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After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

reactos.org

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Re: After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

#11

Post by thecatspaw »

What bothers me about this site is that the first thing they do is put down Windows, instead of highlighting their own features.

What they say about windows "Closed source, licensed, spy [sic]" may be true, but it doesnt tell me anything about their product. I could as well think "oh, I dont want to be spied upon, lets switch to linux".

Those sliders also did not make it obvious to me that it can run windows server 2003 applications (according to wikipedia).

And please dont override scroll behaviour.

Re: After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

#12

Post by chungy »

bch wrote: post #8
pavlov wrote: post #2

This is the previous design from 10 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20060421204854/http://www.reacto... It certainly looks dated, but compared to the new design there are a few good things about it: - High information density - Screenshot at the top - Link to legal review and licenses (questions that any enterprise customer would have) - No gratuitous animation sequences I wonder if it would have been possible…

> providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. I actually couldn't find that in the new website. I wondered what they're targeting, and I couldn't find it.

The kernel targets the Windows NT 5.2 (Server 2003 + XP 64-bit) ABI, which is backwards compatible with NT 5.0 (2000) and 5.1 (XP) drivers as well.[1]

The userland API and ABI always targets the current version of Windows, which is presently Windows NT 10.0 (Windows 10 + Server 2016)[2], and should be backwards compatible with applications designed for any previous version of NT (there's some support for DOS, 16-bit Windows, and Windows 9x too. Thanks to borrowing code from Wine, it tends to actually have a higher compatibility with applications from these eras than the current version of Windows does!)

[1] In general, Microsoft Windows x.y versions tend to be backwards compatible with drivers for all previous versions of X. For example, Server 2003 is 5.2, thus backwards compatible with 2000 and XP drivers. Windows 10 is a special case now; unless declared by an application manifest as explicitly Windows 10 aware, it lies to applications by claiming to be Windows 8.1, or NT 6.3. This way, driver installers can see that first component of the Windows version being 6 and assume compatibility; Windows 10 is still compatible with all drivers from Vista, 7, and 8.x, even though they bumped the internal version to 10.0 to match the marketing name.

[2] As of the present, this only applies to the classic Desktop APIs. Support for Metro/Modern/Universal (whatever name they pick this week...) is not planned nor in development. Given the very limited set of apps (pretty much just Google Chrome) for this API outside of the Windows Store, I don't find it likely this will change.

Disclaimer: I am not an authority of ReactOS, I've just followed the project for a long time. I need to figure out where this info has gone in the current web site design...

Re: After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

#14

Post by lorey »

joshmn wrote: post #7
lorey wrote: post #5

It's a template called Porto available for 16$ at themeforest. They also forgot to change some default pictures: http://themeforest.net/item/porto-responsive-html5-template/...

This doesn't bother me as much — FOSS projects don't need a rockstar designer for their website, do they? Unless a "designer" "developed" the website for them and they got blindsided, which I'm sure happens more than I care to understand. I've seen it happen at well-funded companies — employees claiming they designed something, management had no idea they didn't really do much work at all, etc.

Of course you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I just wanted others to know if they like the design. And maybe they should change the default picture above "following".

BTW I think they did quite well. I especially like the "live activity" box at the footer that shows recent changes.

Re: After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

#15

Post by nailer »

thecatspaw wrote: post #11

What bothers me about this site is that the first thing they do is put down Windows, instead of highlighting their own features. What they say about windows "Closed source, licensed, spy [sic]" may be true, but it doesnt tell me anything about their product. I could as well think "oh, I dont want to be spied upon, lets switch to linux". Those sliders also did not make it obvious to me that it can run windows server 2…

It's 'spy-cy'. Get it? They're saying Windows is spyware without actually saying it, by saying it's 'spicy'. 3edgy5me.

Re: After 10 years ReactOS website has got new design

#17

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

pavlov wrote: post #2

This is the previous design from 10 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20060421204854/http://www.reacto... It certainly looks dated, but compared to the new design there are a few good things about it: - High information density - Screenshot at the top - Link to legal review and licenses (questions that any enterprise customer would have) - No gratuitous animation sequences I wonder if it would have been possible…

Years ago there was a project to redo the site, which I even participated in. Why did they abandon that effort and go with this?
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