What's New

Started by Simon Riggsalmost 18 years ago9 messagesdocs
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#1Simon Riggs
simon@2ndQuadrant.com

We need a way to link to the release notes for the latest production
release, so people can easily see What's New.

1. Currently its very hard to locate a description of what the new
features in the latest release are. You have to know how the docs are
structured to find it easily. If you click on the Home Page's "Notes"
link for 8.3.1 you go to the minor release notes for 8.3.1 and there is
no obvious link to the notes for 8.3.0 which is where all the main
features are described. We don't even say that's how it works, so
there's no way of knowing you aren't viewing *all* the info. So if you
don't know, and most people don't, 8.3 looks like a minor upgrade from
8.2 only, so why bother.

2. There's no permanent URL for What's New in the latest release, so
people that put links to us externally need to continually update their
links. Google's What's New link points to 8.2 release notes. I could
contact them and say "Hey Google, you're wrong" but ISTM the best way is
for us to provide a permanent URL that we can then link to from Google
and our own home page. Then we only need to ask them to do this once.

--
Simon Riggs
2ndQuadrant http://www.2ndQuadrant.com

#2Magnus Hagander
magnus@hagander.net
In reply to: Simon Riggs (#1)
Re: What's New

Simon Riggs wrote:

We need a way to link to the release notes for the latest production
release, so people can easily see What's New.

1. Currently its very hard to locate a description of what the new
features in the latest release are. You have to know how the docs are
structured to find it easily. If you click on the Home Page's "Notes"
link for 8.3.1 you go to the minor release notes for 8.3.1 and there
is no obvious link to the notes for 8.3.0 which is where all the main
features are described. We don't even say that's how it works, so
there's no way of knowing you aren't viewing *all* the info. So if you
don't know, and most people don't, 8.3 looks like a minor upgrade from
8.2 only, so why bother.

Good point. But we need some way to include the release notes for the
minor version as well. Do you have any suggestion for how to do it?
Adding two different set of notes to the website there will just make
things even more confusing, I think. Perhaps what we need is a section
in the 8.3.1 release notes that says "this is a minor update. If you
want to see the release notes between 8.2 and 8.3, please click here"
with a link to them?

2. There's no permanent URL for What's New in the latest release, so
people that put links to us externally need to continually update
their links. Google's What's New link points to 8.2 release notes. I
could contact them and say "Hey Google, you're wrong" but ISTM the
best way is for us to provide a permanent URL that we can then link
to from Google and our own home page. Then we only need to ask them
to do this once.

This we can do, once we can decide what it should point to per your
first point.

But can we actually somehow control what google chooses to link to? I
mean, if they detect our redirect and just link directly to the page it
points to, we're right back at the same point. Or if they index them as
separate pages, we'd want to make sure we get the right one.

On the same tack, I've been trying to figure out if there is away to
make google prefer the latest version of our docs whe nyou search for
something. Now you often get hits in 7.4.. Like a way to prioritize it.
Anybody know if there is a way to do that?

//Magnus

#3Harald Armin Massa
haraldarminmassa@gmail.com
In reply to: Magnus Hagander (#2)
Re: What's New

Magnus,

On the same tack, I've been trying to figure out if there is away to
make google prefer the latest version of our docs whe nyou search for
something. Now you often get hits in 7.4.. Like a way to prioritize it.
Anybody know if there is a way to do that?

I often get bitten by that, too. Maybe sitemap.xml files may be of use?

Within http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318
you can read:

The relative importance of pages on your site. For example, your home
page might have a relative importance of 1.0, category pages have an
importance of 0.8, and individual blog entries or product pages have
an importance of 0.5. This priority only indicates the importance of a
particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn't impact
the ranking of your pages in search results.

All the 7.x, 8.y (y<3) Documetation could be valued at importance 0.4,
the actual one with 0.9, and "whats new" and the "search documentation
page" at 1.0 ?

Harald

--
GHUM Harald Massa
persuadere et programmare
Harald Armin Massa
Spielberger Straße 49
70435 Stuttgart
0173/9409607
fx 01212-5-13695179
-
EuroPython 2008 will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania - Stay tuned!

#4Simon Riggs
simon@2ndQuadrant.com
In reply to: Magnus Hagander (#2)
Re: What's New

On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 11:38 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:

Simon Riggs wrote:

We need a way to link to the release notes for the latest production
release, so people can easily see What's New.

1. Currently its very hard to locate a description of what the new
features in the latest release are. You have to know how the docs are
structured to find it easily. If you click on the Home Page's "Notes"
link for 8.3.1 you go to the minor release notes for 8.3.1 and there
is no obvious link to the notes for 8.3.0 which is where all the main
features are described. We don't even say that's how it works, so
there's no way of knowing you aren't viewing *all* the info. So if you
don't know, and most people don't, 8.3 looks like a minor upgrade from
8.2 only, so why bother.

Good point. But we need some way to include the release notes for the
minor version as well. Do you have any suggestion for how to do it?
Adding two different set of notes to the website there will just make
things even more confusing, I think.

Perhaps what we need is a section
in the 8.3.1 release notes that says "this is a minor update. If you
want to see the release notes between 8.2 and 8.3, please click here"
with a link to them?

