On Friday, November 8, 2002, at 11:36 PM, Andy McKay wrote:

...

...

It would be nice to include screen shots for Zope's Products, similar to Freshmeat.net products. That way users can have a better idea of what the product can do and looks like before downloading it.

I think like most people who write products, I'd have to say I really cant be bothered either. If you want to take screenshots for me of my products, great! Let me know the links...

Or alternatively send me 5 dollars in the mail and with a return envelope... ;)

Surely the issue here is not whether you (or even others) can be bothered, but about providing the ability to add screenshots to those that want them. It's not hard and there are many benefits. And for some products, a screen shot can be fairly meaningless, but for others it's a central part of the Products functionality (sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words). DocFinder is good example. Because the name suggests it is for finding Docs, I wasn't interested, but now I've installed it and see what it does, I love it. A picture might have caught me where a name doesn't. Screen shots may also promote further Zope adoption, by showing how cool or easy something can be BEFORE you've installed the software. Getting some large products, like WorldPilot to install correctly can take a little expertise, a screen shot may be the only thing encouraging some users to "hang in there". Additionally, some people are just more visually oriented, and can obtain a better understanding (or recall) from a screen shot. There really are some lovely zope Products, and some gifted people have taken those Product, integrated them with other lovely offerings and made them look even lovelier. They are a great promotional tool for Zope and it's a shame not to capture that material, or make it easy for those that can be bothered to publish it. cheers tom -- tom smith http://www.othermedia.com/blog/ 0207 089 5959 3rd Floor, The Pavilion, Newham's Row, London SE1 3UZ

I agree with Mike. As an open source community, it is probable that most of the total available man-hours are spent developing stuff instead of figuring out marketing stratregies. For a typical software vendor instead, marketing IS what makes the company run, and as a result - as we all know- several dollars are used to be provided for the task. And as long as we don't have any community-generated marketing task force, we should at least to encourage the inclusion of screenshots from those products that rely heavily on its user interface, having in mind all the good reasons already mentioned here. We know Zope rocks. If a picture helps me to evangelize a new developer/end_user/student/housewife/astronaut soul, why not to go for it? :) Ausum ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Doanh Tran" <mtran@shufflemasterrd.com> To: "Andy McKay" <andy@agmweb.ca> Cc: "tom smith" <tom@othermedia.com>; <zope@zope.org> Sent: Monday, November 11, 2002 1:58 PM Subject: Re: [Zope] Screen Shots for Zope Products

Adding screenshots to a product help users narrow down their choices on which product best suite their needs. Especially for those who are new to Zope. Furthermore, screenshots allow users to have a better understaning on a product's presentation, ease of use, and functionalities. A great example for this is ZPhoto Slides. ZPhoto Slides includes detail screens shots on how easy it to use the tool, It gives an over view of the entire product functionalities, and even a live demon. Those kind of things are hard to visualize from a product descriptions.

You and many other have spent a great amount of time creating wonderful products. Like Tom said, why not capture those beautiful qualities and include them in your product. It helps promote the use of your product and thus promote the use and adaption of Zope.

Well, I am just trying to give some inputs from a Zope's user perspective. I did not mean to bothered those who write products or critized any individual work, just giving some feedbacks.

Mike

(...)