Re: New site design
Pushing this forward again as we are close to the 2.0 release. Regardless of the specific design issues and wether or we like the changes of content I believe that it was commonly agreed on the fact that the "download dragonfly" button is a very good idea. I therefore suppose that we at least add that one to the site as the release is announced! As you are expecting a lot of users willing to try Dfly it should be worth while! On Thu, 29 May 2008 00:14:26 -0400 (EDT) "Justin C. Sherrill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we > had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching > up enough to show it: > > http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ > > I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions > for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the > dragonflybsd.org site to this. > > -- Jost Tobias Springenberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> If you plan to send me any personal or sensitive information please use GnuPG! My public key can be found at: http://www-lehre.informatik.uos.de/~jspringe/jspringe.gpg
Re: New site design
I'd make the title larger, this way it looks strange right now. I actually liked the red, so maybe we could have all colors in a css? just kidding :) Everyone seems to say the same about the title, so I think it's fair to say that should be changed... Along with the logo in the title... But I think we should change the navigation on the left: - have sections and links visually distinguishable, i.e. - leave sections bold, make links normal, maybe smaller Good point... I'm not sure why this didn't get changed... I think the only thing I changed was the colour on the navigation links, but I know I had intended to tweak font sizes. - don't use a fixed column size (wraps here) Another good point. This is another artifact of the old page... I didn't change much in the CSS.. and didn't want to blow up a layout which someone else made, and that I didn't fully understand. - use background for the cells/navigation to make it obvious that it is navigation. Regarding the title, I'd like to see the logo in the title, and I'd like to see a larger font for the title, instead of using spaced letters. There is no link to the snapshots anymore, I think this should go into the "Download" section as a paragraph on top. Further, I would split the release errata/announcement from the download page. I would even split the list of mirrors from the download page, so that you click on download, read one paragraph on snapshots vs releases, then click on one of them, then get to the mirrors page, or better yet, get the iso served from one of the mirrors. All more good points. The problem I had was that there was a lot of information on the download page, but it was a lot more intuitive to download from the release page... The gist of all this is that a real content change was needed, and I ran out of time. What I wanted to do is have the 5% of what was most important on the website, that 95% of visitors were going to want, and move the other 95% of super detailed stuff onto the wiki... I didn't get that far, as the wiki seemed like it was going to be hard to use... which is a point of personal contention for myself...
Re: New site design
Good point. I knew there was something off in that design, but wasn't sure what. Not being the designer (of the red insect image) I can't say/do much in regards to this.. The red insect logo is artistic - but the wing config is more akin to that of the common housefly than a dragonfly :-( Bill
Re: New site design
They especially need a clear link hierarchy that is intuitive, which needs planning by someone who knows that kind of stuff, together with someone that knows DragonFly. My girlfriend Danwei, who's finishing her Master's in Interaction Design, has said that she'd very much like to spend a good amount of time on getting the "web front-end" of DragonFly good looking. The mainpage doesn't need a link hierarchy -- it just needs plain uncluttered content, IMO. You are correct though (that more can be done), I wasn't trying to overhaul content (although I would have liked to do some), I just shuffled it together better, and reduced the 112 links we have on the other site. It's common sense that for each extra link you add the harder it will be to find the one you want. The wiki on the other hand -- I agree -- the wiki... I can't even begin to start... except that I tried using it for 30 mins (to add content) and it was so counterintuitive that I gave up in disgust. I think it would be useful to use a CMS like Drupal to combine the site, wiki, blog and more into a single front-end, with support for fake "user accounts" and fine-grained permissions. This would greatly simplify management imho, and can be quite good looking. CMS, Drupal... I must say I think that's overkill. If you go through the content on the Dragonfly website (wiki not counted), you will find that there's enough for a basic single tier navigated website. I think this is just about right -- as the main site should give a general impression and no more. But it's already cumbersome enough to update the website -- having it in CVS at all... For such a basic site I don't see the need... and trying to sort everything out in CVS, seems to have an awfully high learning curve for just a website. Even using CVSweb it was difficult to find what I wanted -- I think it had every file since 1942 listed in there. .. And CMS, I don't even want to think of the unnecessary complexity. For a small simple site it just isn't worth it... trying to customize the config of a CMS is usually a nightmare. Management would be simplified if we didn't have to deal with CVS... maybe someone thinks that's important, but not I. I've built a number of websites, versioned them in folders, and never felt the need for anything more complex.
