new FreeBSD-webpage

[Claus Guttesen]

Hey.

Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
Nice work.

regards
Claus
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new FreeBSD-webpage

[Rodrigo OSORIO]

> Hey.
> 
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.


although this new page is a total breaktrough in the unix like design 
Emily does a good job, I like the new homepage
Here the proposals made for the summer of code :
http://www.emilyboyd.com/design/freebsd/homepage_proposal.png
http://www.emilyboyd.com/design/freebsd/secondpage_proposal.png


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[zhiqian Da]

$FreeBSD: www/en/index.xsl,v 1.129 2005/10/05 21:46:34
 
! it's perfect
delphij Exp $


2005/10/6, Claus Guttesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Hey.
>
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.
>
> regards
> Claus
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>
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Alexander S. Usov]

Claus Guttesen wrote:

> Hey.
> 
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.

There are however some small bugs:
if you will press a textsize link in conqueror, then the main menu goes
nuts. The fixed-size columns on the front page aren't wide enough for me
and "FreeBSD-SA-05:20.cvsbug" happens to wider than the column it is in.

And in general, I have already heard from quite a lot of people today that
the old design was quite authentic and recognizable, while the new one
looks as a quite standard portal.

-- 
Best regards,
  Alexander.

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Peter Jeremy]

It's definitely a totally different look.  At this stage, I'd say
that I prefer the old site - but that's a very personal opinion and
is at least partially based on familiarity.  I'm disappointed that
the daemon has gone from the top banner.

I'd suggest that the most important feature that is missing is a
website map.  The website looks nothing like it used to and many of my
commonly referenced links are no longer on the home page.  Finding my
way around is going to be very time consuming until I learn my way
around it.

On the positive side, I'm glad that it's still usable with a text
browser.  On the downside, I notice it now uses cookies.
-- 
Peter Jeremy
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Joao Barros]

On 10/6/05, Claus Guttesen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hey.
>
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.
>
> regards
> Claus

I'd say the launch of the new website should show up in "Latest news" ;)

--
Joao Barros
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Julian H. Stacey]

Peter Jeremy wrote:
> It's definitely a totally different look.  At this stage, I'd say
> that I prefer the old site

Me Too. New one is dead boring, not colourful, & much boring real
estate given on the prime left column to the mega yawn of "New
commiter" "New commiter" "New commiter" Really boring that, except
to insiders. Front page should list reasons to stay & click further,
not be so boring & drab people on lunch break type http:/greenpeace.org
instead for something interesting to read.

>  - but that's a very personal opinion and
> is at least partially based on familiarity.  I'm disappointed that
> the daemon has gone from the top banner.
> 
> I'd suggest that the most important feature that is missing is a
> website map.  The website looks nothing like it used to and many of my
> commonly referenced links are no longer on the home page.  Finding my
> way around is going to be very time consuming until I learn my way
> around it.

Unfortunate if many of us would need to relearn a new structure &
edit our own pages (which many won't get round to) to point different
places just for the same old data in a reshuffled new struct.
A pity that mass waste of time wasn't latched discussed & avoided by
[EMAIL PROTECTED], where web design is supposed to be discussed.

> browser.  On the downside, I notice it now uses cookies.

Cookie Filth !? Beyond Mailman/ list subs ? On principle lots of
BSD die hards run cookies java flash & other crap turned Off.

-- 
Julian Stacey.  Consultant Unix Net & Sys. Eng., Munich.  http://berklix.com
Mail Ascii not HTML.  Ihr Rauch = meine allergischen Kopfschmerzen.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Yann Golanski]

Quoth Julian H. Stacey on Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 16:47:46 +0200
> Me Too. New one is dead boring, not colourful, & much boring real
> estate given on the prime left column to the mega yawn of "New
> commiter" "New commiter" "New commiter" Really boring that, except
> to insiders. 

Well, I like the new design very much.

It's simpler and has less wha on the front page.  The top bar thingy
gives you a nice and clear menu to find more information and has a
search box well visible.  You can scan the whole page in a short time
which is good.  Web page where you get 100 links are useless. 

How about a pool?...Or better yet, get a lot of CSS goodness and have
lots of themes... Or maybe not... *grins evilly*

> Front page should list reasons to stay & click further,

I think that one does.  *shrugs* You cannot please everyone I guess.

To be honest, the news section is a bit long.  I don't think that the
"New Committer" is newsworthy but that's just me.  Maybe do a once a
month annoucement?

> > browser.  On the downside, I notice it now uses cookies.
> 
> Cookie Filth !? Beyond Mailman/ list subs ? On principle lots of
> BSD die hards run cookies java flash & other crap turned Off.

So what?  No cookie, page still loads hence no bother.

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  -=*=-  www.kierun.org
PGP:   009D 7287 C4A7 FD4F 1680  06E4 F751 7006 9DE2 6318


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Ben Kelly]

On Thursday 06 October 2005 5:25 am, Claus Guttesen wrote:
> Hey.
>
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.

Overall I like the new site a lot.

I did find a broken link however.  On:

http://www.freebsd.org/community/newsgroups.html

The first "newsgroups" link in the text looks like it is missing a leading 
slash.

>
> regards
> Claus
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Marwan Burelle]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:00:53PM +0100, Yann Golanski wrote:
> Well, I like the new design very much.

It's only a matter of taste ... I don't like it ...

> It's simpler and has less wha on the front page.  The top bar thingy
> gives you a nice and clear menu to find more information and has a
> search box well visible.  You can scan the whole page in a short
> time which is good.  Web page where you get 100 links are useless.

I think one can find a good compromise between the new "portal-like"
site and the old one.

I don't like an upper navigation bar, simply because every thing on a
computer screen just work like that (your browser have all its control
on the top, most desktop have a task bar on the bottom of screen
and/or a menu on the top) and the available vertical space for the
real content is very short. Having a side-bar was a fine way to manage
this space ...

Another point on the design : this web-site looks like other
"vertically centered and lost in the middle of my huge monitor"
web-site that you find on the web, again, monitor are wider than
taller, why restrain horizontal space ?

But, this is a bike-shed discussion ...

> So what?  No cookie, page still loads hence no bother.

The real question is : why the site needs cookies ?


-- 
Burelle Marwan,
Equipe Bases de Donnees - LRI
http://www.cduce.org
([EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED])

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Freddie Cash]

On October 6, 2005 02:25 am, Claus Guttesen wrote:
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new
> look! Nice work.

Other than the main page, which is very different from the rest of the 
site, it looks really nice.  Very easy to find information, consistent 
look, nice colours.

Odd to see newbies used so predominantly, though.

Overall, very impressive.  Very professional looking, very clean.

Now I have to redo all my bookmarks.  :)

-- 
Freddie Cash
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Bill Vermillion]

On or about Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 12:01 , while attempting a 
Zarathustra emulation [EMAIL PROTECTED] thus spake:

> Message: 12
> From: Peter Jeremy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

> It's definitely a totally different look.  At this stage, I'd say
> that I prefer the old site - but that's a very personal opinion and
> is at least partially based on familiarity.  I'm disappointed that
> the daemon has gone from the top banner.

> I'd suggest that the most important feature that is missing is a
> website map.  The website looks nothing like it used to and many of my
> commonly referenced links are no longer on the home page.  Finding my
> way around is going to be very time consuming until I learn my way
> around it.

> On the positive side, I'm glad that it's still usable with a text
> browser.  On the downside, I notice it now uses cookies.

Well if you like the old site just try this:

http://www.freebsd.org/old

Bill
-- 
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Tuomo Latto]

Alexander S. Usov wrote:
>>Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
...
> And in general, I have already heard from quite a lot of people today that
> the old design was quite authentic and recognizable, while the new one
> looks as a quite standard portal.

Yecch. All ugly and businesslike. This is what you'd expect from
all sorts of companies that are all marketing and no information.


You'd expect popups from the links on the top (they look like that
sort of links), but none seem to appear and I've just wasted time
waiting for them to appear.
BTW, I pretty much hate popups because they seldom work
properly and they always seem kind of sluggish. Only thing that's
worse than having to use them is having something that looks like
them but is not.


A lot of stuff has been removed from plain sight which means
more clicking and scrolling and searching and waiting.
Oh yes, let's all start burying information..

Having some of the information hidden in plain sight is a nice
touch. I mean that release stuff and "shortcuts".
The marketing BS filter behind my eyes blocks most of the content
on the site pretty well as it is but that release stuff and
"shortcuts" seem to have been designed to get filtered out.
It actually requires me conscious effort to read them.


With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.


Have you tried it with lynx?
Lynx Version 2.8.5rel.1 (04 Feb 2004) doesn't seem to handle XML,
so when you're in a pinch with your fw/gw machine that doesn't have
X installed and you quickly need to access eg. some documentation
on the site, you're out of luck.


The old one was better.


-- 
Tuomo

... Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student.
At least they can find Afghanistan.-- A. Whitney Brown

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Scott Long]

Tuomo Latto wrote:

Alexander S. Usov wrote:


Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!


...


