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faassen at infrae

Aug 23, 2006, 4:11 AM

Post #1 of 33 (5720 views)
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website design discussion

[taking people off the cc list, changing the title]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:

> http://modscape.com/zope
> I added "Design 2". I like it much better than "Design 1". I think we
> should work off of "Design 2" Thoughts?

Hey, great!

I'm afraid I prefer design 1, myself. :) What do you like better about
design 2?

I kind of liked the watery theme on top in design 1. I also liked better
the way the boxes in the main area rendered, though we'll probably not
need them for a typical sub page which will presumably contain text.
Finally, there's more unused space on the left side in design 2, design
1 seemed more efficient that way.

Note that both design 1 and design 2 have a slight problem in the
rendering of the menu, the word 'documentation' is too long and runs
into the next entry. This is on Firefox 1.5.0.5 on linux.

I'd still like to see the design for a sub-page. After all, we're mostly
going to see such sub pages.

That is, no blue boxes on the side; that's something good on a front
page, and "plain text" in the middle (perhaps with an image or two).
Since I'm not a big fan of pull-down menus for navigation myself,
perhaps some of the sidebar space could be used for navigation (I'd
prefer the left hand side), instead of the menus on top, or perhaps we
could use some of the space for info boxes.

plone.org uses tabs on the top for major areas and a sidebar for the
subsites - it seems to work well for them, so perhaps this might work
for us too. What do people think?

Regards,

Martijn
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

baiju.m.mail at gmail

Aug 23, 2006, 4:24 AM

Post #2 of 33 (5632 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

On 8/23/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
> [taking people off the cc list, changing the title]
>
> Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
> > http://modscape.com/zope
> > I added "Design 2". I like it much better than "Design 1". I think we
> > should work off of "Design 2" Thoughts?
>
> Hey, great!
>
> I'm afraid I prefer design 1, myself. :) What do you like better about
> design 2?

Mee too prefer design 1, version 3:
http://www.modscape.com/zope/v3

--
Baiju M
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

regebro at gmail

Aug 23, 2006, 4:27 AM

Post #3 of 33 (5613 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

On 8/23/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
> What do people think?

What you said. :-)

--
Lennart Regebro, Nuxeo http://www.nuxeo.com/
CPS Content Management http://www.cps-project.org/
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

tom at modscape

Aug 23, 2006, 5:51 AM

Post #4 of 33 (5639 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Looks like the first design is the preferred one. Maybe I just liked
the second because it was the most recent. You're points below are
all good. I'll try to work them all into a couple of new versions and
set up some sub pages as well. As far as the content in the main area
I haven't really though too much about, just the general page layout
really, so I'm open to any suggestions.

Ill tweak the nav as well. I have to use this IE hack to get it
working so I may drop fly outs all together just to be able to avoid
the hack. If we go with main nav items on top and sub navs on the
left we wouldnt really need the flyouts anyway.

On Aug 23, 2006, at 7:11 AM, Martijn Faassen wrote:

> [taking people off the cc list, changing the title]
>
> Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
>> http://modscape.com/zope
>> I added "Design 2". I like it much better than "Design 1". I think
>> we should work off of "Design 2" Thoughts?
>
> Hey, great!
>
> I'm afraid I prefer design 1, myself. :) What do you like better
> about design 2?
>
> I kind of liked the watery theme on top in design 1. I also liked
> better the way the boxes in the main area rendered, though we'll
> probably not need them for a typical sub page which will presumably
> contain text. Finally, there's more unused space on the left side
> in design 2, design 1 seemed more efficient that way.
>
> Note that both design 1 and design 2 have a slight problem in the
> rendering of the menu, the word 'documentation' is too long and
> runs into the next entry. This is on Firefox 1.5.0.5 on linux.
>
> I'd still like to see the design for a sub-page. After all, we're
> mostly going to see such sub pages.
>
> That is, no blue boxes on the side; that's something good on a
> front page, and "plain text" in the middle (perhaps with an image
> or two). Since I'm not a big fan of pull-down menus for navigation
> myself, perhaps some of the sidebar space could be used for
> navigation (I'd prefer the left hand side), instead of the menus on
> top, or perhaps we could use some of the space for info boxes.
>
> plone.org uses tabs on the top for major areas and a sidebar for
> the subsites - it seems to work well for them, so perhaps this
> might work for us too. What do people think?
>
> Regards,
>
> Martijn

_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

faassen at infrae

Aug 23, 2006, 5:59 AM

Post #5 of 33 (5634 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:

> Looks like the first design is the preferred one.

