Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene #66
25 Apr
- I think our new web site looks really great — keep your eyes peeled for more valuable content coming down the pike. I particularly like the Delphi Resources page. Also, we’ll have a pretty thorough "Feature Drill Down" like the one for Delphi for PHP.
- For all you German speakers — Danny Magin gives a heads up about German Delphi Days 2008 on 14 June 2008.
- Are you a member yet of the Delphi Community at lulu.com?
- Our PR Department is working overtime! David I has a good summary of the great press we’ve been getting for Delphi for PHP 2.0.
- Delphi is moving up! So is Pascal, for that matter. And PHP is holding strong.
- Here’s a question for you: Why can’t you "un-press" elevator buttons? I got on the elevator this morning (I know, I’m lazy….) and accidentally pressed the "1" button before pressing "3". Naturally, I had to stop at the first first floor and wait for the door to close. Seems like a simple thing to fix. And while we are at it, if I turn off my car, why to my lights stay on?
Nick, what would it take to get the Delphi Wiki listed on the Delphi Resources page?
April 25th, 2008 at 1:08 pmPretty good look for the site.
There’s a little quirk that I noticed:
April 25th, 2008 at 1:34 pmNewbies have to search the page a little to find the menu bar. I think It’ll need some kind of highlighting.
As for item 6 - I use the feature where my lights stay on. When I drive down to the barn at night I like to turn the truck off and still shine the lights onto my hay stack to feed the horses. I am serious
April 25th, 2008 at 1:43 pmWhy you can’t "un-press" an elevator button: Did you ever notice that most people press "their" button even if it is still highlighted? A button that shuts the door immediately would be helpful.
BTW, my car does switch the lights off when it is turned off - and it switches the lights on when it is turned or running on AND it is dark enough. Well, I guess I can program it to keep the lights on for a while after turning it off until I have entered my house.
April 25th, 2008 at 2:15 pmMy 6 yerar old Hyundai turns the lights off automatically when I get out, I am constantly surprised that so few others seem to have this same functionality.
Nice work on the web site guys and gals!
April 25th, 2008 at 2:45 pmThe site makeover looks great. Definitely an improvement.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:34 pmJust a small quible.
Ireland uses the Euro currency. Yet your regional marketing lumps us with the UK and quotes in Pounds Sterling.
Asking people in Euroland to pay in sterling is like asking Americans to pay in Pesos.
And what’s the point of having resellers scattered around the globe?
What value do they add in the internet age?
Can’t you just have a single online store and quote in Dollars.
I’m always buying stuff from the states on ebay and Amazon.
Ordinary citizens have no problems selling and shipping stuff all over the world. The way Delphi sells stuff is looking dated. It should be easy to buy Delphi.
The new product homepage looks wonderful. And, although a long-time Delphi developer, I have only recently started following the company blogs and news, and the site-refresh makes for a much better experience. I like the roadmap for Delphi2008-2009+ too, and look forward to using some great new features soon.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:35 pm+1 for the website makeover!
…But, -1 for the spelling on it: "Archeology" should have two ‘a’s. I’ll let you work out where the second one goes…
- Roddy
April 26th, 2008 at 11:27 amNice improvement in the websites.
BTW: I have been used an elevator which has "unpress / toggle" button!
April 26th, 2008 at 1:24 pmUhm, cause your driving a bad car, Nick?
April 26th, 2008 at 9:53 pmThe link for the new website doesn’t work in the IDE or Internet Explorer because of a missing ".". In Sea Monkey, it isn’t a link at all.
April 27th, 2008 at 5:57 amThe lights should stay turned on for a minute, or so. This is called "follow me home" lights. But if your car keep the lights turned on, you should change your car!
April 27th, 2008 at 9:07 amDefinitly a step up from the previous site, though there are still a few elements that seem very "last year" in terms of design, like:
- Still using tables as layout, not as much but they’re still there.
- The purchase/download icons on this page http://www.codegear.com/products/delphi/win32 look way too fuzy, almost like someone did them in Photoshop at 300×300 then just resized them down to icon size. This is usually what you get if you hire a graphic design company to do icons. CodeGear should just buy some much better looking icons from some place like iconbuffet. Heck, there are a ton of great free icons that look less cheesy.
- The hover background effect on those icons just looks wrong/ugly.
