Ren'Py Home Page

[PyTom]

First, let me point out that the web page is a bit of a work in progress. I'm thinking we'll post it, and then people can evolve it to make it better. I don't want to let the best be the enemy of the better.

I do want to post the website soon, and then turn my attention to 5.6.2.

- the game list should definitely have screenshots, maybe even 2 or 3, just to make it a bit more eye-candyish

Sure. But this is something that people who aren't me can do, fairly easily. I'm hoping people will step up. (And people have already.)

- the main download page for ren'py should also have a picture of how it looks like - maybe two or three as well - a shot of the demo, a shot of the menu/prefs and so on, it will definitely be more catching (since appeal is probably what we want) - also, if it's unfitting for that page, maybe a "features" subpage could do the trick:
Discover Ren'Py
- Ren'Py Games
- Features (and here, you could have loads of catchy screenshots with effects and descriptions, as well as to-the-point statements - such as "completely free", "obfuscating possible" and formats support etc.)

Sure... but someone who isn't me should be the one to write that sort of page. I think I'm too close to Ren'Py to know what new users want.

IMO Mac/Linux/Other Platforms should have separate pages, but not separate tabs on the sidebar - it could be called "Mac/Linux/Other" or so, and when you click on it, you'd have the option of selecting your OS from within that page, not directly from the sidebar - it's a bit confusing to have those buttins there, at least for me.

So Mac/Linux/Other would link people to a disambiguation page? I could see that. But do we really need to conserve the sidebar space?

I'd also reconsider "Tutorials" and "Reference" and probably replace them with something more newbie-oriented, such as "Getting Started Tutorials (First Steps...)" and "Big Command Reference (Big Manual)" or similar. Maybe it's a bit kindergarten, but first, kindergarten is very cool, and second, to newcomers the difference between a tutorial and a reference isn't very apparent, you have to think a bit until you realize - which you shouldn't.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of dumbing things down that much. At the end of the day, Ren'Py is a tool, and if people can't figure out what the tutorials are, then I don't think there's much hope for them sucessfully using it.

Although perhaps it might make sense to have a single documentation page, that would then describe the tutorials, the rm, the cookbook, and so on.

[PyTom]

In response to Monele and mikey's comments about the download page being too complex...

I suspect that there are at least some Ren'Py players who would want to download the Mac launcher, without having to download all of Ren'Py. Ren'Py will be growing in size, (figure, about doubling when I add the new art and music), so that could be a problem.

I'm not sure it makes sense to force mac users to download 8 megs of Ren'Py, when the 1.5mb mac launcher would suffice. Remember, they would need this to be able to play games.

So I think we do need to have the mac and linux launchers broken out, at least for the time being.

I'm now strongly thinking I'll show only a single version on the dl page. What'll happen is that I'll announce a new version on the forums, give people a few days to play with it, and only replace the old version when I get some confidence the new version is better.

I'll kill the example script when it gets moved into a tutorial or manual. The CHANGELOG has to stay, as I often would like to see what changed when I'm downloading a new game.

I'm so conflicted. And I don't want to spend much more time on the website, as I'd like to start 5.6.2.

[monele]

About the Mac example : I remember a website having "I'm a player", "I'm a maker" buttons. It's a very different world after all ^.^.

How should we go about making these changes btw ? Suggesting here first and all agree on something ? Or use the wiki ability to just... edit and let go ? (with the possibility to re-edit back if something is really wrong)

[PyTom]

For something non-controversial, like adding screenshots, edit it. If you're sure it's better, edit it. If you're not totally sure, make a copy of the page, and edit that.

You'll also have to edit a copy of the download page, as the download page is protected from editing.

Hm... one issue is I'd like to funnel all links to software through a single page, like "Download Ren'Py". This way, I only have to edit 1-2 pages once Ren'Py is released.

[mikey]

I'm so conflicted. And I don't want to spend much more time on the website, as I'd like to start 5.6.2.

Well, I just comment as well. I am also short on time now and I usually prioritize game-making in such times. And since those projects are Ren'Py anyway, it's kind of helping too.

Ad adding screenshots: Please feel free to make ones for the ATP games as well, no problem with me...

[PyTom]

Okay, I did a little bit of reorganization on the download page. What do people think.

