[OpenLayers-Dev] website menu

[Andreas Hocevar]

Hey Tim,

I think your proposal makes a lot of sense. +1.

And I think "About" is not so silly. It could tell a bit about the
history of OpenLayers, about the people behind the project and so on.

Regards,
Andreas.

Tim Schaub wrote:
> Hey-
>
> Following up on previous discussion about links on our website, I'd like 
> to hear opinions on how things should be organized.
>
> Our site is structured with two levels of menu.  On the homepage, things 
> look like this:
>
> 1. Top Level
> ------------
> a. Home (http://www.openlayers.org)
> b. Gallery (http://gallery.openlayers.org)
> c. Support & Development (http://trac.openlayers.org)
>
> 2. Second Level
> ---------------
> a. Sponsorship (http://openlayers.org/sponsorship/)
> b. Wiki (http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki)
> c. Blog (http://openlayers.org/blog/)
> d. FAQ (http://faq.openlayers.org/)
> e. Download (http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/HowToDownload)
> f. Email Lists (http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo)
>
> The second level menu from the gallery is gallery specific, and the 
> second level menu on the Support & Dev item is trac specific.
>
> Given this structure, you might say we want to drive people primarily to 
> the homepage, gallery, and trac site.  Our secondary goal is to get 
> people to read about sponsorship, read our wiki (redundant with trac), 
> blog, FAQ, download information, and join a mailing list.
>
> Based on a very non-scientific analysis of our website usage, it looks 
> like people are primarily viewing our "documentation" (I quote this 
> because it takes several forms, and in the end, everything is 
> documentation).
>
> My impression is that our examples are what a lot of people end up 
> relying on to learn OpenLayers.  I also think we all agree that the 
> growing prose documentation is a better starting place for most people.
>
> I'd like to propose that we more prominently feature our documentation 
> and examples in the menu structure.  I can imagine a menu structure that 
> looked like the following:
>
> 1. Top Level
> ------------
> a. Documentation
> b. Demos
> c. Download
> d. Development
>
> 2. Second Level
> ---------------
> a. About
> b. Blog
> c. Sponsorship
>
> I admit, this is largely cribbed from http://jquery.com/.  I also think 
> "About" is a bit silly, but I don't want to think about an alternative 
> right now.  Basically, it's a placeholder for "other places we want to 
> direct people."
>
> The "Documentation" page could direct people to API docs, prose docs, 
> and the FAQ.  In addition, this page should link to mailing lists and 
> talk about IRC.
>
> The "Demos" page could include links to the examples page and the gallery.
>
> The "Download" page already exists.
>
> The "Development" page would be our main trac page.
>
> Ok, enough from me for now.  Thoughts?
>
> Tim
>
>
>   


-- 
Andreas Hocevar
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org/
Expert service straight from the developers.