It was no secret that Drupal.org's download pages were sub-optimal: we had two views, one by version and one by download type. This was a left-over from project.module's old browsing structure. And while the Drupal.org front page feature did provide easy access to the list of themes, modules and translations, that page was not particularly helpful in helping you discover interesting downloads that you didn't yet know by name.

That's why I dived into project.module and came out again with a revamped project browser. The new download page is structured both by download type and version and gives you more informative project descriptions. Furthermore, with a dash of CSS (and a couple dozen screenshots later) I added thumbnails to the Themes list. Finding a theme you like has never been easier. Each theme also has a direct link to the Drupal Theme Garden: now you can get a live demo of any theme by clicking its picture.

Not all themes have screenshots or are featured on the Garden yet. Bear with us as we finish the job of updating each project. If you maintain a project that has not yet been updated, feel free to help out: check the updated screenshot guidelines and make sure your project's teaser is descriptive yet to the point.

Note: you can read the discussion that lead to this change.

Comments

sami_k’s picture

Steven,

I like the new pages. However, I think they take a bit too much space, but maybe that is necessary for some more novice users. Anyhow, I think you guys know best, after all you did bring us Drupal... The thumbnails are a very nice touch to the themes section, very helpful.

Regards,
Sami
--
Etopian (Consulting, Development, and Hosting)
http://drupal.etopian.net

Steven’s picture

The problem is that the page can serve as both an index as well as a source of information on its own. We need to check each project's description and see if we can't make it shorter.

But I do think the big size for the theme thumbnails was a good choice: a theme's explanation is secondary to how it looks, and you can scroll through the list easily.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

Rick Cogley’s picture

Looks great and is easy to use. Thank you!

Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan

nathanwastaken’s picture

Will this be available for public download (this version of the project module I mean)? I havn't checked the CVS log messages, so I am unsure if it has already been released.

I think that the descriptions could be a little shorter on some of the projects, but it is fine for the time being.

nathanwastaken’s picture

It has been commited. But the new tarball has not yet been created to include the changes.

aries’s picture

You should put the contribs into categories, because their numbers are growing rapidly and to find what module we want is getting harder.
--
Fehér János aka Aries

FabriceV’s picture

Dear Mr,

Category based on :
- Add content or a fonction (book review, paypal,...)
- extend drupal content management or fonction (taxonomy...)

The new module list is better presented, but definitively not adaptated to be used by new users. The presentation does not solved the complexity of the list itself. Furthermore, it is really difficult to understand the fonctions of most modules. Screenshots of administration or content pages by module could help user and avoid long explanations.

Sincerely.

kbahey’s picture

This is much better than before.

These pages are probably the most visited ones on drupal.org and hence will give a first impression, which is now better than before.

I love the fact that themes have screen shots right there. Only thing is to add a <br/> or some other line feed between the screen shot and the description, so it is not shifted to the right.

Also, isn't it time to retire the really old versions? For example 4.4 to 4.0 can be under a collective tab called "Older releases", so as to reduce clutter and not encourage anyone to use them. They would still be available, but why highlight them?

--
Consulting: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com

--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba

Uwe Hermann’s picture

Can you put a <br /> tag after the screenshots on the theme page, so that the text starts below the screenshots? That looks better IMHO.

Uwe.
--
hermann-uwe.de | crazy-hacks.org | unmaintained-free-software.org

freyquency’s picture

or clear the images in css to display on one line... i'm sure you know how to do that so i won't bother elaborating.

Steven’s picture

It sounds like you're not getting the latest style.css file. Try holding shift and press refresh. It's supposed to look like this:
http://acko.net/dumpx/themes.png

Without the new CSS, the Themes page looks completely awful. :P

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

Uwe Hermann’s picture

Aaah, a lot better now :) Thanks.

Uwe.
--
hermann-uwe.de | crazy-hacks.org | unmaintained-free-software.org

laura s’s picture

I would only request that updated modules get tagged as such. Even better would be some sort of version tracking, since these modules get updated continuously as patches are committed. It gets very confusing to admins who set up a site one day, and when they do it again a few days later, it's a different setup because the contributed modules have changed without announcement. (A simple upload date would be a compromise solution that would in itself be immensely helpful. As it is, the date of the tarball indicates date of initial upload, not date of most recent update.)

Yes, we could get all that with a few clicks on each module to look at the CVS history (if there is one) and commit messages, but with so many contributed modules, just checking on updates can take hours.

(Aside from these suggestions, I think the changes are nice improvements reflecting some good work. Thank you!)

.:| Laura • pingV |:.

_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet

freyquency’s picture

I brought up a similar issue here: http://drupal.org/node/21076 which Dries mentioned that the site was getting tags indicating "new" or "updated" status (instead of just the asterisk). I've just noticed these in the past couple of days on the modules page... Is that what you're referring to?

laura s’s picture

The "new" indications on the download pages are rather ambiguous. While on forums, it's a clear indication of things you have not read yet, on the downloads pages, it is an indication of ... what? Updated within the week? 2 weeks? What if I've been away six weeks?

