Make download page friendly for new users

Let’s say I’m a new user, curious about this RISC OS thing. I want to download an SD card image for my Raspberry Pi. I’m running Linux on it and I want to try something new.

I go to the ROOL website and click on ‘Software’. Looks like ‘Essentials (disc images)’ is for me. So, err, what do I do now? I want a disc image so let’s search for ‘image’. Ah, there are four images available. I don’t know what to do with the self-extracting ones (it says they decompress on RISC OS, which I don’t have – perhaps they won’t work on Windows?) So let’s grab one of the zipfiles – ‘RISC OS 5.20 stable disc image’ it says, so I’m now downloading the zipfile called HardDisc4.zip.

Hang on, there’s loads of stuff called !Boot and other things in here. What am I supposed to flash to my SD card? Help!

OK, I’m role-playing for effect, but the downloads page is essentially impenetrable for new users:

New users want to get started fast. It should direct them to the Pi disc images as the first resort. Point to images for other systems (Beagle etc) if they’re available.

Existing users will want a ROM and a disc image. So put those at the top – maybe disc then all the different flavours of ROM. Drop ancillary programs afterwards (maybe with a link in the blurb about using UnTarBZ2), and internationalisation at the bottom.

The page is very long, so maybe shorten it somehow – either some kind of folding (in NetSurf friendly Javascript? It should still work without JS) or a ‘table of contents’ with anchor links to the sections. Maybe also some way of choosing between stable and beta images, as that doubles the number of entries, or picking by platform type.

Finally, the naming is odd. It’s under a tab ‘Software’ and the filename is ‘other-zipfiles’. WTF? People know what a downloads page is and that’s what they look for. So call the tab ‘downloads’ where everyone can recognise it. I realise the history of why it’s called ‘other-zipfiles’, but can we please rename that to something more sensible?

I had a poke around SVN to find the source of this page to see what it actually does, but wasn’t successful.

New users want to get started fast. It should direct them to the Pi disc images as the first resort. Point to images for other systems (Beagle etc) if they’re available.

Yes. Split the page into sub-pages
As you say below:

The page is very long, so maybe shorten it somehow – either some kind of folding (in NetSurf friendly Javascript? It should still work without JS) or a ‘table of contents’ with anchor links to the sections. Maybe also some way of choosing between stable and beta images, as that doubles the number of entries, or picking by platform type.

Keep away from the JS stuff, various people currently access the pages with the readily available RO browser which doesn’t have full JS support.
I think splitting the page with blindingly obvious links is probably the answer. Apart from anything else the front link page is then short and easily added to for those new boards that will appear, meanwhile each sub-page can be edited on its own and kept nice and short.

Existing users will want a ROM and a disc image. So put those at the top – maybe disc then all the different flavours of ROM. Drop ancillary programs afterwards (maybe with a link in the blurb about using UnTarBZ2), and internationalisation at the bottom.

Sub-pages – linked from the individual board sub-pages

Finally, the naming is odd. It’s under a tab ‘Software’ and the filename is ‘other-zipfiles’. WTF? People know what a downloads page is and that’s what they look for. So call the tab ‘downloads’ where everyone can recognise it. I realise the history of why it’s called ‘other-zipfiles’, but can we please rename that to something more sensible?

The first “downloads” page you hit when selecting “Software” from the menu proably ought to be split and presented on the menu as Software (as now) and Source.

So:
Essentials – ROM images, disc images, etc.

becomes
Rpi ROM images etc
OMAP3 system images (beagle etc)
OMAP4 system images…

and this redundant link can go
Accessories (such as high quality backdrop images)

Existing users will want a ROM and a disc image. So put those at the top – maybe disc then all the different flavours of ROM. Drop ancillary programs afterwards (maybe with a link in the blurb about using UnTarBZ2), and internationalisation at the bottom.

The page is autogenerated, so it’s merely sorted alphabetically by group, then alphabetically by thing-withing-group. I is before R so internationalisation comes before ROMs.

The page title (“ROM releases”) and other-zipfiles are a bit of a hangover, but to your role playing would be more realistic where the bulk of new RISC OS users are on Pi, so most of them will be browsing www.raspberrypi.org not here.