Okay, let's stick with design 1 then, it appears we got a consensus
about this from looking at the thread.

> Maybe I just liked the
> second because it was the most recent. You're points below are all good.
> I'll try to work them all into a couple of new versions and set up some
> sub pages as well. As far as the content in the main area I haven't
> really though too much about, just the general page layout really, so
> I'm open to any suggestions.
>
> Ill tweak the nav as well. I have to use this IE hack to get it working
> so I may drop fly outs all together just to be able to avoid the hack.
> If we go with main nav items on top and sub navs on the left we wouldnt
> really need the flyouts anyway.

If we can get rid of the drop-down menus to try a sidebar navigation and
we can avoid a hack that way as well, then that sounds good. :)

Regards,

Martijn
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

tom at modscape

Aug 26, 2006, 6:57 AM

Post #6 of 33 (5612 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

http://modscape.com/zope

New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so far.
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

jens at dataflake

Aug 26, 2006, 7:03 AM

Post #7 of 33 (5609 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

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Hash: SHA1

On 26 Aug 2006, at 15:57, Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:

>
> http://modscape.com/zope
>
> New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so far.

Looks and works nice on Safari as well. Should be easy to take that
and fill it, even with just static content, to have a great-looking
site.

jens

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_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

chris at simplistix

Aug 28, 2006, 2:24 AM

Post #8 of 33 (5611 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
> http://modscape.com/zope
>
> New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so far.

Personally, I hate sites that leave whacking great margins either ide of
the actual content.

Not sure about the colours or shadows either.

And the left nav doesn't feel like a left nav to me, just seems like
some entries vanish when you click on other entries :-S

So far, version 3 of design 1 is still my favourite...

Chris

--
Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
- http://www.simplistix.co.uk
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

tom at modscape

Aug 28, 2006, 4:03 AM

Post #9 of 33 (5597 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Here we go again.

Step 1. Propose a project to the Zope community.
Step 2. Plone sucks / Plone is great battle begins, everyone
complains about what they dont like.
Step 3. No actual work ever gets done.
Step 4. Repeat in 6 months.

On Aug 28, 2006, at 5:24 AM, Chris Withers wrote:

> Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>> http://modscape.com/zope
>> New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so
>> far.
>
> Personally, I hate sites that leave whacking great margins either
> ide of the actual content.
>
> Not sure about the colours or shadows either.
>
> And the left nav doesn't feel like a left nav to me, just seems
> like some entries vanish when you click on other entries :-S
>
> So far, version 3 of design 1 is still my favourite...
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
> - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

faassen at infrae

Aug 28, 2006, 4:09 AM

Post #10 of 33 (5601 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
> http://modscape.com/zope
>
> New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so far.

Looks nice. Some comments:

* I get text flowing into each other in the sidebar. "About The
Foundation" overlaps whatever is on the next line, with the word
"Foundation" on the next line. There's another such instance lower down,
where it says "Foundation..Projects?" (can't read).

This is on firefox 1.5 on linux.

Here's my feedback. Some of it is echoing Chris' feedback except I am
being more constructive about it. Please don't give up! My main aim is
to try to get some aspects of what I liked in version 3, which I think
is good for a homepage design, into the sub-page design.

* I think it would be nicer with the margins somewhat smaller. I also
liked version 3's smaller marging and background color. You changed the
texture here but with a small marging I like the other.