And in general, I have already heard from quite a lot of people today that
the old design was quite authentic and recognizable, while the new one
looks as a quite standard portal.



Yecch. All ugly and businesslike. This is what you'd expect from
all sorts of companies that are all marketing and no information.


You'd expect popups from the links on the top (they look like that
sort of links), but none seem to appear and I've just wasted time
waiting for them to appear.
BTW, I pretty much hate popups because they seldom work
properly and they always seem kind of sluggish. Only thing that's
worse than having to use them is having something that looks like
them but is not.


A lot of stuff has been removed from plain sight which means
more clicking and scrolling and searching and waiting.
Oh yes, let's all start burying information..

Having some of the information hidden in plain sight is a nice
touch. I mean that release stuff and "shortcuts".
The marketing BS filter behind my eyes blocks most of the content
on the site pretty well as it is but that release stuff and
"shortcuts" seem to have been designed to get filtered out.
It actually requires me conscious effort to read them.


With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.


Have you tried it with lynx?
Lynx Version 2.8.5rel.1 (04 Feb 2004) doesn't seem to handle XML,
so when you're in a pinch with your fw/gw machine that doesn't have
X installed and you quickly need to access eg. some documentation
on the site, you're out of luck.



I tried it with lynx, links, camino, opera, safari, and mozilla.  All
rendered nicely.  It even rendered acceptably on my Treo650.

Can't please 100% of the people 100% of the time.

Scott
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dave Fazio]

In my opinion, this page will help popularize FreeBSD more than the
older (adding graphical installer would help too -- hint hint).

Usability may be another question--not sure. Maybe keep going down this
road, and take the best of both versions?



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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Ben Kelly]

On Thursday 06 October 2005 5:55 am, Alexander S. Usov wrote:
> Claus Guttesen wrote:
> > Hey.
> >
> > Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> > Nice work.
>
> There are however some small bugs:
> if you will press a textsize link in conqueror, then the main menu goes
> nuts.

I noticed the textsize links disappeared from the main page, but still show up 
when you go to one of the others pages from the menu bar links.

> The fixed-size columns on the front page aren't wide enough for me 
> and "FreeBSD-SA-05:20.cvsbug" happens to wider than the column it is in.
>
> And in general, I have already heard from quite a lot of people today that
> the old design was quite authentic and recognizable, while the new one
> looks as a quite standard portal.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Bartosz Fabianowski]

monitor are wider than taller, why restrain horizontal space ?


A fixed width design is very fashionable these days and you see it creeping up 
everywhere. It's what's considered "professional" these days, so I can't really 
blame anybody trying to appear professional for choosing it. But I still think that this 
is a bad trend. On my wide screen laptop, 50% of the screen are wasted blank space.

- Bartosz
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dan Ponte]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 08:22:06PM +0300, Tuomo Latto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was 
witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> Alexander S. Usov wrote:
> >>Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> ...
> > And in general, I have already heard from quite a lot of people today that
> > the old design was quite authentic and recognizable, while the new one
> > looks as a quite standard portal.
> 
> Yecch. All ugly and businesslike. This is what you'd expect from
> all sorts of companies that are all marketing and no information.
> 
> 
> You'd expect popups from the links on the top (they look like that
> sort of links), but none seem to appear and I've just wasted time
> waiting for them to appear.
> BTW, I pretty much hate popups because they seldom work
> properly and they always seem kind of sluggish. Only thing that's
> worse than having to use them is having something that looks like
> them but is not.
> 
> 
> A lot of stuff has been removed from plain sight which means
> more clicking and scrolling and searching and waiting.
> Oh yes, let's all start burying information..
> 
> Having some of the information hidden in plain sight is a nice
> touch. I mean that release stuff and "shortcuts".
> The marketing BS filter behind my eyes blocks most of the content
> on the site pretty well as it is but that release stuff and
> "shortcuts" seem to have been designed to get filtered out.
> It actually requires me conscious effort to read them.
> 
> 
> With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
> I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.
> 
> 
> Have you tried it with lynx?
> Lynx Version 2.8.5rel.1 (04 Feb 2004) doesn't seem to handle XML,
> so when you're in a pinch with your fw/gw machine that doesn't have
> X installed and you quickly need to access eg. some documentation
> on the site, you're out of luck.
> 
> 
> The old one was better.
> 
> 
I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
(scrolling all over the place).
-Dan
-- 
Dan Ponte
http://www.theamigan.net/
It is only people of small moral stature who have to stand on their
dignity.


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Chris]

I think it's refreshing to see a new look, this is one is more current. 
I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't display so well in Dillo. It was 
great not having to start firefox just to see a bit of documentation. 
Well you can still get there it just needs a bit more clicking and 
scrolling.


Ah I've just checked in firefox and part of the handbook prob is that 
the link is no longer on the front page. I would vote for documentation 
back on the front page.


Chris
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Matthias Buelow]

Tuomo Latto wrote:

>Yecch. All ugly and businesslike. This is what you'd expect from
>all sorts of companies that are all marketing and no information.

At least the.. uhm.. rustic-looking UGU button is gone. ;)

mkb.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Matthias Buelow]

Yann Golanski wrote:

>Well, I like the new design very much.
>It's simpler and has less wha on the front page.  The top bar thingy

I also like the design better than the old one; congrats to the people
who did it.  It's more compact, it fits on one page (no need to scroll),
it's clearly laid out and it doesn't look as if done by a hungover
sysadmin in his lunch break.  And it is viewable even in lynx.  Of
course, some people will always complain about change.  ;)

Someone has mentioned popup-menus that one typically expects from the
menubar-like area at the top.  That might be a good idea.  Most
commercial sites have that, when they have an element that looks like
this, so people might expect the FreeBSD page to work like that aswell.

All in all: well done.

mkb.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Kris Kennaway]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:

> I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> (scrolling all over the place).

Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
system.

Kris


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Ben Kelly]

On Thursday 06 October 2005 5:25 am, Claus Guttesen wrote:
> Hey.
>
> Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> Nice work.

While I like the new design, I think the mailing list page is a little 
confusing.  There is a prominent section for finding the archives, but no 
"subscribe" button.  You either have to know that mailman archives will let 
you do that or find your way through the underlined "Mailing List" text.  

Also, I found it confusing that while I had gone to the "mailing list page" I 
had to descend another level through another "mailing list" link to actually 
see the list.

Anyway, it might be nice to add a "Subscribe" link to one of these two pages:

http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/eresources.html#ERESOURCES-MAIL

>
> regards
> Claus
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dan Ponte]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:33:26PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was 
witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> 
> > I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> > is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> > and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> > the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> > (scrolling all over the place).
> 
> Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
> website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
> system.
> 
> Kris
I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
seen it as the former.
-Dan
-- 
Dan Ponte
http://www.theamigan.net/
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the
law free.
-- Henry David Thoreau


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Kris Kennaway]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:37:01PM -0400, Ben Kelly wrote:
> On Thursday 06 October 2005 5:25 am, Claus Guttesen wrote:
> > Hey.
> >
> > Just pointed firefox to freebsd.org and I was greeted with a new look!
> > Nice work.
> 
> While I like the new design, I think the mailing list page is a little 
> confusing.  There is a prominent section for finding the archives, but no 
> "subscribe" button.  You either have to know that mailman archives will let 
> you do that or find your way through the underlined "Mailing List" text.  
> 
> Also, I found it confusing that while I had gone to the "mailing list page" I 
> had to descend another level through another "mailing list" link to actually 
> see the list.
> 
> Anyway, it might be nice to add a "Subscribe" link to one of these two pages:
> 
> http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo
> http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/eresources.html#ERESOURCES-MAIL

Thanks for the suggestion, but you should talk to www@

Kris


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Kris Kennaway]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:37:40PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:33:26PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> > On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> > 
> > > I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> > > is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> > > and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> > > the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> > > (scrolling all over the place).
> > 
> > Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
> > website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
> > system.
> > 
> > Kris
> I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
> the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
> disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
> seen it as the former.

If you think the new design truly puts you at some kind of
disadvantage, you should formulate constructive ideas for how to fix
that.

Kris


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Greg Barniskis]

Dan Ponte (>) [with help from some others (>>)] wrote:


A lot of stuff has been removed from plain sight which means
more clicking and scrolling and searching and waiting.
Oh yes, let's all start burying information..


I personally didn't have any problems grokking the new layout or
finding anything I thought to look for.



With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.


This part I'd agree with. Too much white space around main content
leads to too much scrolling. Let the text flow as wide as the user
decides to; switch to %-based widths, not absolute pixel widths (the
flip side of too much white space in a wide window is that the text
don't wrap in a narrow window. ouch.). Observations made in Firefox.



The old one was better.


I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,


Can't disagree with these statements more. The old way, while rich,
seemed way too densely packed. I think the changes should make it
easier to zero in on what's needed, even if some content is one or
two clicks deeper than it used to be. I doubt the primary goal here
was to appear trendy.

Thanks, Contributors!


