RE: [Axiom-developer] Front page esthetic

[Bill Page]

On August 4, 2006 11:09 PM Jay Belanger wrote:
> 
> Gabriel Dos Reis writes:
> 
> > "Bill Page" writes:
> ...
> > | 2) The Axiom Wiki FrontPage has more graphics including an
> > |    example Axiom output graphic.
> >
> > That, from my perspective, contributes to the "visual load".
> 
> I agree with this,

:( Well, I really like the example ... in fact I have even given
a wild thought to how we might make the from page choose randomly
between a large set of similar examples so that a visitor might
be treated to a new one at each visit ...

I still don't know what is meant by the phrase "visual load".

> but what's more, I don't think that linking "Try Axiom" to the
> SandBox is that helpful.

Really??! As far as I can see this is actually one of the most
frequently used wiki features of this web site.

> If a visitor to the webpage wants to give Axiom a quick try,
> sending them to a lengthy discussion of the sandbox might be
> discouraging.

Perhaps it is verbose but it does not seem to be very discouraging
given the number of quick tries that we record.

> Perhaps a link to a "Trying Axiom" page which has a couple of
> lines of how to try it out might be helpful.  I'd be happy to
> give it a shot myself, if desired.

Yes, I think it is very desirable. Please give it a try.

> 
> Also, I don't think it's necessary (or even desirable) to keep
> all the old tried-out commands in the wiki.

That's true. Anytime anyone feels like cleaning up all the crap
they are certainly welcome to do it. :) But every once in a while
there seems to be something very useful that can be easily
generalized and made useful for other people. That is what wikis
are for. I keep getting this sinking feeling that almost no one
hear on this list understands anything about wikiwiki. :(

> I think a link to a page which interactively runs Axiom would
> be more desirable: Yacas has something
> like that (Yacas runs in a Java applet: 
> http://yacas.sourceforge.net/yacasconsole.html)
>  and Maxima does also (http://math.msarnoff.org/).

To me these interfaces seem trivial and nearly useless. But if we
really do want something like this then it is easily done.

> 
> By the way, I'm entering the discussion late.

I am glad you are here. Your comments are very much appreciated.

> I don't recall what the front page looked like, but I recall
> thinking it looked a bit unfriendly.  (Of course, my memory
> may be wrong.)  Now I think it looks great!
> 

Yes, it has gone through quite a few revisions over the last
6 months and it is still evolving. It is a community effort.

Regards,
Bill Page.