IMO a good add-on to the "Lazarus is invisible?" thread. -------------- next part --------------
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Hi all:

Just google "linux pascal compiler". Period.

Gustavo

2010/1/29 Hans-Peter Diettrich :

Gustavo Enrique Jimenez wrote

Just google "linux pascal compiler". Period.

And that accomplishes what, exactly?

Does not seem to relate to the current
Doug C.
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A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Why don't you improve the wiki then? The idea is that people can independently find what they think needs improvement and improve it.

thanks,

IMO if you MUST know where to look for information regarding FPC/Lazarus. I think a birds-eye view of "stuff" should be easily accessible and intuitive.

Unfortunately, the complicated nature of this universal development tool requires much content management technology to resolve (comparably) because it is on a level that would require organizing everything and still presents people with information in a way they are accustomed.

Take MSDN for example, they have a great system, index, organized, and presentable to the masses. Could someone model that? I envision content in the main body, tabs for platform specific notes.

But no matter what the solution it will require advanced layout to either switch between OS platforms - IMO.

IMO a good add-on to the "Lazarus is invisible?" thread.

While I agree with the points that Lazarus need better documentations, I think those people in that forum are spoil programmers. I also don't understand why they are so defensive against Lazarus.

I remember the first time I found Lazarus, v.0.9.16 if I remember it correctly, I only need a couple of hours to make it working on my Linux system (OpenSuse). Yes, it required lots of googling and digging the wiki/forum/etc, but the solutions are available though scattered all over the places. Maybe Delphi had spoil them too much and kill their sense of learning and research. No wonder they don't like Linux as well.

I must be a very experienced OS project user: I just look for a download link, then I can choose windows 32 bits, and a version (not the old releases), and I get an exe. What to do with it? Run it, and Lazarus installs.

It simply didn't come to my mind, that people wanted to install it, without downloading.

Vincent

Felipe Monteiro de Carvalho wrote

Why don't you improve the wiki then? The idea is that people can independently find what they think needs improvement and improve it.

Felipe, I think this is a catch-22 situation. If you don't know how to install FPC and Lazarus or know how to user Lazarus, there is NO way that person will be able to improve the wiki. :-(

Andrew Brunner wrote

IMO if you MUST know where to look for information regarding FPC/Lazarus. I think a birds-eye view of "stuff" should be easily accessible and intuitive.

Correct, but the FIRST problem is the Lazarus website. It's NOT a website at all, but simply web access to the Forums. I've used Lazarus for 5 years and still get confused with the amount of forums. Plus, NO useful information.

Somebody that doesn't know FPC and Lazarus will not know that you can go to the Free Pascal website to find out information about Lazarus, and that you can use the Free Pascal wiki to find Lazarus information. After all, FPC and Lazarus are two separate projects.

I can really see where the original poster is coming from. The Lazarus website is the problem. Make the starting page a list of basic information and links to Download instructions, Documentation, Mailing list information, Forum Information, Wiki information. etc...

Don't just drop the user directly into the Forums!

http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/ is not the forums, that is http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?action=forum

The main page contains links to Downloads and Mailing list information on prominent places. AFAIK the Lazarus team doesn't have web designer, and that shows.

Vincent

Hello.

I must be a very experienced OS project user: I just look for a download link, then I can choose windows 32 bits, and a version (not the old releases), and I get an exe. What to do with it? Run it, and Lazarus installs.

The fact is that basic info for beginners is spread around. The wiki has lots of data but it is not always well organized. That is of course a problem with wiki pages in general because many people add pieces of information, trying to find the best place for it.

Lazarus installation is covered under wiki's Documentation section which is filled with other detailed info.
FPC release installation may be obvious as you wrote, but SVN install is buried so deep that I honestly didn't find it even after playing with Lazarus for some time (as I complained in one mail thread). But that is not for beginners, ok.

Now, the Lazarus main page "http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/" should have clear links for:

1. Mention about FPC and a link for downloading and installing it. Now there is a link to Free Pascal but its relation to Lazarus is not obvious to a beginner.

2. Link for download instructions. There is one. Good.

3. Link for installation instructions which are here: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Installing_Lazarus They are not really easy to find because the wiki documentation section is filled with data.
Or, if installing Lazarus is too obvious to be documented then please remove it completely from wiki.

