betterthangrep.com redesign

[Andy Lester]

You get a sneak peek at the redesigned version of http://betterthangrep.com/  It's all fancy and pretty and I'd like your feedback.

http://betterthangrep.com/redesign/

Please don't bother bookmarking it, because it will be going away in a few days to replace http://betterthangrep.com/ itself.  

Mostly, I broke up the the monolithic ack home page into subpages, and Elliot Bentley and Jeana Clark made the design magic happen. (And I need to get their names and links on the site to properly thank them)  The only thing missing from the redesigned site that is currently on http://betterthangrep.com/ is a link to the Changelog, and I don't think that makes sense to have on the site.

So: What do you think?  What should we add?  Even if it's a big "Wouldn't it be cool if you could do (big thing that would take a long time)…" I can still put in a ticket for it on Github for the future.

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks to Elliot and Jeana for helping a programmer with no design sense whatsoever.

xoxo,

Andy

--
Andy Lester => an...@petdance.com => www.petdance.com => AIM:petdance

[Jeana]

On Monday, 2 April 2012 11:02:15 UTC-4, Andy Lester wrote:

So: What do you think?  What should we add?  Even if it's a big "Wouldn't it be cool if you could do (big thing that would take a long time)…" I can still put in a ticket for it on Github for the future.

 

One quick thought after looking through more of your content additions... I'm wondering why the top 5 list on the front seems disparate from http://betterthangrep.com/redesign/why-ack.html It seems the top 10 list would include the original top 5, with the same headlines from the front page.  I can create more icons if you'd like :)

A few options:

> Include the same top 5, with the same wording, on http://betterthangrep.com/redesign/why-ack.html with 5 additional reasons, and include a link at the bottom of the front top 5 that says "and there's more reasons..."

> Change top 10 to something else that's not a top 10 list... have it simply be Why use ack? and bullet the list... 

-Jeana

[Will Coleda]

Looks nice, good work!

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "ack dev/users" group.
> To post to this group, send email to ack-...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> ack-users+...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/ack-users?hl=en.

--
Will "Coke" Coleda

[Phillip Koebbe]

I like it.

Did find a small typo, though:

on redesign/why-ack.html #5 in the sentence

If you have a big project with many different languages combined, it's easy to add --perl to skip Perl files, or use --nohtml to skip HTML.

I think you meant either

1) it's easy to add --perl to search only Perl files, or

2) it's easy to add --noperl to skip Perl files

Since you use --nohtml as a negation example, I'm thinking you wanted #1 above.

And I'm glad you added the "Other tools like ack" page. I'm a ruby fan and have sometimes wondered about something like ack in ruby. Now I can try out rak and glark and see what I think.

Phillip

[Phil Dobbin]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 02/04/2012 16:02, Andy Lester wrote:

> You get a sneak peek at the redesigned version of
> http://betterthangrep.com/ It's all fancy and pretty and I'd like
> your feedback.

[...]

Excellent. Far easier to read especially for those not used to man
pages (I pipe all my man pages to Vim for a better reading experience
as well as all the other benefits).

Me like :-)

Cheers,

Phil...

- --
But masters, remember that I am an ass.
Though it be not written down,
yet forget not that I am an ass.

Wm. Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.17 (Darwin)
Comment: §auto-key-locate cert pka ldap hkp://keys.gnupg.net
Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPeciPAAoJEKpMeDHWT5AD3zgH/RlzjGnDYl4bds0jHLxH6C05
MVslExbbXXkG5rBucs+qgXARcYD1kXtjNWZFLxDPLLbRp50FvuQ83JTg0MiR5kpd
2CXJodlvAHc0OZZgog8uutcVOXTqm2mRY/es2xpfxXYiiYscoVU80TyFZpIpktpW
MgNOEK82Ti8SZuttcqhtwo0IpmJQEsDa0N1Xd5QMVEeVnV7YOTFPnZ4fH2VlInhO
0jFFizlCWHU9Z4VSEQKDzKXxFun0kIbgCJqsjC/YQVnoV4/WhM2gfhqRadVpokX4
g7Dul45IrIWhmuN9BlQTfkwAn3NDenk6ate647rmyD1HBn74UNC/V0Yynr9/Cao=
=ObIn
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Andy Lester]

On Apr 2, 2012, at 10:37 AM, Phillip Koebbe wrote:

And I'm glad you added the "Other tools like ack" page. I'm a ruby fan and have sometimes wondered about something like ack in ruby. Now I can try out rak and glark and see what I think.

