Improving the homepage

[Ryan Schmidt]

On May 29, 2007, at 12:43, Simon Ruderich wrote:

> as a new user to macports I have some possible improvements for the
> homepage because the first visit to it was a bit confusing:

I agree with everything you've written below. We're still  
experiencing some growing pains since switching over to the MacPorts  
name and the new Mac OS Forge hosting.

> As I first visited the homepage I couldn't find any information what
> macports is; only after digging in the links I found out. I knew  
> already
> what it is but new users should get a quick overview. So I suggest an
> introduction sentence like "macports is a project which allows you to
> run different unix software on your mac very easily" or something
> similar at the index page.
>
> I also think the links should be better categorized. The first link
> should be "Getting started" which links to a real introduction how to
> setup macports (for starters and also for programmers), with a good
> example like Gimp or OpenOffice.
>
> What irritated me was that some links point to macports.org (like
> contact or news) and others to macosforge.org (like subversion) and
> there was no easy way back to macports. I think these links should be
> moved to an own section like "external help" or so.
>
> Also the links change when you access the trac "part" of the page. I
> think all pages should have the same links section.
>
> There should also a quick access to the documentation. At first I
> couldn't find a good documentation at all; only some files in the trac
> wiki which wasn't so good. Only after digging in the svn repository I
> found the DocBook guide which is really good. I think it should be
> compiled and stored on the page, preferably as a link in the "Getting
> started" link system. But maybe I'm just missing a link which I  
> didn't find.

You're right, the documentation went missing in the move from  
DarwinPorts to MacPorts.

> What is also missing is a good quick start introduction. The DocBook
> manual is very detailed but too confusing (and too long) for new  
> users,
> so we should create a small page with all necessary information to use
> macports.
>
> There are also old links to the darwinports which looks like it's not
> accessible anymore. These should be removed too.
>
>
> I very much like the macports system and will working with it  
> regularly
> in the future but I think by improving the webpage it could be made  
> much
> more easily for starters to get macports working and preventing them
> from giving up, which was what I did after visiting the page some  
> months
> ago.
>
> If you allow patches or other ways to improve the webpage I would very
> much like to help you with this because I think macports is a very  
> good
> system for every mac user. I'm not so a good (Objective-) C programmer
> but I think I know enough about web applications to help you there.
>
> If anybody has other ideas or improvements or critics on my ideas I
> would like to discuss it here to get a better macports page.

I have been slowly working on a redesign of the web site which I will  
post to the dev list soon for feedback. I will attempt to incorporate  
your suggestions.