Appropriate length of "recent news" ?

[dhdeangelis]

Thinking from the point of view of someone seeing the PDL website for the first time or a new prospective user. The two central paragraphs are broad and short, whereas the news feed is thin and long. This creates visual and usability imbalance. Perhaps the page will be more pleasant to read and browse for a new visitor if the feed is limited to the last N important changes, while pointing in the last entry to a more complete history somewhere else? How long back in time should the "recent news" feed reasonably go? The current one goes back to 2014. Is all this still relevant today?

[mohawk2]

You raise an excellent point! I had noticed this myself. My thinking so far is we should make the news bit a bit less redundant by removing items that aren't important now. One strategy would be maximum two items about the same library, including PDL, and make sure that recent releases are actually mentioned (eg PDL::LinearAlgebra).

I also think there's room to put more stuff in the middle, even if that would be somewhat "below the fold". I'm very open to ideas on what; something to help people onboard with PDL? A bit more "showing off" stuff?

[dhdeangelis]

You raise an excellent point! I had noticed this myself. My thinking so far is we should make the news bit a bit less redundant by removing items that aren't important now. One strategy would be maximum two items about the same library, including PDL, and make sure that recent releases are actually mentioned (eg PDL::LinearAlgebra).

Fine. Then I can make a proposal following those lines and send a PR

I also think there's room to put more stuff in the middle, even if that would be somewhat "below the fold". I'm very open to ideas on what; something to help people onboard with PDL? A bit more "showing off" stuff?

Definitely. There are already images. May be links to sites can be included, with examples and code, etc.

[mohawk2]

Thank you for the news-update! I've added a bit of info to the PDL::LinearAlgebra one to show the important changes. It reminds me that not all releases would need to go in the sidebar; 0.28 and 0.29 were effectively bugfix releases and don't really need to be "news". Managing this sort of thing isn't entirely something that can be automated.

[dhdeangelis]

Thank you for the news-update! I've added a bit of info to the PDL::LinearAlgebra one to show the important changes. It reminds me that not all releases would need to go in the sidebar; 0.28 and 0.29 were effectively bugfix releases and don't really need to be "news". Managing this sort of thing isn't entirely something that can be automated.

In the course of shortening the news feed I realized that some package updates had more recent versions, so I just bumped them up. I do not see an easy way of automatizing this right now, but there is probably one. In the meanwhile I can see to add or edit entries manually as needed.

[mohawk2]

In the course of shortening the news feed I realized that some package updates had more recent versions, so I just bumped them up. I do not see an easy way of automatizing this right now, but there is probably one. In the meanwhile I can see to add or edit entries manually as needed.

I think the best solution for now is to keep a human editor in the loop :-)

[dhdeangelis]

Regarding comment in PR #18 I also believe that it would be nice if the announcements can be spared somehow. I will see if I can come up with some ideas for that.
As for update history I am not worried, we could link to: https://metacpan.org/dist/PDL/changes for the whole PDL history at the end of the "recent news" side box.

[mohawk2]

I think the solution will be for us to implement #9, but regardless, each change you're making brings real improvement!

[dhdeangelis]

I think the solution will be for us to implement #9, but regardless, each change you're making brings real improvement!

I already looked at #9 and thinking on how it can be implemented.

[mohawk2]

I've updated the news to be fairly up to date (I'll do an email announcement of the next PDL release), and added a longer "blurb" on the main page. I think it's not bad as a front page now, but what do you think? @dhdeangelis

[dhdeangelis]

I think it works well! The news columns seems still too long to me in comparison with the other two to the left. I may make some time in the coming weeks to test and propose an alternative.

[mohawk2]

That will be great! One idea that occurs to me is that maybe the "news" shouldn't be over on the right, but in the main flow of the main page, though that would then need figuring whether the blurb needs to be shorter.

[dhdeangelis]

I believe that the layout and perhaps even the entire page concept could benefit from some rethinking. Also perhaps in the long run a mostly static webpage could be easier to maintain and navigate. I do not have time for this now but can look at it in a few weeks.

[mohawk2]

Let me know your thoughts. Please say what they are before you do any work, unless it's super easy. May I suggest involving one or both PDL mailing lists?