Well, we should use the refreshed graphics as a starting point in my opinion.

Armando did a good job with that pacmanized O to tell you the truth, at least that's my opinion...something could be definitely done there.

I agree that it should not be only the word "Allegro", but was the alligator chosen due to simple assonance? I think that there ought to be a logo with SOME kind of symbolism, since we cannot realy on an acronym (even thou Allegro IS such?).

Do you think AM was serious with his post?

I can't tell, that's why I asked...I wasn't implying, I honestly can't tell and am curious about it.

Well, the logo is open for patches We have to start somewhere, it was meant as a starting point.

I like the Pacmanized version, too; but maybe we should add some other graphic element.

I think we can do better than the SDL one, though.

What about my suggestions for the official website and the wiki? Who is / is someone in charge of the website? What does he think?

There is a current website (liballeg.org), and then there is the community (forums). It's best if people understand that the most current news and releases are on liballeg.org, and not on a.cc. A.cc only offers binaries for 4.2 and 5, there aren't even any binaries for 4.4.3, the latest version of A4. I think people expect everything allegro to be here ready made for them on the forums, but that is wrong, everything needed is on liballeg.org and the wiki. I agree things need maintenance, but scrapping the news page of a.cc is not an improvement in my eyes. I see that page every time I log into a.cc, and if there is any news I immediately check it out, but the actual latest information on allegro is on liballeg.org.

We just need to get more involved I think.

Are you talking about the front page of a.cc, the wiki, or liballeg.org? It's too easy to get confused if you don't specify.

There are tutorials on the wiki, but no games. It would be nice if the example games that come with A5 were given more advertising, but ultimately if you want to check out the source for a game or two, you can. If you start putting games up on the wiki, you have to teach everyone the components of making those games. AABB, atlasing, and so on... where would it end? It seems like that is not something we should really be doing.

I agree, why don't you come up with some material to add to / modify the wiki with? I mean, examples of your changes would be good. And any a.cc member can edit the wiki, so it is something you could work on.

I agree. SiegeLord already put up a guide for building A5 on windows. Can you contribute one for the a linux distro? Or android? Or OSX? Android and OSX building needs the most attention right now in my eyes, but I don't know anything about it.

There is : http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Getting_Started

Lots of good ideas people. It's good to see people wanting to get involved.

Thank you SiegeLord. I do think there are things more "real" and "concrete" than "marketing", too. But how to attract "fresh blood" when it is unnecessarily difficult to find out how great Allegro 5 actually is? From the point 4.9 becoming 5.0 I have the impression that 'public communication' (err, sorry, no native speaker here) of its qualities has been not as good as the library itself.

Today, there is no DJGPP download form anymore / its importance has quite declined if there is

I think the main point I'm trying to make here all the time is:

Allegro should publicly evolve to being Allegro5.

That means Allegro4 and 5 shouldn't be featured in parallel on the pages people are likely to see first (liballeg.org front page, Wiki getting started page / ... ).

Because: Allegro4's parallel presence is an obstacle to communicating Allegro5's many feautures on these most important pages.

I never meant to say "everything is bad". That's not the case at all.

I do like the current "Getting started" page in the Wiki, but as I already said: There would be not much sense in providing someone who comes to the site via the official web page (liballeg.org) with 1) a link to the site where he already is and 3) the site where he came from. That's probably not what the person needs to know.

Instead:

It would be better to have links to tutorials / getting started to the different platforms for Allegro5 .

But this would require that the "Getting started" page was only/mainly concerned with Allegro5, contrary to its current state.

The way it is now, you first have to choose between Allegro 5 and 4. That's one unneccessary step, as we don't want anyone to get started with Allegro4 anymore.

Edit2: The current "Getting started" page should IMHO be renamed to "Resources" or something like that.

liballeg.org mostly.

This would be 'excellent'. I think we should make it 'very good' before that.

I really do think that a better introduction / front page is very important. When I'm looking for a library, I expect people to be able to tell me what their project is actually doing and why I should use it on the first page.

edit: I do think that a nicer design of the page is more important than screenshots. As Allegro is a library, you can hardly take screenshots of Allegro itself.

I'm trying to convince people first, because it has to do with the balance of Allegro 5 / 4. And, besides time issues, I'm a bit shy about actually doing the front page / Getting started Wiki page texts it as I'm no native speaker.

I suggested to sync the news feed of a.cc with liballeg.org, so to have AT LEAST the current latest version news on a.cc, not to scrap that.
I think nothing stops to leave the rest of the news feed under the same moderation as it is now...won't hurt for sure.

I think there's a ton of a.cc that's just so badly outdated that makes no sense whatsoever and actually may be confusing...but hey, MOST a.cc is current nevertheless (a.cc is several tons a displacement!).
Maybe the real cruft is the resources section, that's basically 0% useful...IMO.

I see also a 4.4 section of the files page there, actually.

