FreeCAD Website Design

[AR795]

Another thing to consider, maybe we can display a donation button somewhere after a user clicks the download button?
Sometimes making it easier for people to access a donation link when they are downloading FOSS (synfig, blender, inkscape ..do this)

A dialog box that opens once the download link is clicked, could do the job. The dialog box could then provide the donation button and perhaps a thank you note.

[triplus]

Well, we are talking about checksum, therefore you can easily check sum.

Just in case the hint was not understand correctly, check the checksum and see for yourself, i will put it more bluntly.

Note that the checksum for AppImage/DMG files still changes on a daily basis.

In regards to 0.19_pre, that is true. But for 0.18.x the checksum only changes when a backport or new minor release is made.

No, checksum changes on a daily basis. For FreeCAD 0.18 and FreeCAD 0.19 AppImage and DMG files.

[Kunda1]

No, checksum changes on a daily basis. For FreeCAD 0.18 and FreeCAD 0.19 AppImage and DMG files.

Why would the checksum change for 0.18 on a daily basis?
If that was the case we would see the downstream packaging repos bumping their checksum of the 0.18 FreeCAD on a daily basis as well, right?

[triplus]

Why would the checksum change for 0.18 on a daily basis?

Because that is how we have it set up. FreeCAD 0.18 AppImages underwent 2 migrations. Py2/Qt4 -> Py3/Qt5 and from using PPA to Conda as a basis for the AppImage. Things haven't stabilized yet and there are some know issues still. When a report is made and somebody does something about it. That will get picked up in less then 24h. The same on Mac side with DMGs. As a side effect, checksum will therefore change on a daily basis. With FreeCAD 0.19 AppImages we are starting to get some good results. Therefore there is a chance we will lower the build/deploy frequency around first FreeCAD 0.19 point release. But when somebody will fix some reported issue and recreate the AppImage/DMG, by triggering the build with PR, somebody else will still need to create a PR, with updated checksum for the web page, and somebody else will need to deploy it on host.

That is why i said investing effort in having dynamic content on a static web page makes less sense ATM and it increases the maintenance burden. More dynamic solution is possible, but somebody will need to invest the effort, to make it work and to maintain it in the future.

If that was the case we would see the downstream packaging repos bumping their checksum of the 0.18 FreeCAD on a daily basis as well, right?

No. Travis is creating AppImages and DMGs and uploads them to GitHub. It doesn't do any branching/tagging or anything like that.

[Kunda1]

No. Travis is creating AppImages and DMGs and uploads them to GitHub. It doesn't do any branching/tagging or anything like that.

I see. Alrighty then. So back the approach of using a link to the SHA file instead.
Thanks for the explanation, @triplus.
@AR795 thanks for your patience with this.

[triplus]

Thanks for the explanation, @triplus.

You're welcome.

@AR795 thanks for your patience with this.

Indeed.

[vinaykr15]

hello everyone, my name is vinay kumar. I want to help to build the website for freecad. As I am a new guy in forum please guide me around and ignore my mistake. I will help in this section as I am doing this work for a while apart from learning blender.
so for started my favourite CAD site is ONSHAPE, and as recently blender gets it to upgrade taking inspiration from their website is worth a shot. I guess. let discuss further what process we should consider as for now what I saw this hit and trial method of changing colour and gradient is not getting us near getting more people to the community.
https://www.onshape.com/
https://www.blender.org/

[Kunda1]

Welcome! What kind of things are you proposing to implement? Remember that we need the website to stay as future friendly as possible since we're trying to keep maintenance to a minimum as possible do to manpower (high turnover in FOSS)

[Kunda1]

Request: Adding a 'Known Issues' link to the Download page
reference: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... 54#p335428

[Kunda1]

Adding a link to the gitter/IRC FreeCAD room
https://sidecar.gitter.im/
Example: https://www.spyder-ide.org/ (see bottom right of screen 'OPEN CHAT' button)