* It would be nice to have optional sidebar boxes on the right, like
they are in design 3. Could you create a page with such a box in it?

* I think a list of links on the top, layouted much like the menu in
version 3, but without dropdowns, would be useful to have. We could use
it to navigate between major sections on a site.

* I'm wondering whether we can do something slightly more exciting with
the colors of the navigation sidebar on the left. I liked the use of
blue in version 3, but now the blue has mostly gone into the margins.
More functional blue, perhaps?

Regards,

Martijn
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

regebro at gmail

Aug 28, 2006, 4:55 AM

Post #11 of 33 (5610 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

On 8/28/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
> * I get text flowing into each other in the sidebar. "About The
> Foundation" overlaps whatever is on the next line, with the word
> "Foundation" on the next line. There's another such instance lower down,
> where it says "Foundation..Projects?" (can't read).
>
> This is on firefox 1.5 on linux.

Hmm. Me too. But Firefox 1.5 on Windows work fine.

I'll leave my comments, even though I'm protesting against this kind
of design by comittee. :-)

I'd prefer a top row of top categories, and a left-column of
subcategories when it comes to navigaton.

I don't mind leaving space at all. In fact, on a wide-screen sreen,
not doing that makes the text have extremely long lines, which is hard
to read. Of course, this should not be decided by margin-sizes,
instead it should be the min content column that has a fixed sixe.

--
Lennart Regebro, Nuxeo http://www.nuxeo.com/
CPS Content Management http://www.cps-project.org/
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

faassen at infrae

Aug 28, 2006, 6:14 AM

Post #12 of 33 (5610 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Lennart Regebro wrote:
> On 8/28/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
>> * I get text flowing into each other in the sidebar. "About The
>> Foundation" overlaps whatever is on the next line, with the word
>> "Foundation" on the next line. There's another such instance lower down,
>> where it says "Foundation..Projects?" (can't read).
>>
>> This is on firefox 1.5 on linux.
>
> Hmm. Me too. But Firefox 1.5 on Windows work fine.

Interesting.

> I'll leave my comments, even though I'm protesting against this kind
> of design by comittee. :-)

Hm. In the end once I'm happy with the design, and I am very close to
being happy, we'll proceed from there, unless someone can convince me
otherwise. I use my special Zope Foundation powers here. :) That said, I
think feedback from a range of people can be useful.

> I'd prefer a top row of top categories, and a left-column of
> subcategories when it comes to navigaton.

Yes, this is actually, I think, the same as my feedback, effectively. A
top row of major categories, similar to the menu in version 3, without
the dropdowns, with a sidebar of categories too.

> I don't mind leaving space at all. In fact, on a wide-screen sreen,
> not doing that makes the text have extremely long lines, which is hard
> to read. Of course, this should not be decided by margin-sizes,
> instead it should be the min content column that has a fixed sixe.

Right, while some margins would be all right with me too, the version 3
layout has *smaller* margins on at least my screen, and I was looking to
replicate some of that structure in the new version.

Regards,

Martijn
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

philipp at weitershausen

Aug 28, 2006, 6:53 AM

Post #13 of 33 (5608 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
> Here we go again.
>
> Step 1. Propose a project to the Zope community.
> Step 2. Plone sucks / Plone is great battle begins, everyone complains
> about what they dont like.
> Step 3. No actual work ever gets done.
> Step 4. Repeat in 6 months.

Hey Tom,

thanks for your great designs. I think all of them are an improvement
over the current one. One can tell you put a lot of work in them. Don't
be irritated by ChrisW's occasional rants. It's not a personal thing. :)

You asked for our thoughts in your original email and it seems that most
people prefer Design 1 v3. Let me add my +1 to that as well. I for one
think this one scales a lot better for different browser sizes than
Design 2. I also think it's being brighter than Design 2 gives it a
friendler tone. In fact, I think Design 1 v3 could use an even brighter
blue (not too much, though)...

Having to agree on a design is such a difficult task because it involves
different people's tastes. We should be thankful when the consensus is
as clear as it is now :).