I also unprotected the download page and the 5.6.1 page, so people with ideas can edit them in.

[monele]

Download

The latest version is Ren'Py 5.6.1 "Community Service". Please see the Download Ren'Py page for other versions, or view information about running Ren'Py on Mac OS X 10.3+, Linux x86, and other platforms.

But no download link .
I also wondered about the use of larger titles just saying "Windows", "Other platforms"... but since the other platforms need the "windows" one... it'd be even more confusing ^^;

EDIT :

Please note that we cannot vouch for the security of any Ren'Py game. Like any computer program, Ren'Py games can only be trusted as much as you trust their creator.

Scary ... Could we put this below the list maybe ? :/...

[PyTom]

But no download link .

I added a link from the front page to the 5.6.1 page.

I also wondered about the use of larger titles just saying "Windows", "Other platforms"... but since the other platforms need the "windows" one... it'd be even more confusing ^^;

Yes, confusing. Probably the best way to solve this is to create multiple versions of the Ren'Py SDK, and make them available for download. Probably the best way would be to have a multi-platform SDK, which can make programs for all 3 platforms we support.

The problem is, as we add more official platforms, the SDK would become bigger... even now, adding Linux and Mac support would mean adding ~5 megs to the SDK download.

Perhaps a Windows-only distribution, and a Windows-Linux-Mac-Whatever one? With the latter being able to create platform-specific distributions for each of the platforms we support? (So it would be easy to make 3 platform releases, like I've been doing by hand.)

Please note that we cannot vouch for the security of any Ren'Py game. Like any computer program, Ren'Py games can only be trusted as much as you trust their creator.

Scary ... Could we put this below the list maybe ? :/...

[/quote]

Sure, you can do that.

[monele]

Or we could have a common part "for everyone" and the additional parts for whatever OS needs them. Even if it's kinda sad, I suppose we want at least Windows users to get a single package release... assuming Mac and Linux users can deal with additional pains?

[PyTom]

Or we could have a common part "for everyone" and the additional parts for whatever OS needs them. Even if it's kinda sad, I suppose we want at least Windows users to get a single package release... assuming Mac and Linux users can deal with additional pains?

Well, this is basically what we have now.

[DaFool]

How about an oggdrop-like automatic converter that you feed a windows distro into and it creates a linux and mac version simultaneously?

I don't know how many people actually build their games in linux, but in my case it's more like create, test in windows, and make mac and linux just to be nice.

The package set for one who creates in linux versus one who just distros in it would be slightly different, correct?

[monele]

Do you even need anything special outside the regular package to release linux and mac versions ? Including the /renpy directory seems like the only thing to do (/module too, maybe ?)... and Mac users seem to need their own launcher (should we include it or not ?)

[PyTom]

Okay, there's two ways to release for mac and linux.

The "old" way was to release a version that had the renpy/ directory, run_game.py, and the like. This worked, but it required people to download the mac and linux launchers... which was a pain for the end user.

The "new" way is the way it was done in games like Moonlight Walks 1.1, Secretary of Death, Ori, Ochi, Onoe, and Broken Hearted. Here, we have separate downloads for Mac and Linux users, which include the appropriate launchers. This makes the games easy to run on Mac and Linux, since the end user doesn't need to download anything special.

What I'm proposing is to automate the process of creating games the "new" way. The game-maker will download a launcher that supports all 3 platforms, click the "Release" button, and out will come a Windows zip, a Mac zip, and a Linux tar.bz2 file.

I now consider it likely that this will be implemented in the 5.6 series.

[monele]

Easy for the maker, easy for the player ? Sounds great

[RedSlash]

IMO, Linux users are used to downloading a kajillion of dependancies. I think what you should do for Linux users is make them install rpm or deb package for the ren'py modules.

In the case of deb distributions, one would just have to add your website to the /etc/apt/sources.list, and then do something like:

apt-get install renpy

and it'd automatically install the ren'py modules as well as install all the dependancies.

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

would automatically update to the latest version of ren'py along with all your other software.

This is basically a one time thing for linux users, And from now on we'd just do 'python run_game.py' from the extracted zip file, which IMO is a suitable solution as it is the UNIX way for doing things.