4. Getting started. This means making a Hello World program or something.

Once a beginner has passed those steps, made his first program, then the rest is easy. He can then experiment and google for detailed help or search the wiki.

I have the same experience as the original poster. If I want to test some program but don't get past the initial "installation" and "getting started" phases then I drop it and move forward. There is infinite amount of SW to be tried and most of it is crap anyway. I don't want to waste my time.

Fortunately I was able to install and try Lazarus and I am still hanging here. So, the situation is not really bad but it could be better. If you look at those pages enough many years then you may not realize the problems, but for a beginner they are obvious.

Now, what is NOT needed at the Lazarus main page? Think of a person coming there for the first time.

Forum posts could be somewhere else, not in main page. I know this is a fashion in many other sites, too, but still it is not a good idea.

"About Lazarus" would be a better main page but still the history and widgetsets are not as important as the initial things I listed.

Regards,
Juha Manninen

1. Mention about FPC and a link for downloading and installing it. Now there is a link to Free Pascal but its relation to Lazarus is not obvious to a beginner.

Lazarus comes with FPC?

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote

IMO a good add-on to the "Lazarus is invisible?" thread.

I think a great problem for many of those people in this thread comes from the fact that (as they state) try it from time to time. That means, that they probably have environmentoptions.xml in their users dir from the previous install, which then still points to (now) wrong locations.

I have a proposal for this: how about the environmentoptions.xml contains the last-used-version of lazarus that wrote that file. I lazarus loads and finds that the version is different from its own (expected) version, it could perform a small self-test: if paths in that file don't exist anymore, it could look in the default environmentoptions.xml (which the windows installer for example puts in the install directory afaik) and see if that would fix it. Additionaly it could ofcourse warn the user that paths were just modified and that it might be due to still having that file from an older install.

Best Regards,
Andreas Schneider.

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Felipe, I think this is a catch-22 situation. If you don't know how to install FPC and Lazarus or know how to user Lazarus, there is NO way that person will be able to improve the wiki. :-(

I had understood that the writer do knows how to install Lazarus but was saying that an hipotetical beginner would have trouble doing it.

If he himself was asking for help about installing Lazarus then I missunderstood him.

Andrew Brunner wrote

Take MSDN for example, they have a great system, index, organized, and presentable to the masses. Could someone model that? I envision content in the main body, tabs for platform specific notes.

I think it is more important that they have a can of drones that constantly work on it.

It is not the tools, but that nobody sticks around long enough to use them when they are installed.

Vincent Snijders wrote

The main page contains links to Downloads and Mailing list information on prominent places. AFAIK the Lazarus team doesn't have web designer, and that shows.

A product website firstly gives a bit of summary information. This includes things like:

* What is Lazarus?
* What is LCL?
* What is the latest version?
* Where can I documentation (IDE & LCL)?
* Where can I get installation/setup instructions?
* Where can I download it from?

Currently the Lazarus website looks like a forum website. Everybody but the core Lazarus developers say that.
Why?

* At the top left we have a login section
* At the top right (same level as the word Lazarus) we have title "simple machine forums"
* On the right we have recent forum posts.
* On the right bottom we have forum statistics.
* The search box searches...wait for it.... The FORUMS.
* In the middle we have "recent news".

NOWHERE does it say WHAT Lazarus is? Nowhere does it say the latest version, or when it was released. Nowhere does it say what platforms it supports or what widgetsets it supports.

It is simply not a product website! I'm not a web designer either, but at least I can spot the difference. The Lazarus Wiki is more a product website, so make the wiki the default page for
www.lazarus.freepascal.org and on the wiki right column add a link to the Forum website.

I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I am simple pointing out the obvious faults of the current "first port of call" website new users get when they want to know about the Lazarus project. Why make it so difficult for new users?

Florian Klaempfl wrote

Lazarus comes with FPC?

Don't confuse Windows only features, with other platforms. What about Mac, FreeBSD, Linux users? FPC doesn't come with those.

Why don't you improve the wiki then? The idea is that people can independently find what they think needs improvement and improve it.

I only propagate the comment of an user. Instructions about installation IMO should be accessible from the start page, not hidden somewhere in the wiki.

At least for the Windows version there should be a request to save the project before compiling, otherwise linking fails with no manifest file found.

DoDi

I must be a very experienced OS project user: I just look for a download link, then I can choose windows 32 bits, and a version (not the old releases), and I get an exe. What to do with it? Run it, and Lazarus installs.