Let's say I did an installation on April 20. How can I tell at a glance which modules have been updated since then? I can't -- not without going into the CVS records and the issues and figuring out what patches were committed and what patches were not. That's a lot of homework for what must be a routine process for nearly all of us who use stable releases rather than CVS.

Yet this update information exists. The simplest solution, I believe, would be to put a date of latest upload of the module tarballs. That way I could see that, for example, the pathauto module has been updated since I first installed it. Having that date on the main table listing would be even better. I could just look for modules updated since my initial installation. Right now the date of the tarball indicates the date of the first upload for that version, and that info does not really help anyone, IMHO.

Does this make it clearer?

.:| Laura • pingV |:.

_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet

Bèr Kessels’s picture

CVS logs: For example tracking trackback module: http://drupal.org/cvs?file=/modules/trackback/trackback.module | http://drupal.org/cvs?rss=true&file=/modules/trackback/trackback.module

project pages: Tracking webblinks module http://drupal.org/project/issues?projects=3321&states=2 | http://drupal.org/project/issues/rss?projects=3321&states=2

The RSS can be tracked in your favorite feed reader, or even with your drupal sites aggregator module.

---
Next time, please consider filing a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

laura s’s picture

The thing is, then I have over 100 feeds to follow. As it is, I subscribe to the CVS commits just to follow what's going on, but get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information. :o (It sure would be nice if these feeds were autodiscoverable, so I could just pop them into Firefox with one click instead of a half dozen, but that's a separate issue.)

Would this approach track updates to issues that were not reported, but simply noticed and fixed by the maintainer, or simply what's been reported and patched?

Suggestion: What if we could subscribe to the downloads page, and get an RSS notification when any tarball is updated?

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I don't understand why the last updated date is considered not useful -- especially when the tarball link on each module's page is labeled "Download latest release" but the date indicated is not the date of the latest release but rather the initial release (for that version of Drupal).

For example, look at nodelist.module. The tarball is dated 28 April, but it was last updated 2 May. So why not have the latter date indicated next to the tarball? Why bury that information down several clicks? Wouldn't it make sense to have at least on the module's main page, if not in the downloads table, the date of the latest release?

Why do I bring all this up? Because this thread is about the improvements to the downloads pages. Because there already seems to be a bit of confusion about releases of contributed modules, which as I write this number 116 different modules for 4.6, if I counted correctly. (This doesn't even get into giving the maintenance releases version numbers, which also would make Drupal-powered site administration a little easier to follow.)

I share my thoughts as an administrator of over a dozen sites now, offered as what I hope is taken as constructive feedback for a site that provides an incredible resource for which I am eternally grateful. As it is, I do what I need to do, and will continue doing so, and in that respect the changes to the download pages have no ergonomic effect. (I think the screenshots on the themes is a nice addition, but that's one area that I do not use.)

Thanks.

.:| Laura • pingV |:.

_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet

Bèr Kessels’s picture

Yes, laura, you are right.
But knowing teh prolem does not solve it yet. We are very much aware of the difficulties in tracking contributions. Not only for people like you, administrators, but even more so for developers , who keep on inventing the wheel instead of joining existing projects. often simply because they did not know of its existence.

But, knowing the problem does not solve it. Allthough solutions are in the makes, eple like yuo can help best here. It is not just about a version or date next to a module, its about communication between developers and users. A very hard thing, seemingly :). Its a common, known problem that developers cannot communicate with users. Commerical softare developers, solve this by placing layers inbetween the two: marketing depts, back offices, helpdesks etc. Open source has this not. Open source needs people like you who are interested in development, yet are users too.

What you could do, concrete, is help developers,. For example, people like you could offer to help a project by maintaining a small changelog. Or by helping with support issues. Setting up example sites etc. IMO that is much harder needed then a date showing up somewhere.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

laura s’s picture

This information is very helpful. I am in the midst of transferring over several sites to a new server, and upgrading them (many with resultant re-theming issues as improvements in phpTemplate make my old hacks unnecessary). Once the immediate workload imperatives are past, I will then be happy to help out in that way. I also will be contributing some theme work. I applied for a CVS account last week. I guess that takes a while.

.:| Laura • pingV |:.

_____ ____ ___ __ _ _
Laura Scott :: design » blog » tweet

mrshark’s picture

if it's so simple, do a page on drupal.org that track this...

Bèr Kessels’s picture

But there are literally tens- of thousands of feeds that aer possible to track. you should generate teh feed of the thing /you/ want to track. We offer this on drupal.org, as you can see.

---
Next time, please consider filing a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

mrshark’s picture

it would be very useful to have, beside the "Download", "Find out more", "Bugs and feature requests", a "Last Changed" field that extracts the "pubDate" value of the first item of the rss feed for that module. But i think that this need an ad hoc module...

freyquency’s picture

Looks super! great job Steven and everyone else involved!

One request: Can the RSS buttons be added to the download pages? I have found these indispensible for finding out when new things are added.

druvision’s picture

Theme garden is great! But the same code can also be applied to create a module garden!