Keep up the good work,

Philipp

_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

chris at simplistix

Aug 28, 2006, 7:23 AM

Post #14 of 33 (5601 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>
> Here we go again.
>
> Step 1. Propose a project to the Zope community.
> Step 2. Plone sucks / Plone is great battle begins, everyone complains
> about what they dont like.
> Step 3. No actual work ever gets done.
> Step 4. Repeat in 6 months.

Er, Tom, you asked for feedback...

I *like* version 3 of design 1.

I *really* like all the work you've put in to this.

Given a choice between the latest design going in and nothing happening,
I'd choose the latest design any day of the week.

Given the choice betwen the latest design and version 3 of design one,
I'd choose version 3 of design 1.

I'm sorry not all feedback is positive, but if you don't want it, don't
ask for it...

Chris

--
Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
- http://www.simplistix.co.uk
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

tom at modscape

Aug 28, 2006, 8:19 AM

Post #15 of 33 (5606 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Sorry Chris, I didnt mean to harsh on you. That was meant in fun as
much as it is in truth.

I dont mind any negative feedback, but what Im looking for more like:

- What content do we need and where should it go.
- Suggestions for better functionality (like the title bars of a
table should be clickable to rank items by that criteria).
- This page blows up in my browser or the nav doesnt work.
- Suggestions for homepage content (News and updates RSS Feeds,
Testmonials...).
- Editing of text if some information is too wordy or confusing.
- Site structure and content boxes, wireframes.

Im trying to avoid things like:

- I dont like that color. (Unless its really nasty this is 100%
subjective)
- Fixed width vs. Fluid layouts. (This debate has been around since
tables. We need to just pick one. For every person that doesnt like
the space on the side of the page with fixed width there will be
another person who doesnt like the extra white space at the bottom of
every page on fluid width layout)
- Anything thats really subjective issue that can be debated ad
infinitum.

Im trying to avoid design by committee. Ive worked on like hundreds
of TV and Radio websites and basically they all look a$$. This is
because everyone from the morning show host to the general manager to
the salespeople all b!tch and moan until they get what they want and
the end product is hideous frankensite. I dont think that would
happen here but I want put down the hammer anywhere I see it start to
creep in.

The big difference here as well is that the site will be built on
Zope! This means was can all tweak it to our hearts content because
it's built smart, on a flexible and scalable backend. Instead of
trying to get something *great* out of the box, lets get up a *good*
site and go from there and make it great. Lets get it up and running
and functioning and focus on the content wrapped a good and nice
design and go from there...

I want to keep momentum on this.

On Aug 28, 2006, at 10:23 AM, Chris Withers wrote:

> Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>> Here we go again.
>> Step 1. Propose a project to the Zope community.
>> Step 2. Plone sucks / Plone is great battle begins, everyone
>> complains about what they dont like.
>> Step 3. No actual work ever gets done.
>> Step 4. Repeat in 6 months.
>
> Er, Tom, you asked for feedback...
>
> I *like* version 3 of design 1.
>
> I *really* like all the work you've put in to this.
>
> Given a choice between the latest design going in and nothing
> happening, I'd choose the latest design any day of the week.
>
> Given the choice betwen the latest design and version 3 of design
> one, I'd choose version 3 of design 1.
>
> I'm sorry not all feedback is positive, but if you don't want it,
> don't ask for it...
>
> Chris
>
> --
> Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
> - http://www.simplistix.co.uk

_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

faassen at infrae

Aug 28, 2006, 8:44 AM

Post #16 of 33 (5609 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Hey,

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:

> - What content do we need and where should it go.

I'm working on the content itself, so no need to concern yourself too
much with this during the design phase, except where it's needed to
flesh out the design aspects, of course. As I already mentioned, I think
a top-level navigation with left sidebar for subnavigation would be nice
to see (though what you have works too). Also nice for content is the
ability to easily include one or more blue boxes on the right sidebar.

