[kde-community] Proposal to change to kde.org/download text

Thu Jul 10 10:07:44 BST 2014

On Tuesday 08 July 2014 19:55:12 John Layt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> [Posting to community rather than www or promo as it covers all 3
> areas and this seems the best place for bike-shedding without spam
> cross-posting.]
> 
> I spent a couple of hours on the weekend trying to walk someone
> through installing KDE on Windows.  While there were several issues
> with the KDE Windows Installer, an initial problem came with just
> finding the installer.  We started at http://www.kde.org/ and clicked
> on the prominent "Get KDE Software" which led to
> http://www.kde.org/download/ which is where we hit a solid wall of
> text over more than one page.  Eventually we found the link at the
> bottom that took us to http://windows.kde.org/, and finally to
> http://windows.kde.org/download.php.  That's 4 clicks and a lot of
> text to get through when we already knew what we wanted.
> 
> The Download page seems to want to explain what KDE is before letting
> you download stuff, but most people going to that page will have
> decided they already want to try it and so we should just give them
> the info they need most.  We can explain KDE elsewhere.  We also need
> to use terminology that new users will understand, which means leaving
> out unnecesary and confusing details.
> 
> I'd like to propose the following text instead (links marked as <text>):
> 
> [Begins]
> 
> The KDE Community produces <Free Software> that can to be used on a
> number of operating systems.  This page details how to obtain KDE
> Software on each of those platforms, but for best results we recommend
> you run KDE Applications under KDE Plasma Workspace on Linux or BSD.
> To obtain support for using KDE Software please visit the <KDE
> UserBase>.
> 
> [h1] Supported Platforms
> 
> [h2] Linux and BSD
> 
> KDE Workspaces and KDE Applications are available for most <Linux and
> BSD distributions> by using the distribution's software manager.  For
> more information please consult your distribution documentation or
> user support forums.
> 
> You can try out KDE Software on Linux without changing anything on
> your computer by using a <Linux Live CD or USB stick>.
> 
> [h2] Windows
> 
> Many KDE Applications are available for Windows XP, Windows Vista and
> Windows 7 using the <KDE Windows Installer>.  Some KDE Applications
> are also available as <individual downloads>.  The level of Windows
> support available may vary for individual applications.
> 
> For more information visit the <KDE on Windows home page>.
> 
> [h2] Mac OS X
> 
> Most KDE Applications are only available for Mac OS X by using the
> <MacPorts>, <Fink>, or <HomeBrew> package managers.  These
> installation methods are not recommended for most users.  Some KDE
> Applications are also available as <individual downloads>.  KDE hopes
> to provide more user-friendly installation methods in the future.
> 
> For more information visit the <KDE on Mac home page>.
> 
> [h2] Source Packages
> 
> All KDE Software is <Free Software> with the source code freely
> available for anyone to download, modify, build, and distribute in
> accordence with the terms of <our licences>.  You can obtain tarballs
> for any release from our <download servers>.
> 
> For more information on building KDE Software from source visit the
> <KDE TechBase>.
> 
> [h1] KDE Software
> 
> [h2] KDE Applications
> 
> The KDE Community develops a wide variety of <applications> which can
> run under any supported operating system or desktop environment.
> These may be released as part of the regularly scheduled KDE
> Applications releases, or may be released independently.
> 
> The latest <KDE Applications> release is <version 4.13.2> which was
> released on 10 June 2014.
> 
> [h2] KDE Plasma Workspaces
> 
> The KDE Community develops Desktop, Netbook and Tablet workspaces for
> use on Linux and BSD systems.
> 
> The latest <KDE Plasma Workspaces> release is <version 4.11> which was
> released on 14 August 2013.  This is a Long Term Support (LTS) release
> that will be supported with bug-fixes until after the release of
> Plasma 5.  The most recent LTS bug-fix release is <version 4.11.10>
> which was released on 10 June 2014.
> 
> [Add at Plasma 5]  The Plasma 5.0 desktop was released on 7 July 2014.
> While this is a stable release, it is not yet recommended for general
> use.
> 
> [h2] KDE Development Libraries
> 
> The KDE Community develops many libraries and tools for software
> developers which are used to build the KDE Applications and KDE
> Workspaces.  Other developers are free to use these for their own
> applications under the terms of our licences.  See the <KDE TechBase>
> for more details.
> 
> The latest <KDE Development Platform> for use with Qt4 is <version
> 4.13.2> which was released on 10 June 2014.
> 
> The latest <KDE Frameworks> for use with Qt5 is <version 5.0.0> which
> was released on 7 July 2014.
> 
> [Ends]
> 
> This may still need editing down, as the intent should be to fit on a
> single page, or at least the platform download links section should.
> The Windows and Mac details may be better placed on a separate wiki
> pages where we can easily change the list of installers, but that
> increases the number of clicks required.  The alternative is listing
> them all on this page (mostly Krita, Marble, Digikam?).
> 
> The Package Policy page at
> http://www.kde.org/download/packagepolicy.php page has a level of
> detail that should be on TechBase instead, and its FAQ section strikes
> me as rather unprofessional in places and should be removed.
> 
> The CDROM page at http://www.kde.org/download/cdrom.php page seems
> archaic and is empty so should either be deleted or replaced with a
> list of Live Distros running off USB or CD.  A wiki page may be a
> better option for such a page?
> 
> The Distributions page at
> http://www.kde.org/download/distributions.php page can be kept, but
> note that distrowatch.com is broken right now so perhaps we should use
> distrowatch.org instead.  We may prefer to provide direct links to the
> distro homepage rather than always send them to Distrowatch (although
> there may be legal issues around that for the eV?).
> 
> Longer term, once we have individual Win and Mac installers per app,
> and perhaps apps in the Android store, we are going to need something
> better.  I have ideas about adapting http://www.kde.org/applications/
> to be a proto app store auto-generated from AppData files with links
> to the downloads, but that's a bike-shed for another occasion :-)

I am all for it.

> Thoughts?
> 
> John.
> _______________________________________________
> kde-community mailing list
> kde-community at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
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