It's such an easy way to help users.  Maybe a user loves the idea of ack, but wants to see what else is out there.  Why in the world wouldn't I help that user find the appropriate tool for his use?

Here's what inspired me: http://veracity-scm.com/

Note this chart does not say "Veracity is better than Git/Mercurial/Bazaar/Fossil."  It simply explains the differences.  I LOVE THIS and every open source project should do something similar.  Why shouldn't, say, the Rails website give a list of other Ruby frameworks?  It doesn't have to be elaborate, but just "You might find this more useful."  There's no reason NOT to.

[Les Nightingill]

new website looks great.

thank you, Andy, for your work on this. Having just released my own first open-source project I now understand how much work and commitment is required. It's really appreciated. Thanks again (and to Elliot and Jeana.

Les

[Nathan Arthur]

I pretty much like all the UI changes - it looks much better.  I disagree about hiding the Changelog, though; I often use changelogs to see if it's worth upgrading to the latest version (in a corporate environment), or just to see what sort of activity is happening with the software.  Given that your target audience is programmers, it seems like they'd expect (and be comfortable) with a web-searchable changelog.

In fact, that reminds me - I almost didn't start using ack (back in the day) because I couldn't easily find a web-accessible version of the source code.  I didn't want to have to download it (again, in a restrictive corporate environment) just to see the source.  I suggest adding a link to a web front end to whatever source repository your are using.

Nathan

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Andy Lester <an...@petdance.com> wrote:

[Christopher J. Madsen]

One typo in the top 5 list: "while ignore" should be "while ignoring".

Overall, it looks good.

--
Chris Madsen pe...@cjmweb.net
-------------------- http://www.cjmweb.net --------------------

[Nathan Arthur]

I pretty much like all the UI changes - it looks much better.  I disagree about hiding the Changelog, though; I often use changelogs to see if it's worth upgrading to the latest version (in a corporate environment), or just to see what sort of activity is happening with the software.  Given that your target audience is programmers, it seems like they'd expect (and be comfortable) with a web-searchable changelog.

Where do you suggest I put it?  and what about the pointer to the source code?

If I saw the new site for the first time right now, I'd just assume those links would exist under "Community", unless I saw a separate "Developer" tab.  That's what I'm used to from other sites.

 

Maybe there should be a "source code and changelog" page?  

Either way is probably fine; I don't think it has to be right out front, but it shouldn't be buried away either.  Just on the Community tab would be great for me.

 

I'm almost thinking that such a page should also explain design decisions and power ack user tips?

If you want to do this, I'd add the Developer tab :)

 

In fact, that reminds me - I almost didn't start using ack (back in the day) because I couldn't easily find a web-accessible version of the source code.  I didn't want to have to download it (again, in a restrictive corporate environment) just to see the source.

Would it have helped in your case the restrictive corporate environment to just point to the http://betterthangrep.com/ack-standalone ?

Huh.  If I'd thought through it, that's what I would have grabbed when I wanted to see the source code.  But without following the link, I didn't know whether I'd find an HTML page, a compressed archive, or plain perl.  "plain perl" is perfect, but it's not what I would have guessed.  So I never did try that link.

In my case, though, the corporate environment does allow importing third-party tools, and we did already have an old version of ack around.  But I knew we were out of date, and I'd found a bug/problem based on our environment, and I wanted to see if it was worthwhile to go through the process to get the corporate-supported version upgraded.  The end result was that I did go ahead and download the code, and I ended up submitting a patch that you applied, so then I went through the process to get us upgraded to that version.  So the net result was great - it was just a little difficult to get there.  

[Christopher J. Madsen]

Another typo on http://betterthangrep.com/redesign/others.html

You left out the "know" in "please let me at an...@petdance.com."

[Andy Lester]

On Apr 2, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Nathan Arthur wrote:

I pretty much like all the UI changes - it looks much better.  I disagree about hiding the Changelog, though; I often use changelogs to see if it's worth upgrading to the latest version (in a corporate environment), or just to see what sort of activity is happening with the software.  Given that your target audience is programmers, it seems like they'd expect (and be comfortable) with a web-searchable changelog.

Where do you suggest I put it?  and what about the pointer to the source code?

Maybe there should be a "source code and changelog" page?  

I'm almost thinking that such a page should also explain design decisions and power ack user tips?