> - Suggestions for better functionality (like the title bars of a table
> should be clickable to rank items by that criteria).

Don't think we need such functionality yet, but I'll keep my eye out for it.

> - This page blows up in my browser or the nav doesnt work.

Right, the left menu doesn't quite work in Firefox 1.5 on linux.

> - Suggestions for homepage content (News and updates RSS Feeds,
> Testmonials...).

We're first looking into the foundation homepage. I've just written some
text for it. We'll have news on it too, so a RSS/Atom feed button might
be nice.

These questions are of course important for the zope.org homepage proper.

> - Editing of text if some information is too wordy or confusing.

Where'd you get the text from? I wasn't sure whether you were writing
text too. :)

[snip]
> Im trying to avoid design by committee.

No worries, I've unilaterally declared myself the single point you need
to talk to about this layout. I can do this as I represent the Zope
Foundation board and am authorized to make decisions. (and because
Aroldo, my board partner on zope-web, will hopefully let me get away
with it. :)

Regards,

Martijn
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

chris at simplistix

Aug 29, 2006, 2:41 AM

Post #17 of 33 (5573 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
> Im trying to avoid things like:
>
> - I dont like that color. (Unless its really nasty this is 100% subjective)
> - Fixed width vs. Fluid layouts. (This debate has been around since
> tables. We need to just pick one. For every person that doesnt like the
> space on the side of the page with fixed width there will be another
> person who doesnt like the extra white space at the bottom of every page
> on fluid width layout)
> - Anything thats really subjective issue that can be debated ad infinitum.

Well, on this subjective side, it seems that, for a change, a lot of
people _are_ in agreement ;-)

(it's a shame that you appear to be one of the few who isn't...)

> I want to keep momentum on this.

Likewise...

Chris

--
Simplistix - Content Management, Zope & Python Consulting
- http://www.simplistix.co.uk
_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

tom at modscape

Sep 2, 2006, 5:38 AM

Post #18 of 33 (5514 views)
Permalink

Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

http://www.modscape.com/zope

Please let me know of any bugs and what your browsers/os setup is.

Zope Foundation
Design 1, Version 1

* Try the nav.
* Updated the colors of the nav to make it stand out more.
* Added the "extras" box to the top right hand side of the main
column.
* Not going to make a fluid layout because:
o Trading in having the space on the sides for less
control over all page layouts. I'm going for functional control in
this case over a prettier layout.
o The current page is laid out to work on 800 x 600 and
above. Most people will view the site at 1024 x 786 or 800 x 600 and
not see large gaps on the side.
o The simple nature of the site means a thinner page is
more appropriate. Most of the content will be text that is easier to
read the less wide the page is. This is not some multi column news
site that has multiple content boxes.
* Not going to add a top navigation because:
o Its inconsistent. The navigation should be in one place.
period. I find Plone to be confusing and annoying in it's use of
seperate nav areas. 2 Navs will cause confusion on the front and back
end of things. Im sticking with a standard left hand navigation based
on an unordered list that will make sense normally, without a
stylesheet, on text readers, mobile browsers...

On Aug 28, 2006, at 7:09 AM, Martijn Faassen wrote:

> Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
>> http://modscape.com/zope
>> New "Foundation" page. Try the nav. Only tested on Firefox/Mac so
>> far.
>
> Looks nice. Some comments:
>
> * I get text flowing into each other in the sidebar. "About The
> Foundation" overlaps whatever is on the next line, with the word
> "Foundation" on the next line. There's another such instance lower
> down, where it says "Foundation..Projects?" (can't read).
>
> This is on firefox 1.5 on linux.
>
> Here's my feedback. Some of it is echoing Chris' feedback except I
> am being more constructive about it. Please don't give up! My main
> aim is to try to get some aspects of what I liked in version 3,
> which I think is good for a homepage design, into the sub-page design.
>
> * I think it would be nicer with the margins somewhat smaller. I
> also liked version 3's smaller marging and background color. You
> changed the texture here but with a small marging I like the other.
>
> * It would be nice to have optional sidebar boxes on the right,
> like they are in design 3. Could you create a page with such a box
> in it?
>
> * I think a list of links on the top, layouted much like the menu
> in version 3, but without dropdowns, would be useful to have. We
> could use it to navigate between major sections on a site.
>
> * I'm wondering whether we can do something slightly more exciting
> with the colors of the navigation sidebar on the left. I liked the
> use of blue in version 3, but now the blue has mostly gone into the
> margins. More functional blue, perhaps?
>
> Regards,
>
> Martijn

