FreeCAD Website Design

[triplus]

I think we should add a link to the FreeCAD flatpack page on the downloads.php page. Thoughts ?

We have discussed this already in the past and as a result this note was added:

For more info on installation, please check out the wiki.

Overloading the download page with options is in my opinion counter productive.

[Kunda1]

I think we should add a link to the FreeCAD flatpack page on the downloads.php page. Thoughts ?

We have discussed this already in the past and as a result this note was added:

For more info on installation, please check out the wiki.

Overloading the download page with options is in my opinion counter productive.

Simply adding another button for Linux doesn't seem overloading to me.
Here's my idea:

flatpak-proposal.png (42.95 KiB) Viewed 3007 times

BTW, there is no mention of flatpak anywhere in the page we direct them to and that page is overloaded with information and hard to parse.

[triplus]

Simply adding another button for Linux doesn't seem overloading to me.

I said in my opinion it does. You are free to have your own opinion.

[Kunda1]

I said in my opinion it does. You are free to have your own opinion.

Fair enough. Would you be open to trying it and see what the response is ?

[triplus]

Fair enough. Would you be open to trying it and see what the response is ?

We have discussed this already in the past more in-depth and this is a short summary. Therefore what you are proposing is on why don't we add Flatpak (and Snap, Fedora Copr, Ubuntu PPA, Conda ...) install options for Linux on the download page directly, and to see if people will like it.

We wanted to provide a download page, that is stylish and modern, like the rest of the FreeCAD home page. To be usable and not to introduce much confusion, by providing a plethora of options, by default. It was decided, that currently on Linux, the most straightforward option is AppImage. No additional software needs to get installed, works on verity of Linux distributions and nothing gets installed on the target system. In the future this decision can get revised, once other Linux oriented solutions will mature more. Based on further discussions an additional note was added, on where to find other install options and info. This information therefore could be put on the download page directly, but Wiki was selected as a better solution, being easier to update. We know, that we don't have a dynamic download page, hence somebody has to make a PR and somebody else has to deploy the changes to our host. Keeping the information updated for plethora of options therefore adds to the maintenance burden.

Hopefully this answers your question and provides rationale on what my current opinion is based on. As for the future and to be honest, i got my "perfect FreeCAD download page" already, as for the next generation, if therefore more overloading is currently considered as being a progress, and you are fine with the additional maintenance work, feel free to pursue yours.

[kkremitzki]

I think a potential compromise for this would be to replace the text below the button with a differently-colored, differently-sized, yet still prominent button (IDK, I'm not a design person) with the text "Other Options", which links to a separate page with complete information on Linux installation options. There's just so many worth mentioning, but I can live with "our most universal option as first pick" and "all the info on everything else" being the options on the download page.

[Kunda1]

@kkremitzki I think that's a fair compromise.

[triplus]

What i guess actually is missing ATM is any mention of Flatpak, Snap and Conda options on the Wiki page. Therefore once people do click on the wiki link, such options aren't mentioned at all.

[Kunda1]

I added a dropdown menu for the SHA256. Can be viewed here: https://sharazali.github.io/FreeCAD-Hom ... loads.html. If some changes are needed let me know.

Awesome. Some freedback, would you please:
center the dropdown window
center the within the window
use a thicker font for the dropdown text

I was also thinking for convenience for the user that we could list the actual checksum in the dropdown instead of a link so they don't have to download it and open it to see.

@AR795
Did you see this and the posts above ?

[AR795]

@AR795
Did you see this and the posts above ?

Sorry about the delay, I didn't get the time to check it out, will test it tomorrow. As for the flatpak and snap links, I will try out the suggestion by @kkremitzki.