A lot of negativism here ... :o)
sorry about that. Hope you can put it to productive use in some way :-D
Safari on OS X 10.3.4 (or so, whatever the latest version is): * horizontal scrollbar (on a 1024x768 screen) on all pages (apparently caused by the right-aligned menu)
I have almost concluded it is almost impossible to be pixel perfect on every browser, for instance it looks extremely bad on non-CSS (1 or2?) compatible browsers.
indeed. This has little to do with pixel-perfection though. I'll bet ya that the scrollbar is still there on a 2000x10000 pixel screen. I really really hate horizontal scrollbars.
I think it is still a lot better than for instance the Cocoon, Gump and other Forrest generated sites, which produce pixel sensitive sites (for instance shows up crap on my system).
agreed.
However, safari is pretty much css-compatible. I suspect you are mixing CSS-P and CSS 2 positioning composition models or something like that, and this causes some problems. In this case, probably a margin which you assume is collapsed because of a float:right but that isn't actually the case across browsers...or something like that.
* text inside tables is HUGE, for example in the table inside central/legacy/index.html the fonts look like 14pt or 15pts
That is why I have the http://nagoya.apache.org/jira/browse/CENTRAL-1.
The point size is 12pt (nothing to do with pixels), which should show in your screen as 'normal reading size', i.e. what most books are printed in.
Unfortunately, it seems there are many systems out there that ends up un-calibrated by the Browser + OS + DIsplay driver + Monitor physical size, and that fact has accelerated the detoriation of the 'point system', and some new inofficial "standard" is emerging.
somehow I doubt apple has problems with that, as the GUI is all PDF-based and they cater to a lot of designers :-D
briefly looking at the CSS, I think you need to change the line
body {to
body, td {there's a lot of browsers out there (including NS4 and IE4, IIRC), which attach some "default CSS" to several elements, including TABLE and TD. This is because the transition from HTML 4.0 to XHTML 1.1 Strict+CSS was not fully specified, and everyone had to make up some rules of their own. In this case, most CSS formatting elements are cleared as you enter a TD element. I think W3C does have a page on that now.
IMHO, this is a very sad development, and I don't know how to deal with it.
most big sites deal with it by having a test farm and just trying stuff out. You get better with experience. The ASF is likely to have a virtual farm (using vmware) within a few months, btw.
> I now feel we are back to "Rule of Thumb" and we
are measuring against the thumb of Bill Gates & Co.
well, actually, if you put IE6 in "strict" mode (by using xhtml 1.1 strict IIRC), it is by far the most standards-conformant browser out there.
I don't see this as a problem. How big change is 'allowed'.
there's no guidelines there. Use your own judgement. Think about what you want to do and if you're accomplishing it. A "rule of thumb" in UI design is that you should do what users expect. And that does mean following bill gates & co.
Is it all about moving the menu to the right?
it is about size, ordering, location, availability and behaviour of UI elements, the website structure, etc.
That is not a "Look" issue (see Subject line). You are now into 'organization of content', which is a different concern (SoC).
yep.
You're doing a radical rewrite of everything here, at the same time.
I disagree. If you are only making incremental chagnes to something 'better", you will either not be able to reach a goal, or have something much worse on the way. i.e. If you are on a local maximum, you can't reach an ultimate maximum with reduction of your achieved altitude.
:-D. Now you're speaking my language...if we have orthogonal concerns here you should be able to radically change along only one axis of the concern space, achieve your global maximum there, without changing anything on the other axes.
The fact that this is not possible indicates we do not have orthogonal concerns at all! What is the relationships between these concerns?
Start with just changing the
look of the current site (not the menu items or navigational structure),
iron out the bugs and "release", incorporate feedback and "release",
set up the first bit of the new structure "central" or "portal" or
"planet" or whatever idea you have here and "release".
Isn't this what I am doing?
from my end of the net it doesn't look that way. Perceptions, perceptions...
I am producing a new look. But since the navigation of the look has some important pieces they are need in there from the beginning. The existing content has been brought into that look 'as-is', site->central, various product materials -> products and stuff that are not at all up to date -> central/legacy.
Doing that, is what you say should be done, and few paragraphs higher up, you are heavily criticizing "content organization" (which have barely changed beyond the 'central', 'products', 'planet' leader).
Sorry, but the criticism is not at all consistent.
hmm. Could very well be. But when I look at the site it seems as if "everything" has moved. This is definately not an objective observation (I haven't measured movement of anything), but it doesn't have to be. The subjective feedback is probably more important for you than the objective feedback (since you can figure out and analyze the raw data by yourself).
The perception could be because the menu moved, or because the colors changed, or because stuff actually moved. I still can't find the download link, so its probably a little of both.
What happened to your hippie/revolutionary culture?
soaked it in various alcoholic drinks.
maybe you want to talk to a web usability person and sit next to him as he runs through the site.
That is mostly 'content organization' and somewhat a later concern.
and here's our disagreement :-D
You start with making something useful, then you make it pretty. The pretty stuff you pour in is poured in to make the useful stuff easier and more fun to use.
Making something less useful for the sake of aesthetics is "not done" in my take on web design ;)
anyways, wrapping up, I thought you were looking for feedback in general, which turned out to not be entirely true. So disregard most of my comments (or save them for later) and continue your revolution ;)
cheers,
- LSD
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