The future of the forum and about the structure

[darksun]

I like @dimkr suggestion about grouping (or highlighting) available distros modern and traditional (legacy).
A short and efficient description of those main sections in a high visibility sectors of those group would also help.

This would also guide new users that are also confused, I well remember mine when I first visited the forum, despite not being a newbie at all in the Linux world.

[d-pupp]

@rockedge Thank you for all your hard work.

[mikewalsh]

@fredx181 :-

Not my place to MAKE suggestions, Fred. I am but a "janitor".....and other people's "messes" - intentional or otherwise - still need attending to, regardless of how pretty a fresh coat of paint makes the place look...

And before you say it, my own contributions mean diddly squat in this context. They're extremely small fry, riding on top of the much harder work put in by many others. I'm under NO illusions to the contrary, mate.

Never HAVE been.

Mike.

[Wiz57]

Odd....silence.....no one noticed.........

I noticed! But I just got home from work...need a shower to get rid of the cutting oil and parts cleaning solvent, as well as
some of the brass shavings and slivers, LOL! Can never get rid of all the brass crud, goes everywhere!

[geo_c]

Odd....silence.....no one noticed.........

I noticed! But I just got home from work...need a shower to get rid of the cutting oil and parts cleaning solvent, as well as
some of the brass shavings and slivers, LOL! Can never get rid of all the brass crud, goes everywhere!

You wouldn't perhaps be a cymbal smith, would you? if so we should talk!

[Clarity]

I am using today's 'updated' version of the PLDF. ... NICE.

In review, I wonder about couple of things that adds to the complexity of the content in the forum. I am indeed supportive of simple clear designs that the forum continues to strive for. And am certainly appreciative of the vision, effort and adoptions done to make navigation understandable and easy to zero-in of a given topic.

To me, the main design of this forum is like what is known, in the past, as the card-catalog that Libraries across the world used in the past. Start there, then go to the section housing the information one seeks. Great!

Members see this as a Forum ... not as a opening webpage. Thus anyone's first entry in PLDF is via the 'index' page.

MAYBE, what some people are suggesting is that the opening webpage (index) should be a simple navigator rather than the current index. Thus then, this allows the user to start by zeroing in on the original sub-area with the ability to also reach what we currently have as the Board Index. (Yes, I know the Board Index is a navigator, but for someone new, it now obvious in where to start.

So, it there is webpage that merely says
Welcome to PLDF.

• We offer

  • distros

  • Tools to build distros

  • And HowTos

• ...Click Where would you like to start?

could be something simple,like this, where they select their starting point into the main forum from some simple arrangement like this. This doesn't change the current forum structure, at all. But, can be helpful to start any user to step into the main sections.

This is merely an idea to help @rockedge address how we foresee a way to make the PLDF a better experience.

It NOT a request. Its an idea as I review what the thread is saying, IMHO.

Not sure if this is what some have been asking for over our past times.

[Wiz57]

Odd....silence.....no one noticed.........

I noticed! But I just got home from work...need a shower to get rid of the cutting oil and parts cleaning solvent, as well as
some of the brass shavings and slivers, LOL! Can never get rid of all the brass crud, goes everywhere!

You wouldn't perhaps be a cymbal smith, would you? if so we should talk!

LOL...no, at the moment I'm running a Citizen F3 5 axis CNC machine, cutting brass parts for oil field use! Parts start as
11/16th inch FC 360 brass-12 ft bar, cut/face part to 4.07 in length, stem part turned down to 0.375in, with a top part at 0.670in diameter with a couple
of groove cuts, 0.170 in apart, diameter of groove 0.506in, total length this section 0.9030in with a top turned to 0.398in @ 0.08in depth!
Tolerances...most cuts have 0.005in tolerance, but the 0.398in is only 0.002in, the "903" 0.003in, so have to stay on top of things!

[ozsouth]

@rockedge - that summary with drop-down options looks good. Hopefully that helps with permissions too (I had similar considerations with the alternate forum).

[williwaw]

Anyone notice any differences?

@dimkr compact enough?

Screenshot(76).jpg (35.01 KiB) Viewed 635 times

the current changes are looking good.

I believe the first time visitor (or one who visits without an automatic login)should enter the site with the collapsed/compact view.

Requiring the first time user to explore or drill down through the subforums which are now arranged in a more logical fashion, will go a long way to avoiding a confusion that has plagued puppy for many years. (The multiplicy of offerings, legacy/nonlegacy, puppy/nonpuppy etc.)

