Saturday, October 1, 2011

Learning about Connect openSUSE

It seems that not many people are aware of Connect openSUSE service, that was created by Boosters team while ago, and consequently they don't know what they miss.

In the wiki page about it there is more about technical details then about social aspects, which is not surprising:

  • Guys that created it are technicians, software developers, that know how to handle code and have a lot to say about it, but they seldom have great popularization skills, like marketing guys. I like this way, as being popular in the software world doesn't relate always to a good code, 
  • Wiki article was written when Connect was in initial stages without many add on features (plugins) it has now, so it is time to take a new look at it. 
For instance, until today I didn't know that I can fix my dashboard page layout the way I want, and it is just "Edit page" button away, which is at the bottom right. The page is available to logged in users as Dashboard link in the top right corner, right before the log in name. 

It would be awesome if more people will go there, try it and:
  • Comment on existing layout and features. 
  • Propose new ones, specially if you, or someone that you know, can code and come up with working solution, or at least something that is easy to adjust to Connect.
Social aspects of Connect are great when you consider how hard is to find similar souls and start something in project as large as openSUSE, and Connect offers easy search for them, located on the top right, the same spot on the every server in openSUSE domain. Type in term, like "wiki" you you are very close to wiki related stuff, including my favorite Wiki maintainers group :)