Now, if only the site Search worked better... ah well, there's 
always http://www.google.com/bsd


--
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
, (608) 266-6348

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Kris Kennaway]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:49:31PM -0500, Greg Barniskis wrote:

> Now, if only the site Search worked better... ah well, there's 
> always http://www.google.com/bsd

Yeah..it would be great if someone could come up with a better search
system.

Kris


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dan Ponte]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:49:04PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was 
witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:37:40PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:33:26PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
> > was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> > > On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> > > 
> > > > I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> > > > is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> > > > and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> > > > the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> > > > (scrolling all over the place).
> > > 
> > > Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
> > > website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
> > > system.
> > > 
> > > Kris
> > I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
> > the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
> > disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
> > seen it as the former.
> 
> If you think the new design truly puts you at some kind of
> disadvantage, you should formulate constructive ideas for how to fix
> that.
> 
> Kris
It certainly does put me at a disadvantage; see the statements made by
the earlier author.

One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's needs
just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.
-Dan
-- 
Dan Ponte
http://www.theamigan.net/
Warning: Do not look directly into laser with remaining eye.


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dan Ponte]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:49:31PM -0500, Greg Barniskis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> Dan Ponte (>) [with help from some others (>>)] wrote:
> 
> >>A lot of stuff has been removed from plain sight which means
> >>more clicking and scrolling and searching and waiting.
> >>Oh yes, let's all start burying information..
> 
> I personally didn't have any problems grokking the new layout or
> finding anything I thought to look for.
> 
> 
> >>With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
> 
> This part I'd agree with. Too much white space around main content
> leads to too much scrolling. Let the text flow as wide as the user
> decides to; switch to %-based widths, not absolute pixel widths (the
> flip side of too much white space in a wide window is that the text
> don't wrap in a narrow window. ouch.). Observations made in Firefox.
> 
> 
> >>The old one was better.
> >>
> >I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> >is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> 
> Can't disagree with these statements more. The old way, while rich,
> seemed way too densely packed. I think the changes should make it
> easier to zero in on what's needed, even if some content is one or
> two clicks deeper than it used to be. I doubt the primary goal here
> was to appear trendy.

Well, it certainly seems as if that was one of the goals, seeing how the
new site uses quite a few new webdesign concepts that came into
existence in the past few years, while providing little benefit in the
way of content or usability.

> Thanks, Contributors!
> 
> 
> Now, if only the site Search worked better... ah well, there's 
> always http://www.google.com/bsd
> 
-Dan
-- 
Dan Ponte
http://www.theamigan.net/
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also in prison.
-- Henry David Thoreau


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Kris Kennaway]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 06:15:41PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:

> > > > > I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> > > > > is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new 
> > > > > users,
> > > > > and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> > > > > the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> > > > > (scrolling all over the place).
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
> > > > website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
> > > > system.
> > > > 
> > > > Kris
> > > I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
> > > the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
> > > disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
> > > seen it as the former.
> > 
> > If you think the new design truly puts you at some kind of
> > disadvantage, you should formulate constructive ideas for how to fix
> > that.
> > 
> > Kris
> It certainly does put me at a disadvantage; see the statements made by
> the earlier author.

About elinks?  That can probably be optimized.  It's certainly not
clear this is a fundamental problem.

> One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's needs
> just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.

Right, because I said "constructive" and that would be the very
opposite.

Kris


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 06:15:41PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's needs
> just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.

Uhm, it didn't suit people's needs just fine.  It was total crap with
dozens of disorganized links all over the front page and second level
pages topping 100k as they had just grown larger and larger over time
and noone had stepped back to look at how bad it all was for someone
coming to the site for the first time to find any useful information.
I've had so many people ask 'where did all that new content come from
about advocacy and such?'.  The answer is it was there before just
hidden in the complexity.

This is not the appropriate forum for armchair web design discussions.
If you are interested in tweaking the new design then join the -www@
list.  Better yet, you could have participated in the redesign
discussions there over the past 6 months.  Patches will be addressed
first.  Second will be specific suggestions about regressions in
useability (many have been fixed within hours of being brought up on
the www@ list).  I doubt you'll find anyone interested in acting on
any 'I liked it better before' mails.

Thanks for Kris and others on this list trying to keep things specific
and constructive.  Let's let this thread die on stable@ and move it to
www@ where it belongs.

- Murray
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
> is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
> and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
> the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
> (scrolling all over the place).

Useability in text-mode browsers is a requirement for www.freebsd.org.
Your email is not helpful, however.  Please send a more
specific/constructive message about what part of the HTML or CSS you
want changed, which text-mode browsers have the problem, etc.  Send
that mail to the appropriate list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.

Thanks!

- Murray
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[martin hudec]

Hello Dan,

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 06:15:41PM -0400 or thereabouts, Dan Ponte wrote:
> It certainly does put me at a disadvantage; see the statements made by
> the earlier author.
> 
> One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's needs
> just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.

  Well, why do you think that old design suited people's needs better
  than the new one? Did you sit ~10 of your friends with various life
  and professional backgrounds in front of desktop and did you give them
  few tasks (find man page about blabla, find certain mailinglist, etc.)
  just to see how they behave while browsing *both* sites, old one and
  new one, and did you make observations how long did these tasks take
  them, how did they achieve the results, what were their feelings etc?

  I don't think so. 

  What I think is that you are pretty much used to old design.. and we
  all know that old habits die hard :).. Why I say this? Because I see
  feedbacks like yours all the time some site is being redesigned and
  people are too much shocked by sudden change than to be able to find
  something positive about it.

have a nice evening,
  
-- 
martin hudec


   * 421 907 303 393
   * [EMAIL PROTECTED]
   * http://www.aeternal.net

"Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible 
exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws."

   Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:18:54PM +0200, Marwan Burelle wrote:
> I don't like an upper navigation bar, simply because every thing on a
> computer screen just work like that (your browser have all its control
> on the top, most desktop have a task bar on the bottom of screen
> and/or a menu on the top) and the available vertical space for the
> real content is very short. Having a side-bar was a fine way to manage
> this space ...

We didn't have a side-bar, we had two, and they both had dozens of
links which was far too many and we've had people over and over again
prove that they lose links in the noise.  "How do I get to the release
engineering page?" "How do I get to the projects page" All of these
were on those side-bars but they were completely overloaded and nobody
could find anything on them.

  - Murray

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 09:48:09PM +0100, Chris wrote:
> I think it's refreshing to see a new look, this is one is more current. 
> I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't display so well in Dillo. It was 
> great not having to start firefox just to see a bit of documentation. 
> Well you can still get there it just needs a bit more clicking and 
> scrolling.
> 
> Ah I've just checked in firefox and part of the handbook prob is that 
> the link is no longer on the front page. I would vote for documentation 
> back on the front page.

Sending it to this list is like "voting" in a presidential election by
only talking about politics at the barber shop.  Please submit
patches, file PRs, or participate on the freebsd-www@ forum if you are
really interested in this.

There is a 'Documentation' link prominently on the main page, so you
need to be a lot more specific about what you want if you want
anything to be done about it.  You'll see the FAQ is in the Shortcuts
menu, bypassing the second level Documentation page.  A link to the
Handbook might very well be needed there as well, but it's hard to
tell if that's what you are proposing from your vague email.  Follow
ups to [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Thanks,

 - Murray
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Greg Barniskis]

Dan Ponte wrote:


I doubt the primary goal here
was to appear trendy.



Well, it certainly seems as if that was one of the goals, seeing how the
new site uses quite a few new webdesign concepts that came into
existence in the past few years, while providing little benefit in the
way of content or usability.


well, usability is not an entirely objective measure, but there are 
objective aspects to it. Like, not having to scroll to find crucial 
navigation links and the Search box, or to see what the latest 
security advisory was. Like, reducing 20-30 headings in big "stacks" 
to clearly bounded clusters of "7 +/- 2", fostering rapid 
understanding. I think usability is measurably up.


I suppose in sense it does break down in a way that the old site was 
"more usable" for experts (usable once one had studied on it awhile, 
that is), while the new layout might be more usable for newbies. But 
that doesn't mean it was "for newbies". I like it, and I've been 
poking at the web site for a decade now. I was put off for maybe 15 
secs the first time I looked at it, then I started to accept and 
appreciate (aw, who can resist that big smilin' Beastie ;).


It's got some quirks. I'm seeing some more things suffer from fixed 
widths (and fixed heights, like the mirror selector widget -- px is 
just not the most user-friendly unit of measure), but the path it's 
on seems a good one. Like Kris said, if you've got a specific 
problem, constructively suggest a specific solution (other than just 
reverting).