In fact, that reminds me - I almost didn't start using ack (back in the day) because I couldn't easily find a web-accessible version of the source code.  I didn't want to have to download it (again, in a restrictive corporate environment) just to see the source.

Would it have helped in your case the restrictive corporate environment to just point to the http://betterthangrep.com/ack-standalone ?

xoa

[Bill Ricker]

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Andy Lester <an...@petdance.com> wrote:

Where do you suggest I put it?  and what about the pointer to the source code?

Maybe there should be a "source code and changelog" page?  

While GitHUB / SourceForge should not be a project's public face, they should be easy to find there for those who know what they are.  Having a sources page link in page footers and that page linking changelog, latest stable tar.gz, github, cpan, etc would suffice.

--
Bill
@n1vux bill....@gmail.com

[Andy Lester]

On Apr 3, 2012, at 8:03 AM, Bill Ricker wrote:

While GitHUB / SourceForge should not be a project's public face

Have you seen this presentation on that topic that I gave?  Or are you feeding me a straight line to refer to it?

http://www.slideshare.net/petdance/community-and-github-7272011

xoxo,

Andy

[Andy Lester]

1) it's easy to add --perl to search only Perl files, or

2) it's easy to add --noperl to skip Perl files

Thanks, fixed.    I knew what I meant, so I don't know why the page text didn't magically match that! :-)

And I'm glad you added the "Other tools like ack" page. I'm a ruby fan and have sometimes wondered about something like ack in ruby. Now I can try out rak and glark and see what I think.

Yeah, do let us know.  If you find that one of the glark features is especially awesome, report back!  Theft is good for all!

[Andy Lester]

On Apr 2, 2012, at 1:55 PM, Christopher J. Madsen wrote:

One typo in the top 5 list: "while ignore" should be "while ignoring".

Fixed, thanks!

I think ultimately the front list page and the "Why ack" list will get combined, since they overlap so much.

https://github.com/petdance/betterthangrep/issues/11

[Damian Janowski]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:24 PM, Andy Lester <an...@petdance.com> wrote:
> http://www.slideshare.net/petdance/community-and-github-7272011

Aaand... https://github.com/blog/1081-instantly-beautiful-project-pages

[Andy Lester]

It's not exactly automatic.  It's themes and it gives you a template to fill out.  My concern is that people will give them all thought that they put into filling out a resume template in Word, and get similarly pretty, vacant results.

I'm glad that they're doing this, though.  When I gave that talk on Community and Github the first time, it was at GitHub's CodeConf.  At a break in sessions, I talked to @defunkt and he said he agreed 100% and that they should do more to help projects with those things.

[Bill Ricker]

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Andy Lester <an...@petdance.com> wrote:

Have you seen this presentation on that topic that I gave?  Or are you feeding me a straight line to refer to it?

Yes i was referring to that ... and saying we need to be able to easily navigate from front door to back door and reverse.

--
Bill
@n1vux bill....@gmail.com

[Phillip Koebbe]

On Apr 3, 2012, at 10:42 AM, Andy Lester wrote:

1) it's easy to add --perl to search only Perl files, or

2) it's easy to add --noperl to skip Perl files

Thanks, fixed.    I knew what I meant, so I don't know why the page text didn't magically match that! :-)

And I'm glad you added the "Other tools like ack" page. I'm a ruby fan and have sometimes wondered about something like ack in ruby. Now I can try out rak and glark and see what I think.

Yeah, do let us know.  If you find that one of the glark features is especially awesome, report back!  Theft is good for all!

After giving this a little thought, I seriously doubt that I would switch to one of these Ruby-based ack-like tools. I do a good bit of Rails development and I use RVM to maintain isolation of applications between Rails and Ruby versions. It doesn't appear that either one of rak or glark are standalone ruby scripts (rak has some gem dependencies and glark has a library of files it needs) and I don't really want to have to install these them in every gemset that I have just so they'd be available in any directory. I might be able to pull it off with glark if I modify the script a little to find the supporting files, but I'm a bit pressed for time right now and don't want to start down a rabbit trail. So, I think I'll pass for now. If I get a little more time in the future, I very well may revisit these tools. Besides, ack is serving me quite well. It's not like there is a deficiency or anything that I need to overcome.

Phillip

[mMontu]

The new site is great!

> Have you seen this presentation on that topic that I gave?  Or are you feeding me a straight line to refer to it?
> http://www.slideshare.net/petdance/community-and-github-7272011

Very nice presentation; personally I didn't started any open project,
by I
hope that I remember these ideas when I do it.

