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Re: new website: initial comments
From: |
Tim McNamara |
Subject: |
Re: new website: initial comments |
Date: |
Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:13:45 -0500 |
On Jun 23, 2009, at 6:55 PM, Graham Percival wrote:
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'll take a peek when it's up.
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.
Sounds like a good choice.
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.
Understood.
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.
Yes.
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?
Oh, sorry to be confusing. That was a general comment about Web
sites and not specifically about the new one. Your comment in
another post about web sites trying to force a specific resolution
already indicates you're ahead of my thinking on this.
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. :)
OK.
Re: new website: initial comments, Han-Wen Nienhuys, 2009/06/23