--
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
, (608) 266-6348
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dan Ponte]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 03:42:14PM -0700, Murray Stokely <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 06:15:41PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> > One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's needs
> > just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.
> 
> Uhm, it didn't suit people's needs just fine.  It was total crap with
> dozens of disorganized links all over the front page and second level
> pages topping 100k as they had just grown larger and larger over time
> and noone had stepped back to look at how bad it all was for someone
> coming to the site for the first time to find any useful information.
> I've had so many people ask 'where did all that new content come from
> about advocacy and such?'.  The answer is it was there before just
> hidden in the complexity.
> 
> This is not the appropriate forum for armchair web design discussions.
> If you are interested in tweaking the new design then join the -www@
> list.  Better yet, you could have participated in the redesign
> discussions there over the past 6 months.  Patches will be addressed
> first.  Second will be specific suggestions about regressions in
> useability (many have been fixed within hours of being brought up on
> the www@ list).  I doubt you'll find anyone interested in acting on
> any 'I liked it better before' mails.
> 
> Thanks for Kris and others on this list trying to keep things specific
> and constructive.  Let's let this thread die on stable@ and move it to
> www@ where it belongs.
> 
> - Murray
Admittedly, having some of the more obscure pages come into plain view
is a nice thing. However, I am speaking mostly of the increase in number
of clicks it takes to get to frequently-visited pages. And the new
"look" is another thing I have a few gripes with. I guess the good thing
to do would be to take this up on www, per your suggestion. Ultimately,
the goal is to make things better; I just didn't feel that the current
ways of doing things are the best means to that end.
-Dan
-- 
Dan Ponte
http://www.theamigan.net/
Economists state their GNP growth projections to the nearest tenth of a
percentage point to prove they have a sense of humor.
-- Edgar R. Fiedler


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Julian H. Stacey]

Bill Vermillion wrote:
> Well if you like the old site just try this:
> http://www.freebsd.org/old

Thanks for the URL.
  I've changed my include file to regenerate footers on the 280 web
  pages I maintain to ref. the good `old' URL.  If others
  do that, the page hit counters may tell the boys what's wanted.

  If the new mess is copied from the top page to also be under
  /new/, page counters have a real chance of indicating to maintainers
  what's wanted, by authors who choose to cross ref to freebsd.org.

This new so called `professional style' is style over substance:
"LATEST NEWS" is a joke: They're advertising (bottom left)
2005-09-07 FreeBSD 6.0-BETA4 Available
Not adding 6.0-BETA5 that's been out 17 days or so - Sep 19 04:50
  ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/6.0/ 

-- 
Julian Stacey.  Consultant Unix Net & Sys. Eng., Munich.  http://berklix.com
Mail Ascii not HTML.  Ihr Rauch = meine allergischen Kopfschmerzen.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Greg Black]

This belongs on freebsd-www; reply-to set accordingly.

On 2005-10-06, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:37:40PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:33:26PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
>> was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
>>> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
>>> 
 I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
 is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
 and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
 the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
 (scrolling all over the place).
>>> 
>>> Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
>>> website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
>>> system.

What an absurd way to read what he wrote.  Clearly he meant that
the reduction in usability of the new site is at the expense of
the existing userbase which has come to expect certain things
from the site.  He said nothing about people leaving and you're
just trolling with the above statement.

>> I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
>> the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
>> disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
>> seen it as the former.

Nobody who wanted to play fair would have seen it like that.

> If you think the new design truly puts you at some kind of
> disadvantage, you should formulate constructive ideas for how to fix
> that.

The problems with the new design have been widely canvassed on
the freebsd-www list, where the discussion belongs.

Unfortunately, that list is inhabited by a bunch of apologists
for the new design who seem to be mainly interested in shouting
down the people who have raised legitimate concerns; or if that
fails, in belittling them.

To list the most critical issues:

  * Many important navigation links (e.g., the Handbook, the
Ports) disappeared from the front page.

  * The user interface design is dreadful (e.g., fixed sizes for
things that cause all kinds of breakage when windows are
resized or font sizes changed to suit the reader).

  * Really boring junk has replaced real content on the front
page (e.g., lengthy list of new committers under the heading
of "news").

Anyway, rather than protesting that the new thing is wonderful
and continually demanding "constructive" criticism from people
who are offering just that, why not listen to the suggestions
and see how to improve things?

For years, I've been sending people to the FreeBSD site to get
information and help -- universally, I've had excellent feedback
from all kinds of users about the value and ease of use of the
site.  The claims that the old site was too hard to use that
have been advanced as the main reason for the update just don't
hold water, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I see that the people in charge will do whatever they
want and it will be up to the rest of us to make the best of it.
At least this lack of responsiveness means that I can feel OK
about unsubscribing from the noise on freebsd-www, since being
there will clearly accomplish nothing. 

Greg
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[F. Senault]

Friday, October 7, 2005, 1:56:38 AM, Julian H. Stacey wrote:

This should really go away from this list, but this (and a subsequent
mail) really ticked me off :

> This new so called `professional style' is style over substance:
> "LATEST NEWS" is a joke: They're advertising (bottom left)
> 2005-09-07 FreeBSD 6.0-BETA4 Available
> Not adding 6.0-BETA5 that's been out 17 days or so - Sep 19 04:50

Ooookay.  So, now, open your "good old page" and tell me if you see
BETA5 mentioned anywhere on the main page.  Go on, tell us.

For those who criticize the "project news", it has always been on that
form on the old site, just at a less prominent place.  If there is a
problem, it's not about design but about content management.

If you or anyone else has a problem with that, you can offer your help,
I'm sure it will be appreciated.

Fred
BTW, I happen to like the new site for my part.
-- 
Sysadmins can't be sued for malpractice, but surgeons don't have to
deal with patients who install new versions of their own innards.

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Murray Stokely]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:12:04PM +1000, Greg Black wrote:
> To list the most critical issues:
> 
>   * Many important navigation links (e.g., the Handbook, the
> Ports) disappeared from the front page.

The Handbook was added back to the front page hours ago in response to
earlier posts.  If you cared about following such things, paying
attention to CVS, or submitting patches you would have noticed.  I've
also proposed adding the Ports link to the shortcuts bar on the front
page.  I agree with you here -- those are two very important links.

>   * The user interface design is dreadful (e.g., fixed sizes for
> things that cause all kinds of breakage when windows are
> resized or font sizes changed to suit the reader).

Most feedback we have received would disagree with that statement.
Please provide patches for the CSS if the fixed width stuff bothers
you so we can evaluate what you propose as being better.  It will be
evaluated 100% fairly.  Show us your patches or be quiet on this
point.

>   * Really boring junk has replaced real content on the front
> page (e.g., lengthy list of new committers under the heading
> of "news").

That content was already on the front page of the old site.  The
content of the news bar has not changed at all.  I have complained
about the fact that we don't submit enough news stories for 4+ years.
I fix it by adding lots of news items whenever I can think of one.  Do
you submit patches or PRs to submit more interesting news items?  If
not, why complain when you are part of the problem?

> Anyway, rather than protesting that the new thing is wonderful
> and continually demanding "constructive" criticism from people
> who are offering just that, why not listen to the suggestions
> and see how to improve things?

Your mail has one constructive comment in it (About ports and handbook
links belonging on the front page).  Everything else is a vague rant.
You vaguely say you don't like the design but don't offer any better
alternative.  That is not an impressive signal to noise ratio.
Provide patches to your CSS / font complaints.

> site.  The claims that the old site was too hard to use that
> have been advanced as the main reason for the update just don't
> hold water, as far as I'm concerned.

You're welcome to hold that opinion.  I don't care to debate you on
it.  It's just not fair when you act like we are not concerned with
valid criticism when it comes our way.  Changes to valid points have
been made within hours of them first being brought up on the lists.
We've made even more changes to the design in response to feedback
over the past few months.

> Anyway, I see that the people in charge will do whatever they
> want and it will be up to the rest of us to make the best of it.

The people in charge worked very hard over 6 months to get broad
consensus for this change.  If you were interested in being a part of
this process you should have been subscribed to freebsd-www@, read the
front page where we announced a summer of code student was working a
redesign, read through the developer status reports, watched the CVS
logs, or any of the other many different methods you could have stayed
informed about the new design work.

- Murray
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Marian Hettwer]

Hej Dave,

Dave Fazio wrote:

In my opinion, this page will help popularize FreeBSD more than the
older (adding graphical installer would help too -- hint hint).

a graphical installer may help desktop users, but is totally unusable 
for server installations where you either want to install automatically 
(boot via pxe, mount some stuff via NFS, install the system, reboot and 
off you go) or where you just have serial access.


Anyway, the topic of graphical installer was discussed several times 
already :)


best regards,
Marian

PS.: I do like the layout of the new website :)
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Peter Jeremy]

On Thu, 2005-Oct-06 20:22:06 +0300, Tuomo Latto wrote:
>Lynx Version 2.8.5rel.1 (04 Feb 2004) doesn't seem to handle XML,
>so when you're in a pinch with your fw/gw machine that doesn't have
>X installed and you quickly need to access eg. some documentation
>on the site, you're out of luck.

The first three links at the top of the new home page are in XML - they
appear to be the RSS news feeds.  The bits of documentation that I've
looked at are all in HTML.

It might be nicer if the RSS links were more clearly identified as
such but claiming that the website is incompatible with lynx is a bit
of an exaggeration.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Miguel Saturnino]

Hi!

On Thu, 2005-10-06 at 20:22 +0300, Tuomo Latto wrote:
> You'd expect popups from the links on the top (they look like that
> sort of links), but none seem to appear and I've just wasted time
> waiting for them to appear.

