Rework of the FreeBSD website [was:FreeBSD'sVisualIdentity:Outdated?]

[Chris Zumbrunn]

On Jan 8, 2005, at 3:41 PM, Martin Heinen wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 05, 2005 at 10:46:28AM +0100, Chris Zumbrunn wrote:
>
>> The html versions are now available from the following URLs:
>>
>> http://top.ch/sitedata/freebsd/freebsdweb1e.html
>> http://top.ch/sitedata/freebsd/freebsdweb2e.html
>>
>> How does that look?
>
> I like it, but there are things I don't like:
>
> Removing underlines from hypertext links makes
> it impossible to tell wether a heading in the
> navigation columns is a link or not.  We could
> require that all elements of the navigation
> are links, but I would like links in the running
> text to show normal behaviour (underlined and blue).

Modifications should probably go in the direction of removing the links 
on section titles in the navigation bars, so that the blue color will 
serve as a consistent identifier for links. If it's blue, it's a link. 
If it's not blue, it's not a link.

> Also, we are very good at hiding our search box.
> IMHO, the search box has to be placed in the upper
> right corner.  We could make this corner less crowded
> by shortening "Select a server near you:" to
> "Mirrors".  Then we could place a sufficiently
> large search box (say twenty characters) in that corner.

Yes, that would be a good change to make in my opinion.

> I think, a mix between your work and Simon's work
> (http://simon.nitro.dk/freebsd/webexp/) will look good.
> I would like a header showing the logo, the language
> and mirror selection and maybe the gray navigation bar.
> Below that a two column layout is sufficient,
> moving the leftovers from Simon's approach into the
> text column.

Conceptually, the current FreeBSD isn't really that far from perfect. 
Ultimately, the horizontal navigation could contain links to the main 
sections, the left navigation sidebar could contain an overview of 
these sections with links to the various subsections, the middle column 
would contain advocacy content and the right sidebar would have the 
power to serve all the "important stuff".

Chris