[jira] [Comment Edited] (MNGSITE-290) Download and Install documentation is unclear

["Daniel Stone (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNGSITE-290?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=15368520#comment-15368520 ] 

Daniel Stone edited comment on MNGSITE-290 at 7/8/16 9:30 PM:
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Hmm, I didn't see that text there. However, the fact that I didn't see it is evidence that it's not obvious enough. There's a lot of text above it that's not that relevant, like system hardware requirements. The combination of all the things I said before, combined with the large number of other users who have had the same problem shows that the site has a UX issue; it's easy to make a mistake, and if you do, there aren't any safeguards or checks to help you discover that mistake.

Please consider making it more idiot-proof for idiots like me ;)


was (Author: frodo2975):
Hmm, I didn't see that text there. However, the fact that I didn't see it is evidence that it's not obvious enough. There's a lot of text above it that's not that relevant, like system hardware requirements. The combination of all the things I said before, combined with the large number of other users who have had the same problem shows that the site has a UX issue; it's easy to make a mistake, and if you do, there aren't any safeguards or checks to help you discover that mistake.

> Download and Install documentation is unclear
> ---------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: MNGSITE-290
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNGSITE-290
>             Project: Maven Project Web Site
>          Issue Type: Bug
>         Environment: Windows 10
>            Reporter: Daniel Stone
>            Priority: Minor
>              Labels: Installation, Maven
>   Original Estimate: 1h
>  Remaining Estimate: 1h
>
> The maven installation documentation says to add "C:\Program Files\apache-maven-3.3.9\bin" to your path. However, this directory does not exist in the most recent version.
> UPDATE: Got this figured out, but the documentation is still unclear. When I tried to run maven, I got the mysterious error, "Could not find or load main class org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher". After about an hour of googling, I found a stack overflow post that related to the binaries. Turns out you need to download the binaries zip file and not the source one. 
> As a user, the website is unclear on which to download. It doesn't say either way, and it didn't register to me that I needed a particular one. To make it even worse, maven appears to partially run when you try it with the src package. As a user, this has been a very frustrating experience. It would be helpful if the binary files were highlighted, and the src files were put in a separate container further down the page, or at least add a note saying which ones you need to download. Most people probably don't care about the source. There's a stackoverflow issue for the error I got when trying to run maven from the source instead of the binaries, so this is a common issue for other people as well. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11118237/maven-error-could-not-find-or-load-main-class-org-codehaus-plexus-classworlds-l
> Also, in the installation documentation, it would be helpful to tell users to download the binaries, and add a note saying something like, "If your unzipped package does not contain a bin directory, you've downloaded the wrong package. Please go download the binaries zip file instead. "
> It's a simple thing, but this has made me not want to use Maven just from the difficulty of getting it set up. It would be great if you guys had an installer, but at the very least, could you update the docs to be more user friendly? It would take a minimum of effort and it would improve your perceived user experience a lot.



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