Why would you expect pop-up windows from the new menu? Why does this
menu looks like a menu that will pop up a new window? To me, it just
looks like a nice menu -- and I certainly don't expect pop-up windows
from it.

> With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
> I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.

If you try it with a screen resolution of 800x600 it will fill all the
screen ;) A fluid design can be more usable in different screen
resolutions, but when you want something prettier you need to restrain
the horizontal width to get a consistent look across different screen
resolutions. Almost every site (with fixed width) restrains the width to
less than 800 pixels so that users with an 800x600 resolution don't need
to scroll horizontally.


To me, the new site looks nicer than the old one, and I'm pretty sure
most people (specially and more importantly new visitors) will find it
more attractive than the old one!

Regards,

-- 
Miguel Saturnino

http://www.teiadigital.pt/  http://www.pelosanimais.org/
http://www.encontra-me.org/ http://www.esteriliza-me.org/

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Yann Golanski]

Can opened.. Worms everywhere.

-- 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  -=*=-  www.kierun.org
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Greg Black]

On 2005-10-07, Murray Stokely wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:12:04PM +1000, Greg Black wrote:
>> To list the most critical issues:
>> 
>>   * Many important navigation links (e.g., the Handbook, the
>> Ports) disappeared from the front page.
> 
> The Handbook was added back to the front page hours ago in response to
> earlier posts.  If you cared about following such things, paying
> attention to CVS, or submitting patches you would have noticed.

It's there now.  It was not there when I wrote that -- I took
the time to check before I sent my message.  If you cared about
paying attention to things, you would have noticed.

> I've
> also proposed adding the Ports link to the shortcuts bar on the front
> page.  I agree with you here -- those are two very important links.

Splendid.
 
>>   * The user interface design is dreadful (e.g., fixed sizes for
>> things that cause all kinds of breakage when windows are
>> resized or font sizes changed to suit the reader).
> 
> Most feedback we have received would disagree with that statement.

Being part of the inner mafia, you may have access to more
information than I have.  But I've been reading several lists
and also participating in discussions in places you have no
access to and I can tell you that, although there are plenty of
people who like the new site, there are many who don't.  So I'm
going to go out on a limb and say you pulled that "most" out of
your arse.

And the ones who like it tend to be people who happen to have
default browser and window settings that happen to match
whatever the designers used.  Making a website -- especially a
technical site where information is much more important than
glitz -- dependent on specific sizes of elements is plain bad
design.

> Please provide patches for the CSS if the fixed width stuff bothers
> you so we can evaluate what you propose as being better.  It will be
> evaluated 100% fairly.  Show us your patches or be quiet on this
> point.

Ah, I see you're wearing your FreeBSD Advocacy hat.  No doubt
you think that a charming invitation like that will have the
audience jumping out of their skins to become a part of the
project so they too can be made to feel good by the friendly
team leaders.  If your designer can't fix the size stuff in 5
minutes without patches from me, then you need a new designer.

Let me put it in words of one syllable for you: don't try to
control font sizes (or styles); don't use fixed sizes for any
elements at all; relative sizes and percentages are all that is
needed.

>>   * Really boring junk has replaced real content on the front
>> page (e.g., lengthy list of new committers under the heading
>> of "news").
> 
> That content was already on the front page of the old site.

If what I said was really too hard to understand, try it this
way.  The old site had a lot of information that was really
useful visible or directly linked on the front page (and in the
first screenful as well).  The new site seems to treat lists of
new committers as something that deserves prominence on the
front page -- but the only people who care about that are the
new committers' mothers.

> The
> content of the news bar has not changed at all.  I have complained
> about the fact that we don't submit enough news stories for 4+ years.
> I fix it by adding lots of news items whenever I can think of
> one.

Good on you.

> Do
> you submit patches or PRs to submit more interesting news items?

Er, I wasn't complaining about lack of news items.  I was quite
specific: I wanted to see the ports and the handbook back on the
front. 

> If
> not, why complain when you are part of the problem?

I am part of the problem?  Get a grip.  You are a representative
of the project and you seem to think that gives you the right to
be insulting to people who have been FreeBSD advocates for many
years.  I have news for you: you have no such right.

>> Anyway, rather than protesting that the new thing is wonderful
>> and continually demanding "constructive" criticism from people
>> who are offering just that, why not listen to the suggestions
>> and see how to improve things?
> 
> Your mail has one constructive comment in it (About ports and handbook
> links belonging on the front page).  Everything else is a vague rant.

No, I had plenty of specific content.  You have an opinion that
differs from mine, so you call your opinion a fact.  But the
truth is just that we have different opinions.  You're entitled
to yours.  I'm entitled to mine.  But I made explicit points,
not just a vague rant.

> You vaguely say you don't like the design but don't offer any better
> alternative.

I said the fixed sizes and font control was a mistake.  How hard
is that for you to understand?

> That is not an impressive signal to noise ratio.
> Provide patches to your CSS / font complaints.

I covered this above.

>> site.  The claims that the old site was too hard to use that
>> have been advanced as the main reason for the update 

Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Dave Fazio]

Totally agree and understand your point -- a graphical install option 
would mainly appeal to desktop users.  But let's be honest; considering 
the competition install base of  Red Hat, Mac OS X, SUN, and (ech!) 
Windows, the day of GUI deskop'd servers is here now; Purests hate it 
sure, but it's a fact, and shouldn't be discounted altogether as an 
option for modern day server configurations.


There's no point to digress more on this subject now, but FreeBSD is in 
my opinion the best of *all* general purpose OSs -- But to properly 
manage a FreeBSD (ports/packages,source builds, etc), the devil is 
definitely in the details.  Apple has smoothed our these details in 
short order -- why can't we? 


Regards,

-Dave


Marian Hettwer wrote:


Hej Dave,

Dave Fazio wrote:


In my opinion, this page will help popularize FreeBSD more than the
older (adding graphical installer would help too -- hint hint).

a graphical installer may help desktop users, but is totally unusable 
for server installations where you either want to install 
automatically (boot via pxe, mount some stuff via NFS, install the 
system, reboot and off you go) or where you just have serial access.


Anyway, the topic of graphical installer was discussed several times 
already :)


best regards,
Marian

PS.: I do like the layout of the new website :)




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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Marwan Burelle]

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 10:21:44AM +0100, Miguel Saturnino wrote:
> > With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
> > I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.
> 
> If you try it with a screen resolution of 800x600 it will fill all the
> screen ;) A fluid design can be more usable in different screen
> resolutions, but when you want something prettier you need to restrain
> the horizontal width to get a consistent look across different screen
> resolutions. Almost every site (with fixed width) restrains the width to
> less than 800 pixels so that users with an 800x600 resolution don't need
> to scroll horizontally.

Sorry to disagree, but, fixed width and direct font size controlling,
isn't the good way to have a website looks good everywhere.

800x600 was the old "standard" resolution for PC under windows, and
windows desktop was thing for that size. But this isn't the cas
anymore, so what is the good size ? The answer won't be correct for
more than few years as it depends on price and most sold size of
monitor ...

So, using fixed width is bad, that's all. The only good way to made
web design is to add to your constraint the fact that the client will
never be the same, will never act the same way and every users may
have his own habits and taste. The best you can do is to make your
design with relative size against fixe size, font familly and not font
name and try to have something that can resist resizing (maybe under
some reasonable limits) whithout introducing unused space or
horizontal scrolling.

As I say earlier, using side bars (left, right or both) may solve some
problems. I agree to the fact the old site was a little bit heavy to
read the first time (I think I've never take the time to fully read
the first page ...) but there's a possible way for a "mix" of concept
...

Another point, is the fact that the outline generated by
validator.w3.org doesn't look good, it a sign of missuse of  tags
or bad page's organisation (normaly, this will give a good idea of the
page organisation, and should look like a table of contents, if it's
not the case, then something is wrong ... )

> To me, the new site looks nicer than the old one, and I'm pretty sure
> most people (specially and more importantly new visitors) will find it
> more attractive than the old one!

At some point, I'd say yes, in fact after the natural surprise of
finding a web site you know have changed, I found it no so bad, but a
better look at it shows some week point (size, and lack of usefull
contents, or much more appropriate the fact that some unimportant
informations is far better visible than it realy needs, and some other
informations, like actual release, are "shadowed".)

This make me think that it was just a proposal for a new website
design, but not the new production site, until I realize I was on the
www.freebsd.org page !

-- 
Burelle Marwan,
Equipe Bases de Donnees - LRI
http://www.cduce.org
([EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED])

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Simon L. Nielsen]

[Redirected to -www since that's where stuff about the web page should
be discussed, not -stable]

On 2005.10.06 21:17:50 +1000, Peter Jeremy wrote:

> I'd suggest that the most important feature that is missing is a
> website map.  The website looks nothing like it used to and many of my
> commonly referenced links are no longer on the home page.  Finding my
> way around is going to be very time consuming until I learn my way
> around it.

