Hi,

For the upcoming 3.2.4 release, we will also update the website.

You can have a sneak preview at

https://www.freepascal.org/_new/

If you spot omissions or wrong info, please let me know.

Michael.

New logo?

I didn't read it all but looks really nice and clean and I've seen all things I want in this kind of webpages. Great job.

Guillermo "Ñuño" Martínez

El Mon, 31 Aug 2026 21:41:01 +0200 (CEST)
Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal

Looks nice.

I like it a lot! Good job.

Also, so glad I did not see an animated leopard anywhere.

Doug C.

The new design looks really good. I like it a lot. Well done to everyone who worked on this.

Will the documentation pages be updated to use this design too? I’m hoping that there’ll be full syntax-highlighting for Pascal code examples in the documentation.

* Why does the news item at the top of the page ("v3.2.4 is out") link to a category page for all release notes, rather than a specific version?

* I couldn't find a way to download old installers on it (https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/website/-/work_items/8#note_3765390600)

* The download page states: «Because of a lack of release builders and testers, 3.2.2 is only available for a limited number of platforms and not in all package formats.» I don't know, but I thought the stable 3.2.2 was available for "all" platforms. Perhaps he meant a different version?

* The words in the "<code>" tag are displayed as a white rectangle (maybe the font also be white).

* The search box at the top of the page also appears as a black rectangle.

* The "Quick Start" page contains code snippets. The font colors (both regular and string constants) and background contrast poorly.

* As far as I understand, the text in all frames that link to subsections is bottom-aligned, not top-aligned. This is noticeable when the text on the page occupies a different number of lines due to translation. For example, on the download page, the rectangles labeled "Download Binaries"/"Download Sources"/"Download Documentation"

​​​​​​​The website was opened on the old Chrome 109 version on Windows 8.1. I can provide screenshots by creating an issue on the website's bug tracker.

Very nice !

Bart wrote

Looks nice.

Yes, but that won't win us any new users.

Imagine someone wants to start writing software.
What can you do with a bare-bones FreePascal installation???

If I hadn't already had a project in Turbo Pascal that I wanted to continue, I would never have switched to Free Pascal.

And many - if not all - of us here are among those people. We had a project in Turbo Pascal or Delphi and wanted to continue with it, or were looking for a free solution.

The pressure to carry on was therefore immense, and we were willing to overcome even the most formidable obstacles.

As a reminder: there is also competition out there.

With a philosophy like that, we will not gain a significant number of new users.

Sorry for repeating myself here.

Op 31-8-2026 om 22:39 schreef n7800 via fpc-pascal:

3.2.2 was the first with a tiered release sequence, where the release was announced when the main targets were uploaded. So at the point of release, minor targets were still to follow.

DougC via fpc-pascal schrieb am Mo., 31.
Aug. 2026, 22:52:

I like it a lot! Good job. Also, so glad I did not see an animated leopard anywhere.

We never had a leopard anywhere on the site. A cheetah on the other hand... 😅

Regards,
Sven

Am Montag, 31. August 2026, 22:30:13 CEST schrieb Bart via fpc-pascal: > Looks nice. Yes, but that won't win us any new users.

Well, excuse me for replying in this thread then.
Consider this my last reply in this thread..

Hello everyone,

Really digging the new layout and appearance on mobile. Much better than previous version...

Tim
(silver pascal coder)

On Tue, 1 Sept 2026, 7:17 am Noel Duffy via fpc-pascal, <

The site works well with a screen reader, that's good, but I don't know what the up arrows in various places on the page are for.

Also, the very first button on the very top of the page has no label, and thus just shows up as button on a screen reader. Clicking said button does nothing as far as I can tell, so might want to either add a label, or remove it, depending on what it's used for.

Otherwise, the site appears to work well.

* The words in the "<code>" tag are displayed as a white rectangle (maybe the font also be white).

I see those words correctly. Maybe there's something in the browser configuration that modifies the style.

* The search box at the top of the page also appears as a black rectangle.

I see this correctly too.

* The "Quick Start" page contains code snippets. The font colors (both regular and string constants) and background contrast poorly.

There should be something wrong in your configuration because I see it nice. Actually it reminds me Vim's Desert color scheme, wich I use even in Lazarus.

I'm using Vivaldi 8.1 dark mode on Debian 13 and on XUbuntu 24.04 LTS (both seems the same).

Regards,
Guillermo "Ñuño" Martínez.

* Why does the news item at the top of the page ("v3.2.4 is out") link to a category page for all release notes, rather than a specific version?

because it's not finalized yet.

* I couldn't find a way to download old installers on it (https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/website/-/work_items/8#note_3765390600)

Will be added.

* The download page states: «Because of a lack of release builders and testers, 3.2.2 is only available for a limited number of platforms and not in all package formats.» I don't know, but I thought the stable 3.2.2 was available for "all" platforms. Perhaps he meant a different version?

