[pygtk] Pygtk.org website IRC Meeting

[Rafael Villar Burke]

Alberto Ruiz wrote:
> 2006/12/25, Peter Morgan <pm at daffodil.uk.com
> <mailto:pm at daffodil.uk.com>>:
>
>     As a new user to the platform I'm inclined to agree on most of
>     these points.
>
>     I also maintain the Smarty.php.net <http://Smarty.php.net> docs
>     and am an active member of developer.mozilla.com
>     <http://developer.mozilla.com> so I understand some of the
>     problems with doc/site maintenance.
>
>     There are a few points I'd like to throw in for my "tuppany's"
>     worth, and would also like to contribute as I'm now using pyGTK
>     for all desktop (x-platfrom) apps. Next year will be pygtk  for me
>     and am so looking forward.
>
>     Biggest problem in my opinion is that the site is not sure whether
>     its catering for the pygtk developers, or the end users.
>
>
> I agree.
So true.

We had some time ago a volunteer that showed a nice redesign of the
site, and maybe he's still interested on contributing. Besides the
design facelift we should also change how information is organized.
>
>     Whether the tutorial should be in a wiki? This is a big step and
>     indeed a lot of my time spent on dev.mozilla is in migrating
>     documents. Its wonderful to see how over time it gets crafted with
>     links here and little tweaks. The biggest problem with a wiki in
>     addition to CPU resources is authentication and rouge editors,
>     however these do tend to be few and far between from my experience
>     - if wikipedia can survive it then i don't see a big problem. If I
>     was to recommend a wiki then I would suggest Bitweaver.
>
>
> We already have live.gnome.org/PyGTK <http://live.gnome.org/PyGTK>,
> btw, I think that we need consensus on how to write documentation on
> the wiki, so we can export it into various formats. Maybe people from
> library.gnome.org <http://library.gnome.org> could help us here.
The GNU GPLv3 drafting process has a nice web application to annotate
the existing text and add comments from users while keeping editorial
control over the main version
(http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/gplv3-draft-2.html). It could be a nice
way to get some feedback about the trickiest parts without having the
problems that a wiki approach has. It also allows to read the 'blessed'
version or the annotated one. Editors could reuse the comments to
improve the main text.
>
>     As far as the tutorials go there is a mega one there already at
>     http://pygtk.org/pygtk2tutorial/ thansk to John Finlay, last
>     updated in March 2006, This is good, however its more like a Guide
>     book than a tutorial  imho. Some of the most invaluable tutorials
>     appear off the main site, eg one that helped me was the pygtk with
>     glade. Couldn't these appear on the main pygtk site? it would make
>     it more official and up to a coding standard.
>
>
> That's exactly one of the things that I would like to adress out. The
> pygtk tutorial is a direct translation from the Gtk+ tutorial (which I
> understand that makes mantainability easier), but being the main
> source of documentation, people don't have an obvious way to learn how
> to use it. IMHO the tutorial is closer to the class reference than
> being a document to teach how to program with pygtk.
>
> I think that the main document on the site should be small, and should
> teach the main tools to learn how to solve the most common problems
> when it comes to build cross-platform interfaces. We have a lot of
> this kind of documentation on the FAQ, we only need to choose which
> pieces of the FAQ are more interesting for newcomers and build the
> tutorial-for-newbies.
>
>     One of the most valuable resources is the pygtk FAQ - however
>     sometimes its slow. Again shouldn't this be on the main site and
>     maintained? www.async.com.br/ <http://www.async.com.br/>
>     *faq*/*pygtk*/index.py. Mainly so editors have permission with one
>     common login
>
IMHO the tutorial is the one document to improve, besides writing more
short and focused articles as introductory material. The tutorial could
have introductory chapters and it could be made less terse, but that
means a lot of work... so volunteers are needed. All the changes I've
sent to the main author have been accepted... so it's a problem of
contributions and not of process or will to improve it :).
>
>
>     Also one last point is for windows users, they are the biggest
>     market. Indeed I checked pygtk, then went for mono and gtk# and
>     after 2 days, realised that the install to windows was going to be
>     a nightmare and came back to pygtk ;-). I've even been thinking
>     about creating a "Windows install pack" than installs python, gtk,
>     pygtk, cairo.. the whole lot, just for my own deployments. It took
>     me sometime to figure it out and as a newbie, getting my head
>     around all the versions was confusing to say the least,
>     particularly as a lot of the elements were on different other
>     sites. Windows users expect to have an installer, that's one of
>     the great things about vb.net <http://vb.net>. Maybe NSIS would be
>     a good solution http://nsis.sourceforge.net/ ?
>
>
> I've been learning NSIS by helping out to improve the cherokee
> installer, I think a bundled installer would be easy, I just need to
> figure out how to perform a silent install with the python's .msi and
> the gtk+.
That's very useful too. I think we have different profiles for it. First
user that wants to try pygtk and needs the whole stack (python, gtk+,
pygtk, glade/gazpacho); Python user that wants to upgrade or install
pygtk and it's stack (gtk+, pygtk). Advanced user that wants to create
an installer for her app but doesn't master NSIS or doesn't have the
know-how.
> I started a thread about this some time ago, there wasn't much
> discussion. It makes no sense for me the need of three different
> installers. Two of them outside of the site (python and gtk+ from
> gladewin32). This only rise the entry wall for newbies.
>
>     Anyway, just some thoughts. Keep of the good work and I want to
>     contribute.
>
Great! :)
>
> Then you are a perfect candidate for the IRC meeting on wednesday :P
Please, proceed with the meeting even if I'm not sure I can assist. I'll
try to get an update from Alberto later. If enough people are interested
on improving the website some useful discussion can happen and we can
have another meeting later.

Regards,

Rafael Villar Burke