Proper "Category:Interface" wiki page
We have three interfaces overview pages now:
- Category:Interface
- User-Interfaces, described as "Old user-interfaces wiki page"
- Interfaces, described as "Work in progress new interface page"
Let's resolve this mess and create only one "Category:Interfaces" page, which has the important content from both pages. Using Category: pages in general seems like a good idea, because it makes it easy to generate index pages that allow easy navigation.
Contributions and ideas highly appreciated.
Activity
mentioned in commit f279e27d
By postmarketOS Wiki bot on 2018-12-27T15:42:45
mentioned in issue #24 (closed)
By Oliver Smith on 2018-12-30T18:17:21
mentioned in issue #38 (closed)
By Antoine Fontaine on 2020-03-10T19:39:39
Here are some general changes I'm proposing. I'll try to write down a concept page with some more finalized text that could go on the page, but feedback would be appreciated before anything is moved.
Which page should everything be moved to?
The general consensus is to move it to Category:Interface, and I think that's a good option.
What should be on the page?
Most commonly-used interfaces
A fairly common question that seems to be asked often is "which interface should I choose?". I think the Interfaces page could be a good place to answer it.
I propose we add a well-visible introduction to the top of the Interfaces page, as well as buttons for the most common interfaces. Here's a bit of a quick sketch showing the rough concept (I'll recreate it as a wiki template later):
(The interface screenshots are fairly important IMO - they're good at catching people's attention, and they allow for a quick first-glance comparison for anyone who's picking out an interface to install. I think the images should also redirect to the wiki pages.)
Plus, below the main mobile interfaces we should mention that the first two don't work on downstream and provide alternatives (Weston for new ports, SXMO or XFCE4 for other ports, perhaps?).
Interface list
Currently the Interfaces page has a general list of interfaces grouped by type/target devices, including both ones that are packaged and ones that aren't. I'd say that can be a bit confusing - after all, if someone were to go to a wiki page about interfaces, they're likely looking for informations for DEs that they can readily install.
I think the tables can be left as-is, but I'd rather move abandoned/unavailable interfaces to a separate "Interface wishlist" page.
(this is a very minor nitpick though - I'm perfectly fine with keeping everything as-is.)
Categorizing interfaces
As for the actual Interfaces category itself, there are a few things I'd add there too:
- separate sub-category for unmaintained/unavaliable interfaces
- perhaps sub-categories for mobile, desktop, tablet etc. interfaces? Not sure how well that would work, because they'd need to be displayed in the main category view too.
(cc @ollieparanoid @PureTryOut I guess? GitLab seems to be pretty bad at notifying people of replies to issues.)
By knuxify on 2021-07-21T22:41:06
Edited by Administrator-
Overall this looks pretty good!
A fairly common question that seems to be asked often is "which interface should I choose?". I think the Interfaces page could be a good place to answer it.
I propose we add a well-visible introduction to the top of the Interfaces page, as well as buttons for the most common interfaces. Here's a bit of a quick sketch showing the rough concept (I'll recreate it as a wiki template later):
some comments:
- Please make sure it also works well when browsed with a phone.
- The descriptions below the user interfaces need some work.
- these are not desktop environments (they serve the purpose of a DE on linux, but they are not geared towards desktops, hence I'd not call them desktop environment)
- Sxmo does not use sway; I'd mention tiling WM and "for advanced users" there.
(The interface screenshots are fairly important IMO - they're good at catching people's attention, and they allow for a quick first-glance comparison for anyone who's picking out an interface to install. I think the images should also redirect to the wiki pages.)
Agreed.
Plus, below the main mobile interfaces we should mention that the first two don't work on downstream and provide alternatives (Weston for new ports, SXMO or XFCE4 for other ports, perhaps?).
I think it makes sense to mention what works on downstream and what does not, but I'd make it as extra text paragraph below this interface selection of 3 most commonly used ones. I'm not sure if we should make a recommendation for an alternative interface for downstream kernels... except for Sxmo they are all not suitable for phones so it kind of depends what the users wants to do. For a first port, weston is a good choice. For tablets maybe Xfce makes sense, or LXQT or whatever the user prefers.
So maybe just make an overview of less commonly used UIs, each with a description. Maybe also with these fancy images? (but clearly separated from the "popular three").