No, it's exactly what it says: not *all* platforms are available..

* The words in the "<code>" tag are displayed as a white rectangle (maybe the font also be white).

On what page ?

* The search box at the top of the page also appears as a black rectangle.

What browser are you using ? Dark/light theme ? do you have a screenshot ?

* The "Quick Start" page contains code snippets. The font colors (both regular and string constants) and background contrast poorly.

Looks fine here ?

Please explain, because I have no idea what you are talking about.

The website was opened on the old Chrome 109 version on Windows 8.1. I can provide screenshots by creating an issue on the website's bug tracker.

Please do.

Michael.

Noel Duffy wrote

The new design looks really good. I like it a lot. Well done to everyone who worked on this. Will the documentation pages be updated to use this design too? I’m hoping that there’ll be full syntax-highlighting for Pascal code examples in the documentation.

Yes, the API reference documentation will also be updated to use a new look. It will not be 100% the same, though. I'll see about putting a preview online for that as well.

I'm still thinking about the language ref/programmers manual etc, because that is more difficult.

Michael.

Then it's worth reopening issue so this doesn't get forgotten.

On all of them ))

Dark/light theme ?

No "themes" are used, neither in the OS, nor in the browser, nor on the website.

Done, also pointed out another problem: https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/website/-/work_items/15

What I am missing is that there is nowhere an easy link to Lazarus. On the old page, you have at least that "Build with Lazarus" button...

Ralf

Ralf Quint wrote

What I am missing is that there is nowhere an easy link to Lazarus. On the old page, you have at least that "Build with Lazarus" button...

I noticed that too. My suggestion, add a section, "GUIs available for Free Pascal"
and have links there to Lazarus, MSE & fpGUI

Cheers,
Peter

Op 31-8-2026 om 21:41 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal:

Just noticed there is no longer a news/announcements section ?  I think that is pretty important, as it shows the project is alive.

On Sep 2, 2026 at 4:43:50 PM, Peter Blackman via fpc-pascal <

if they do that add links to the pascal language server and VSCode so there's a general editor option. We need to make that easier to use out of the box though. ideally fully built binaries needs to be available and downloaded from the extension.

I second the idea about adding VSCode and the pascal language server. We don't all want to use IDEs, many of us just use editors. More information about setting up with editors would be useful too.

On Wed, Sep 2, 2026 at 7:45 AM Hairy Pixels via fpc-pascal <

Read my previous answer to this. It was removed deliberately. A 'news' item from 2024 spells 'This project is dead'.

Instead, the number of commits during the last week is shown (the "43" shown today is a live counter, clickable, BTW). It tells much more than a 2-year old news item that FPC is alive.

Besides, I think the forum is the real place to see for news.

Michael.

Op 2-9-2026 om 21:00 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal:

Read my previous answer to this. It was removed deliberately. A 'news' item from 2024 spells 'This project is dead'.

The absence of releases signals that more than anything.

Instead, the number of commits during the last week is shown (the "43" shown today is a live counter, clickable, BTW). It tells much more than a 2-year old news item that FPC is alive.

Uninitiated users can't judge if those commits are in a remote area of the project or not.   Is it alive or twitching ? :-)

Besides, I think the forum is the real place to see for news.

Too noisy. The site is for new users, go find your own news is not a good look.

The point of a news section is to have a concise channel for authoritative communication that is widely viewed.

Oh really ?

Why do you think I am advocating 6-monthly releases? And who is telling me time and again that they serve no purpose or cannot reasonably be done in FPC?

When we have the 6-monthly releases, we'll have something to announce regularly. Then we can reconsider a news section.

Until that miracle comes to pass:
in FPC the news section is counterproductive, the evidence of that has been staring our users in the face for ~20 years.

Michael.

Op 2-9-2026 om 21:55 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal:

I dunno. Maybe you like increasing numbers ?

And who is telling me time and again that they serve no purpose or cannot reasonably be done in FPC?

I dunno, but it wasn't me.

I argued to first see how you accelerate the current process, before picking out arbitrary timetables from thin air and saving a few days on build time?

As an answer I only got more "auto-build system will fix everything" mantras. But build time never was the reason why a mere point release was multiple years overdue.

Accelerating releases is about more than just generating automated snapshots with an updated versions and then blessing them as release and having an automated notice on the website. It is also the process to actually have something in the branches to release, and continuously maintaining the distance between somewhat stable and bleeding edge.

I disagree, you are basically killing the official communication channel with the widest reach, which doesn't require subscriptions or sorting through systems with a lot of content (and mostly not authoritative content) like forum and wiki.

Marco van de Voort wrote

Op 2-9-2026 om 21:55 schreef Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal:

.
.