I love Vim, and it would be nice to see it at 'More Tools' section
along with
TextMate :D

ack.vim : Plugin for the Perl module / CLI script 'ack'
(http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2572)

BR
mMontu

[Les Nightingill]

Phillip there's a global gemset in rvm... you would not have to install the rak/glark dependencies in each gemset. Both the global and the "local" gemsets are always available. That said, Ack rocks and there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to change.

[Phillip Koebbe]

On Apr 5, 2012, at 1:07 PM, Les Nightingill wrote:

> Phillip there's a global gemset in rvm... you would not have to install the rak/glark dependencies in each gemset. Both the global and the "local" gemsets are always available. That said, Ack rocks and there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to change.

Hi Les,

I might be mistaken, but I am pretty sure the global gemset is by ruby version, so if I have 4 rubies, I'd still have to have it installed 4 times. Besides, I'm something of a purist and don't use the global gemsets. I want to know that an application is as isolated as possible.

Phillip

[Les Nightingill]

Phillip, disregard my comment, you're right, gemsets are by ruby version. But (per Andre Arko) bundler pretty much obviates the gemset concept, so I'm starting to remove mine. But then, as I've demonstrated, I'm no expert on this!

cheers

Les

[Phil Dobbin]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 05/04/2012 22:33, Les Nightingill wrote:

> Phillip, disregard my comment, you're right, gemsets are by ruby version. But (per Andre Arko) bundler pretty much obviates the gemset concept, so I'm starting to remove mine. But then, as I've demonstrated, I'm no expert on this!

In which case, this may interest you:

<https://github.com/mpapis/rubygems-bundler>

Cheers,

Phil...

> On Apr 5, 2012, at 12:53 PM, Phillip Koebbe wrote:
>
>>
>> On Apr 5, 2012, at 1:07 PM, Les Nightingill wrote:
>>
>>> Phillip there's a global gemset in rvm... you would not have to install the rak/glark dependencies in each gemset. Both the global and the "local" gemsets are always available. That said, Ack rocks and there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to change.
>>
>> Hi Les,
>>
>> I might be mistaken, but I am pretty sure the global gemset is by ruby version, so if I have 4 rubies, I'd still have to have it installed 4 times. Besides, I'm something of a purist and don't use the global gemsets. I want to know that an application is as isolated as possible.

- --

But masters, remember that I am an ass.
Though it be not written down,
yet forget not that I am an ass.

Wm. Shakespeare - Much Ado About Nothing

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.17 (Darwin)

Comment: §auto-key-locate cert pka ldap hkp://keys.gnupg.net

Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJPfhDnAAoJEKpMeDHWT5ADTT4IALW37X8rFaMLZr8yq6VMVXp3
LldkJTV6QjNwqBQANE1sO0SaR7/W2q6TLph+VpMoPnASEhg2kSR/81CtxBJj88i/
ksEUiifXhEfrB5QnHffH86S/tPbEnsScxw4MXIYqGWcLaAENjT4VwLfd3sKnjs1q
hx0s3OmwzBTOsLRZetC3YmVUX1OzBQvYUGBqRvneHS8UvXThO5Ap50PhucgCUkcm
u2oqmsrGL/5fICMiQhnR6Awyt8RHR3uioIoGukJeTWSA7qQPBqZRKk9BFS+qeX/O
CA3dMdyPIE8u3/mhbQO8ewcFgJN/2hZESggGY1V7J7zl5cId/8p+4Z8CE1tNhE4=
=cS7F
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Phillip Koebbe]

On Apr 5, 2012, at 4:33 PM, Les Nightingill wrote:

> Phillip, disregard my comment, you're right, gemsets are by ruby version. But (per Andre Arko) bundler pretty much obviates the gemset concept, so I'm starting to remove mine. But then, as I've demonstrated, I'm no expert on this!

Definitely off-topic for an ack list, but …

I don't see how bundler removes the need for gemsets since they address two different problems:

1: bundler manages dependencies

2: RVM/gemsets creates isolation of applications

Bundler doesn't help me keep a Rails 1.2.6/Ruby 1.8.6 app and a Rails 3.2/Ruby 1.9.2 app on the same system, RVM does. RVM, on the other hand, doesn't help me manage the ever-growing list of dependencies like bundler does. The two tools together, though, make an otherwise extremely frustrating experience actually manageable.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program …

Phillip