A registered user who keeps cookies in the browser and is logged in automatially will of course be spared these extra steps with his preferred layout being remembered.

[rockedge]

For registered users the state of the collapsed/expanded categories is stored in the database. For individual guests cookies are used for collapse/expand state persistence

Unfortunately there is no easy way to force the first view to be in a fully compacted state. I am looking at the code...although what I have read this is difficult to work into the logic of the code.

Perhaps there is a way, which would act as the Landing page at the same time as Home position.

[wiak]

Does the second image show the expanded view of the other distributions (after the user clicks on the title)

Yes the Other Distributions is in the image expanded. The sections are expanded or collapsed as to user specifications so customizable to individual preferences.

It can easily be set to open the home page like this example:
Screenshot(80).jpg

It is good to see Programming and Projects categories being put in a space usable for all distros at forum top level, and an interesting trick regarding collapsing structure such that Puppy can be made to look to not dominate as long as it's huge area is shown as collapsed and Other Distros area is at the same time seen as expanded. Or do I not see that correctly?

But, depite the genuine attempt to resolve the matter, I seem to not understand how this gives equal space to every distro or how it makes Puppy just one of the several distros this forum features. When all parts are expanded where are the Advanced Topics, House Training, For Older Low-Powered Computers, and Derivatives sections for DebianDog, KL, EasyOS, or FatDog?

Are you saying that other distros section needs user to expand them to know they individually exist at all? That guest visitors will see Puppy, but only see a topic 'Other Distros'? If so what is the difference except that KL is now further buried alongside debiandog and so on. Puppy fans will love your idea, if so. Yes, I hear you that individual users can configure later which parts are expanded and which parts are contracted; my question remains.

Of course I understand that cobaka, amethyst, dog cat, mikewalsh, bigpup, and so on, as Puppy fans, will be fine with this, and fredx181 is fine with anything - nice guy, no fighting for equality.

[wiak]

Does the second image show the expanded view of the other distributions (after the user clicks on the title)

Yes the Other Distributions is in the image expanded. The sections are expanded or collapsed as to user specifications so customizable to individual preferences.

It can easily be set to open the home page like this example:
Screenshot(80).jpg

It is good to see Programming and Projects categories being put in a space usable for all distros at forum top level, and an interesting trick regarding collapsing structure such that Puppy can be made to look to not dominate as long as it's huge area is shown as collapsed and Other Distros area is at the same time seen as expanded. Or do I not see that correctly?

But, depite the genuine attempt to resolve the matter, I seem to not understand how this gives equal space to every distro or how it makes Puppy just one of the several distros this forum features. When all parts are expanded where are the Advanced Topics, House Training, For Older Low-Powered Computers, and Derivatives sections for DebianDog, KL, EasyOS, or FatDog?

Are you saying that other distros section needs user to expand them to know they individually exist at all? That guest visitors will see Puppy, but only see a topic 'Other Distros'? If so what is the difference except that KL is now further buried alongside debiandog and so on. Puppy fans will love your idea, if so. Yes, I hear you that individual users can configure later which parts are expanded and which parts are contracted; my question remains.

Of course I understand that cobaka, amethyst, dog cat, mikewalsh, bigpup, and so on, as Puppy fans, will be fine with this, and fredx181 is fine with anything - nice guy, no fighting for equality.

My proposal would be that all distros be placed at forum first page level. Creating a sub-class 'Other Distros' is unnecessary and negative.

Each and every distro needs House Training, Advanced Topics, For Low Powered Computers, Derivatives etc. So my proposal is that there be one section for each of these with sub-sections for KL, Puppy, DebianDog, Fatdog, EasyOS inside. That is equal resource provision - that only. So, for example you would end with having:

House Training > KL
and
House Training > Puppy
and
House Training > EasyOS
...

And similarly for Advanced Topics and so on.

[rockedge]

The forum to a new user or guest always opens with all categories expanded. Not unless the scheme is individually changed it remains expanded.

There is no provision in the extension to set it to the collapsed state as default. Default is hard wired to open with all sections expanded.

[wiak]

So, it there is webpage that merely says
Welcome to PLDF.

