Hello,
In addition to what Dave wrote (with which I completely agree),
I can imagine several types of users who will visit the site:
1. Current users of rsyslog (sometimes, not by their own choice) which
need support/help. For better or worse, old/stable version of rsyslog
are out there being used daily (e.g. version 4/5 on Ubuntu/Debian). The
website makes no mention of those, and it's very frustrating to try to
find help about them.
It's also not helping that the config syntax has changed dramatically,
and it's not clear which commands/modules are available if I have an old
"/usr/sbin/rsyslogd" on my system.
2. Users who want to use 'rsyslogd', with the latest features
(relp,tls,zip,etc.).
That was me, a month ago.
Clear information was hard to find: where should I start? what to
install? which version to download? Since I wanted the new features, I
obviously needed to install new versions (the existing version on my
system was too old) - so should I go with v7 or v8 ? what's the big
difference between them?
What's the most up-to-date config syntax I should use?
Examples were scarce and scattered.
The most telling example for me is this:
I wanted rsyslog for the reliability and security, so I had to use at
least v7.5.8 with libRELP.
After installing and configuring and experimenting and finally getting a
working setup, it was still not reliable.
The missing magic was "action.resumeRetryCount" - but I had to ask about
it in the mailing list, and only after some discussion did Rainer
himself mentioned the solution.
Even the most common tutorial (as returned by google) doesn't mention
this key:
http://www.rsyslog.com/using-tls-with-relp/
In short, for a beginner, it was hard to get things right.
3. Advanced users or developers -
Those are users who know rsyslog well, and want to do advanced stuff:
use special plugins (e.g. database), do custom setups (e.g.
load-balancing or crazy guaranteed zero-loss configurations), or develop
plugins.
These users need a access to more documentations, but these advanced
topics shouldn't be shown to the "less advanced" users.
Example: The "NEWS" section has several items about "how to write an
output plugin" - this news item is irrelevant to 99% of rsyslog users
(IMHO), and might give the wrong impression that one needs to write
plugins in order to "just use" rsyslog.
Just my two cents,
-gordon
On 02/12/2014 10:58 AM, Dave Caplinger wrote:
Looks good so far (looks like a WordPress site actually)...
A few minor quibbles based on a quick review:
* It's not obvious that the top-level menu items are in fact pages themselves
(for example, you can click on 'PROJECT' and go to the Project Status page even
though that doesn't appear in the pop-up menu under 'PROJECT')
* It may make sense to have a header called 'Deprecated Releases' above v6 and
blow on that project status page, just to make it more clear that you really
shouldn't be using these (unless you must)
* Help (main) page: the bullets seem to have line breaks before the items? Also,
this appears to actually be Help -> Guides rather than a top-level HELP page?
* Menu: "Professiomal" is spelled incorrectly :-)
* Professional Services (main) page - says that options are "below" but they
aren't
* HOME: I wonder if the contents of the NEWS page should be here instead
(under the existing introductory info)? Helps the main page show that this is
an active project.
* NEWS: Should Rainer's blog posts be included? (Or at least posts he tags
with 'rsyslog'?) Maybe someone should pull related blog post announcements
from the mailinglist and post them to NEWS as well, such as Radu's relatively
recent posts about rsyslog working with elasticsearch, etc.
* NEWS: it might be better to include less of the article for the non-first
news posting; all those rsyslog version releases repeat the same stuff over and
over... and then you could get more news post abstracts
* Some of the pages allow comments; for example, Download -> Rsyslog 7.4.9
(stable). I'm guessing that this was not intended?
* Theme: The hyperlink color is really hard to distinguish from the regular
text color
Speaking of the Theme:
If it really is a WordPress site; perhaps a more product-oriented theme could help
freshen the look. For example, if the three main points we are trying to convey are that
Rsyslog is Fast, Reliable, Extensible (just to pick three somewhat at random), a good
layout may be a main page with a full-width banner of the new logo and single-phrase
description "Rsyslog is a Rocket-fast...", then one row of 3 mini-banners for
each of the 3 main points. Each point could include some related graphic and
descriptive-phrase, and link to a more detailed page. The 'extensible' mini-baner could
link to the Plugins page, for example.
Another way to think of this is: why did the user come to the page? What verb
or action are they here to perform? Is it to GET the newest version? LEARN
how to make rsyslog do great things? SEE/HEAR what's new? PARTICIPATE with
others? Whatever those main 3 to 5 actions are, it should be obvious from the
front page how to do them without having to dig into sub-menus to find them.
Likewise, you/we as the project leaders/community may want to convey specific
things too -- like that the project's product has certain properties (fast,
reliable, extensible), or that the community is large and active, or that the
project is active, or perhaps that the product is used in prestigious places.
So that's another 3 to 5 design requirements.
So in that light, check out the following contemporary peers of rsyslog:
* github.com - large main banner, 3 sub-banner "reasons why you'll love it"
* www.docker.io - large banner with descriptive phrase
* coreos.com - banner, 2 sub-banners, 3 main themes (minimal, runs containers,
service discovery)
* vagrantup.com - HUGE main banner, 3 sub-banners (but vertical), prestigious
customers
* elasticsearch.org - HUGE banner that switches between the 3 main messages
* getbootstrap.com - main banner, 3 main themes, 4 example uses
* centos.org (new look since the RedHat "collaboration") - large main banner, 3 sub-sections,
including "recent news" and "look at our great sponsors"
Granted, many of the above are trending towards commercial objectives, so a
product-focused site makes a lot of sense for them. And this isn't dissimilar
from Rsyslog's case. Rsyslog is great (and free), and by the way if you want
commercial support, Adiscon is happy to help you out...
- Dave
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