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Re: new website: initial comments
From: |
Graham Percival |
Subject: |
Re: new website: initial comments |
Date: |
Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:55:07 -0700 |
User-agent: |
Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) |
On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 08:52:08AM -0500, Tim McNamara wrote:
>
> On Jun 23, 2009, at 7:11 AM, David Stocker wrote:
>
>> 2. On the documentation page, maybe it would be better to choose a
>> wording other than "Normal Users" for the second section of
>> documentation links. This might imply that "Beginning Users" are
>> somehow /abnormal/. Maybe "Regular Users" or "Experienced Users"
>> would be a better choice.
>
> How about "New Users," "Intermediate Users" and "Expert Users?"
I've split this into Intro, Frequent use, Infrequent use; a new
version will probably be online in 4-8 hours, so let me know what
you think of that version.
> I hate cluttered web pages (and hence I don't like most web pages- few
> Web site designers seem to have much knowledge about visual perception
> and lots of knowledge about JavaScript, and so they play to their
> strength) so I like the nice clean look proposed here.
This "clean look" is (deliberately) enforced by our choice of
languages: I write the content in texinfo (the language our
manuals are created in), and Patrick write a CSS file to change
the presentation of that content.
> Color coding also makes it easier for the eye to follow- beginning user
> information in Color 1, intermediate user information in Color 2, expert
> user information in Color 3. This could simply be done by changing the
> colors behind the navigation bar at the top of the page to reflect the
> skill level for that page.
... however, due to our choice of technical setup, altering the
navigation bar would be extremely tricky. Sorry. I agree this
could be a nice feature, but I can't see it being worth the
trouble to make it work. The system is designed for a clean,
uniform presentation -- especially in the navigation. Making
special cases like this would be a huge pain.
> On the "Learning Manual" page on my computer, the second navigation bar
> (starting with "(main)") wraps to a second line and covers part of the
> first line of the text. The wrapped part contains "Other Documentation"
> and "Other Versions."
We'll certainly be working on issues like this, but not for the
next few days -- we want to get the overall structure in place
first.
> Text should scale appropriately if the user chooses to override font
> size, like I do with my middle aged eyes on a 12" laptop screen.
This shouldn't be a problem; doesn't it work?
> If we see layout problems with specific computers, browsers, etc., maybe
> it would be helpful to send screenshots to a single point person to
> provide demonstration of the problem. Who will this person be?
Probably Patrick, if nobody else wants to help with the design.
Wait a few days; let's see if we get more volunteers. :)
Cheers,
- Graham
Re: new website: initial comments, Han-Wen Nienhuys, 2009/06/23