Mail Archives: cygwin/2010/05/10/15:37:03
It sounds nice that there is a movement to brush up the graphic design of
the Cygwin web pages.
I have used Cygwin for a couple of years, but on this list I am just a
newcomer. I hope it is ok to leave a few comments which you *might*
consider.
I liked the proposal of David Eisner (http://cygwin.codecamel.com/). At
least it solves some of the problems with the current main page
(http://www.cygwin.com/) I have experienced:
First, the current main page contains three occurences of the Cygwin icon.
Two of them has text
Install Cygwin now
and one has text
Install and update now!
So since the text is different, I would expect different things to happen
when clicking "Install Cygwin now" and "Install and update now". That is
solved in David Eisners proposal by having only one occurrence of the
icon. And thanks for omitting the exclamation mark.
Second, I have found myself searching for a 'Download' link. And I got
very ashamed when I found out it was all over the site and was even
highligted using the Cygwin icon. I think David Eisners proposal solves
that by having one big Cygwin icon rather than three small ones.
Third, I have had problems with the description of the download link. It
says "Install Cygwin now" or "Install and update now". But it should say
Install Cygwin and/or install packages and/or uninstall
packages and/or upgrade packages and/or downgrade packages
and/or keep the whole system up to date
except that the wording could be different and hopefully more terse.
In the proposal of David Eisner it says "Install/Update Cygwin 1.7.1-1".
So where should I click if I have Cygwin 1.6.something? Or if I need a new
package?
Fourth, the most important program in the Cygwin system is named
"setup.exe". I suppose that name has a historical justification. But it
would be nice if it was called something Cygwin related.
In conclusion, I suggest a new term is invented such as the
Cygwin Package Manager (CPM)
or something like that. Then one could simply write
Cygwin Package Manager
under the Cygwin icon and then explain in the text that:
The Cygwin Package Manager (cpm.exe) can install Cygwin and manage
Cygwin packages. Among other, it can install, uninstall, upgrade, and
downgrade individual packages. It can also install and upgrade the
entire Cygwin system and keep the system up to date.
By the way, it would by nice if CPM could also uninstall Cygwin. It sends
the message that you are confident in your system if you make it easy
for users to uninstall it. And it smells suspicious to provide software
without an uninstaller.
Fifth, I associate Cygwin with the green color of the Cygwin icon, but the
dominating color of the page is the RedHat-red banner at the top. To me it
would be more logical to have a green banner to tell that this *is* Cygwin
and to have a RedHat-red red hat e.g. next to the banner or in some other
highly visible place to tell that this is *related* to RedHat.
Sixth (and last, I promise) I have noted that GNU+Cygnus+Windows=cygwin
is written in a very big font at the top of the page as if that equation
was the most important message of the page. The equation makes a good
point, but I think it would be more logical to have Cygwin in a big font
and GNU+Cygnus+Windows in an anekdote font size after the Cygwin name.
Cheers,
Klaus
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