Re: new website: initial comments

[Graham Percival]

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