Improved Download Page Proposal

Hi everyone,

the last time I blogged about the parental leave ... still enjoying that time. But, sometimes I'd like to continue supporting LibreOffice and among different stuff in the last weeks (e.g. in the issues, or the libreoffice-ux-advice mailing list), I had a look at the Download section of our main website.

The Issue
It has been reported several times that end-users are unaware concerning the release scheme of LibreOffice and may experience problems with X.X.0 releases. Converning the latter, this is also a problem of users who download the software on external pages unrelated to TDF - the corresponding warning/information might be missing.

Furthermore, there have been complaints that the TDF LibreOffice Download page is too complex for normal users. Consequently, the LibreOffice Download Experience has to be improved.

Here is the download page how it looks today:

Although everything works, it seems a bit crowded, very complex and sometimes even misleading (as reported by users).

The Proposed Solution
Since everybody likes pictures, here is are just two mockups.

First, a mockup that demonstrates how the initial website will look like for a Microsoft Windows user.

Second, a mockup that demonstrates the website for a user who decided to go for the "Latest Features" version using a Linux based operating system. Moreover, the user already expanded the Download Options area.

You know, mockups miss a lot of information ... so don't forget to read the Download Page Whiteboard page telling you all the details ... please read that page before raising any concern ;-)


Thanks!

A "thank you" to all who helped to shape these proposals ... the earlier discussions on different mailing lists helped a lot (especially Nik who provided great thoughts). Furthermore, I'd like to thank Christian who helped to collect some of the requirements for a revised page design.


Personally, I hope you like the propsal. I'll announce it at the website mailing list, so join the discussion - or much better: help with the implementation.

Cheers,
Christoph

Idea: LibreOffice Mail Attachment Service

During the time with OpenOffice.org, it was quite common to come up with some ideas from time to time. But during the amazing first months with LibreOffice, I simply lacked the time ... until now. So here is the very first idea that is aimed to improve the handling of mail attachments on the mailing lists.

Summary

Enable sending attachments to mailing lists and keep in mind: security, traffic, ease-of-use, costs and misuse potential.

Solution Proposal

If a mail from a subscribed person is sent to a mailing list, and this mail contains an attachment, then the attached file gets extracted from the email and saved on a server. Then, the system embeds a link to this file (or a website containing this file). After this, the mail gets delivered as usual to the mailing lists and the mail archives.

Here is a draft how this may look like for the mailing list members, once they get a mail that originally contained an attachment:

And now?

If you want to know more, please have a look at the full proposal at the dedicated wiki page. There, you can find some user stories, a more detailed technical description, and a extensive FAQ concerning this idea. Go, go, go :-)

Cheers,
Christoph

Website Progress ... And Looking Back!

To me, it is quite fascinating how things progress at the moment within the LibreOffice website team. Here, I just want to pick a message by Michael who talks about the "Drupal LibreOffice CMS Development Site". Many people already contribute to make up the framework, plan the workflows, document requirements.

Parts of the site development are also artwork and branding related. And since I was involved in the very first design, I thought it would be nice to share what design was planned. We had to make some compromises with regard to the fidelity - caused by technical constraints (compatibility for rather old browsers) and time. So here is the original visual design "one-pager" ...

Maybe you find it interesting and (even more) maybe you want to look for the tiny differences :-) Maybe your last chance, since I hope the visual design for the whole project including the website will continue to progress.

So, thanks to the whole website team for your great engagement! Go on :-)

Cheers,
Christoph