That sounds like a good idea.  We have
http://www.freebsd.org/search/index-site.html but it's in need of an
update, and probably some place more visible to be linked from.

> On the positive side, I'm glad that it's still usable with a text
> browser.

IMO actually even more than before.

> On the downside, I notice it now uses cookies.

AFAIR (I haven't double checked) it uses a cookie to remember if you
choose normal or large font - it's not required.

-- 
Simon L. Nielsen


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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Tuomo Latto]

Greg Barniskis wrote:
> Dan Ponte wrote:
>>>I doubt the primary goal here
>>>was to appear trendy.
>>
>>Well, it certainly seems as if that was one of the goals, seeing how the
>>new site uses quite a few new webdesign concepts that came into
>>existence in the past few years, while providing little benefit in the
>>way of content or usability.
> 
> well, usability is not an entirely objective measure, but there are 
> objective aspects to it. Like, not having to scroll to find crucial 
> navigation links and the Search box, or to see what the latest 

You forget the number 1 rule:
Thou shalt not add to the number of clicks required.

Scrolling is always preferable to clicking since it requires less
effort and has a better response time.


> security advisory was. Like, reducing 20-30 headings in big "stacks" 
> to clearly bounded clusters of "7 +/- 2", fostering rapid 
> understanding. I think usability is measurably up.

Reducing headings in clearly defined sections to less clearly
defined links improves usability?


> I suppose in sense it does break down in a way that the old site was 
> "more usable" for experts (usable once one had studied on it awhile, 
> that is), while the new layout might be more usable for newbies. But 
> that doesn't mean it was "for newbies". I like it, and I've been 
> poking at the web site for a decade now. I was put off for maybe 15 
> secs the first time I looked at it, then I started to accept and 
> appreciate (aw, who can resist that big smilin' Beastie ;).

I like the beastie too. But that's about it.


> It's got some quirks. I'm seeing some more things suffer from fixed 
> widths (and fixed heights, like the mirror selector widget -- px is 
> just not the most user-friendly unit of measure), but the path it's 
> on seems a good one. Like Kris said, if you've got a specific 
> problem, constructively suggest a specific solution (other than just 
> reverting).

I see now that the powers that be have already decided that this
is the way of the future (good grief). I see it in the comments
to peoples' reactions and in the way the whole thing was planned
in relative secrecy and then just dropped on the rest of us.
I suppose I should at least try to minimize the damage on my behalf.

So, here's a specific and constructive suggestion:
Add on a clearly visible place on the front page a link pointing
to the old site and keep the old site updated as well.
How about "Not new to FreeBSD?" under the "New to FreeBSD?"?


Here's another: Make all headings links.
If I want to see all security advisories, I don't want to have to search
for that little "More". Instead, I'd prefer to click on the heading and
get the security advisory page.

But where are the advisories on that page? Oh, *now* I have to scroll..
That table of contents is squeezed between the introduction and
the rest of the content. It is customary to have table of contents first
so people can actually umm.. you know.. find it.


-- 
Tuomo

... I am willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to
learn from them
-- Ways for Personal Growth
   http://www.ericbair.com/humor/PerGrowth.txt

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Tuomo Latto]

Miguel Saturnino wrote:
>>You'd expect popups from the links on the top (they look like that
>>sort of links), but none seem to appear and I've just wasted time
>>waiting for them to appear.
> 
> Why would you expect pop-up windows from the new menu? Why does this
> menu looks like a menu that will pop up a new window? To me, it just
> looks like a nice menu -- and I certainly don't expect pop-up windows
> from it.

Ah, I can see you're one of the lucky ones to have missed certain
corporate sites. Most of them seem to provide a look and an interface
just like this one. Mainly the idea is to make the corporation look
business-like. The actual content (or whatever part of it that is
of any use) is hidden somewhere beneath in order to discourage people
from reading it too closely.

To me, this sort of design just means "we want to be boring, not care
and just be like everyone else" instead of conveying a sense of
originality and passion to their work. But maybe that's just me.


>>With Opera, about 40% of the screen space is left unused.
>>I *liked* the quick links the old one had on the sides.
> 
> If you try it with a screen resolution of 800x600 it will fill all the
> screen ;) A fluid design can be more usable in different screen
> resolutions, but when you want something prettier you need to restrain
> the horizontal width to get a consistent look across different screen
> resolutions. Almost every site (with fixed width) restrains the width to
> less than 800 pixels so that users with an 800x600 resolution don't need
> to scroll horizontally.

So because other sites do it it's ok here too?
And *I'm* supposed to provide constructive feedback..?


> To me, the new site looks nicer than the old one, and I'm pretty sure
> most people (specially and more importantly new visitors) will find it
> more attractive than the old one!

I agree that some people may find it more attractive. I don't.

The major problem in my view is the functionality.
A lot of information has been hidden, the existence of scroll bars
has been forgotten and so on..
I don't want horizontal scrolling, but vertical is tried and true.
It is known that it works.

The expression that comes to mind is dumbing down - and not in a good way.


-- 
Tuomo

... I'm fat. You're ugly. I can diet.

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Jamie Heckford]

Would just like to say I think the new site looks great, well done and 
thanks to all the people that have donated spare time to work on this.


Maybe all the moaning minnies would like to submit a URL where they have 
put hardwork into making an alternative site for us all to see, instead 
of poking at the current one.

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Bob Johnson]

On 10/6/05, Bartosz Fabianowski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > monitor are wider than taller, why restrain horizontal space ?
>
> A fixed width design is very fashionable these days and you see it creeping
> up everywhere. It's what's considered "professional" these days, so I can't
> really blame anybody trying to appear professional for choosing it. But I
> still think that this is a bad trend. On my wide screen laptop, 50% of the
> screen are wasted blank space.

Fixed width designs are popular with graphic artists because they can
force everything to look exactly the way they want it.  On their
monitor.  With their browser.  For those of us that don't use exactly
the same display resolution or browser (and fonts), the result is
usually disappointing at best.  The new site looks like #$^% and is
very difficult to use, for example, on a PDA with Pocket Internet
Explorer.

- Bob
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Marian Hettwer]

Hej Dave,

Dave Fazio wrote:
Totally agree and understand your point -- a graphical install option 
would mainly appeal to desktop users.  But let's be honest; considering 
the competition install base of  Red Hat, Mac OS X, SUN, and (ech!) 
Windows, the day of GUI deskop'd servers is here now; Purests hate it 
Well, RedHat has a graphical installer, but redhat also has a tool 
called kickstart for automatic installations. So they have basically both :)

Sun has something similar for Solaris, I forgot the name, though.

sure, but it's a fact, and shouldn't be discounted altogether as an 
option for modern day server configurations.


should be IMO still non-graphical as long as you have big serverfarms 
like Database and Webservers. I'm managing approx 1000 servers with some 
colluegues. Unluckily it's Debian GNU/Linux systems, but at least it's 
an automatic installation done via FAI (google for FAI Debian).
I'd prefer FreeBSD, though. And I know that there are some tutorials 
howto do an automagic installation of FreeBSD.



There's no point to digress more on this subject now, but FreeBSD is in 
my opinion the best of *all* general purpose OSs -- But to properly 
manage a FreeBSD (ports/packages,source builds, etc), the devil is 
definitely in the details.  Apple has smoothed our these details in 
short order -- why can't we?
I don't know about MacOS X as a server. I'm just using it on my 
PowerBook for daily work :)


best regards,
Marian
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Oliver Fromme]

Tuomo Latto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
 > Greg Barniskis wrote:
 > > well, usability is not an entirely objective measure, but there are 
 > > objective aspects to it. Like, not having to scroll to find crucial 
 > > navigation links and the Search box, or to see what the latest 
 > 
 > You forget the number 1 rule:
 > Thou shalt not add to the number of clicks required.
 > 
 > Scrolling is always preferable to clicking since it requires less
 > effort and has a better response time.

I'm afraid I have to disagree.  Moving the mouse pointer to
the scroll bar, clicking it and dragging it is definitely
more effort than simply clicking a link.

(And don't tell me everyone has a mouse with a scroll wheel.
That assumption would be wrong.)

 > So, here's a specific and constructive suggestion:
 > Add on a clearly visible place on the front page a link pointing
 > to the old site and keep the old site updated as well.
 > How about "Not new to FreeBSD?" under the "New to FreeBSD?"?

I would rather suggest to remove the old page as soon as
possible, before people are starting to create hyper links
to it.  The longer the old front page is available, the
bigger the problem will grow.

 > Here's another: Make all headings links.

That's a good idea.

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme,  secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing
Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.

Python is executable pseudocode.  Perl is executable line noise.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Brad Knowles]

At 7:04 PM +0200 2005-10-07, Oliver Fromme wrote:


  > Scrolling is always preferable to clicking since it requires less
  > effort and has a better response time.

 I'm afraid I have to disagree.  Moving the mouse pointer to
 the scroll bar, clicking it and dragging it is definitely
 more effort than simply clicking a link.