How many times have you downloaded and installed a moudle, only to see that it's not working? And how many times have you didn't have the slightest image of how it looks, how it's supposed to work?

We need screenshots of modules too! Several screen shots of modules will highly increase their usage!

Also, module subpages is a good idea, but also I would like to have a modules search page according to a various criteria.

Amnon
-
My Sites:
sakeret.com | hitech-dolphin.com | small-business-web-hosting-strategies.com

Steven’s picture

I don't think it's a good idea to have module screenshots. How many should we have? What should they show?

Furthermore, modules are supposed to be tagged per version. If you find a module which does not work on a certain version (even though it is available), you should contact the maintainer.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

Bèr Kessels’s picture

... but came to the conclusion that its not possible as it is, now. Screenshots are only so-so for modules, because you often need to show actions and transitions rather then pages.

My ideas are getting shape, and I will discuss this, as soon as i have done some more investigation. However, The basics of the idea are: to move the developers info on the project pages away to the background. Have direct links to better documentation, allow comments on project pages, and allow people to post links for example sites that use the modules. But these ideas need some more detail.

---
Next time, please consider filing a support request.

[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

freyquency’s picture

yes, example pages! a picture is worth more than words, an interactive example is priceless.

Bèr Kessels’s picture

So you volunteer to set up a drupal site with examples? :)
---
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]

silverwing’s picture

I love the larger screenshots in the themes page! Great job!

One thing I liked about the old look was how easy it was to find the modules names. They were all on the left in line with one another. Now, they're, in a way, squished with the description.

Perhaps a margin for the body that will let the name stick out (uhhh.. litterally? ;0) more?

silverwing
www.misguidedthoughts.com

freyquency’s picture

I agree, it's more difficult scroll-and-seek to the correct module. Perhaps more contrast between the title and the body (not spacing neccessarily)?

Jo Wouters’s picture

Steven,

I like the new layout, but would like to propose an addition that might improve the navigation in a page:

How about a dropdown-list (for an example, see the content of the Gentoo-handbook: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/index.xml ) which lets your fast-jump to a certain part of the page.

It makes jumping to a certain module/theme/translation go faster, and it provides the user with some kind of overview of what can be found on the page.

Steven’s picture

I agree with you completely that the module list can still use work. This is just a step in making things better ;).

The thing is, module categorization (one idea) has been proposed to improve navigation, but a good structure has never been agreed on. Perhaps folksonomy can help out as tags might offer a better way to categorize modules organically.

As far as a quickjump goes, I didn't think it was necessary because I'm so used to jumping to things in firefox with ctrl-f. But perhaps we should think of the poor Internet Explorer users too ;). I have to think about a good way to approach it. You can locate projects easily just by searching for their name: they are indexed and shown as "projects" on the search results. For example, searching for codefilter brings up the module.

Our first priority still is getting the module descriptions short and to the point: leave out technical details for the full view, and let the teaser tell people what the module allows them to do.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

mrshark’s picture

finally we got themes screenshots (well, not for all of them...).
Please, add some kind o "last updated" field (even an animated gif), especially to modules page, to let us know when one of them is updated. It's boring to visit every single module issues page to do this...

Dries’s picture

Reading the comments it looks like there are three pressing requests which we can turn into the following action points:

  1. Add more screenshots, most notably for the missing themes (not all themes have screenshots yet).
  2. Provide an easy way to track updated themes and modules.
  3. Make it easier to find stuff by adding categories.
green monkey’s picture

nice .... very nice.

... next time you go back in, could you put in the "new" or red "*" in? ... please :-)

there was one other small thing but that is personal preference.

at the top (let say modules section) the option "selected" which is in bold.. ie
4.6x 4.5x 4.4x

I think you'll find a bit more visual emphasis and defination if went it 'red" ... but you have to be lery of my advice ... I got the big box of crayons when I was 8 and haven't been the same since :-)

Rick Cogley’s picture

And noticed there was no "updated". I second this - it is very helpful to have the asterisk (which confused some people), a new, or an updated. Much appreciated!!!

Rick Cogley :: rick.cogley@esolia.co.jp
Tokyo, Japan

green monkey’s picture

Steven,
Thanks for moving 4.6x to the other end, big thing for me. Bouncing back and forth between CVS, 4.6x and 4.5x stuff.

I don't know if this is important to anyone else, but I have noticed I use the section in reverse order of the way it was built.

I tend to select version first, then section. I'm trying to retrain my mouse, but the darn thing is so very stubborn.

When selecting version first then section, the version info is reset to 4.6x and I didn't noticed this the few first times. I now know of a few 4.6x modules that don't work that well with 4.5.2 .... :-) .. anyway ... nothing more than a little feedback

freyquency’s picture

I thought i'd mention that there is another way to check out new releases, viewing drupal by taxonomy...

I posted about a bunch (pages + RSS) here : http://drupal.org/node/16489

... specific module taxonomy is http://drupal.org/taxonomy/term/14
... specific theme taxonomy is http://drupal.org/taxonomy/term/15

the theme taxonomy page has some weird CSS going on with the new screenshots BTW.