Re: [Axiom-developer] Front page esthetic

[Ralf Hemmecke]

Hello Gaby,

[Wiki-Frontpage]
> For example, I was looking for research papers related to Axiom.  I
> knew they were buried deeply somewhere in the hierarchical pages.

I agree with Gaby, the FrontPage is missing some information that I 
would like to find there. So I added some questions to the FAQ section.
If everyone would enter questions there (yes just questions other people 
might answer), then that would be a way to know what people are looking 
for and modify the FrontPage accordingly.Unfortunately, I could not come 
up with a better suggestion. I think Bill did a great job. Thank you, 
Bill. But Gaby, imagine you have to design the FrontPage yourself. Maybe 
that seems simple, but the links you put there should lead to some 
reasonable content.

> | http://portal.axiom-developer.org/refs
>
> Yes, I do.
>
> | Maybe this deserves a link on the Axiom Wiki FrontPage?

I agree. Maybe it should be called "related literature" in the 
documentation section.

> yes, layout.  I think the color is OK.

I think, layout and color is OK. I am more concerned with the contents 
of the left and right columns.

For example, I quite dislike the Download section. Newcomers don't have 
any idea what we mean by Gold and Silver branch. Although personally, I 
find gold and silver quite nice, but in general it is more clear if we 
call this "stable" and "unstable" for the general public.

Think about what you would like.

(1) Precompiled binaries
(2) Sources (as .tgz and tar.bz2 and .zip)
(3) CVS/SVN/Arch access
(4) Browse sources online

All of that would refer to the stable (gold) release of the sources.

(1) Precompiled binaries
The corresponding page would just list the binaries and some note of how 
to install them.

(2) Sources (as .tgz and tar.bz2 and .zip)
(3) CVS/SVN/Arch access
Maybe these two points could be just one and be called "Sources".
The corresponding page would first tell people about stable=gold, 
unstable=silver then have a section "Gold" and "Silver".
The Gold section comes with subsections
"Tarball" where the links to tgz and tar.bz2 and .zip are given 
directly, and
"Repository access" where it is described that we have CVS and TLA 
archives of GOLD and an algorithm (shell commands) of how to access the 
sources. Additionally, it should be stated that for contributing to 
Axiom one should use the Silver branch. (I know that could be argued.)

See
http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/SandboxAxiomSources
and tell me what you think.
(Could one have a table of contents at the top of that page?)

(4) Browse sources online
That should be something like the "Online Source" that currently exists.
But if you press "Online sources" currently it leads to
        
/mathaction/axiom--test--1/

I know it is irrelevant, but the "test" in the name is misleading. The 
page http://wiki.axiom-developer.org/axiom--test--1/FrontPage
(and archive) should rather be called "Axiom-Stable". Yes, not the same 
naming conventions as the tla archive. Bill, if you could write on top 
of that page that people are browsing the latest stable release, that 
would be wonderful.

I think the "Build Axiom" entry under download is unnecessary. There 
should be just a link from the "AxiomSources" page to the BuildAxiom 
page. And the BuildAxiom page should be cleaned up a bit.

Ralf