- In the sidebar the icons aren’t in proportion with the font. Either make the fonts bigger or the icons smaller.
- Search box doesn’t need that ugly little greater than symbol. People know how to use a search box and just press enter.
- The left-hand sidebar on the support page should be styled like the right-hand sidebars. Plus some of the padding/marings are messed up squishing things together.
All in all though it does look very nice, there is just some fit and finish that still needs to be taken care of.
April 27th, 2008 at 10:58 amThe design looks good but the layout is thumb down. The last year design is more practical than the latest design.
- there is an extra gutter at the left side. this is a web page and not an IDE, so we dont need to put book mark or display page number!!! not too friendly for a low resolution screen (considering a compact notebook), user need to use scrollbar too frequent to see what is the right most word.
- the header takes too much space. can’t we display the codegear logo at very same line as menu item? this actually can save one/two additional lines of text display.
- the "BlogCentral" wording is located at totally wrong place, wrong size and wrong color. new user will barely can notice that word!
- yup! the search textbox looks plain ugly.
April 27th, 2008 at 6:53 pmLike the new design. But…
April 28th, 2008 at 1:06 amWhy do you keep omitting DelphiFeeds.com ? This should be both on the Resources page and on the IDE Welcome Page (preferably as the default news feed).
Opera can’t show website menus
April 28th, 2008 at 1:34 amI can "unpress" button inside my company’s elevator by pressing the floor again.
April 28th, 2008 at 1:44 amAt last the new site looks more modern and friendly, no longer the "enterprise-heavy-CEO-aimed" look - when most users are developers.
There may be a good reason for car lights staying on when the engine is turned off - especially if it happens on a dark night in a dark road - who likes to change a tyre with lights off? - and some countries require the lights be on if parking in the dark.
Some designers prefer just to shutdown headlights and the like, but let "position lights" on until turned off explicitly (maybe using a beep to remind the driver), while others choose a switch position to let lights on when neeeded.
About elevators, AFAIK some have shortcuts that let technicians "override" the destination for testing purposes - but for "common" user the interface is right - what about if I "unpress" someone else destination? And many have a "close door" button that can be used to avoid the wait for an "empty" stop.
April 28th, 2008 at 2:09 am@Eurish The reason resellers are located around the globe is pricing. Regardless of how much bad feeling it causes and how much business it loses them, Codegear are determined to charge twice as much in europe as they do in the states and no taxes do not explain it!
April 28th, 2008 at 5:38 amActually having just looked again at Codegears pricing its fair to say that ‘twice as much’ is an overstatement, however there is a major price difference that cannot be explained away, especially for download versions.
April 28th, 2008 at 5:56 amHappy Easter to everyone
April 28th, 2008 at 6:08 amEver been in an elevator in NY with 50 floors and 20 type A’s always in a hurry who think they are more important than everyone else? They would unpress everyone’s destination except for theirs. Pandemonium would ensue. The elevator designers got this one right!
April 28th, 2008 at 6:49 amEddie –
I’ll get the Delphi Wiki added. Great idea.
Eurish — I get Ireland hooked up with the right currency. Sorry for the mistake.
Oliver — DelphiFeeds.com is on the Resource page. I can look at getting it onto the Welcome Page
Nick
April 28th, 2008 at 8:31 am@David Howes
The prices are a bit higher this side of the Atlantic alright. It seems to be true for everything, not just Delphi
@ Nick
Actualy having looked at it again, you do have an exclusively irish distributor who quotes in Euros. Maybe they should be hived off from the British ones since even though we speak the same language and have lots in common the currencies are different
As far as purchasing online goes using Digital River as your processor is quite liable to give Codegear a bad name see
April 28th, 2008 at 3:46 pmhttp://successfulsoftware.net/2007/07/04/swreg-customers-beware/
@Nick: Sorry, I cannot find DelphiFeeds.com on the resources page… where should I be looking?
Thanks for looking into this!
Cheers,
Oliver
April 29th, 2008 at 3:47 amMay I suggest adding Blaise Pascal magazine and http://www.codegearguru.com to the resources page.
Tim H
April 29th, 2008 at 4:38 amOliver –
It is at the bottom of the "Community Web Sites" section.
Nick
April 30th, 2008 at 9:19 am