_______________________________________________
Zope-web maillist - Zope-web [at] zope
http://mail.zope.org/mailman/listinfo/zope-web

regebro at gmail

Sep 2, 2006, 6:20 AM

Post #19 of 33 (5510 views)
Permalink

Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Perfect!

(on windows, tested with firefox and ie)
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jens at dataflake

Sep 3, 2006, 4:46 AM

Post #20 of 33 (5477 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

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On 2 Sep 2006, at 14:38, Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:

> http://www.modscape.com/zope
>
> Please let me know of any bugs and what your browsers/os setup is.

Works without any visible flaws under Safari and OmniWeb and looks
very nice, clear and simple. Perfect for a site that is mostly
"static" such as the foundation site.

If it were up to me I'd stop any further niggling unless there are
serious problems with popular browsers and just run with the dang
thing. I fully agree with Tom's previous point that every time we
have some kind of "new design for site X" discussion it's all going
round in circles and then just dies off.

jens

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darryl at darrylcousins

Sep 3, 2006, 9:18 AM

Post #21 of 33 (5480 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Hi Tom,

Bit of a problem with navigation menu in Firefox 1.5.0.4

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060406
Firefox/1.5.0.4 (Debian-1.5.dfsg+1.5.0.4-1)

Sorry I don't have time to debug it.

I have attached a cropped screenshot - somehow text is overlapping. When
I select the text the overlapping doesn't show - also attached cropped
screenshot with selected text.

Nice work and good luck.

Sincere regards,
Darryl

On Sat, 2006-09-02 at 08:38 -0400, Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
> Please let me know of any bugs and what your browsers/os setup is.

Attachments:

Screenshot.png (9.90 KB)

Screenshot-selectedtext.png (8.86 KB)

faassen at infrae

Sep 4, 2006, 1:26 AM

Post #22 of 33 (5494 views)
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Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Hey,

Tom Von Lahndorff wrote:
> http://www.modscape.com/zope
>
> Please let me know of any bugs and what your browsers/os setup is.

Thanks for doing this work.

> Zope Foundation
> Design 1, Version 1
>
> * Try the nav.
> * Updated the colors of the nav to make it stand out more.
> * Added the "extras" box to the top right hand side of the main column.
> * Not going to make a fluid layout because:
> o Trading in having the space on the sides for less control
> over all page layouts. I'm going for functional control in this case
> over a prettier layout.
> o The current page is laid out to work on 800 x 600 and above.
> Most people will view the site at 1024 x 786 or 800 x 600 and not see
> large gaps on the side.

Is 800x600 that common these days?

> o The simple nature of the site means a thinner page is more
> appropriate. Most of the content will be text that is easier to read the
> less wide the page is. This is not some multi column news site that has
> multiple content boxes.

That's too bad; it still looks like a huge amount of screen real estate
is wasted in my browser. More than one third, though granted the screen
on this laptop is wide (but then the browser is windowed). I'd have
preferred something more left-aligned myself, then at least my eyes
aren't drawn into the blue ocean when I start reading. Most sites I open
on my laptop seem to either stretchable (perhaps only to a certain
extent, so text doesn't flow all the way), or leave the empty space on
the right, though there is a minority of sites that are down the middle
like this one, in particular blogger.

I think we could have multiple content boxes by the way, at least for
news items and for "Become a member!". The boxes being flowed inside the
text is not really what I was looking for, and I enjoyed the boxes in
version 3 of design 1.

