[wx-discuss] Applications page, user feedback

[Kevin Ollivier]

Hi Julian,

On Jan 21, 2007, at 5:51 AM, Julian Smart wrote:

> Hi Kevin,
>
> I do appreciate your work, and sorry if it seemed otherwise, it's  
> just that the details of the Applications UI isn't entirely  
> intuitive (or maybe I'm just impatient, but I do think it could be  
> improved). Since AFAIK you didn't write the code for this you can  
> hardly be blamed for it.

My issue wasn't about blame, it was about your suggestion to ditch  
the site before even giving me a report of exactly what was giving  
you so much trouble. I still don't know details - too many steps  
involved? You find yourself clicking to the wrong place by habit and  
having to backtrack? Some glitch during the process slowing things  
down? Something else?

I would think that as a software developer yourself, you'd understand  
the importance of giving the developer an opportunity to understand  
the problem first and then fix it or at least suggest workarounds.  
After all, would you want everyone who found a couple bugs with  
wxWidgets to say "bah, it has problems, screw it, we should just use  
Qt instead"?

I know the site still has issues (including already reported ones),  
but the wxListCtrl stuff took longer to get smoothed out than I  
expected (I didn't anticipate that a large majority of the bug  
reports wouldn't arrive until 2.8.0 was released), so I ended up  
losing some time near the holidays that I intended to spend on a  
wxCommunity re-design. And now I'm making faster progress than I  
expected on another programming project that is on my queue, and the  
sooner the better on that, so that's pushing things back a bit more.  
But if there's some small things I can do to make peoples' lives  
easier, I'd like to hear about it, so that I can at least look into  
whether or not we can easily fix this.

> As for one page versus a hierarchy, I think it depends what the  
> surfer is looking for. If I arrive at a site and want to get a  
> quick impression of what people are doing with the product, then  
> one or two pages is sufficient - I wouldn't want to have to drill  
> down into a hierarchy, I just want to scroll through a page getting  
> an impression, maybe clicking if something is of particular  
> interest. On the other hand, if wanting to download and use a  
> particular app, then one page obviously isn't sufficient. So I  
> guess the one-page format is a showcase kind of thing and should be  
> maintained seperately (or as a different view).

I agree. IMHO a showcase should be just that - highlight some of the  
better/more popular wx apps out there. I don't think people want to  
see every app out there, except to perhaps know some basic statistics  
on how many apps there are. I think people look at existing apps more  
to answer questions like "Can it do 3D/CAD well? What about Internet/ 
Communications? How about games? Can I make it Mac/Win/Linux  
optimized?" and by showing them apps that succeed in those areas and  
are fairly full-featured, I think we save them the effort of having  
to click around to various apps just to find one that serves as a  
good example.

> The Twiki concept is interesting, I'll have a look at it.

> Anyway, apologies for my insensitive choice of words.

Sorry for my own poor response. I need to learn to step away a bit  
more and focus on the issues brought up, I guess.

Regards,

Kevin

> Regards,
>
> Julian
>
> Kevin Ollivier wrote:
>> Hi Julian,
>>
>> I really don't have time to go through this again, but as for your  
>> suggestion, I personally think that having all our applications on  
>> one page says one thing to (perspective) wx users very clearly -  
>> that the number of wx apps are small enough that we think one page  
>> is enough to fit them all. I'll briefly mention (once again) the  
>> new site's automated broken link checking (we had LOTS of broken  
>> links on the old page), the fact that users can (and do) update  
>> entries themselves, and lastly, that people are actually reporting  
>> broken links via the web site at a rate that is probably much more  
>> often than on the old page, meaning some people are getting fairly  
>> actively involved in the site.
>>
>> In short, a single page with old apps and lots of broken links  
>> screams both "there aren't many wx apps" and "no one cares about  
>> this page", but if that's the signal you want to send because for  
>> some reason a couple clicks and filling out a simple form is  
>> causing you this much frustration (and you aren't happy with  
>> alternatives), then hell, I'm tired of trying to stick up for my  
>> work against a tide of criticism. (Well, it's not total criticism;  
>> the users often thank me when they learn they can add/update  
>> entries themselves and for my work on the site, but then again my  
>> interactions with the user community are in general much more  
>> pleasant for some reason.)
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Kevin
>>
>> On Jan 20, 2007, at 8:03 AM, Julian Smart wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Since the new wxWidgets web site went live, I've been at a losss  
>>> to know where to put descriptions of applications that people  
>>> send me. The current Applications link goes to the downloads page  
>>> at wxCommunity and the interface is so horrible I can't bring  
>>> myself to create an entry every time someone sends a description.  
>>> It's not really a good place to browse for wxWidgets-using  
>>> applications anyway, with its hierarchical structure (the old  
>>> Applications page was easy to scan through). We've lost quite a  
>>> few entries that weren't transferred to wxCommunity, e.g. Vulcan 3D.
>>>
>>> So, should we reinstate the old Applications page? Or have a Wiki  
>>> page, where the app authors can enter information themselves? Or  
>>> just put this kind of information in the Users page, since it  
>>> duplicates some of the Applications content anyway? Actually I  
>>> think this is my preferred solution.
>>>
>>> I don't mind maintaining an HTML page, at least I have somewhere  
>>> to put the information.
>>>
>>> Any thoughts?
>>>
>>> Here's an excerpt of a description that I received yesterday -  
>>> very encouraging to see someone migrating from Qt.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Julian
>>>
>>> "I have been using wxWidgets for more than a year now and would  
>>> like to present you the application we developed in our team.  
>>> This is called MedINRIA and it is dedicated to medical imaging  
>>> processing and visualization. In case you would agree to include  
>>> it in the "users" section of the wxWidgets website, this mail  
>>> contents the online survey requested. We have put lots of  
>>> screenshots of the software running on our webpage, feel free to  
>>> use them if you wish:
>>>
>>> http://www-sop.inria.fr/asclepios/software/MedINRIA/screenshots/
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance and congratulations for providing the developer  
>>> community with such a wonderful toolkit.
>>>
>>> Comments: I switched from Qt to GTK to wxWidgets. wxWidgets is by  
>>> far the best cross-platform GUI toolkit I ever used. What seduced  
>>> me is the convenience of c++, the handiness of the sizers that  
>>> are very logical to me, and the fact that each wx port uses the  
>>> native widgets of the targeted platform. Source code is clear,  
>>> maintenance is easy to do and I found the toolkit very mature,  
>>> and it gets even better with the AUI of the last version.  
>>> Congratulations for this excellent work and thanks for all your  
>>> effort."
>>>
>>> --Julian Smart, Anthemion Software Ltd.
>>> 28/5 Gillespie Crescent, Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH10 4HU
>>> www.anthemion.co.uk | +44 (0)131 229 5306
>>> Tools for writers: www.writerscafe.co.uk
>>> wxWidgets RAD:     www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> -- 
> Julian Smart, Anthemion Software Ltd.
> 28/5 Gillespie Crescent, Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH10 4HU
> www.anthemion.co.uk | +44 (0)131 229 5306
> Tools for writers: www.writerscafe.co.uk
> wxWidgets RAD:     www.anthemion.co.uk/dialogblocks
>
>
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