Re: New site design
Matthew Dillon wrote: Well, the site is your baby so if you feel it need to be changed definitely go and change it. Here are my own comments on the site: * I like the placement of the Download button. * I don't like the placement of the logo. I believe it should go in the upper left hand corner contemporary with the 'D r a g on F l y B S D' label. It for sure should not go under the menu. Well,also it's not a true logo (if it's the red thing you're referring to). It's more of a mascot, and I put it there to prevent the blues from over powering the page. It was just something I found in with our images. The true logo -- there was a reason why that didn't end up in the left hand corner, but for the life of me I can't remember. Maybe I was having trouble with CSS positioning it properly, or maybe I didn't know how to make the red/green version look good. * I don't like the color changes. I really like the current site's color and wallpaper scheme. But if you want to change the logo in the upper left hand corner, I'm OK with that. I like both logos. Heh, I guess everyone has their own tastes in colours... to me the red/green was ghastly, and was at the top of my list to get rid of. Although it would be possible to do a red/green scheme that did look better, but someone would have to be better at colour theory than I. * I do agree that our menus need to be reorganized but I don't like the new scheme (and the existing scheme has issues too). It seems to me that the menus could be reorganized in the context of the existing scheme. I agree & disagree. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of extra information that gets cluttered in with the more important stuff. Had I had more time I would have liked to do more selective weeding (content wise) and try and simplify things. My general feeling on the old (and I suppose still current) site is that it is very verbose, both in content and menus...
Re: New site design
The red mascot was a file I found in our directory of images (I wanted to use it to counter some of the blues I used). I agree that it over-power's the download button somewhat. However, it was much harder to find the download link on the old page. I was away from home when I designed the site, and only had my macbook, so some of the colours and layout might be reflective of this. Also it seems that safari and firefox have different ideas on how colours should look, which makes designing difficult. The page is intentionally boring, hence the boring colours. What would really look nice would be if a real graphic designer made a background that was unintrusive and complemented the blue. I'm not a graphic designer, and doing graphics work with the gimp on a macbook is kind of painful, so I chose boring and simple instead of trying to do something I knew I couldn't do. I agree that the names of some of the links could be changed... the problem is that what they link to is not clear cut. For example I wanted to have the link simply "documentation", but in truth it points to the wiki, and also the wiki is mentioned elsewhere... so to call it documentation would be more confusing -- especially if someone reads about the wiki and wants to know where that is... one could have two links -- one to the wiki general page, and one to the docs on the wiki, but that seems redundant and confusing as well. Mail & Lists used to be three separate links: Mail, News, & Archive, each leading to nearly the same information I wanted to combine these for this reason, and I could have called it "Mailing Lists and News Groups" but that's too long, and "Mail and News" would be confusing for anyone who didn't know what we were talking about. If someone wants to move the menu to the top of the page that would be great. My experience with CSS is that it's pure garbage, and I didn't want to mangle it anymore than I had to. Jordan Gordeev wrote: Justin C. Sherrill wrote: James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching up enough to show it: http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. When I first load the page, the red dragonfly logo immediately catches my attention, while I have to make an effort to see the download button, which is dark and blue, like the rest of the page, and doesn't stand out. The page is all in one colour - dark blue, which isn't as nice as the old two-colour green+something theme. My opinion is the page lacks colour and the chosen shade of blue is too dark - it lacks life overall. The menu on the left-hand side isn't separated visually so it looks like a strange floating right-justified text, and it is unclear whether it has a relation to the text on the right of it or not. The links with texts 'Docs & Wiki' and 'Mail & Lists' have the potential to confuse visitors, as they make the meaning of the link more uncertain - is it docs or is it the wiki I'm going to if I click that link? I'd rename 'Mail & Lists' to Mailing Lists, and possibly rename 'Docs & Wiki' to Documentation. By the way, man pages are really documentation to me. As the menu is now much shorter I would consider the idea of moving it to the top of the page. Seeing the initial design of the site would be nice for comparison purposes.
Re: New site design
I'm not sure if anyone is going to see this reply (considering how late it is), but I'd like to mention a few things to address the comments/concerns of others here. Firstly it should be mentioned that I had expected to have more time to work on this (originally), but I started work two weeks early and ran out of time -- presently I spend all my time working... so there's not much I can do in the way of changes, but I will give my opinion and reasoning for how I arrived at what I created. I had a few simple goals: 1. Fast loading - the old page was really slow on dialup, and yes, there are still some of us who are stuck on dialup from time to time. 2. Simplify the presentation & navigation so that the majority of visitors could find what they were most likely to want (eg: download link)... the new site isn't perfect, but the old site was really cluttered, and there were a lot of links that went to small amounts of content. 3. Change the colours/graphics, as I felt they made the site look like a nature conservation group. 4. Small evolutionary changes, nothing too radical. 5. Move some content (and mostly dynamic content) to the wiki. This is a good idea in principle, but I must say that moinmoin is not very userfriendly and is a pain in the ass to learn/use. Kind of ironic that pure html in vi and an ftp client would be 100 times easier and more intuitive for content changes. I'll now reply to select comments individually.