Well, while having a news section would be nice, it's equally true that it makes no sense if it isn't maintained and unless somebody volunteers to ensure keeping it updated (meaning - actively searching for news worth publishing there on e.g. monthly basis), we may expect that the situation we've had up to now doesn't improve (and indeed, news section with no updates is worse than no news section at all). However, Marco's comment about the number of commits not necessarily providing real information may be true as well. What about extending it with e.g. the last three commit messages for the compiler directory (statically updated on daily basis and accompanied with a link to the gitlab page providing the latest details dynamically)? Or maybe three messages for the compiler directory and three commit messages for packages? Like:

git log -n 3 main -- compiler

and

git log -n 3 main -- packages

Tomas

Or, even better, a summary count and the topic titles of the last few forums messages, posted monthly or weekly. That should reflect there is activity going on.

Doug C.

To me, this counter spells 'This project is unstable'. There's no permanent link to a stable release and a commit counter, which suggests there's no stable release and that users should use the git version. There's also no link to a beta or release candidate release. How are users supposed to find the latest stable release, and the latest beta or release candidate?

Nikolay

Op 3-9-2026 om 05:28 schreef Nikolay Nikolov via fpc-pascal:

That's a better wording of the sentiment that I was feeling too.

By general convention, the download button on a website is the latest stable.

The latest beta should not be on the front page: the front page is for the casual visitor, not the experienced developer.

People that look explicitly for a beta will normally go to downloads, or respons to a mail.

But you're right that we should put it at least on the downloads page.

Michael.

On 2026-09-03 12:16, Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal wrote:

.
.

By general convention, the download button on a website is the latest stable.

Indeed.

The latest beta should not be on the front page: the front page is for the casual visitor, not the experienced developer.

Well, that's the case when a news section would be useful. ;-) Even though casual visitor might not want to download the beta / RC, information about its existence _is_ relevant for them, because it says that there is tangible progress and a new release should be upcoming. Possibly, we might add something for cases like this (with clearly defined lifetime - relevant when there is a new RC, not relevant any longer when the final release is out)? After all - the new release should be announced on the main page once available as well, not only by letting the use find that the download button goes to a different release, right?

People that look explicitly for a beta will normally go to downloads, or respons to a mail.

Not necessarily if most of the time there's no relevant beta... ;-)

But you're right that we should put it at least on the downloads page.

Yep.

Tomas

That's why the banner on the front page exists. It currently mentions 3.2.4, but there is no reason why it would not be able to display 3.2.6-rc1 or 3.4.0-rc1

But I'll also add the current version number more prominently.

I'm looking into displaying the number of recent posts on the forum. If anubis does not interfere, it should be possible.

Michael.

DougC wrote

Or, even better, a summary count and the topic titles of the last few forums messages, posted monthly or weekly. That should reflect there is activity going on.

Nice idea, done.

There is now an additional badge, "Last week forum posts" - if you click on it, you're referred to the recent activities page of the forum. (470 posts the last week, not bad)

Michael.

I added 'last week forum posts' (In the time I added it, 2 posts were added :-))

The 'Free, open source' badge is now 'Stable version: 3.2.2' and when you click it, you go to the download page. If you want a different color to make it stand out more, that's easily done.

Michael.

I think the new website is absolutely awesome—far better than the current one. I wouldn't get bogged down in the little details right now. Just launch it and make improvements gradually. After all, a website isn't something static.
Plus, you want to give Google a reason to drop by more often.

Sven

These issues are still present on the latest version of the page.  The button is there just before the link that says skip to content.  The up arrows are fewer now, and appear to be next to headers for subsections, but don't really explain to a screen reader what they're for, is it to collapse the section? Is it to scroll up the page? Is it for some other use?

I realize screen readers aren't really a priority (are they ever?), but simple things that make the page more accessible goes a long way toward creating happy site visitors, screen reader users or not.

Can you be more precise, please ?
There are 80 buttons on the page, as far as I can see, they all have aria-label.

Up arrows indicate that what came before is a link to an external site. This is common practice these days - see e.g. wikipedia. I'll add aria-hidden="true" to them, so they're invisible for screen readers.

Michael.

Might this be of interest for FreePascal as well?
It would make the project's progress visible.

https://synopse.info/forum/viewtopic.php?id=7598

https://mormot2daily.fsb.dev/

Sven

I did that and updated the site. If you have a moment, please test and report if it is better now.

Michael.

New site looks really nice! I was a little surprised that only one of the "what is possible" sections is a link, because the way the border lights up makes me think they're all clickable. I would link every single one of those to the closest wiki page, just so people can dive down.

Also, I love the new logo! :)

On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 3:41 PM Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-pascal <

I'm thinking the button in question is invisible to you, because as far as I can tell, it's label is a single space character according to NVDA, but as I mentioned before, it's on the very top of the first page, the very first element at all, right before the skip to content link

As for the up arrows, they're all gone, except for the ones next to wiki, forum and bug tracker.

Thank you for explaining what those are for, I'd not encountered them before, and even if I had, I would have had no idea they were to indicate the previous link was an external one.  Good convention though, I'll need to implement that on my own pages too, I wasn't aware there was such an indicator.