I like it. I think links at the top are convenient. I would include a components link, as I personally think the main webpage should acknowledge GAP, PARI, etc. (In fact, on the SAGE authors page http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/rc/web/ack.html it would be nice to add a link to the GAP authors page http://www.gap-system.org/Contacts/People/authors.html, the Singular team page, and so on.) I also think there should be a link to the SAGE wiki.
I would make the screenshots correspond with the paragraph, if at all possible. For example, illustrate an interface to Axiom or Octave in the 3rd paragraph. I would prefer some other color than yellow (maybe light gray), but that is a very minor point. I'm not sure if you need the table. In terms of missing information, I've heard several complaints that it is too hard to figure out how to install the windows version. For example, at http://www.sagemath.org/SAGEbin/microsoft_windows/cygwin/ there is no zip file, so most people cannot uncompress it. One possible solution would be for the bottom paragraph ("Download SAGE today") to have a link to a page with a zip file, with a Vista warning as in http://www.sagemath.org/SAGEbin/microsoft_windows/cygwin/README.txt. The USNA has a very slow connection for the students, so installing SAGE for them takes hours. If you would like me to create such a zip file (which I would mirror at the USNA) just let me know. Also, as far as missing information, the "killer app" IMHO is that SAGE includes an easily installed version of Maxima, GAP, Singular, etc. When a PARI or GAP or Singular user visits this page, it would be nice to have something which would convince them that there is no harm in switching and welcome them to SAGE. Also, a mention of GAP (for example) could be also a link to http://www.sagemath.org:9001/GAP, which would be rewritten to do a much better job of explaining how GAP is included in SAGE (eg, package structure, using GAP in the notebook, etc). This might have the effect of welcoming GAP users over to SAGE, when they know that there is no loss in doing so. Possibly the "Mailing lists" link could be renamed to something more descriptive, since it has links to your talks on SAGE. At the moment, I can't think of anything better. If you say "Support" instead then on the linked page should have more support-related stuff - perhaps a link to the tutorial. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ William Stein wrote: > Hi Georg and David, > > I'm doing a redesign of the SAGE website to target SAGE much > more at end users rather than developers (I think the tipping > point has now arrived, since about 500 people downloaded > SAGE in the last two weeks...) Anyways, your comments > on the mockup here would be welcome: > http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/was/rc/web/index.html > (Note that links to actual downloads etc might not work.) > My questions are mainly: > (1) do the pages look: > -- visually appealing > -- simple and clean > -- convey all the necessary information (i.e., I'm not missing > key things that used to be there) > > (2) does the text on the front page reasonably convey what > SAGE is to somebody who say has never heard of programs > like GAP and PARI, and just wants to know if SAGE might > be for them? > > (3) Does the front page text seem to much like sales talk? > Compared to Maple or Mathematica's web pages it's nothing > (those pages are gut-wrenchingly obnoxious), > but it might still be too much. > > (4) I've purposely went from clean and simple, even more so > than before, instead of say tricky drop downs css menus, etc., > > Thanks, > William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