• We offer

  • distros

  • Tools to build distros

  • And HowTos

• ...Click Where would you like to start?

could be something simple,like this, where they select their starting point into the main forum

The above is pretty much the same that I want to see. No distro is given dominance such that collapsing structures are required to make things 'look' better in respect of equal provision. Forum 'look' isn't the same as forum 'actual' provision, as everyone well knows. And collapsing expanding trick doesn't create clarity's suggestion at all.

Further to clarity's view above, is that under 'distros' should simply be a list of distros. Puppy is just a distro (with various sub offerings of pups) as is KL (which also has many variants - growingly more - KL is under active development), and similarly debdogs (dog house as it has been called) etc.

That is:

Distros > KL
Distros > DebianDogs
Distros > EasyOS
Distros > Puppy
Distros > FatDog

And then we can at last have the likes of:

Distros > KL > House Training
Distros > DebianDogs > House Training
Distros > EasyOS > House Training
Distros > Puppy > House Training
Distros > FatDog > House Training

and so on fairly

[rockedge]

@wiak I have been working on and experimenting with a Landing Page exactly as you describe.

I wrote somewhere about it yesterday. It will be a bit tricky to integrate it properly but it seems it can be done with some effort. We name it index.html which has number one precedence to run over index.php.

We then use the index.html to redirect to a php script that builds the landing page.

But how does it integrate?

It might be problematic building a landing page in the way I described because there has to be a mechanism that chooses the right conditions to show the page so a user does not have to go through the landing page more than once so using session hashes has to be kept track of.

I have an almost one-to-one copy of the forum on a local machine server that I can try out the landing page part..

There is no provisions built into phpBB to do this easily. It has been a requested feature for a long time.

I think though I might have a tricky solution that just might work. Using the Pages extension we already use and use an index.html to redirect the request to the landing page created with the Pages extension....

Just might work.........

[greengeek]

It might be problematic building a landing page in the way I described because there has to be a mechanism that chooses the right conditions to show the page so a user does not have to go through the landing page more than once so using session hashes has to be kept track of.

Maybe it's not that important to have the hash mechanism working. I see little problem if the user always has to navigate the landing page.
That's actually a good way to expose each user to a wider overview of what's available...

[rockedge]

And collapsing expanding trick doesn't create clarity's suggestion at all.

The "collapsing expanding trick" has been an active option on this forum for over a year. No one has ever mentioned a problem with it before.

Show me the ideas with examples in code if possible......all the html, css and PHP that is or isn't needed to make a functioning landing page.

Please start with a HTML coded landing page. Meanwhile I will try out some variations just to see how the simple approach will work

[bigpup]

Only issue I see needs fixed is identify better with more of a tittle what this section is:
.

Screenshot(3).jpg (48.12 KiB) Viewed 509 times

.
Forum of what? What are these.

A legacy area is OK as long as someone is going to keep up with moving something into that area, when it becomes a legacy version of Puppy Linux.

But when is a Puppy version considered a legacy version?

Do not like the idea of having a layout, where you have to click on something to open it up, to see what are subsections under it.

The main forum page, as it is right now, reads like a table of contents, with sections and subsections you can read as you scroll.

All you have to do is scroll down the page, to find what you are looking for. No clicking until you see what you want to look at.

[rockedge]

@bigpup what are you looking at? Mine doesn't look like that.

You can have the front page fully expanded all the time if you want it that way.

I already explained that sub-Forums not in a category get put under this title bar. THe name "Forum" can not be altered.

But when is a Puppy version considered a legacy version?

Bionic, Lucid, Tahr, Xenial all are by technical definition legacy. They are EOL or no longer getting updates.

Code: Select all

Ubuntu 18.04 LTS      Bionic Beaver  EOL-> April, 2023
Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS   Xenial Xerus    EOL -> April, 2021
Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS   Trusty Tahr      EOL-> April, 2019
Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS   Lucid Lynx       EOL-> April 30, 2015

Safe to say Legacy I am thinking

[bigpup]

I am not sure what I am looking at anymore.

Seems changes got made to it.

A lot of stuff has now changed on the main forum page.

Looks nothing like it did.

That section that needed more of a tittle than forum now looks like this to me:
.

Screenshot(5).jpg (64.43 KiB) Viewed 488 times

[rockedge]

We actually have web pages that can perhaps act as and be called a landing page, which might be expanded upon.... https://puppylinux.com

@Clarity you skipped engineering this into the equation.

Been testing a single page index.html inserted in the forum web root and found it works pretty well and can be constructed.

