Talk:Main Page

Just a quick usability note from an absolute NOOB to the site. This is a great resource for info about PanoTools, but not much help for beginners who want to find software. I just spent about 45 minutes reading through various parts of the site trying to figure out how to get a copy of the PTRemap plugin for CS3 (MacOS). The only actual download link I could find was a link to libPano in Sourceforge (for *nix) systems. Perhaps some links on the Getting started page? RAMilewski

Many thanks for the hint. Unfortunately we get very little help from newbies and hence don't know what exactly is missing. If you have ideas how to improve the structure you are very welcome to edit any page you think! The Panotools Plugins download link is indeed a bit difficult to find. It's on Panorama_Tools_Plugins#Updates. --Erik Krause 19:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

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I apologize for re-inserting the Platform neutral link to the main page. If the Panorama Tools community thinks that there's no platform neutral "category" it's fine with me. I will then add a link to the Remallax project from both the Windows and Mac page.

Happy editing and community sharing!... Remallax :-)

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there is no such thing as "platform neutral" software. categorizing software under "platform neutral" does not help user choose software for their platform nor does it help them choosing a platform based on the functionality offered. I will leave the entry until we discuss this out, but please discussion in the yahoo group or in direct emails as the wiki is very new and not many in the community have accessed it yet.

Yuval

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I think it's useful to add a "~~~~" to each comment of a discussion, which includes the author and a date. So others know who wrote what and when.

Smensch01 02:07, 4 Dec 2004 (EST)

"Categories"

What about software for more than one platform? Like C++/Qt software both for Windows XP/Mac OS X? And what about plugins? Do we need a "Photoshop platform"? And finally what about the difference between Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X? They are very different platforms. Please see the Wikipedia link about Mac OS history.

These question show me that the "categorization" into platforms is not optimal.

Why do I put "category" into double quotes? Mediawiki offers categorization of pages but we aren't using this feature. Please see Mediawiki Help:Category.

Happy community sharing! Remallax 05:25, 4 Dec 2004 (EST)

(By the way, interwiki linking doesn't work here. I used external links. I am trying to find out, what is missing....)

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So we could just have one single "Software" link on the main page and show the different categorizations there? The Hugin page for example would then be in "Windows", "Linux" and "PanoTools GUIs". I don't really know if this would not be too confusing but it's worth a try.

Smensch01 05:45, 4 Dec 2004 (EST)

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A Photohop "platform" f.e. is no good idea. There are photoshop actions that run on any OS, there are true plugins (filters, extensions) that ar OS dependent, there are scripts that require a certain version of photoshop but may be OS dependent (AppleScript, VBScript) or not (JavaScript)...

Erik Krause 15:46, 4 Dec 2004 (EST)

Throw out the platform sections

We should throw out the platform sections. The user just goes to the software she wants. This is simpler and provides more information immediately.

Let's create a Software page and merge the Windows software, Mac software, Unix software and Java software pages to it!

Why? Let's take a Mac OS X or Linux user looking for the pano dynamic library. In the Software page he finds information about Windows' pano12.dll and a link to the [http:/panotools.sf.net Panorama Tools Sourceforge page] and discovers compilation instructions. He decides to update the wiki with a summary for Mac OS X or Linux. This is a lot more in the spirit of the wiki than seeing stubs not helping him because this information is in another platform, namely in the Windows software page.

Remallax 14:03, 4 Dec 2004 (EST)

The home page of the wiki looks intimidating

It's nice to see some content growing here.

I'd like to opt for a different approach on the home page of the wiki though. It's starting to look like a table and that tends to scare people away.

Three or four clicks should be enough to get to the section you are interested in. Endlessly scrolling a long page to get there in one click is handy, but messy.

shouldn't we place all the sections (software, equipment, etc) on subpages and make the home page something more readable?

IMHO a good way to start off is to pretend someone hitting the page is interested in making a panorama and knows nothing about software. Let alone he/she knows the PanoTools. And ofcourse panotools is about more things than making panoramas

The chronological way then would be

• a short description of all things panotools can do for you with clickable links to each thing (like stitching panoramas, lining up 3d shots, barrel correcting, making object movies, morphing, etc.)
• then switch the story to panorama building, because it's the main thing we're all about.
• Explain "What makes a panorama a panorama"
• explain what do you need to make a panorama (and what is optional)
• explain why panotools is so good at it (free, full featured, active community, etc)
• explain how to get started with links to some other page that chronologically describes all things you should learn (how to rotate your camera, what camera settings to use to prevent exposure differences, what software to download, etc.

This way people can ease into it. The panorama tools are very intimidating when you first encounter them. You can also lay down some sort of framework to prevent 20 pages describing what the nodal point (or entrance pupil) is.

Serge 18:08, 5 Dec 2004 (EST)

(b.t.w., the clock on the server is way off!)

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Summary: I proposed to drop the platform sections from the main page. Smensch suggested to insert just one link to a software page on the home page. Serge said that the main page looks intimidating.

I suggest that I create a Software page and create the sections Basic Library, Stitching Software, Helpers, Photoshop plug-ins, Gimp plug-ins, Viewers, Non-Panoramic use, Printing. The software is not partitioned into platforms. I propose Windows_software and other <Platform>_software for deletion. I simplify the Software section and add some text like:

Interested in learning about software working with panoramas like panorama stitching, Photoshop plugins and other useful tools? Go to the Software page.

Do you agree with this step? It's a big refactoring...

Someone else should simplify the other sections of the Main Page.

Remallax 05:41, 6 Dec 2004 (EST)

Wikipedia

Administrators need to do some more work setting up this site and removing Wikipedia that appears everywhere. I don't know how to do it or would offer my assistance. But for some examples of MediaWiki customization see Sites using MediaWiki.

209.102.125.95 20:14, 6 Dec 2004 (EST)

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This has been corrected. PanoTools is now the "Site Name".

67.168.155.83 23:24, 6 Dec 2004 (EST)

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