The page is autogenerated, so it’s merely sorted alphabetically by group, then alphabetically by thing-withing-group. I is before R so internationalisation comes before ROMs.

The sort issue wouldn’t arise if the page was split to pages – short enough to see in one glance rather than a scroll through.

The page title (“ROM releases”) and other-zipfiles are a bit of a hangover, but to your role playing would be more realistic where the bulk of new RISC OS users are on Pi, so most of them will be browsing www.raspberrypi.org not here.

Well their main link from that would probably be this:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads
which has an out of date RO version in the NOOBS and a similarly out of date version in the raw images but does link to this:
https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/Welcome%20to%20RISC%20OS%20Pi

which doesn’t offer them a newer version (stable or beta)

Nothing like making it easy for the newbies. Which I think was the main point of Theo’s role play item.
The main thing is that when they get to the ROOL site it should be easier, supplying raspberrypi org with a newer build as a start point wouldn’t go amiss.

Didn’t someone try, but essentially get rebuffed by pi org as they were not an official ROOL contact?

it’s merely sorted alphabetically by group

The sort issue wouldn’t arise if the page was split to pages

I was just pointing out the reason for the order, rather than having an opinion one way or another. A long page could be seen as good – lots of supported hardware, unlike the pre ROOL era, but equally it is long.

supplying raspberrypi org with a newer build as a start point wouldn’t go amiss.

Very true. Unless someone’s offering to pay for a bigger server & quota I’m guessing ROOL aren’t likely to be serving SD card images themselves, hence my point that most people would never make it as far as ROOL’s site as the thing they want is hosted by the Pi people.

most people would never make it as far as ROOL’s site as the thing they want is hosted by the Pi people.

You know that, I know that, but it isn’t at all obvious from the ROOL website.

There’s no big ‘download it here’ link. If I google ‘RISC OS Raspberry Pi’ the first hit is ‘welcome to RISC OS Pi’ which doesn’t tell anyone how to download it (it’s the text from the Pi SD card). Second is the sales page for RISC OS Pi: fine if you want to buy an SD card, but no mention that it’s available for download. Third hit is the raspberrypi.org announcement of the release, which does have a link to their download page.

The ROOL website is entirely silent that it’s possible to download the images. RPi is the primary route in for many users, and yet it’s so well hidden. For example, above is mentioned that the image on the RPi website is out of date and a newer one is available? From where? How do I find out about that?

Sprow, is the code for generating this page in SVN somewhere?

And raw download bandwidth is cheap, if you don’t need a powerful server to serve it from. I have a 500GB/month deal for $15 a year (datacentre somewhere in New Jersey). So I’m happy to arrange more bandwidth if required ;-)

Reading these comments, part of the reason I pointed you all to http://kolibrios.org/en/index earlier.

The index says what it is, why you might need it, and a big clear “download” link. There is also a YouTube video, I guess for people that need lots of pictures. ;-)

As for us? Top paragraph introduces ROOL and then a brief bit about RISC OS with links elsewhere for more. Firstly, RISC OS is the product, it should be introduced first. Then comes the sell – tell us why we need it. Don’t point to external sites, if it is worth saying it should be said right there with links as “additional material”, never in place of primary material.

Right below that should be links to downloads. You could be smart and say “download RISC OS now for {list here}” with each list item going to a relevant anchor. The devices should be named, don’t assume the user actually knows their device has an OMAPn inside.

People look for key words, like “Downloads”. I’m not sure “Software” is inuitive.

I think “disc image” means something else these days. ;-)

Finally, why does clicking/tapping the RISC OS title not return to the main index¹? It is pretty much assumed by most people that the title text/logo will go back home (try it anywhere – Amazon, The Register…). It works if you choose the cog wheel logo…on the right…where people might not even think to click…

Just my €0,0241 worth.

¹ Edit: Okay, the title-to-index link appears to work on the forum. It doesn’t work on bugs or software. Not tried other parts.

Right below that should be links to downloads. You could be smart and say “download RISC OS now for {list here}” with each list item going to a relevant anchor. The devices should be named, don’t assume the user actually knows their device has an OMAPn inside.

