least.

Sure.

It is ordered in the suggested sequence, puttig what I think is easiest
first (steps 1 and 3 are from Mark’s email):

  1. Move the search to the top of the page.

  2. Turn the “What’s new” section into a right tab, as depiced in the
    mock-up

  3. Combine redundant subcategories:

In Application:

devel, Devel, Development, development => Development   
MIdi, midi          => MIDI
util, Util, Utility => Utility

In Library:

devel, Development         => Development
graphics, Graphics         => Graphics
Regex, Regular Expressions => Regular Expressions

1-3, in this weekend.

  1. Purchase the ‘rubyarchive.org’ domain and assign the
    libs, apps, docs, and info subdomains as I suggested in
    my previous email.

    www.rubyarchive.org can be a “splash” site linking to
    the other subdomains, as Dwayne suggested.

For now, I think raa.ruby-lang.org is enough for main repository.
But I’ll be happy when someone replicate RAA metadata to
libs.rubyarchive.org and serve his/her RAA.succ at there. I built
RAA external interfaces(SOAP, XML-RPC, plain XML, RSS/0.9 and YAML)
for that purpose.
(It’s my opiniion. Matz and usa might have different thought.)

  1. In the mid-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library

Remove the last column and use the space for having two columns
of links.  Like so:

AI         6 projects   |  Hardware   4 projects
Algorithm  3 projects   |  HTML      14 projects
Array      1 project    |  I18N      10 projects
...                     |  ...

I’ll try and review it.

  1. In the lowest-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Algorithm

1.- Delete the version number, date and file name (e.g. diff.rb).
Those are available at the individual project sections like:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/list.rhtml?name=diff

File name is from its ‘Short description’. No need?

2.- Replace the state (alpha/beta/stable) by icons
(bronze coin/silver coin/ruby) respectively.

Do you mean ‘Status’ field? It’s free text field now…
Owner should select its status from predefined candidates?

Regards,
// NaHi

Hi NaHi,

Thank you for considering my suggestions.

1-3, in this weekend.

Great!

  1. Purchase the ‘rubyarchive.org’ domain and assign the
    libs, apps, docs, and info subdomains [snip]

For now, I think raa.ruby-lang.org is enough for main repository.
But I’ll be happy when someone replicate RAA metadata to
libs.rubyarchive.org and serve his/her RAA.succ at there. I built
RAA external interfaces(SOAP, XML-RPC, plain XML, RSS/0.9 and YAML)
for that purpose.
(It’s my opiniion. Matz and usa might have different thought.)

Sure. We can keep this in mind and decide later.

  1. In the lowest-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Algorithm

1.- Delete the version number, date and file name (e.g. diff.rb).
Those are available at the individual project sections like:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/list.rhtml?name=diff

File name is from its ‘Short description’. No need?

Oh, I see.
I don’t think that the file name should appear in a “short description”.
It doesn’t tell you anything that you can’t infer from the project name.

2.- Replace the state (alpha/beta/stable) by icons
(bronze coin/silver coin/ruby) respectively.

Do you mean ‘Status’ field? It’s free text field now…
Owner should select its status from predefined candidates?

Yes, that’s what I meant, “status” (I’m not a native English speaker, so I
make some mistakes).

I think that pre-defined categories would be good for a few reasons:

  • Makes it easier for the user to browse the list.
  • Icons would leave more space for the description, and make the
    page look less cluttered.
  • Makes the develper think a bit more about the state of their code.
  • It let’s you include “status” in your search. So you can choose to
    only display “stable” code, or “at least beta” or “any”. Or you
    could have the search sort the most stable projects first.

Cheers,

···

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 12:07:29PM +0900, NAKAMURA, Hiroshi wrote:


Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assistant. Math Dept.
University of Maryland. (301) 405-5137

Hi,

From: “Daniel Carrera” dcarrera@math.umd.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 4:54 AM

Regards to #5 (two columns), I tried on.
http://rrr.jin.gr.jp/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library
How do you all think?

  1. In the lowest-level listings – for example:

http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library;category_minor=Algorithm

1.- Delete the version number, date and file name (e.g. diff.rb).
Those are available at the individual project sections like:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/raa/list.rhtml?name=diff

File name is from its ‘Short description’. No need?

Oh, I see.
I don’t think that the file name should appear in a “short description”.
It doesn’t tell you anything that you can’t infer from the project name.

Sure. But it’s my fault. I had not to copy it from project name
when we add “short description” field.

2.- Replace the state (alpha/beta/stable) by icons
(bronze coin/silver coin/ruby) respectively.

Do you mean ‘Status’ field? It’s free text field now…
Owner should select its status from predefined candidates?

Yes, that’s what I meant, “status” (I’m not a native English speaker, so I
make some mistakes).

I think that pre-defined categories would be good for a few reasons:

  • Makes it easier for the user to browse the list.
  • Icons would leave more space for the description, and make the
    page look less cluttered.
  • Makes the develper think a bit more about the state of their code.
  • It let’s you include “status” in your search. So you can choose to
    only display “stable” code, or “at least beta” or “any”. Or you
    could have the search sort the most stable projects first.

Hmm. Talking about myself, I’ve not wanted to sort RAA projects by
static-ness(?) when I search RAA for now… But I like “owner can
select its status from pre-defined status” and icons idea.

What "status"s should be pre-defined?
alpha, beta, and stable, that’s all?

Regards,
// NaHi

prototype/experimental too.

-a

···

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, NAKAMURA, Hiroshi wrote:

What "status"s should be pre-defined?
alpha, beta, and stable, that’s all?

====================================

Ara Howard
NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratory
Information and Technology Services
Data Systems Group
R/FST 325 Broadway
Boulder, CO 80305-3328
Email: ahoward@fsl.noaa.gov
Phone: 303-497-7238
Fax: 303-497-7259
====================================

“NAKAMURA, Hiroshi” nahi@keynauts.com writes:

Hi,

From: “Daniel Carrera” dcarrera@math.umd.edu
Sent: Thursday, January 30, 2003 4:54 AM

Regards to #5 (two columns), I tried on.
http://rrr.jin.gr.jp/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library
How do you all think?

I thought this was confusing, but the idea is good. I think there
needs to be whitespace between the columns. Right now it looks like
the left and right columns are related.

···


matt

Hi, Matt,

From: Matt Armstrong [mailto:matt@lickey.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 1:58 AM

Regards to #5 (two columns), I tried on.
http://rrr.jin.gr.jp/raa/cat.rhtml?category_major=Library
How do you all think?

I thought this was confusing, but the idea is good. I think there
needs to be whitespace between the columns. Right now it looks like
the left and right columns are related.

Definitely. This is the last ToDo item to be checked
before RAA/2.3.1… 2 table elements in the table may
be good.

You can see RAA/2.3.1-pre running at our test drives;
http://usausa.dyndns.org/~usa/raa/
http://rrr.jin.gr.jp/raa/

It will be released in this week. Last-minute pushing?

Regards,
// NaHi