Mercurial website needs to be updated

[Manuel Jacob]

Hi, I mostly agree. Some comments inline.

On 07/06/2024 17.20, PIERRE AUGIER wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was looking at the Mercurial website https://www.mercurial-scm.org/ and the wiki pages directly linked by this website. I realized that it gives a bad impression of Mercurial and does not show well that the project is still active.
> 
> For example, in https://www.mercurial-scm.org/downloads, one can read
> 
> "Development Repositories
> 
> Main
>      The main development repository of the Mercurial maintainer Matt Mackall can be found at https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/hg.
> Committers
>      The development repository of the Mercurial core contributors can be found at https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/hg-committed/.
> 
> See Developer Repositories on the wiki for a full list.
> Requirements
> 
> Python
>      Mercurial uses Python (version 2.7). Most ready-to-run Mercurial distributions include Python or use the Python that comes with your operating system.
> "
> 
> 
> - "Python 2.7" ? Then, there are even mentions of python 2.4 an 2.3 ! Is it really useful? Nowadays, Debian old stable includes Python 3.9. For most developers, the Python 2 issue is gone a long time ago. I realized that it has been a nightmare for Mercurial, but is it necessary to mention Python 2 in one of the main page of the website?

I think it would be sufficient to mention that Mercurial requires Python 
3.6+, and link to https://wiki.mercurial-scm.org/SupportedPythonVersions 
for those who for some reason have only older Python releases available.

> - Now that people are used to Github and Gitlab, the look of https://repo.mercurial-scm.org/hg seems like 20th century. https://foss.heptapod.net/mercurial/mercurial-devel looks much more modern but it is not mentioned in https://www.mercurial-scm.org/downloads
> 
> - About activity, the result of https://repo.mercurial-scm.org/hg is not very positive (nothing in May for example). The result of https://foss.heptapod.net/groups/mercurial/-/activity is much more interesting.

The first is empty because nothing was committed and I think we 
shouldn’t pretend that there’s activity when there is none. In my 
opinion, the latter is too detailed for interested users.

> - https://www.mercurial-scm.org/repo/hg-committed/ is mentioned but not https://foss.heptapod.net/mercurial/mercurial-devel
> 
> - there is a link towards https://wiki.mercurial-scm.org/DeveloperRepos which does not mention https://foss.heptapod.net/mercurial/mercurial-devel and contains dead links (http://bitbucket.org/mg/hg-i18n/, https://bitbucket.org/tortoisehg/thg/wiki/developers/repositories)
> 
> 
> There is no link from the website towards https://wiki.mercurial-scm.org/ContributingChanges, which mentions https://foss.heptapod.net/mercurial/mercurial-devel and https://wiki.mercurial-scm.org/Heptapod
> 
> 
> Moreover, the page https://wiki.mercurial-scm.org/UsingExtensions gives an impressive list of extensions but we don't know about the version of Mercurial supported nor if the extensions are even maintained. I think evolve/topics and hg-git are nowadays quite important extensions for modern Mercurial, but they are just mentioned in alphabetic lists equally with extensions (I guess) no longer maintained and that do not work with Python 3 and recent Mercurial versions.
> 
> 
> Another point, https://tortoisehg.bitbucket.io/ is still on Bitbucket.
> 
> 
> Sorry for this long list of problems, but my main message is that it would be good that someone spends few hours to update the website so that it gives a better impression of Mercurial.

Patches welcome. ;) Since most committers seem to prefer Heptapod for 
reviewing patches, they should probably set up a repository for the 
website under https://foss.heptapod.net/mercurial.