> * Not going to add a top navigation because:
> o Its inconsistent. The navigation should be in one place.
> period. I find Plone to be confusing and annoying in it's use of
> seperate nav areas. 2 Navs will cause confusion on the front and back
> end of things. Im sticking with a standard left hand navigation based on
> an unordered list that will make sense normally, without a stylesheet,
> on text readers, mobile browsers...

It's good it works in text readers. It's not good it doesn't work in
Firefox 1.5 in linux. :) It still looks bad, exactly like before - the
text just flows into each other making the navigation menu unreadable
and therefore unusable.

I still prefer version 3 of design 1, except for the drop-down nature of
the menus on top. I'd been happy if that just turned into a sidebar on
the left instead of going down this route...

Regards,

Martijn

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regebro at gmail

Sep 4, 2006, 1:47 AM

Post #23 of 33 (5485 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

On 9/4/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
> Is 800x600 that common these days?

Hardly by people that would be interested in Zope, right?

Anyway, I think the important decision here is to make it readable.
And that means that the content column should not fill out the whole
page. On a 1600 pixel widescreen that looks like shit. And the content
column is a good size now, and it looks fine on my 1024 screen. On my
widescreen, it looks weird, but not as weird as it would look with
wider content column.

This design is good. In fact, it's great. If we really want to use up
more screen space, we could move the "extras" to a separate column,
but I like the current way better.

--
Lennart Regebro, Nuxeo http://www.nuxeo.com/
CPS Content Management http://www.cps-project.org/
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jens at dataflake

Sep 4, 2006, 1:54 AM

Post #24 of 33 (5502 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

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On 4 Sep 2006, at 10:26, Martijn Faassen wrote:
>> o Trading in having the space on the sides for less
>> control over all page layouts. I'm going for functional control in
>> this case over a prettier layout.
>> o The current page is laid out to work on 800 x 600 and
>> above. Most people will view the site at 1024 x 786 or 800 x 600
>> and not see large gaps on the side.
>
> Is 800x600 that common these days?

It is very common to have users who will see scrollbars with fixed
1024 width designs. Including me on the 12" iBook. One reason I
normally hate fixed width designs with a passion is because I get
scrollbars, most designs seem to be fixed for 1024 pixel screens.

Here's an example of a fixed width design that was fixed at a width
too big for my screen:

http://www.zope.de/

I can't stand it. Tom made a wise choice. And please don't add
columns to make it wider.

jens

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faassen at infrae

Sep 4, 2006, 1:57 AM

Post #25 of 33 (5474 views)
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Re: Re: website design discussion [In reply to]

Lennart Regebro wrote:
> On 9/4/06, Martijn Faassen <faassen [at] infrae> wrote:
>> Is 800x600 that common these days?
>
> Hardly by people that would be interested in Zope, right?

Trying it again on a 1200x1024 screen, with a window not full-screen so
it's more like 1024 (my usual browser side), I still get sizable blue on
both sides.

> Anyway, I think the important decision here is to make it readable.
> And that means that the content column should not fill out the whole
> page. On a 1600 pixel widescreen that looks like shit. And the content
> column is a good size now, and it looks fine on my 1024 screen. On my
> widescreen, it looks weird, but not as weird as it would look with
> wider content column.

It seems to me we're debating a strawman argument. I don't think anybody
is debating the text should stretch fully. All I am saying: with the
current style, I see a lot of blue that does nothing. I think there are
ways to make this less of a problem:

* make the text area wider. Still fixed, but wider.

* add a sidebar on the left like in version 3 design 1.

* there are ways to make the design flow up to a point, but not all the
way. I don't know how hard this is to accomplish, but I believe I've
seen it done.

> This design is good. In fact, it's great. If we really want to use up
> more screen space, we could move the "extras" to a separate column,
> but I like the current way better.

I'd prefer the extras to be in a separate column indeed, and I like them
as they are in version 3 of design 1.

Regards,

Martijn

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