Great, but I suggest no more touches to the "main" wiki until we reach some form of agreement, and besides, i'd say we shlud DEFINITELY draft pages for approval before upstreaming any change.

We should tag the pages under "unofficial" or something along those lines until there's a ore clear undestading on where we're going.

I actually struggle to get things going right now you know, I'm about to get a flooded week but will try to do something at least, I think we0re moving on a good path, so far.

I'd like to see more discussione about the official site anyway, I think that it is top priority getting the front page a bit more immediate.

EDIT:

Well that's 100% true, but this page is a "getting started", and I think one does NOT get started in so MANY ways; also the page in the end derails quite a bit from "getting started", at lest to me seems clear.

Anyway I couldn't agree more about liballeg.org, and what I said in my post just before my edit just confirms my point of view.

The comparison was not meant 1:1 of course, and my suggestion was not wiki oriented...it's something you said also, we need the main platforms binaries availble, thus I was referring to that page for the list of binaries to explain my point (not to compare content or aestethics).

Slightly off-topic....it has been said that anyone's can modify the wiki and so forth, but I GUESS that there should be some kind of (light) peer-reviewing.

Siegelord , I've cross posted you editing my post.

On the other hand, I mostly agree with your points (especially the sidebar) and I would add that on your first point, I would like to see the front page like an "About Allegro" with a bit of what is allegro? - main features - fancy stuff (this needs work&agreement...screenshots..games...something light anyway, but a bit of eye candy shouldn't hurt).

Concerning the website, I'd suggest to write a short introductory front page text in the Wiki first before actually changing anything, for example here, where I've collected the ideas from this thread.

In any case, we need to decide where the news should go.

Agree.

Looking through the website, I'm not sure whether we still need the following:

• DIGMID

• Speedhack 1999-2005 under "Links" suggests the site is outdated

• "DJGPP mirrors" under "Mirrors" seems to be really outdated

• Why are there so many logos under "Logos"? Are these actually needed?

• Since there are no Allegro5 books, but only Allegro4 ones, maybe remove "Books" from the main sidebar?

Edit:
List of features:
We should put a list on the front page.
I'm thinking about an additional, more verbose list on an extra page, which would be combined with short code samples (two column layout?). Like one short code sample for every "feature", which should cover a common task and demonstrate how intuitive the API is. I'm not quite sure whether this is feasible, though. What do you think?

Well, I'm definitively pro code-samples on the website somewhere.
When I'm looking for a library I really like to get a feel for the API quickly so I can decide whether I like it or not. I think it's especially a good idea given Allegro's excellent and clean API.

That's right. But do we have the info that is on the "Getting started" page on the website, too? That would be actually doubling maintenance effort.

So I'd argue that the "Getting started" page of the Wiki should be seen as an exception to what you said. It should be the only part of the wiki that is regarded as a part of the website, too. IMHO it should be like a hub which can then link to other verbose wiki articles (or somewhere else).

Generally all texts should follow guidelines for text on screen: short, to the point, structured, nicely grouped into paragraphs or lists where it makes sense, to avoid impression of wall-of-text.

We could have a wiki page which is acts as a draft for such a page. Won't be much effort transferring it over.

I updated that draft. Now ALL the allegro 5 features are there, but I feel the list looks too long, really. Maybe it's better to trim it down to the essential features or use an inline in stead of a list format.

We don't need to list every feature. File IO, configuration routines and portable memory management are completely unexciting, for example, as is the memfile addon. Fixed point math is not exactly the top-most used feature either. Front page space is precious and shouldn't be wasted on trivia. If we want to have a thorough list, have a "And more!" link that goes to something more complete.

Very nice.

BTW: Do we really need news on 1) Official website 2) Wiki 3) Allegro.cc?

I have just ( ) noticed that the wiki also has news on its front page. The official website seems to be the only one up-to-date...

I completely agree with SiegeLord, and I'd say that the separation between 5.0 and 5.1 should be done in the "And More!" section which is linked.

Maybe we could trim a bit further even...leaving the thing in a sequential non-bulleted list?

I'm still voting for getting the liballeg.org news feeded to the a.cc news (whilst maintaning the possibility to ADD news about new games and such as it is now).

I formatted the feature lists as tables with 3 columns, each with 1 row per column, and with a bullet list in each of the 3 table cells. I'm not sure Pandoc supports the table format of Wikipedia, but, we can always generate the HTML manually in a pinch. Anyway, is this better? Or make it 2 columns in stead?

I've been looking at it but can't make my mind around it....features are good but as Siegelord's says there's not so much "woo" effect in some...

I'd say that your two latter items could go. Unconvinced of the first two thou.

I'm not new to Allegro, though, I started using it back then on DOS and DJGPP. And your (less enthusiastic?) contribution to the wiki would be most welcome.