Hi!
Before we continue to develop two quite differnet desings, I'd suggest to
take a small stop in further designing, to decide on some basic ideas.
I allready wrote quite a long mail, but then dumped it, because only during
writing I could find what the real problem was:
Should we design a great-looking page using "dirty tricks" or should we
design a nice-looking page without dirty tricks.
I'm asking this because I think that Allan's last design (the two gifs)
really looks great, but I don't think we can implement it without "dirty
tricks" (i.e. misusing HTML for stuff it's not inteded to do) (The design
can shurly be implementd CSS-only, but it won't work on old browsers then)
It is rather impossoble to answer this question without defining the goal of
perl.apache.org
Should it be:
* a collection of documentations
* a hangout for developers
* a advocacy site
* a place to sell books
* ???
Depending on this desicion (which also defines the main target group) we can
decide what desing to implement.
If you look at the size of the various parts of the page, it comes clear,
that most of the content is documentation/tips/tricks, some is advocacy,
very little is selling books, and nothing is hangout.
So, leave the hangout to #modperl IRC.
Leave the bookselling to the author's pages.
Which leaves us with tons of documentation and some advocacy.
At least from my impression of the mod_perl mailing list, the guide is a
very often and heavily used tool by mod_perl uses (or actually, as most
questions are answered with "read the guide", it should be...).
So IMO the most important function of perl.apache.org should be to provide
an easy, fast and simple interface to the docs. (the "Documentation" section)
The second most important function should be to make it ease for newcomers
to install mod_perl. (The "Download" section)
Then, how to use the mailing list (and maybe how to behave there) ("Mailing
Lists")
Products, Support, Technologie, Statisics is the stuff to show your boss to
convice him/her to use mod_perl.
It seems to me that the site is mostly used by techies, who don't really
care about fancy desings, nice buttons etc, but for fast and easy access to
the stuff they want (that's at least true for me)
So, my conclusion:
While I find Allan's design very nice and cool, I think it doesn't mix to
well with a target group of techies; or, maybe better said: it provides a
very nice look, that nobody asks for.
I suggest using a simpler, basic desing, without all those fancy lines and
boxes, thats still nice-looking and working on all browsers.
I think my last design
http://domm.zsi.at/modperl-site-domm/
reaches this goal quite good from the HTML-CSS view, while it can definitly
be made better with regards to colors, headings, widgets...
What do you think? I only would like to stop working in two more or less
different directions.
I've just had another sort of interesting idea:
What about splitting the site in two parts, each with it's own URL.
perl.apache.org stays what it is now (stuff for the techie)
another page (maybe whoever owns modperl.org can be persuaded to donate the
URL) get the "advocacy site". We could make a really goodlooking design
(like Allans) for this site, targeted at non-techies and to convice them
that mod_perl is the best platform for webbased apps.
The content of both sites could be generated with DocSet, it could even be
(partly) shared. Maybe the advocacy site will need some more content writing
(will be hard to fing someone to do this...).
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