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching up enough to show it: http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. The red insect logo is artistic - but the wing config is more akin to that of the common housefly than a dragonfly :-( Bill
Re: New site design
I really liked the new bar plain color :-) The green-red plants were getting me blind, the light blue is a lot more eye-friendly :-) About logo, i belive the old one is cool to be placed same place it were, but a 3d-mascot can work too adding a little backward compatibility in the colors, the green circle can be used as a landing spot in the 3d version and make a full logo conversion that way. Anyway, I would use the 3d mascot further inside the navigation and not in the index. Maybe in a "fanart" or "visual resources" section, or use it as mascot for the "DragonFly with X" version. About navigation I didnt found big changes, everything usefull goes to the wiki and it has a raw wiki design, it will be cool to port the new design to the wiki when done. Sdav On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 8:39 PM, Ernesto Bascon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Just my humble comments: > > 1. Keep one logo that identifies your project, two different > dragonflies in two different postures does not define the "official" > logo project. > > 2. Actually I like DragonFly name over DragonFlyBSD name... what is > the correct one? "DragonFly" (with no BSD) sounds more cool to me. > > Saludos, > > > Ernesto > > On 29/05/2008, Matthew Dillon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Well, the site is your baby so if you feel it need to be changed >> definitely go and change it. >> >> Here are my own comments on the site: >> >> * I like the placement of the Download button. >> >> * I don't like the placement of the logo. I believe it should go in >> the upper left hand corner contemporary with the 'D r a g on F l y B S >> D' >> label. It for sure should not go under the menu. >> >> * I don't like the color changes. I really like the current site's >> color and wallpaper scheme. But if you want to change the logo >> in the upper left hand corner, I'm OK with that. I like both logos. >> >> * I do agree that our menus need to be reorganized but I don't like the >> new scheme (and the existing scheme has issues too). It seems to me >> that the menus could be reorganized in the context of the existing >> scheme. >> >> -Matt >> Matthew Dillon >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> > -- Sdävtaker prays to Rikku goddess for a good treasure.
Re: New site design
Just my humble comments: 1. Keep one logo that identifies your project, two different dragonflies in two different postures does not define the "official" logo project. 2. Actually I like DragonFly name over DragonFlyBSD name... what is the correct one? "DragonFly" (with no BSD) sounds more cool to me. Saludos, Ernesto On 29/05/2008, Matthew Dillon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Well, the site is your baby so if you feel it need to be changed > definitely go and change it. > > Here are my own comments on the site: > > * I like the placement of the Download button. > > * I don't like the placement of the logo. I believe it should go in > the upper left hand corner contemporary with the 'D r a g on F l y B S > D' > label. It for sure should not go under the menu. > > * I don't like the color changes. I really like the current site's > color and wallpaper scheme. But if you want to change the logo > in the upper left hand corner, I'm OK with that. I like both logos. > > * I do agree that our menus need to be reorganized but I don't like the > new scheme (and the existing scheme has issues too). It seems to me > that the menus could be reorganized in the context of the existing > scheme. > > -Matt > Matthew Dillon > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >
RE: New site design
Well, the site is your baby so if you feel it need to be changed definitely go and change it. Here are my own comments on the site: * I like the placement of the Download button. * I don't like the placement of the logo. I believe it should go in the upper left hand corner contemporary with the 'D r a g on F l y B S D' label. It for sure should not go under the menu. * I don't like the color changes. I really like the current site's color and wallpaper scheme. But if you want to change the logo in the upper left hand corner, I'm OK with that. I like both logos. * I do agree that our menus need to be reorganized but I don't like the new scheme (and the existing scheme has issues too). It seems to me that the menus could be reorganized in the context of the existing scheme. -Matt Matthew Dillon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
RE: New site design
I would agree, please not like FBSD because then I can't browse the site with my blackberry :) -- "One world, one web, one program" -- Microsoft promotional ad "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer" -- Adolf Hitler John Mire: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Network Administration LSU Health Sciences Center - Shreveport, Louisiana > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:users- > [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve O'Hara-Smith > Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2008 4:20 AM > To: users@crater.dragonflybsd.org > Subject: Re: New site design > > On Thu, 29 May 2008 09:28:56 +0300 > Jordan Gordeev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > One more note: One can use the site navigation designs of other BSDs > > for inspiration. > > But please not that of the FreeBSD site. > > -- > C:>WIN | Directable Mirror > Arrays > The computer obeys and wins.| A better way to focus the > sun > You lose and Bill collects. |licences available see > |http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New site design
Its fine, though could use some improvement. Ideally we should have wiki/mainsite/bugtracker and everything else connected together in a database(postgres), so that we could use thing such things like full-text search etc. I am a web developer by profession, so i could help out. That is if people find it acceptable to code DragonFly's website in ie Ruby On Rails. Mind that, Im packed out with work for the next few months. But I would definately like to contribute in one way or another. Petr On Thu, 29 May 2008 11:44:12 pm Oliver Fromme wrote: > Justin C. Sherrill wrote: > > James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion > > we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now > > catching up enough to show it: > > > > http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ > > > > I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further > > suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd > > like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. > > I like it. > > Although I agree with others that the title would look > better with a slightly larger font instead of spaced > letters. I also think the title should include the logo. > > Other than that, good work! > > Best regards >Oliver
