[sword-devel] Icon bar and redirects. (new website)

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:17 PM, Eeli Kaikkonen
<eekaikko at mail.student.oulu.fi> wrote:
> Quoting Jonathan Morgan <jonmmorgan at gmail.com>:
>
>> More nitpicking (do what you like with it):
>>
>> "Bible Study Software
>>
>> We have an abundance of applications, small and large,..."
>>
>> If the section is entitled "Bible Study Software", I would expect a
>> mention of software, rather than talking about applications.
>
> Are there people who know the meaning of "software" but not
> "application" or vice versa? (Not as in technical dictionary but
> intuitively.) It's good to have synonyms for search engines.
>
>>
>> Also, the "abundance of applications" link takes you to a page that
>> looks superficially identical to what you have just left (it has the
>> same section on Bible Study Software at the top with a little text
>> added, and the same chooser for your particular platform).  If you are
>> going to have a separate page for applications, I think it would be
>> preferable to list every application (though maybe with the platform
>> chooser icons at the top still).  While this does make an unwieldy
>> list, it seems to me that is what I have asked for - I have asked to
>> see the abundance of software, and you haven't shown it to me.
>>
>
> I agree. How about a simple list below the icons (in the Software
> page, not in the main page section):
>
> Choose the icon for your platform:
> [Linux icon]   [Windows icon]
> BibleTime      TSPFW
> GnomeSword     ...
>
> Each list item is of course a link to the application description, so
> nothing else have to be changed. This would give a quick overview of
> all available applications by name.
>
>> "We have many different software packages on different platforms to
>> support you in your Bible studies.  Since all these packages can use
>> the same Bibles, dictionaries, commentaries and other books, you can
>> try several and see which one you end up liking best.  Please use the
>> icons below to find software for your platform."
>>
>> I don't like the words "packages" or "platform" either, but can't
>> think of a better alternative (software is not pluralisable).
>
> If you ask me, software is more general term, application is a piece
> of software for end users for a specific task. I think there's no
> alternative for "platform" because it may mean hardware, OS, virtual
> machine etc.

True, possibly.  I just felt it incongruous not to mention software in
the body when you are talking about "Bible Study Software".

> BTW, I don't like the Java section - it's needed only if the Java apps
> run somewhere which is not already covered by other platforms. Are
> there any examples for that?
>
>>
>> The differences with rationale are:
>> * Removed "small and large" since I don't know what it means and don't
>> consider it important.
>
> True.
>
>> * Removed mention of cross platform applications, since it seems to me
>> utterly irrelevant when the user is choosing a platform to get
>> software for anyway.
>> * I don't think the user cares too much where the library is stored
>> (though I agree it is preferable to use the same location).
>
> I don't agree completely. For many of our users (or potential users)
> technology and technical details mean much. People may want to find
> software which works on two or even more platforms. "cross platform
> bible software" is the first search term which comes to my mind.

Possibly it is worth putting it somewhere, but I don't think it
deserves a front page mention, and it certainly makes it more text to
read (which is what I am trying to avoid).  It's worth noting that if
you search for that Crosswire comes up first, but what is highlighted
is the purpose statement "The SWORD Project is the CrossWire Bible
Society's free Bible software project. Its purpose is to create
cross-platform open-source tools, covered by the ...", though that is
no longer there.

I personally think the best course might be to make each application
description show which platforms it supports (probably by icons),
which would also be handy if you were to have a list of all software
(maybe add a link to "All" as part of the list of icons there, I don't
know).

>> * Expanded "module library" (which doesn't have a huge amount of
>> meaning) to "Bibles, dictionaries, commentaries and other books"
>> (which IMHO does).  I know there are other types of modules, but those
>> are probably the important ones.  I would suggest if you adopt this
>> that Bibles links to the display of available Bibles (e.g.
>> http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/ModDisp.jsp?modType=Bibles),
>> dictionaries to dictionaries, commentaries to commentaries, and other
>> books to genbooks.
>
> That's true - the "module" here needs explanation.

Not sure.  My one didn't need explaining, and it talked about concepts
users are actually interested in (e.g. is it Bible software only, or
does it support dictionaries and commentaries? - though little serious
Bible software only supports the Bible).  It also allowed users to
easily check what modules are available in the different types, if
that is important to them.

Jon