Good idea.

Wording: "This is a minor release. For a full list of features added in
this major release, please click here".

Note that this would be a link between *any* minor release and its
corresponding major release. i.e. 8.3.1, 8.3.2 etc would all point to
8.3

2. There's no permanent URL for What's New in the latest release, so
people that put links to us externally need to continually update
their links. Google's What's New link points to 8.2 release notes. I
could contact them and say "Hey Google, you're wrong" but ISTM the
best way is for us to provide a permanent URL that we can then link
to from Google and our own home page. Then we only need to ask them
to do this once.

This we can do, once we can decide what it should point to per your
first point.

But can we actually somehow control what google chooses to link to? I
mean, if they detect our redirect and just link directly to the page it
points to, we're right back at the same point. Or if they index them as
separate pages, we'd want to make sure we get the right one.

On the same tack, I've been trying to figure out if there is away to
make google prefer the latest version of our docs whe nyou search for
something. Now you often get hits in 7.4.. Like a way to prioritize it.
Anybody know if there is a way to do that?

I think: talk to Google. But no point until we have our house in order.

--
Simon Riggs
2ndQuadrant http://www.2ndQuadrant.com

#5Magnus Hagander
magnus@hagander.net
In reply to: Harald Armin Massa (#3)
Re: What's New

Harald Armin Massa wrote:

Magnus,

On the same tack, I've been trying to figure out if there is away
to make google prefer the latest version of our docs whe nyou
search for something. Now you often get hits in 7.4.. Like a way to
prioritize it. Anybody know if there is a way to do that?

I often get bitten by that, too. Maybe sitemap.xml files may be of
use?

Yeah, I just found that one myself. Will look into that.

//Magnus

#6Magnus Hagander
magnus@hagander.net
In reply to: Simon Riggs (#4)
Re: What's New

Simon Riggs wrote:

On Fri, 2008-04-18 at 11:38 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:

Simon Riggs wrote:

We need a way to link to the release notes for the latest
production release, so people can easily see What's New.

1. Currently its very hard to locate a description of what the new
features in the latest release are. You have to know how the docs
are structured to find it easily. If you click on the Home Page's
"Notes" link for 8.3.1 you go to the minor release notes for
8.3.1 and there is no obvious link to the notes for 8.3.0 which
is where all the main features are described. We don't even say
that's how it works, so there's no way of knowing you aren't
viewing *all* the info. So if you don't know, and most people
don't, 8.3 looks like a minor upgrade from 8.2 only, so why
bother.

Good point. But we need some way to include the release notes for
the minor version as well. Do you have any suggestion for how to do
it? Adding two different set of notes to the website there will
just make things even more confusing, I think.

Perhaps what we need is a section
in the 8.3.1 release notes that says "this is a minor update. If you
want to see the release notes between 8.2 and 8.3, please click
here" with a link to them?

Good idea.

Wording: "This is a minor release. For a full list of features added
in this major release, please click here".

Note that this would be a link between *any* minor release and its
corresponding major release. i.e. 8.3.1, 8.3.2 etc would all point to
8.3

I tried that first, but I think I got it better if I just worked it
into the paragraph that was already there. For an example, see:
http://builder.hagander.net/pgdoc/release-8-3-1.html

I can easily change it back to your wording if you think that's better,
but you did mean that as a separate paragraph, correct?

If people like this method, I'll go through the release.sgml file and
make the change for other versions as well. It's a simple cut/paste...
Patch is as simple as:
    <para>
     This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0.
+    For information about new features in the 8.3 release, see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.
    </para>

(obviously it needs to be backpatched to the stable branch to make any
difference for the links on the website)

So. Objections? Better wordings?

//Magnus

#7Alvaro Herrera
alvherre@2ndquadrant.com
In reply to: Magnus Hagander (#6)
Re: What's New

Magnus Hagander wrote:

If people like this method, I'll go through the release.sgml file and
make the change for other versions as well. It's a simple cut/paste...
Patch is as simple as:
<para>
This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0.
+    For information about new features in the 8.3 release, see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.
</para>

I'd go with

+    For information about new features in the 8.3 major release, see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

#8Stefan Kaltenbrunner
stefan@kaltenbrunner.cc
In reply to: Magnus Hagander (#6)
Re: What's New

Magnus Hagander wrote:

If people like this method, I'll go through the release.sgml file and
make the change for other versions as well. It's a simple cut/paste...
Patch is as simple as:
<para>
This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0.
+    For information about new features in the 8.3 release, see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.
</para>

(obviously it needs to be backpatched to the stable branch to make any
difference for the links on the website)

this seems like a good idea and something that I personally wanted in
the past.

Stefan

#9Magnus Hagander
magnus@hagander.net
In reply to: Alvaro Herrera (#7)
Re: What's New

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Magnus Hagander wrote:

If people like this method, I'll go through the release.sgml file
and make the change for other versions as well. It's a simple
cut/paste... Patch is as simple as:
<para>
This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.3.0.
+    For information about new features in the 8.3 release, see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.
</para>

I'd go with

+    For information about new features in the 8.3 major release,
see
+    <xref linkend="release-8-3">.

I've made this adjustment and committed.

//Magnus