Better project visibility

Engines, Libraries and Tools Xith3D Forums
#1

Hi all.
Yesterday I took a look at the java.net site and it looked like the project was dead.
No news, no new releases, nothing on mailing lists, nothing since 2003.
I had to follow a couple of links, even to cut and past one, to arrive to this fourm where I found a lot of activity.

I think the same is true for the xith.org site a part from the forum link being ok.

I think something more to show that the project is alive should be done: news on the xith.org site and a release plan with version numbers (so you can say “wow, 1.6 is out!”) I think are really important.
Even an eclipse plugin is a good marketing option or a couple of developers blogs :slight_smile:
Maybe some posts on javalobby news to announce new releases, ecc.

My 2 cents.

Bye

Lorenzo

#2

I think it’s a good idea.
Would you be volunteer to maintain that ?
As I can see at every forum post, William Denniss (the head maintainer) is pretty busy and an additionnal responsibility could be too much…

#3

Hi,
I can start to do something.
For example adding a simple News page on the xith.org site to advertise community releases.
Not much more than the “Community Build Release Info” forum thread.
I think I need some special permission form this (my twiki user is lorenzo)

Another thing could be to look form some others Xith projects to add in the Links section.

I think a different versioning scheme is something that should be evaluated by William.

Bye

Lorenzo

#4

Fair enough. Tell me what you think should be changed on the project homepage and I will consider it. We may as well mirror the releases on the project page I guess anyway. I can start doing this.

Lorenzo, if you would like to help out and be our “PR” man, you are certainly welcome to the job. As far as the xith.org site goes, I believe registered users should be able to edit all pages except the ones directly linked from the menu. Community members with a good standing are welcome to request those permissions as well (just let it be known what you wish to achieve). A news wiki page is not a bad idea.

I would like to see Xith3d’s popularity increased, becauase the more people that use it, the better it will be. As MagicSpark pointed out though, time is limited, if I spend four hours on PR stuff for Xith3D, that’s four hours not spend cutting code (or neglecting some other part of my life).

Cheers,

Will.

#5

Hi,
I think one site, I propose xith.org should be considered the main site, and the other one java.net should point to the main site every where.
So all this pages from java.net

Project home
Discussion forums
Mailing lists
Documents & files

Should say something like "This forums/mailing lists/ecc. are not used. Project forum can be found at http://…/fourm

Maybe this sections should be kept up to date (or “redirected” to the main site like above).

Announcements
Documents & files

On xith.org I’ll add a very simple news list in the Intro page or in a new News page.
A very simple list, like http://www.hibernate.org/ to give you an idea.

Then, as soon as repackageing is completed, I’ll release a new public release (with a x.y number), posting some announce on javalobby, java.net, other suggestions are welcome.
Then a continuous public release plan (2/3 weeks releases) would be great, but this is a little more demanding.

I can suggest some other things, but I think these are the most important/simple.

Bye

Lorenzo

#6

Fixing dead links would be nice too. Xith3D does have a cool logo which helps. Looks good with the Java, OpenGL, and OpenAL logos. The name is easier than LWJGL as well (helps to remember the full name to remember the acronym).