Website renovation

[dbannon]

Yeah Wilrakov, don't take it too hard.  People here are very defensive of what they have been using for a long time. I'm (pleasantly) surprised how positive the responses have been. Honestly, I think most posts here are positive, constructive criticism, not rejection !

As I said earlier, I don't like the dark theme and would like to see a bit more detail. But I do like your overall thrust ! And I agree, in principle, change is needed.

This Logo thing is a problem, maybe that could be a key to a breakthrough ?

Davo

[Wilrakov]

I've already added light mode and a JavaScript-free version. What else do you think is needed to make this new website as suitable and accessible as possible for everyone?

I've noticed some people mentioned that having just a single-page layout isn't ideal, so that's definitely something I plan to improve. I'm also working on a Community Projects page to showcase recent open source projects written in Pascal. If you'd like yours featured, feel free to contact me at wilrakov@proton.me.

I'm convinced we can build something great together. Pascal has been my favorite language for several years — we can't afford to let it fade away. And honestly, when I look at the current website, I can't help but think of all the potential newcomers who might visit, only to be discouraged and leave.

The Community page I'm planning will gather open source projects, tools, and libraries written in Pascal. One thing that's always bothered me is the lack of a clear, central place to discover what's available in the Pascal ecosystem.

I completely understand that change is difficult. But if we want to attract new users and ensure Free Pascal continues to thrive, we have to modernize the website.

I'm not giving up on this project. Every single comment, whether it's positive or critical, helps shape this site. And just to be clear — my goal isn't to replace the existing site, but to offer an alternative that can appeal to more people.

Thanks for your support. I really hope you'll continue to help me with this project — a project for the whole community, where we should be coming together, not drifting apart.

[Thaddy]

I've already added light mode and a JavaScript-free version. What else do you think is needed to make this new website as suitable and accessible as possible for everyone?

Completely write it in fpc standard libraries? Pure Pascal? Eat your own dog food?

[ALLIGATOR]

I really hope you'll continue to help me with this project — a project for the whole community, where we should be coming together, not drifting apart.

This further convinces me of the need to host the source code of the site in Git (Hub, Lab, etc.).
So that interested people can make edits and submit MergeRequests.
And then, perhaps, Markdown would be the most convenient language? We need an engine that will allow us to apply your website styles to the content in Markdown.
Perhaps one of the ready-made ones is already suitable, and all that remains is to develop a theme/style.

[Wilrakov]

I really hope you'll continue to help me with this project — a project for the whole community, where we should be coming together, not drifting apart.

This further convinces me of the need to host the source code of the site in Git (Hub, Lab, etc.).
So that interested people can make edits and submit MergeRequests.
And then, perhaps, Markdown would be the most convenient language? We need an engine that will allow us to apply your website styles to the content in Markdown.
Perhaps one of the ready-made ones is already suitable, and all that remains is to develop a theme/style.

To convert Markdown to HTML, there's the Marked JavaScript library. I'm going to work on this integration.

The source code for the current website is available on Gitlab. But I didn't want to venture into the complexity of that old project.

And my source code is available on Github. So everything is accessible and editable.

[Wilrakov]

I've already added light mode and a JavaScript-free version. What else do you think is needed to make this new website as suitable and accessible as possible for everyone?

Completely write it in fpc standard libraries? Pure Pascal? Eat your own dog food?

My idea is to have a place to centralize the creations and libraries available for Pascal.

[Thaddy]

That I can accommodate: I can give you a subdomain of my server: A real server, incl certificate, that is only used for such things. It is currently down, but I can do a "Lazarus" for it...(hardware is running)

[Wilrakov]

Yes, we could do that.

I don't have a server of my own, so I thought about retrieving the information from a Git server.

[Thaddy]

It will probably go down to a weekend job. but keep in touch in private. I am already busy.

[Martin_fr]

I've already added light mode and a JavaScript-free version.

Noted, and cool / thanks.

What else do you think is needed to make this new website as suitable and accessible as possible for everyone?

The desire of the FPC team to represent themself and their work in a different way? And if/once the desire is there, an outline how such representation should work. And of course with that, the time to deal with it (even if they don't have to do the work).

Design is also very subjective. That needs to be respected.

How would you feel, if you walk down the street, and someone steps up to you out of the blue and tells you how you should cloth yourself in future to maximize the success in your life?


As I said, I am not FPC team.

The Lazarus website has undergone exactly that process. It was contributed. By someone with more skills than we have ourself in the team. It still took a massive amount of time from our site too. So it isn't something we would do "once a year". Hence staying on the "latest modern" is not an option.

[Wilrakov]

I'm not imposing my vision; I created a website separate from your project.

Staying at the forefront of technology doesn't mean redesigning a website every year. However, it's been almost 25 years since the official Free Pascal website received a commit on Gitlab. If that's okay with you, then good for you. I'm not forcing you to visit my website, and I don't intend to replace the official one.

Whether you need a new website or not, I will continue my project, as I've already stated. You're free to choose whichever platform you prefer; I'm not forcing or replacing anything.

[Martin_fr]

I'm not imposing my vision; I created a website separate from your project.

Sorry, seems we misunderstood each other. In my previous answer the part I quoted from you contained "suitable and accessible as possible for everyone" => I thought that to be a hint, asking for acceptance by the team. Now I see that it was not.

For all else, I had originally assumed that - as you wrote now - this was solely to show your vision, and get comments.
(Of course with the option that the team can comment on it too, but "option").