This was not the problem. In fact it's impossible right now to run a Windows application without saving it before. This is where many newbies fail, with no automatic save request and no documentation about this requirement.

DoDi

About lazarus ?

* What is LCL?

Not important for the first time

* What is the latest version?

Not important if you don't know what lazarus is (you will find out when downloading)

* Where can I documentation (IDE & LCL)?

Wiki ?

* Where can I get installation/setup instructions? * Where can I download it from?

Download ?

I wonder how you missed those.

Developing software isn't about just clicking somewhere. It's also about knowing where to find your info.

Marc

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Developing software isn't about just clicking somewhere. It's also about knowing where to find your info.

Reading comments like yours makes me understand why many people find Lazarus unusable :-(

Currently it's impossible to find the information about the first steps with Lazarus. Remember that everybody has his own expectations about possible keywords, so that the start page *must* contain a definite link to "Introduction", "First Steps", "New to Lazarus" or whatever could be identified as the most important information for newcomers. The Search in the main page only searches the forums, while it should search the available documentation[1] in the first place.

[1] As long as a search in the wiki is impossible, we must offer something else instead.

According to my observations the first item in the FAQ should address the save-before-compile issue.

DoDi

Developing software isn't about just clicking somewhere. It's also about knowing where to find your info.

Well, although I see why it is how it is I have to fully agree with Graeme regarding the very confusing web pages and the lack of structured information. I know that it's easy said while not having enought time (and knowledge) to improve the situation myself but that does not make the facts go away. I also had a hard time starting with Lazarus/Free Pascal and it's still not easy to find information.

That feeling may also be due to the fact that Turbo Pascal, Virtual Pascal and Delphi (where most Lazarus interested come from) had much better structured documentation. But they were commercial products and the comparison seems unfair. Still I would stongly disagree on saying that it's fine how it is now.

Do realize though that it is the constant change in the project that causes this mostly. You'd need to revise the whole detailed website and all docs every 3 months - half year that way. (since either a FPC or Lazarus release would change that)

For that we would need a _lot_ of volunteers.

That feeling may also be due to the fact that Turbo Pascal, Virtual Pascal and Delphi (where most Lazarus interested come from) had much better structured documentation.

The FPC docs are quite ok. They are way more extensive than e.g. VP.

But they were commercial products and the comparison seems unfair. Still I would stongly disagree on saying that it's fine how it is now.

I think it is quite fine for the current resources, where documentation is a by product, and website not even that. Major changes need major amounts of new blood dedicated working on this.

I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I am simple pointing out the obvious faults of the current "first port of call" website new users get when they want to know about the Lazarus project. Why make it so difficult for new users?

@all:

Enough talking and let's do the real work. FPC/Lazarus is an open source community based activity, so why not collaborate ourselves and work together to build the better website for FPC/Lazarus. Follow my emails on the other threads, please. Thanks.

Personally, I've come to like Adobe's LiveDocs format which seems to be a hybrid of Wiki and TOC oriented format and its indexed by google making searches easy and fast.

Anyone else care for this kind of format?

All those links are in the (tiny) menu on the left side of the page,

I agree with TS that on the opening page, it would make sense to have a description of what Lazarus is, how to get it, install it and a getting started topic.
All this can be short text, linking to wiki or documentation andforum indexpage.

All this would IMO best be placed in the central "div", where one would look for the most important content of the site. It would make the index page much more appealing to the eye IMHO. (This would probably also make lazarus website rank better in google?)

The content that is now on the main page (jan. 30th 2010), would not attract me (it relates to problems with fpc 2.4.0) if I were a newbie, especially coming from Delphi (and thus being spoiled).

If I were any good at php I'ld offer my help in maintaining/writing, but I'm only familiar with static html/css.

Bart

I just installed 0.9.29 with FPC 2.4x a couple of days from the snapshots pages and it saw that I had had lazarus previously installed in a different directory with previous entries for fpc/source, etc that were incorrect and prompted me to either keep it or change it so that was nice.

I still use Delphi as my primary development platform, but use Lazarus for a couple of non-gui projects and I've noticed a great improvement over the last two years especially. The IDE looks better now and works better too with many of the features I've come to rely on in latter Delphi versions such as Lazarus' own version of live templates, refactoring facilities, etc.