Yep, that was why I included the bit in the brackets (it gives a clue to people who need it)

People look for key words, like “Downloads”. I’m not sure “Software” is inuitive.

I was suggesting minimal changes, relabelling the links is an option. Personally I’m not fussed either way as long as it’s clear. As Theo pointed out the current setup isn’t clear.

I’m willing to bet 50 £ that it can’t be done for whatever technical reasons.
If it can be done however it won’t get done.
If it does get done I’ll donate said £ 50 to ROOL.

FWIW I’m happy to submit patches, but the actual website source code doesn’t seem to be in SVN.

Hi guys. All of this feedback is very helpful and I broadly agree that, although fiddly for the (predictable) technical reasons, it’d be very worthwhile to update a number of pages, including:

• the “Essentials” downloads page
• the front page of the “Welcome to ROPi”
• the “RISC OS Pi” sales page

I’ll try to do some of this stuff over the next few days. Expect breakages!

One suggestion. Some of the ‘i’ buttons on the ‘Essentials’ page used to have a help page (rather than an empty page) behind them. Can this be recovered please? I did do a few edits on them but feel a bit discouraged now that they have vanished (due to the page/link being renamed?)

I’m sure I answered your email about this. If we rename the download file (to keep other people who complain about that sort of thing happy!), then the corresponding name of the Info page will change, meaning you end up linking to a blank page in the wiki. All that needs to be done to fix this is look through the list of wiki pages to locate the original page and copy its content across to the new, blank one.

I would really love to have people in the community keep a lookout for this sort of thing and help to fix it – it’s one less thing for us to do. It should be fairly rare and we do try to tidy up after any changes in the back-end, but it is sadly easy to miss.

I strongly suspect any efforts to tidy up all of the download pages will result in further breaking of links into the wiki…

All that needs to be done to fix this is look through the list of wiki pages

Err! How does a user do this? I would do it if I knew how.

I’m sure I answered your email about this.

You did (on 19 Jan 2014) but I still don’t know how to. PM sent.

Go to the wiki documentation Home Page
Click on find help here
In the right hand panel under navigation click on All Pages
At which point I bottled it!

The previous pages should appear in the ‘orphanded’ list but have actually been deleted. They are late pages. They have passed on. They are no more.

So I have written new help pages for the Pandaboard, Beagleboard and Raspberry Pi rom download links. That is the help icons, the ‘i’ image, now links to a (hopefully) useful page rather than an empty page. Let the criticism commence.

I think it’s pretty safe to say the wiki is broken.

You can google for the missing pages (or, I guess, enter the URLs manually) and they’ll still work. Or at least they work for me. E.g. https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/show/Software%20information:%20Beagle%20ROM

I’ll track down the other missing pages and merge their content into the new ones.

Thanks for this. I will now reject the hypothesis that I am having a senior moment.

There is also an authors page which list the people who have created and edited pages on the wiki, so if you look for your name you should find the pages you did.

https://www.riscosopen.org/wiki/documentation/authors

I have written a little something for the !Alarm module. It was at the top of the “Wanted Pages” column in the All Pages list and deals with the red “?” that was present on the List of Modules page.

The Software Information page for Alarm is a trifle out of date. Retrieving all the changes from CVS would be a bit fatiguing! Such information, if really required, would be best added at the time of development. I have updated the “Last stable version” number.

There is also an authors’ page which lists the people who have created and edited pages on the wiki, so if you look for your name you should find the pages you did.

However the pages are not there. Neither do they not exist.

I’ve added relevant comments here:

https://www.riscosopen.org/tracker/tickets/362

…if you’ve further useful information or fault reports to add, please do that in the ticket thread rather than the forum; it’s much easier to follow when it’s all in one place. Thanks!

locate the original page and copy its content across to the new, blank one

There’s the option (below the edit window) to “Change page name.” This should then automatically create a redirect from the old name.

Except AFAICR the “change page name” thing is broken or at best dangerous in our current version of the Wiki engine.

Yes, I think it has security vulnerabilities as it allows the page history to be fiddled with.