	It depends on how much bandwidth you have, and how bad the 
latency is between you and the web server response.  If you have 
infinite bandwidth and the latency is virtually zero, then clicking a 
link is faster.  If you have lower bandwidth and/or higher latency, 
then scrolling is likely to be better.


Who are you going to try to optimize the web pages for?

--
Brad Knowles, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  SAGE member since 1995.  See  for more info.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Garance A Drosehn]

At 3:42 PM -0700 10/6/05, Murray Stokely wrote:

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005, Dan Ponte wrote:
 > One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's
 > needs just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.

Uhm, it didn't suit people's needs just fine.  It was total crap
with dozens of disorganized links all over the front page and
second level pages topping 100k as they had just grown larger
and larger over time and noone had stepped back to look at how
bad it all was for someone coming to the site for the first
time to find any useful information.


I agree with Murray.  I'm sure the new design can be improved upon
some more, but the previous web pages had gotten to the point that
they actively annoyed me.  Too large, too much info crammed into
some of the pages.  I have been saving URL's directly to some inner
web pages, for no other reason than to avoid bringing up the main
web page.  And once you're AVOIDING the web page, then it doesn't
much matter how much info was crammed into it.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn =  [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Senior Systems Programmer   or   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Troy, NY;  USA
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[jdow]

From: "Garance A Drosehn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>


At 3:42 PM -0700 10/6/05, Murray Stokely wrote:

On Thu, Oct 06, 2005, Dan Ponte wrote:
 > One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's
 > needs just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.

Uhm, it didn't suit people's needs just fine.  It was total crap
with dozens of disorganized links all over the front page and
second level pages topping 100k as they had just grown larger
and larger over time and noone had stepped back to look at how
bad it all was for someone coming to the site for the first
time to find any useful information.


I agree with Murray.  I'm sure the new design can be improved upon
some more, but the previous web pages had gotten to the point that
they actively annoyed me.  Too large, too much info crammed into
some of the pages.  I have been saving URL's directly to some inner
web pages, for no other reason than to avoid bringing up the main
web page.  And once you're AVOIDING the web page, then it doesn't
much matter how much info was crammed into it.


As a newbie (to FreeBSD not to 'nix) I found the older pages had the
information more accessible than the newer pages, which I rather
involuntarily had the opportunity to A/B test when I was installing
FreeBSD for the first time. Between FreeBSD coming up actively user
hostile (DECUS UNIX from 197x was no worse) and the web page changes
t became a challenge to find the documentation pages I needed to work
with.

I also disable font size selection on the browsers I use. I have a
large screen. I like to sit comfortably back and use large fonts
to lose the "dottiness" of 8 dot high fonts such as many of the
news service and blog pages use. This makes fixed size pages all
neatly calibrated in pixels look like  warmed over
twice. Pages that adapt to reality are much nicer.

With regards to the rather spartan new front page I note that while
I was setting up 5.4-RELEASE I also noted that there was a 6 in test
and had filed that for investigation once I got basic essentials more
or less working. When I went back to do that I had to mouse around for
10 minutes before I found 6-CURRENT was what that former link had been
about. (In the mean time I found 7-CURRENT with no references to
6-CURRENT. I mumbled to myself, "WTH, FreeBSD is doing marketdroid
tricks with version numbers? Can't be!")

So for what it is worth this is the reaction of a newbie (but only to
BSD rather than DECUS, SVR4, and Linux) who faced an involuntary A/B
test. I much prefer the old first page, although I cannot say I was
hugely in love with it. As observed it was a little busy. But over
compensation is not a correct response to "a little". It's line you
moved 20 dB when 1 dB would have been sufficient.

{^_^}Joanne

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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[jonathan michaels]

greetings all,

my bagage is this .. i am a disabled man who lives with severe
chronicly debiliting pain from significantly danaged neurology and
associated arthritis. there are several other conributing issues but i
don't need to belabour the point more than this.

i use freebsd on hardware that i used to ply my trade (systems analyst
consultant for several organisations involved in the research and
developemt of computer based tools for resource management on broad
acre farm systems and othe niche water resourec management systems and
teh odd scart management systems.

these days i live a leisurely life on a retirement plan otherwise know
as the oinvalide pension .. its meager but its doable enough to keep
body and soul together for the time being.. sortofa grin.

i use lynx browser on an old intel computer, and soon maybe digital
unix on a dec alphastation 255 (with a 233 mhx cpu a 1gb scsi hhd and
128 mb dram and a 10 mhz dec ethernet card) this assumes that i cannot
get freebsd or netbsd installed on this nice little workstation.

i've just tried to spend some time on teh new webpage ...

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:12:04PM +1000, Greg Black wrote:
> This belongs on freebsd-www; reply-to set accordingly.
> 
> On 2005-10-06, Kris Kennaway wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:37:40PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> >> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 05:33:26PM -0400, Kris Kennaway <[EMAIL 
> >> PROTECTED]> was witnessed plotting the following conspiracy:
> >>> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 04:43:36PM -0400, Dan Ponte wrote:
> >>> 
>  I second that all the way. Personally, I feel that the FreeBSD project
>  is doing too much in the way of appearing "trendy" to attract new users,
>  and it's at the expense of its existing userbase. Not to mention that
>  the old site rendered perfectly in elinks, while the new one is a mess
>  (scrolling all over the place).
> >>> 
> >>> Thanks for sharing your opinion, but you forgot to explain how a new
> >>> website will make existing FreeBSD users stop using the operating
> >>> system.
> 
> What an absurd way to read what he wrote.  Clearly he meant that
> the reduction in usability of the new site is at the expense of
> the existing userbase which has come to expect certain things
> from the site.  He said nothing about people leaving and you're
> just trolling with the above statement.
> 
> >> I should have worded that differently. By "expense" I didn't mean that
> >> the existing userbase would shrink, but, rather, it would be at a
> >> disadvantage to it. Though, I don't think that anyone would have truly
> >> seen it as the former.
> 
> Nobody who wanted to play fair would have seen it like that.
> 
> > If you think the new design truly puts you at some kind of
> > disadvantage, you should formulate constructive ideas for how to fix
> > that.
> 
> The problems with the new design have been widely canvassed on
> the freebsd-www list, where the discussion belongs.
> 
> Unfortunately, that list is inhabited by a bunch of apologists
> for the new design who seem to be mainly interested in shouting
> down the people who have raised legitimate concerns; or if that
> fails, in belittling them.
> 
> To list the most critical issues:
> 
>   * Many important navigation links (e.g., the Handbook, the
> Ports) disappeared from the front page.
> 
>   * The user interface design is dreadful (e.g., fixed sizes for
> things that cause all kinds of breakage when windows are
> resized or font sizes changed to suit the reader).
> 
>   * Really boring junk has replaced real content on the front
> page (e.g., lengthy list of new committers under the heading
> of "news").
> 
> Anyway, rather than protesting that the new thing is wonderful
> and continually demanding "constructive" criticism from people
> who are offering just that, why not listen to the suggestions
> and see how to improve things?

if i understand this i would like to say yes, please it is time that
freebsd et al lead teh way to show how easy it is to incorporate
daiabled users accability into a large scale generally available
webpage accessed by a wide verity of teh target population.

> 
> For years, I've been sending people to the FreeBSD site to get
> information and help -- universally, I've had excellent feedback
> from all kinds of users about the value and ease of use of the
> site.  The claims that the old site was too hard to use that
> have been advanced as the main reason for the update just don't
> hold water, as far as I'm concerned.

i too have been sending people to teh freebsd web page but unlike
perhaps "gregs people" jonathans crowd have been much like him ..
argumentative, demanding obnoxious opininated and somewhat loudmounted
in thier own ways .. thats teh two leged standing variety, the two
wheeled sitting variety have been just as cantankerious and impossible
to deal with, we as disabled people can be from time to time.
especially when we find webpages that are claimed to be

Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Brad Knowles]

At 11:02 AM +1000 2005-10-08, jonathan michaels wrote:


 i've offten made (tried to) point that if you make a page accessible to
 a disabled peron that all teh (so called) not so disabled people will
 find the pages far easier to use and a sight more easier on teh eye.


	I've felt this way for a long time.  I am not disabled myself, 
but I've known some people who are, and I've seen some of the things 
that they've had to deal with.  Generally speaking, if you can make 
something easy enough for them to use, then it's easier for everyone 
else to use, too.


	But then, I guess I'm the choir that you're preaching to.  The 
problem is that we need to convince the rest of the world.



 i've always laboured in teh view that the internet is supposed to be an
 inclusive medium .. not teh now rapidly becoming devisively exclusive
 LogIn/JoinHere/SignUpNow/GetYourAutherisedId etc etc etc kind of space
 exclusionary sphere/space/world/system and so on on on.


	Yup.  And stupid crap like JavaScript and Flash tend to be more 
exclusive.  And everyone and their friggin' brother seems to want to 
make their website dependant on these kinds of technologies.


	I think maybe we need a few more ADA lawsuits filed against 
companies (and other organizations) for the crimes they are 
committing with their websites.