Nice screenshot Marc. :-)

2010/1/30 Marc Weustink :

> ?* What is Lazarus? About lazarus ?

I think this needs higher visibility than a small link. Some of that content should really be on the front page.

> ?* Where can I documentation (IDE & LCL)? Wiki ?

Well, that's not very obvious is it?

> ?* Where can I get installation/setup instructions? > ?* Where can I download it from? Download ?

Well, that answers half the question. So that link takes me to SourceForge downloads. But the new users still doesn't know what is the requirements to run Lazarus, installation instructions, recommended location for install (quite important for Unix based OSes) and that you need to install FPC separately (if you use non-Windows OS). Oh, and Linux users could maybe use their disto's repository system instead of the downloads on SourceForge.

All information NOT mentioned - which is VERY important for new users.

I wonder how you missed those.

Don't get me wrong. I don't have an issue in setting up Lazarus or FPC. I like to think I have a fully functional brain and can research information (actually read what's on the screen) etc... But other users are NOT like that. I like to think that install Lazarus and FPC is the easiest to do on Windows than any other platform. Yet when I mentioned Lazarus as an alternative on the Delphi newsgroups (and yes they are developers there), they all said how difficult it was to setup and get working etc.. So there seems to be many stumbling blocks in getting started with FPC and Lazarus. Maybe a simple introduction or "step-by-step" guide to familiarize new users to the IDE etc might be handy. I've used FPC and Lazarus for 5 years and I don't know if such a document exists. No mention of it on the Lazarus website either.

That is a bug fixed in the snapshots, which can be downloaded from the second link (under Downloads) on the main site page.

Vincent

Sorry, using the IDE does not change really frequently, in a way that deserves very different documentation.

For that we would need a _lot_ of volunteers.

Not more than for fixing the flaws and problems, encountered by the users. According to my experience it's easier to fix such items, instead of writing according release notes.

> That feeling may also be due to the fact that Turbo Pascal, Virtual Pascal > and Delphi (where most Lazarus interested come from) had much better > structured documentation.

We could add a link to the German Lazarus book, BTW.

DoDi

No. :-)
I would much prefer a off-line documentation format. I find it *extremely* annoying when I sit at home with my laptop and can't get help on a dialog or product because such help is only available online (and I don't always have internet access). This is why I spent a considerable amount of time researching documentation formats and ended up choosing the IBM INF format (used for OS/2 help files and other OS/2 documentation/books) as my starting point.

INF is extremely fast and efficient (a magnitude of 15+ times faster than CHM), the output INF files are small and compact, the tagging language (IPF) is easy to learn - the 45 tags are mnemonic making it easy to associate them with their functions. IPF tagging language was specifically designed for documentation, so it is well suited for generating good looking output.

DocView (The INF viewer I wrote) supports a Table of Content, a Index view and generates one at runtime if the INF document doesn't include one, full text search, search algorithm that rates search results so you get more relevant results, keyword highlighting of search text, annotations, bookmarks, topic browse history, font substitution, Library mode (opening multiple INF documents and combining there TOCs at runtime) and the list goes on.

I am almost finished with translating the FPC Language Reference to INF so others can use it with DocView from inside Lazarus IDE or stand-alone. This should be a good example of what INF can do and how it looks, plus the new fpdoc IPF output writer that can build class documentation in INF format.

Regards,
- Graeme -

Good news. When can I expect the sources for that ?

Michael.

Michael Van Canneyt wrote

Good news. When can I expect the sources for that ?

fpdoc changes around mid Feb. I'll create a compiled INF of FPC Lang Ref and new Docview binaries too, and make those available on SourceForge downloads.

I meant to complete the new fpdoc IPF writer in my holidays (Dec/Jan), but you know how it goes. :-)

Regards,
- Graeme -

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

and new Docview binaries too, and make those available on SourceForge downloads.

Thinking about it, maybe I should stop using SourceForge and move to someone like BerliOS which is based outside America - or start hosting my own projects on my own server.

http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/

I don't think we should blame SF; we must remember what sourceforge already made for the OSS movement.
We can only regret US government's idiocy - or act politically.

-Fl?vio

PS. Berlios? Think again ;-) They've been recently compromised/hacked, and the maintainers is J?rg Schilling - famous cdrecord developer and infamous anti-linux and pro-CDDL zealot...