Main site makeover
John Jawed
johnjawed at gmail.com
Sun May 29 00:18:10 PDT 2005
That design is very good. Like I said before, my design is still in it's
early stages, and I've taken time to make it completely in CSS...so it is
easy to implement with current/dynamic content.
I think it's a waste of time to try to keep propogating a small redesign
(you would have to propogate every table property, etc) through the entire
site, and then again do a complete revamp of it. The FreeBSD site has been
up for how long now? I think people have gotten used to it's current look.
If introducing a new look is the idea, then introduce it, not it's watered
down version...just to change it yet again. Consistency is one of the main
goals all software related projects should undertake.
Changing it once with a small redesign, then changing it again with a whole
new redesign, then possibly again, just makes for no consistent behavior.
IMHO, only one change should be to make a move to an all CSS layout.
Dropping these table orientated styles will open many new doors for the
FreeBSD site, including, an easy to port mobile version of the documentation
(imagine getting the help you need properly formatted and easy to read
through your PDA).
Regards
On 5/28/05, Chris Zumbrunn <chris at czv.com> wrote:
>
> On May 29, 2005, at 12:55 AM, Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>
> > On 2005-05-28 11:51, Fafa Hafiz Krantz <fteg at london.com> wrote:
> >>>> What happened to this?
> >>>> http://www.monkey.org/freebsd/archive/freebsd-advocacy/200412/
> >>>> msg00080.html
> >>>>
> >>>> I don't know if these were generated from real HTML/CSS or just
> >>>> created in a graphics editor.
> >>>
> >>> Actually, I've seen a front page that Chris did (I think) that's got
> >>> the nice menu across the top and a really well designed front page.
> >>
> >> I just wanted to point out;
> >>
> >> There's *nothing* new about that design.
> >> It still follows the old principles.
> >
> > It's ok. Small incremental changes are easier to test and accept than
> > a
> > full "throw it all away and use mine" style of update.
> >
> > The site now uses CSS a lot more than before, AFAIK. I'm not a web
> > design guru, but if someone came up with a style that looks like, say,
> > Wikipedia it would be interesting.
> >
> > Any takers who want to try revamping the front page by using *only* CSS
> > style changes?
>
> Yes, that was exactly the idea. There is a version committed in
> Perforce that took that approach and looks like this:
>
> http://czv.com/zones/beastie/freebsd/freebsdweb1h.html
> http://czv.com/zones/beastie/freebsd/freebsdweb2h.html
>
> For now, the logo competition has put a wrench in going live with a
> small redesign like this.
>
> Specially for all the content pages besides the frontpage, it is
> crucial to implement a redesign in a way that is compatible with the
> current way these pages are built. A redesign that requires changes
> beyond that will take forever to implement. What many don't seem to
> understand is that the technical implementation of the design and the
> design itself are two different things. They can't both happen at the
> same time.
>
> Changing the technical implementation will be a slow process that
> requires a long term transition without changing the design at the same
> time. The redesign itself is something that is implemented within the
> existing technical framework and can be switched live at once.
>
> I still argue that we need to first switch a small redesign live within
> the current technical framework, then change the technical framework
> (which will require updates to the markup of all the pages in the www
> cvs tree for all the languages) and only after that we can undertake a
> major redesign entirely based on CSS definitions.
>
> Going a bit farther with just the frontpage is possible as long as it
> is in line with the initially simple changes that can be made to the
> content pages. For example Devon's div-based markup with the dynamic
> menues that is currently in Perforce:
>
> http://czv.com/zones/beastie/freebsd/freebsdweb1j.gif
>
> Cheers, Chris
>
> chris at czv.com +41 329 41 41 41
> Chris Zumbrunn Ventures - http://www.czv.com/
> Internet Application Technology - Reduced to the Maximum
>
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--
John Jawed
Zend Certified Software Engineer
MySQL AB Certified Developer
http://www.johnjawed.com
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/MySQLi
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