Hi Patrick, Thanks for the feedback. On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 9:22 AM, Patrick Bouffard wrote: > Congrats on RC-1. The Tools page is a good start. One suggestion: add > a 1-sentence blurb on each tool above its corresponding video. The > blurb should be geared towards functionality--what can you _do_ with > this tool? I've tried to take a stab at this, feedback/edits welcome. > Also it occurs to me that the front page on the wiki could use > refreshing. It's very busy and this might contribute to new users > being confused about where to start. Given that ROS is becoming more > widely used, the very first statements on the front page should > probably make sense to the widest possible audience. So right now the > first text is: > > """ > Documentation > ROS is an open-source, meta-operating system for your robot. It > provides the services you would expect from an operating system, > including hardware abstraction, low-level device control, > implementation of commonly-used functionality, message-passing between > processes, and package management. > """ > > .. which is already full of technical terms that I would guess a large > percentage of first-visitors to be page are not familiar with (at > least, not yet). I would suggest that this text remain under the > Documentation heading, but before that, a higher-level description > such as: > > """ > ROS (Robot Operating System) is software for robot makers and users > that makes it easier to create new robots and extend existing ones, by > providing a unified, modular architecture. > """ I took a whack at the front page with an eye towards reducing the amount of text you have to scan through. I also removed 'Repositories' to be a secondary item and recombined 'Getting Help' with 'Getting Started'. 'Support' is already a persistent navigation element. > I would suggest that this be followed by an introductory video that > highlights some of the uses of ROS and introduces the highest level > concepts (Runtime Graph --Nodes, Topics; Filesystem (Packages/Stacks); > Community (Repositories, Mailing Lists, Wiki)) in as visual a way as > possible. For the runtime graph this is pretty obvious--just a cartoon > version of rxgraph's output. The others would require a bit more > creative thought on how to bring across the point visually and > succinctly but I think it is possible. The video should conclude with > a very brief teaser on the tutorials, with the aim of encouraging new > users to actually go through them. > > The other thing that I think people always look for is a screenshots > page. This should be easy to do and the candidates are obvious--rviz, > gazebo, rxplot... The video is a good idea. Not sure that we're going to be able to shoot it right now with our current workload, but one of these days. thanks, Ken > > My $0.02.. > > Cheers, > Pat > > > On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 2:26 PM, Ken Conley wrote: >> Thanks to all of your help, we're getting close to the official >> release of Diamondback.  Eigen 2/3 rollout is complete and we have >> received many patches to improve compatibility on various platforms. >> >> How you can help: >> >>  1) We want to make it easier for new users to figure out what the >> common ROS tools are.  We've put up a new "Tools" [1] page as a start, >> but feedback and contributions are welcome.  We would also appreciate >> feedback on our "APIs" [2] page.  In other words, "What do you wish >> the wiki helped you find out about better, and how?" >> >>  2) We are creating new robot 'portals' to help users of particular >> robot platforms.  We would appreciate feedback on the current pages as >> well as your own contributed portals.  Examples: [3], [4], [5] >> >>  3) Patches, bug reports, etc... >> >> More here: >> >> http://www.ros.org/news/2011/02/ros-diamondback-release-candidate-1.html >> >> thanks, >> >>  -- your friendly neighborhood release candidate >> >> >> [1]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/Tools >> [2]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/APIs >> [3]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/Robots/Care-O-bot >> [4]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/Robots/NXT >> [5]: http://www.ros.org/wiki/Robots/PR2 >> _______________________________________________ >> ros-users mailing list >> ros-users@code.ros.org >> https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users >> > _______________________________________________ > ros-users mailing list > ros-users@code.ros.org > https://code.ros.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-users >