[williwaw]

We actually have web pages that can perhaps act as and be called a landing page, which might be expanded upon.... https://puppylinux.com

expanded on with something like....
http://www.w3schools.com/howto/howto_js_collapsible.asp

[amethyst]

Why is the "For older..." category now in the Other Distributions section only?. Puppy not suited for these old computers anymore? Instead of making that heading spell out the names of the other distro's (which is named anyway in the section), I would have kept the heading of that section "Other Distributions".

[wiak]

I would have kept the heading of that section "Other Distributions".

And there in a statement is the main issue that works to prevent fixing the forum structure: there is no such thing as 'Other Distros' catered for by this forum's main discussions. There are just 'Forum Distros', which includes the Debiandogs, EasyOS, KL, Puppy Linux, Fatdog.

Those who try to name most of the above as 'Others' are falsifying the reality of this forum and by doing so they are working against fixing the structure to provide equality of provision to all our forum distros.

'Other Distros' is a term correctly used in Off Topics area for distros such as Slitaz, Tiny Core Linux, and mainstream Slackware, Debian. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and so on.

[greengeek]

Those who try to name most of the above as 'Others' are falsifying the reality of this forum and by doing so they are working against fixing the structure to provide equality of provision to all our forum distros

I feel it would be beneficial if you could accurately define what you mean by "equality of provision..."
Surely the forum allows as much real estate as each and every thread and post requires??
What is "equality of provision" and how can it be achieved??

[amethyst]

I would have kept the heading of that section "Other Distributions".

And there in a statement is the main issue that works to prevent fixing the forum structure: there is no such thing as 'Other Distros' catered for by this forum's main discussions. There are just 'Forum Distros', which includes the Debiandogs, EasyOS, KL, Puppy Linux, Fatdog.

Those who try to name most of the above as 'Others' are falsifying the reality of this forum and by doing so they are working against fixing the structure to provide equality of provision to all our forum distros.

'Other Distros' is a term correctly used in Off Topics area for distros such as Slitaz, Tiny Core Linux, and mainstream Slackware, Debian. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and so on.

That's just the heading. It's a duplication of the naming of the distributions which are visible in the section. Seems silly to me. Anyways does not matter how the forum is structured, will not produce "more feet" for any of the distributions but I suppose it will make those who feel "neglected" feel better about themselves.

[wiak]

I feel it would be beneficial if you could accurately define what you mean by "equality of provision..."
Surely the forum allows as much real estate as each and every thread and post requires??
What is "equality of provision" and how can it be achieved??

Well I think that is easy to answer and understand. All distributions require space for pretty much exactly the same kind of thing:

Announcements
House Training
Advanced Topics
Derivatives that often end up being produced
How To docs related to the particular distribution
International support sections
Setup information and system requirements
And a place to store content related to old versions (Legacy)

Why would any distro not require similar space provision to allow them to cater for all of the above and to grow (especially if they are very actively being developed)?

[greengeek]

Well I think that is easy to answer and understand. All distributions require space for pretty much exactly the same kind of thing:
...
Why would any distro not require similar space provision to allow them to cater for all of the above and to grow (especially if they are very actively being developed)?

Ok, thanks. I had no idea that there were space limitations. That's not good at all.

[fredx181]

... and fredx181 is fine with anything - nice guy, no fighting for equality.

Not that I'm fine with anything, but indeed I'm not "fighting" for equality.
I can't blame people (who you sometimes call "puppy stewards") having interest only in Puppy, that's what they registered for.
History (or call it perhaps "nostalgia") plays a big part in it IMO, after all this forum is a continuation of the old murga-linux forum.
edit: So I think it's "natural" that the focus is more on Puppy than on others.

Well, at least now it's clear that everything under "Puppy linux distributions" is supposed to be about Puppy only, less confusing I think.
If developers from one of the "Other Distributions" want to have subcategories like "House Training" or e.g. "How-to", they can request that.
(I still think, btw, that "Other Distributions" would be a more appropriate name, as the name of the forum is "Puppy Linux Forum" and that's not gonna change AFAIK).

[keniv]

Anyone notice any differences?

@dimkr compact enough?
Screenshot(76).jpg

Can I ask if I am now supposed to be able to see the forum in the form shown on the jpg in this post. (As the quote doesn't show the image I've attached it below). I've tried using both a laptop and phone to render the forum and neither show this format. This also involves using different browsers.

Regards,

Ken.