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. - 1 on the cosmetic changes - looks less cohesive & less professional imho - that being said it probably could be tweaked and work just fine navigation is simplified for sure
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: > James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we > had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching > up enough to show it: > > http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ > > I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions > for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the > dragonflybsd.org site to this. I like it. Although I agree with others that the title would look better with a slightly larger font instead of spaced letters. I also think the title should include the logo. Other than that, good work! Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: > James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we > had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching > up enough to show it: > > http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ > > I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions > for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the > dragonflybsd.org site to this. > > I'd say that the main improvement over the old site is that the salad is gone, although I think the site would look better using Fred's colors (green + red + white). Honestly though, the site and wiki need more than just a color overhaul. They especially need a clear link hierarchy that is intuitive, which needs planning by someone who knows that kind of stuff, together with someone that knows DragonFly. My girlfriend Danwei, who's finishing her Master's in Interaction Design, has said that she'd very much like to spend a good amount of time on getting the "web front-end" of DragonFly good looking. I think it would be useful to use a CMS like Drupal to combine the site, wiki, blog and more into a single front-end, with support for fake "user accounts" and fine-grained permissions. This would greatly simplify management imho, and can be quite good looking. -- Robert Luciani Chalmers University of Technology, SWE Department of Computer Science and Engineering http://www.rluciani.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New site design
On Thu, 29 May 2008 09:28:56 +0300 Jordan Gordeev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > One more note: One can use the site navigation designs of other BSDs for > inspiration. But please not that of the FreeBSD site. -- C:>WIN | Directable Mirror Arrays The computer obeys and wins.| A better way to focus the sun You lose and Bill collects. |licences available see |http://www.sohara.org/
Re: New site design
One more note: One can use the site navigation designs of other BSDs for inspiration.
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching up enough to show it: http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. When I first load the page, the red dragonfly logo immediately catches my attention, while I have to make an effort to see the download button, which is dark and blue, like the rest of the page, and doesn't stand out. The page is all in one colour - dark blue, which isn't as nice as the old two-colour green+something theme. My opinion is the page lacks colour and the chosen shade of blue is too dark - it lacks life overall. The menu on the left-hand side isn't separated visually so it looks like a strange floating right-justified text, and it is unclear whether it has a relation to the text on the right of it or not. The links with texts 'Docs & Wiki' and 'Mail & Lists' have the potential to confuse visitors, as they make the meaning of the link more uncertain - is it docs or is it the wiki I'm going to if I click that link? I'd rename 'Mail & Lists' to Mailing Lists, and possibly rename 'Docs & Wiki' to Documentation. By the way, man pages are really documentation to me. As the menu is now much shorter I would consider the idea of moving it to the top of the page. Seeing the initial design of the site would be nice for comparison purposes.
Re: New site design
Justin C. Sherrill wrote: James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching up enough to show it: http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this. I'd make the title larger, this way it looks strange right now. I actually liked the red, so maybe we could have all colors in a css? just kidding :) But I think we should change the navigation on the left: - have sections and links visually distinguishable, i.e. - leave sections bold, make links normal, maybe smaller - don't use a fixed column size (wraps here) - use background for the cells/navigation to make it obvious that it is navigation. Regarding the title, I'd like to see the logo in the title, and I'd like to see a larger font for the title, instead of using spaced letters. There is no link to the snapshots anymore, I think this should go into the "Download" section as a paragraph on top. Further, I would split the release errata/announcement from the download page. I would even split the list of mirrors from the download page, so that you click on download, read one paragraph on snapshots vs releases, then click on one of them, then get to the mirrors page, or better yet, get the iso served from one of the mirrors. cheers simon -- Serve - BSD +++ RENT this banner advert +++ASCII Ribbon /"\ Work - Mac +++ space for low €€€ NOW!1 +++ Campaign \ / Party Enjoy Relax | http://dragonflybsd.org Against HTML \ Dude 2c 2 the max ! http://golden-apple.biz Mail + News / \
New site design
James Frazer put together a nice site redesign based on some discussion we had here before. He sent me a copy of it all, and I'm only now catching up enough to show it: http://www.shiningsilence.com:81/ I'm happy with the layout and content; I'm looking for further suggestions for tweaks. If there's no show-stopping objections, I'd like to move the dragonflybsd.org site to this.