I know, I may come up with something but seems this is a bit controversial.

On other points:

Following SiegeLord's advice on the wiki, which I agree with, I'd like to add that there has to be a "getting started tutorial", so for a newbie "out of the blue" to even copypaste something working and explain the steps to get that to compile.

Well, I concur that there's not really a LOT that could be done on compilation/installation tutorials, there will ALWAYS be the need of some basic understandings of how things work in general (compiling, linking, include paths, etc..), this is actually why I was proposing to spend some energy to write a general help page on the wiki about the very basic concepts...not too deep, with most info referred with links to learncpp.com or the likes...

On a slightly offtopic note in this regard, I've recently succeeded in compiling allegro with MingW64 through MSYS2. MSYS2 has a fuckton of packages INCLUDING ALL of Allegro dependencies, and has up-to date LGPL directx headers (from wine project), so basically it could end up installing MSYS2 (download a file and unpack somewhere), download&install the compiler & all allegro dependencies (some pacman -S package commands issued on the command line) and then CMAKE Allegro.

I'll work on that and ask for feedback in the next future I think.

@SiegeLord
Your list of work items totally belongs on the A5 todo page. I can edit it tomorrow or this weekend if I get a chance, and I'd like to help you out with testing and proofing all the example proggies.

Oops, you're right. It wasn't that long ago there were no binaries for 4.4 though.

Where are the links from liballeg.org to the getting started page on the wiki? I haven't seen one.

I think it would be best to keep the page mostly as it is on the wiki, but rename it like you said. A getting started page should have links to tutorials and example code, and could link to the newly renamed Resources page. The links on the getting started page should stay I think, because what if you came from google to that page? I think it's good to link back to the official website and the forums.

That is really helpful to know. I may go install MSYS2 now....

It would be nice if there was a page on the wiki with links to good C and C++ programming resources. No need to be more than a link page though I think. We're not here to teach anyone how to program.

I know it's impolite to quote myself, but I want your opinions on the Allegro 5 / Allegro 4 thing. Thomasu, SiegeLord, Elias and other people whose opinion might matter , do you agree with the following?

This seems to be the main change I'd like to propose, so I want your opinions on that point!

No no, there isn't one. But there should be. That's what I'm trying to say all the time.

Because (repeating myself here): The first thing people will need are platform dependent instructions. They are in the wiki. This is good, as easier to maintain. So we need to link those instructions from the official site. So we need a place in the Wiki to link to. This would most logically be the "Getting started" page. Because when you want to get started, you'll most likely want to install / build / ... the library. You don't want to know where you are and where you most likely already have been.

Yes, but (links to) platform dependent instructions are even more important. You can't try out any code before you've got the thing built and an environment set up. This is the very first thing people will want to know ("Does this work on my machine at all? How?").

The wiki itself has a "preview" button you can use to preview your changes, and IIRC it has links to pages explaining it's own syntax as well. And it has sandbox pages. Youc oculd even create a preview page and edit that, then move thecontents to the real page later. So, if you are careful, then normally it won't be too hard to make changes.

To get this ball rolling I made a "Getting Started v2" we can use to edit step by step until the content is OK to replace the "current getting" started page:
http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Getting_Started_v2

It's all in git, so simply clone the repository, change it, test it in a browser, submit patch.

[edit]
Oh, and personally I think the one thing we really need to have would be (up-to-date, not 5.0.10 ones like here on allegro.cc) binaries for all platforms. It's not acceptable that you need to spend several hours before you can run a hello world in Windows or OSX. Not to even speak of Android or IOS.

Ok, I tried to collect most ideas from this thread on the wiki page. Tried to keep it short.

Now we can start working.
You're of course also encouraged to change the wiki page and its 2 "children" or post comments about it.

The crucial problem seems to provide precompiled binaries for more platforms. What can we do about that?

I have the impression that Peter Wang's opinion is important.
@Pete: Do you agree that website and wiki should concentrate on Allegro5? I think this was consensus here.

@Matthew:
Concerning allegro.cc, it was suggested to

• remove outdated content (Resource Directory!!)

• feed news of liballeg.org to allegro.cc

What do you think? Could this be done?

The only reason I can think of: IMHO Allegro.cc's design is quite superior to the official site. That's why we should do something about that.

My wife says a logo should be simple and every part of it should be well recognizable, even when viewed in small size. So having all those small, but detailed icons could be difficult...

If you or someone else has an idea for / about the logo, please post it. Even words suffice, no images needed.

@Johan H: Died.

@Polybios: I like the new logo idea, namely just the font and brackets. It is simple and able to be iconographic at the same time. Cleanliness of the font was good too.

Sometimes this forum is pretty brash, and I've caught my share. But you gotta realize people aren't out to hurt you; if anybody around here has malicious intentions they get run off by the regulars. It is that very attitude that makes the community what it is.

I've been meaning to do several of the things mentioned for some time, and thanks for bringing it to mind.