[Nix-dev] New website

[Shell Turner]

So I just had a look at the new NixOS website, and I have a major
problem with it... I can't find the documentation. And that's as
someone who already knows what NixOS is and why I'd want to use it.
Worse, anything about NixOps/etc is hidden away in a menu in the top
right corner!

I didn't even notice the top bar until I'd gone to look a few more
times. Why can't we have a Debian-style "places to go" menu on the
front page, front and centre? https://www.debian.org/
 Even FreeBSD's
is better in terms of being able to figure out where to go.
http://www.freebsd.org/


The current front page has a huge amount of fluff, but the call to
action (get it) is all wrong; nobody downloads new operating systems
on a whim, they want to see examples of what it would do for them. The
"getting started" section on the Debian front page goes a long way to
fixing this.

So basically, what the front page needs is (a) a fairly comprehensive
and obvious menu of things a user would want from the site, and (b)
links off to places where a new user can find out more. Probably a
hook ("NixOS is a Linux distribution which uses a fully declarative
package manager and integrated configuration management system, making
system configuration and upgrades painless"), maybe a snippet of a
configuration.nix showing off how easy it is to set up, say, a simple
web server or a desktop environment, and maybe a little widget saying
what the current version is + a couple of titles of the latest news
articles. I'm not sure the "declarative, reliable, devops-friendly"
fluff helps anybody.

Just my two cents,
Shell

On 30 May 2014 14:26, Ertugrul Söylemez <ertesx at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> I'm looking at the new website with mixed feelings.  Being less static is a good idea, so I appreciate the news, blog posts and commits sections.  On the other hand it's way uglier and less lucid compared to the old website.  These are minor design issues that we can talk about and fix.
>
> However, one issue with the new site I would rate as critical:
>
> As a good web developer NEVER EVER download anything from external servers unless it is necessary, especially not from entities like Google, Facebook or Twitter.  If at all, do it server-side.  The new website unnecessarily downloads jQuery from the Google servers, not only compromising our privacy, but also every NoScript or Ghostery user will be told: "This website compromises your privacy!".  And for what?  For a dropdown menu?  Come on!  You don't even need JavaScript for that.  CSS alone can handle it much nicer.
>
> I have managed to keep my browser from sending my browsing habits to Google for a long time now.  Indeed, I don't even use Google as a search engine (there's DuckDuckGo).  And today my very Linux distribution forces me to allow access to Google servers.  That's not going to happen, so currently I'm unable to navigate the website at all.  This is the top issue, so as kindly as my current anger allows, I'm asking you to fix this as soon as possible.  I hope I'm not the only privacy-minded NixOS user.
>
> As SPJ once said, avoid success at all costs, because this is what happens when you don't.  I'm not sure the old website really needed to be replaced, but since it was, please remove the badies and bring back the goodies.
>
> Also in this case please don't tell me to send a pull request.  This is web development!  What would take the original developer five minutes would take me hours.
>
> By the way, the Hydra frontend has the same issue.
>
>
> Greets,
> Ertugrul
>
> --
> Ertugrul Söylemez <ertesx at gmx.de>
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