Linking to platform guides from the homepage

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Hello Haxe community!

As some of you know we now have per-platform installation guides for (somewhat) every platform Haxe supports.

How can we link to these from the homepage?

Would it be fine if I made the respective platform logos on the homepage clickable and link to it from there?

markknol commented 5 years ago

I would prefer to have all targets in there too before linking them (JavaScript / HashLink / LUA, C++ …).

Then we should incorporate it here somewhere: https://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/

We also have to check what to do with the manual pages, maybe you have an idea about that too:

https://haxe.org/manual/target-javascript-getting-started.html https://haxe.org/manual/target-java-getting-started.html https://haxe.org/manual/target-cs-getting-started.html https://haxe.org/manual/target-php-getting-started.html https://haxe.org/manual/target-cpp-getting-started.html https://haxe.org/manual/target-lua-getting-started.html

uvtc commented 5 years ago

Looks like I commented on the PR #377 rather than this issue, but I suggest creating a small install page on haxe.org containing some short instructions regarding grabbing the package for your OS from the Downloads page and installing in the usual manner for that OS, but also containing a matrix or list of links to these cool setup guides.

I think a prospective new Haxe user looking to install and setup Haxe will look in the following places, in the following order, to figure out what to do:

an Install link in the main nav heading?
an Install link under the "Learn Haxe" tab?
an Install link in the Introduction?
an Install link in the Manual somewhere (maybe)?

@markknol writes: "I would prefer to have all targets in there too before linking them (JavaScript / HashLink / LUA, C++ …)."

That would be nice, but may be a long way out. Maybe acceptable to put a blurb underneath saying, "for targets/platforms not listed here, contributions welcome" or similar.

uvtc commented 5 years ago

@markknol Looking at the Haxe intro now, I'm surprised there's not already a link to "installing" there (above "Building from source"); I think a new user reading the intro is very likely to also want info on installing and setup.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

@uvtc Assuming this workflow:

Someone is interested and gets eventually carried off to the haxe download page
He downloads a specific version of haxe corresponding to his platform
He gets taken to the "thank you for downloading haxe" page
At this point he could presumably use some platform-specific setup instructions

So I modified my PR to include some changes to the "thanks for downloading" page so it looks like:

Does it work?

Simn commented 5 years ago

I really like the idea to have this on the download page. Seems like the perfect place for it!

Could we do just that without changing anything on the index page for now?

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Could we have both? :P

Simn commented 5 years ago

The index change is more controversial and should be discussed in the context of a general front page redesign.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

@markknol Shall I revert the index page changes?

markknol commented 5 years ago

You are so fast 😄 Now there's such feedback after you already created it, hope you don't mind.

Yes let's not change the homepage for now.

I do like those logo's on the download page, very nice idea.

Some requestst:

let's remove the non-real targets logos here (ios/android). Open for discussion, but we don't have content to deliver here.
nodejs/html5 logo should both link to "getting started with js" page (which is missing atm)

I'd love to see/try how they would look if the logo's would look more like buttons, something like this, but bit more creative :)

_______________________ _______________________
|                      | |                      |
|   GET STARTED WITH   | |   GET STARTED WITH   |
|                      | |                      |
|        {LOGO}        | |        {LOGO}        |
|                      | |                      |
_______________________ _______________________

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Lol thanks! I commented out the platform logos from the homepage while keeping the source in-place for future usage. The homepage is now visually untouched.

And I removed the non-real target logos from the download page. Right now I just kept the 4 logos for which we actually have pages. The rest have been commented out. I'll uncomment them as we add pages.

Could you accept this PR and I'll do the buttons and improved style in another one?

markknol commented 5 years ago

Will look at it next week as I'm little bit busy atm. I first want to see the buttons, because once it is on stagin we cannot deploy other things (if needed) without shipping this along to live website, if that makes sense.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

We also need some link to these guides from within the main docs menu / page.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Done the buttons. Hopefully you gonna accept it now?

/documentation/introduction/

Post download page

Are we good?

And when can I expect this to go live on haxe.org?

PS: I fixed it so the python logo is not squished.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

@markknol Is dis fine?

markknol commented 5 years ago

This is great! Looks very good, nice job! 🔥

Now I still think we need JavaScript and C++ since those are important targets.