--
Brad Knowles, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755

  SAGE member since 1995.  See  for more info.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Martin Gumucio]

My congrats to the webdesigners and the Freebsd community, for the
great looking new webpage!

I find it infomative, easily navigated and it even looks good in lynx.
What more can you ask for?

Good job!

// Martin Gumucio
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Ulrich Spoerlein]

On Thu, 06.10.2005 at 20:36:07 +0200, Bartosz Fabianowski wrote:
> >monitor are wider than taller, why restrain horizontal space ?
> 
> A fixed width design is very fashionable these days and you see it creeping 
> up everywhere. 
> It's what's considered "professional" these days, so I can't really blame 
> anybody trying to 
> appear professional for choosing it. But I still think that this is a bad 
> trend. On my wide 
> screen laptop, 50% of the screen are wasted blank space.

Fixed width is stupid. Period. I'd appreciate it if this could be
changed to a relative width of the central column OR a fixed width of
the borders.

Also, the width for the fonts either assumes pixel width or uses fixed
point width. Since I'm pretty sure no one will understand what I'm
talking about, have a look at this [1].

Note how the Support and languages wrap around. This is because my DPI
of:
screen #0:
  print screen:no
  dimensions:1680x1050 pixels (331x210 millimeters)
  resolution:129x127 dots per inch

[1] http://www.galgenberg.net/~q/freebsd.org.png

I'll take a look at the CSS stuff, but I'm no expert ...

Ulrich Spoerlein
-- 
 PGP Key ID: F0DB9F44   Encrypted mail welcome!
Fingerprint: F1CE D062 0CA9 ADE3 349B  2FE8 980A C6B5 F0DB 9F44
Ok, which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
didn't you understand?


pgpghpk8rvsII.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Michael Ranner]

Am Montag, 10. Oktober 2005 13:45 schrieb Ulrich Spoerlein:
> Fixed width is stupid. Period. I'd appreciate it if this could be
> changed to a relative width of the central column OR a fixed width of
> the borders.
>
> Also, the width for the fonts either assumes pixel width or uses fixed
> point width. Since I'm pretty sure no one will understand what I'm
> talking about, have a look at this [1].
>
> Note how the Support and languages wrap around. This is because my DPI
> of:
> screen #0:
>   print screen:no
>   dimensions:1680x1050 pixels (331x210 millimeters)
>   resolution:129x127 dots per inch
>
> [1] http://www.galgenberg.net/~q/freebsd.org.png
>
> I'll take a look at the CSS stuff, but I'm no expert ...
>
> Ulrich Spoerlein

Me too. Have the same problem with Firefox.

Regards

-- 
/\/\ichael Ranner

[EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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  Liebenauer Hauptstrasse 2oo - A-8041 Graz
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Greg Barniskis]

Ulrich Spoerlein wrote:


Fixed width is stupid. Period. I'd appreciate it if this could be
changed to a relative width of the central column OR a fixed width of
the borders.


Yeah, not to pick on those working on this project, since I think it 
generally represents a huge stride in the right direction, but fixed 
width pages are on Nielsen's "Top 10 Web Design Mistakes for 2005" 
[1]. They're a particular problem for me since I have often in the 
past had a very narrow window open onto the site side by side with 
local user documentation I'm writing or reviewing. Not having the 
text flow in a narrow window view is something of a loss. (I know, 
submit patches or shut up... I'll shut up now ;).


[1] http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

--
Greg Barniskis, Computer Systems Integrator
South Central Library System (SCLS)
Library Interchange Network (LINK)
, (608) 266-6348
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[Hector Lecuanda]

After seeng 60-odd messages in this thread in only 4 days, i can only say

BIKE SHED ALERT!

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING
we could all take a minute and read that little jewel buried in the
docs, since this is a prime example of the bike-shed syndrome.

In the mean time, I say kudos to the designers and all those who took
the time to revitalize the web page.
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Re: new FreeBSD-webpage

[jdow]

From: "Hector Lecuanda" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

After seeng 60-odd messages in this thread in only 4 days, i can only say

BIKE SHED ALERT!

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING
we could all take a minute and read that little jewel buried in the
docs, since this is a prime example of the bike-shed syndrome.

In the mean time, I say kudos to the designers and all those who took
the time to revitalize the web page.

- Original Message - 
I have a much prefered image to the Danish "fingerprinting" image. I

simply imagine a scruffy old dog lifting its leg and "marking". Until
management has peed on it the project will not go forward.

{^_-}   Joanne, so far darned little has disabused me of this notion
   gained within weeks of working in industry in the late 60s.


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Website accessability issues (was Re: new FreeBSD-webpage)

[Murray Stokely]

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:48:59AM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
>   I think maybe we need a few more ADA lawsuits filed against 
> companies (and other organizations) for the crimes they are 
> committing with their websites.

Indeed.  We have committers with all sorts of disabilities (including
blindness) and so keeping the site fully accessible serves our own
internal needs as well as those of our users.

The new site continues the move away from HTML 3.2 era visual tags
that we've been working on for several years.  It is supposed to be
more accessible than the old site.  If there are regressions then
please post them to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so we can fix them.

 - Murray
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Re: Website accessability issues (was Re: new FreeBSD-webpage)

[jonathan michaels]

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:13:33AM -0700, Murray Stokely wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 11:48:59AM +0200, Brad Knowles wrote:
> > I think maybe we need a few more ADA lawsuits filed against 
> > companies (and other organizations) for the crimes they are 
> > committing with their websites.
> 
> Indeed.  We have committers with all sorts of disabilities (including
> blindness) and so keeping the site fully accessible serves our own
> internal needs as well as those of our users.

if that is the case then why is teh freebsd website as it is now so
disabled hostile ?

i've asked several people that i know who have different parts of thier
bodies and brains damaged to mine and every one of them to a man (and
two women) all, and independantly, berate teh bew version as being
various degrees of uslessness from hostile to bearly usable.

seveeral of these garbage (me included in this identifier) can warriors
(we are all anti pc speak and do so at every opportunity so i am
speaking/describing us with there permission .. for teh simple minded
pc types) use old ibm pc's (real ibm pc intel 386sx cpu with 8/16 mb
dram) have tried to use the site with text to speach software ranging
from lynx on pc dos v6.0 and v7.0 and a novell dos v6 from memory. also
several gui products using (integrated gui) operating systems ms
windows nt v3.51 and v4.0, beos, GEM (very disabled person friendly,
pity thier is no support anymore) several gnu/linux (debian) iterations  
and of cource various bsds ... we are an informal group that tries to
find a usable solution that we can all share and build a good stagle
reliable package that will enable us to have a 'blind fredie' type
operating system that requires no thinking as we confrence call to
discuss project issues and not have to worry/consentrate on our fingers
falling over operating system 'troubles'.

this actually is a position that all users of an operating system
package should be able to get into fairly quickly and relatively
easily. again if us disabled guinea pigs crash test dummies can achieve
this then the so called not disabled "intelligent" endusers should be
able to make a cake walk of off it well this is the conclusion we (us
peer reviewers) have reached over some 20 or more years of on and off
research.
 
> The new site continues the move away from HTML 3.2 era visual tags
> that we've been working on for several years.  It is supposed to be

the addition of java, javascript and some odd xml that for the time
being lynx just (graciously) steps over, fortunately for me (us text
console users, hampered or not).

> more accessible than the old site.  If there are regressions then
> please post them to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so we can fix them.

is this going to be the usual humilliate teh messenger because we
cannot speak/type the american english like a native  yes, i do
have dificulties with english and americam varietal being teh most
significant, could be because it changes so quickly and diferentially.
as well thier are issues with oclour blindness (different from the
usual red/green male eyes variety) dsylexia and damaged neurology. as
to why i and those like me do not use the available spelling checkers,
simple they are american based algorithms with dictionaries that spell
most of teh simple words that we use incoreectly and the superposition
of z for s is most silly as far as we are concerntde, it is most
difficult to understand and hence to use correctly and makes using teh
freebsd (and all american sourced/developed/uiltb) websites awkward to
say teh least.

ok, this is my honest and open opinion given the things that most
significanly impact this disabled man with his journey through the
freebsd web site.
 
well the balls in yor court now lets see what happens this time. i am
prepared to face being treated the way i was on several ocasions over
the years that i have been a freebsd user in an attempt to try to
communicate in as damaged a manner as i cam. i don't have much
programing skills any more, i don't have any disposable income to buy
cd's et al all that i can do is to communicate as best as i can that
teh website is hard if not impossible to use for if not disabled people
as a whole then at least this (attempting to vocalise the issues most
as best as i can inspite of teh in teh past most hostile responce) time
inspite of my history of much anxiety, fear but inspite i am prepared
to make teh best of it so that other people like me can find the same
level and freedom that is afforded when the person finally gets usable
tools that grants them the ability to be able to communicate freely and
to not have thier damaged body/mind become the limiting factor in ones
ability to communicate as a free and equal human being.

this might soudn corny but it is teh reason i persist because i am
cogniscient enought to know what it feels like to have this skill
ability taken away from me by loutish boorish bigots who think its
funny to trample on another persns  ...