I guess I'd structure it like this:
- most commonly used UIs (headline)
- thumbnails with descriptions
- other UIs (headline)
- thumbnails with descriptions
- which UI works on which device? (headline)
- talk about what downstream supports here etc.
Currently the Interfaces page has a general list of interfaces grouped by type/target devices, including both ones that are packaged and ones that aren't. I'd say that can be a bit confusing - after all, if someone were to go to a wiki page about interfaces, they're likely looking for informations for DEs that they can readily install.
Ack. Let's only have the ones that can actually be installed on Category:Interfaces and move all others elsewhere.
I think the tables can be left as-is, but I'd rather move abandoned/unavailable interfaces to a separate "Interface wishlist" page.
Not sure if "wishlist" is a good name, it might lead to people adding more interfaces "that would be cool to have" without putting any actually work in getting these there let alone maintaining them in the future. So maybe
Category:InterfacesUnavailable(based on the unavailable idea you wrote below). Moving all of the broken ones there, and leaving a link from Category:Interfaces to that page.Looking forwards to seeing these awesome ideas of yours implemented, thanks @knuxify!
By Oliver Smith on 2021-08-09T22:52:27
Edited by Ghost User -
Thanks for the in-depth feedback, @ollieparanoid!
For the unmaintained UIs, I made a new category - Category:Unavailable and/or unmaintained interfaces, and made it a subcategory of the main Interface category. I also modified the
Infobox interfacetemplate, adding an "unavailable" parameter, and depending on the presence of this parameter the page which the template is placed on either goes to the Interfaces category, or the Unavailable interfaces category.Back to the topic of the main page, though - I created a page that serves as a draft for the new page: User:Knuxfanwin8/Interface_page_concept
The general text of the page could use some improvements, but I think it might be a good starting point. There are a few things I'd like some feedback on:
- The explainer bit (first paragraph) could probably be cut down, elaborated on or removed entirely; I felt that the page would feel a bit too empty without it, but I might be wrong about this.
- I wasn't really sure if I should use the word "recommended" for the most commonly used interfaces.
- For some of the little descriptions for each of the main interfaces I tried to capture the essence of the first paragraphs of their wiki pages. I think most of the important information is kept, but perhaps the Sxmo description could use some help... (Perhaps we could get feedback from the devs/maintainers of each of the UIs, to make sure they're all correctly represented :p)
As for how the page displays on mobile: I think it's fine, although the individual UI boxes aren't centered; however, given that regular infoboxes aren't centered on mobile anyways, I don't think it's too big of a problem.
By knuxify on 2021-08-09T22:52:27
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The explainer bit (first paragraph) could probably be cut down, elaborated on or removed entirely; I felt that the page would feel a bit too empty without it, but I might be wrong about this.
Some details:
- "There are currently" -> "As of writing"
- I'd remove the bold text, at least in the first paragraph. Because usually other wiki pages don't do this either.
I wasn't really sure if I should use the word "recommended" for the most commonly used interfaces.
I think recommended is good there.
For some of the little descriptions for each of the main interfaces I tried to capture the essence of the first paragraphs of their wiki pages. I think most of the important information is kept, but perhaps the Sxmo description could use some help... (Perhaps we could get feedback from the devs/maintainers of each of the UIs, to make sure they're all correctly represented :p)
IMHO these descriptions give a good first impression.
TODO More interface boxes here... maybe shelli/fbcon, lxqt, kodi/plasma bigscreen?
Let's make sure that this is not in the finished version though, that doesn't look so nice :D So for bonus points, it would be awesome if you could add an image for each of the UIs (we probably have them in blog posts etc., or ask around, or take ones yourself) and a little description. For UIs where we don't have a box, I'd just describe in the text that we do have more, without having there a big TODO that makes it look very unfinished. The idea is that at least the most important ones are described there, it's fine when a rather niche UI (in terms of who uses it on postmarketOS) is not covered.
So again, great work @knuxify! Do you want to finish it up and replace the existing page?
Feel free to ask in #postmarketOS for feedback too, it always takes me a while to answer here.
By Oliver Smith on 2021-08-15T19:20:58
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The new page is now live! https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:Interface
This issue can now be closed.
By knuxify on 2021-08-23T06:35:47
Edited by Ghost User