Some suggestions, I see the download page already has a "get started" section, it would be sensible to move your block in there too:

Some text change:

title: "Get started with specific platforms", (this is better because you dont get "help", you have to do it yourself 😄 )
description: "Now that you've downloaded Haxe, you can get started with a specific platform. Click on a logo to learn how to set up the development environment and how to proceed from there."

markknol commented 5 years ago

Some more suggestions for the pages that we might want to update on the pages:

"Ask the community" section, there is more than the forum, there is stackoverflow, discord, gitter, even social media https://haxe.org/community/community-support.html
"You can alternatively use a full-fledged Java IDE like .." Maybe you can start this line with something like "Beside the out of the box [debugging features], " where that links to https://haxe.org/manual/debugging.html Otherwise it maybe suggest you always need to debug in different software, which isn't always needed.
Maybe you wrap haxe code in <pre><code class="prettyprint haxe"> or <pre><code class="prettyprint hxml"> (for hxml) then it get's properly highlighted (and will use monospace font)

I hope we can this live soon !

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Good ideas, however I'd like to keep it above the fold, you know, people may not scroll below the text and may miss those buttons. I might move it just below the donate/technical help sections.

markknol commented 5 years ago

I doubt that argument about the fold is an actual thing, people scroll, also depends on a resolution if it will be visible anyway. I think it belongs to the other "getting started" section, so lets incorporate it there.

But we also could try to switch the "technical help" section and "getting started" if that makes sense / looks good.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Great. Now we've shoved these buttons from the homepage down to the end of a minor download page. I hope people find it after all this work.

Anyways, its your site, so whatever...

markknol commented 5 years ago

Anyways, its your site, so whatever...

That's a bit dramatic, and there is no need for that 😃 You're doing great work and we both want to make it as visible as possible, on the correct spots. I'm open for suggestions. Also I though we wanted those buttons here too? https://haxe.org/documentation/introduction/ (Which is the 2nd most visited page on the haxe.org site)

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Haha. Thanks. Yeah look, I just hope people find it below the fold. Yeah most people may be using a large HD screen and they could possibly find those buttons. Its just personally I would filter out any and all text on the "thanks for downloading" page especially after I see those big "donate" and "contact us" sections. I would just assume that anything coming after that could not help me majorly.

And yeah, I appreciate your help too bud. I already included the changes to /documentation/introduction/ in my post above, let me recap:

Is this good? And I'll try to do what you're saying... lets see...

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

How is this for the post download page?

There will be at least 2 more buttons to complete the look.

test

markknol commented 5 years ago

That looks good! Glad we're on the same track!

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Ok, great! Now just to complete our selection of pages. Flash and JS should be easy. C++ might need some work.

markknol commented 5 years ago

I added the JS + node.js page https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/haxe.org/commit/d191fe4fc253f75b49d29da25abbfb986d081c13 and changed the link to the community support https://github.com/HaxeFoundation/haxe.org/commit/76da31082b9426eead693ac5597189b837809a46 Can you check them out?

markknol commented 5 years ago

Btw it would be great if we could re-use the SVG icons (and color them with css) on the platform pages. Those flat icons are nice :D

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

I added the JS + node.js page d191fe4 and changed the link to the community support 76da310 Can you check them out?

Thanks so much. It was getting tiring to create those pages. I think they look great. The node.js page may need a section on installing node.js, like we have in java/python.

markknol commented 5 years ago

On my local machine I added a feature to include a piece of html so you can do ::fragment "pages/community.fragment.html"::

This allows me to include this, without repeating this on each page, what do you think?

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

Its nice but I probably think its overkill. I mean when faced 20 links, I would click none. Plus, many of the links are overlapping with the API section above. I would rather not have this template, or a very cut down version of it with just the actually useful ones. For example - Compiler bug reports - Unlikely that newbies need this. Blog/Facebook/Twitter is once again useless. The docs and haxelib are already covered above.

Maybe just incorporate gitter & discord into the first sentence and scrap the template.

robinrodricks commented 5 years ago

I'm kinda done with this PR. I improved the button style to more closely match the ones on the rest of the site. I added JS and Node.js.

Could you accept it into staging?

Documentation page

Post download page

markknol commented 5 years ago

will review when I have some time! Thanks!

HaxeFoundation / haxe.org

Linking to platform guides from the homepage #376