Btw, there is a similar alternative page for Lazarus https://www.getlazarus.org/ (3rd party).

And as for additional representation, IMHO that is great.
- A 3rd party driven webpage is good advertisement
- People bringing the product to social media too.
- Any other form of "publishing"...

[440bx]

instead trying to mess up our Perfectly good website And get us bickering about it.

Your definition of "perfectly good" is far from perfect.

Let's look at an example, which is the first thing a visitor to the web site sees:

Overview
Free Pascal is a mature, versatile, open source Pascal compiler. It can target many processor architectures: Intel x86 (16 and 32 bit), AMD64/x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC, SPARC64, ARM, AArch64, MIPS, Motorola 68k, AVR, and the JVM. Supported operating systems include Windows (16/32/64 bit, CE, and native NT), Linux, Mac OS X/iOS/iPhoneSimulator/Darwin, FreeBSD and other BSD flavors, DOS (16 bit, or 32 bit DPMI), OS/2, AIX, Android, Haiku, Nintendo GBA/DS/Wii, AmigaOS, MorphOS, AROS, Atari TOS, and various embedded platforms. Additionally, support for RISC-V (32/64), Xtensa, and Z80 architectures, and for the LLVM compiler infrastructure is available in the development version. Additionally, the Free Pascal team maintains a transpiler for pascal to Javascript called pas2js.

A loooooooong run on sentence that _attempts_ to describe FPC's capabilities.

Someone interested in determining whether or not FPC supports a particular platform has to "chew" this stuff until the part of interest is reached.

Some sort of table would make it much easier and faster for an interested individual to determine if his/her platform of interest is supported.

That's followed by the "Latest news", the first line of it dates back to January 2024... that's really fresh news!

Those "fresh news" take precedence over information such as the current version and requirements.  Of course, that's much less interesting than multi-year old news and, the reason that current version and requirements should not be immediately visible.   

There is plenty of room to improve that, in your opinion, "perfectly good" web site.

[Wilrakov]

...
https://freepascal.vercel.app
...

IMHO,
this is too minimalistic, even for me. And too dark. And needs some screenshots.

What puzzles me in the current website is that when I click the screenshots, they do not open in a bigger size in a front layer, so I can switch between them, but a new webpage gets open instead.

I like the website the way it is. What gives random people who don’t use pascal the right to demand that the website be changed.

I see nothing wrong with someone willing and trying to contribute to Lazarus.

if he wants to contribute to Lazarus  he can write some pascal code instead trying to mess up our Perfectly good website And get us bickering about it. I seriously doubt that he knows any pascal at all, Look at his posting history.

The only thing wrong with this site is it’s impossible to ignore people...

It's true, I haven't posted anything else on this forum, nor have I shared much code on Github. And the reason for that is quite simple: I'm 14 years old. But I assure you, I know how to code in Pascal. I discovered it with an old book my father wrote about the Turbo Pascal compiler, and I quickly got into using FPC. For me, it was a simpler language than C, but more advanced than Python. I developed a video game in Pascal, but unfortunately, I no longer have the corresponding files.

Once again, you're making assumptions without knowing. But hey, if you just want to rage like you're doing now, tell me clearly to stop posting on this forum.

I would have liked to contribute directly to FPC, but I don't have the skills to touch its source code, which is normal at 14, I think. So I was just trying to help out in any way I could those who allowed me to have many happy hours of coding.

And your current site isn't mobile-friendly (the Free Pascal site, not the Lazarus site).

[Wilrakov]

instead trying to mess up our Perfectly good website And get us bickering about it.

Your definition of "perfectly good" is far from perfect.

Let's look at an example, which is the first thing a visitor to the web site sees:

Overview
Free Pascal is a mature, versatile, open source Pascal compiler. It can target many processor architectures: Intel x86 (16 and 32 bit), AMD64/x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC, SPARC64, ARM, AArch64, MIPS, Motorola 68k, AVR, and the JVM. Supported operating systems include Windows (16/32/64 bit, CE, and native NT), Linux, Mac OS X/iOS/iPhoneSimulator/Darwin, FreeBSD and other BSD flavors, DOS (16 bit, or 32 bit DPMI), OS/2, AIX, Android, Haiku, Nintendo GBA/DS/Wii, AmigaOS, MorphOS, AROS, Atari TOS, and various embedded platforms. Additionally, support for RISC-V (32/64), Xtensa, and Z80 architectures, and for the LLVM compiler infrastructure is available in the development version. Additionally, the Free Pascal team maintains a transpiler for pascal to Javascript called pas2js.

A loooooooong run on sentence that _attempts_ to describe FPC's capabilities.

Someone interested in determining whether or not FPC supports a particular platform has to "chew" this stuff until the part of interest is reached.

Some sort of table would make it much easier and faster for an interested individual to determine if his/her platform of interest is supported.

That's followed by the "Latest news", the first line of it dates back to January 2024... that's really fresh news!

Those "fresh news" take precedence over information such as the current version and requirements.  Of course, that's much less interesting than multi-year old news and, the reason that current version and requirements should not be immediately visible.   

There is plenty of room to improve that, in your opinion, "perfectly good" web site.

Thank you for all your positive responses; you were the only person to fully support the initiative. But hey, I may have addressed a community that was too conservative. I promise not to reply to future posts; I don't think it'll be helpful to anyone.

Thanks to everyone else, even if some remain convinced that I don't code in Pascal. If that were truly the case, I would never know about this forum. Pascal is dying before your eyes, and that's undeniable. Even Cobol is living better.