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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-19 19:19:40
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Afair, the latest discussion about new web design (when Mariu's friend sent some proposals) stopped because we didn't have a desired site structure to send to him. So, below is my draft, just to give a start, about how I think content can be structured. Probably it is not complete or perfect, but with a starting point, it is easier to move forward. Main page contents - Official Project news - Link to FirebirdNews - Link to Firebird FAQ - Next conferences/events - Donation link - Direct link to latest stable release 1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc) 1.1 Sponsors list 1.2 Members 2.Downloads 2.1 Firebird Binaries 2.1.1 FB 3.0.x 2.1.2 FB 2.5.x 2.1.3 FB 2.1.x 2.1.4 FB 2.0.x 2.1.5 FB 1.5.x 2.1.6 FB 1.0.x 2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc) 2.3 Source Code 2.4 Logos and images 3.Documentation 3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs 3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ 3.3 Firebird License 3.4 Actual Roadmap 4.Support 4.1 Discussion lists 4.1.1 International (english language) 4.1.2 Regional (by country/language) 4.2 Firebird related sites and portals 4.2.1 Global (english language) 4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language) 4.3 Link to Tracker 5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site) 6. Contact 7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can use even Google for this) My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of 3 clicks (even less, if possible). Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped better than me. Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to the website project redesign. As we already have some amount collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for a task to be done. Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3 people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside" opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they want to. []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: Kurt F. <fed...@ya...> - 2009-11-20 02:15:28
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Hi, Carlos. I offered to help with this in the past. While I don't have time to design, I am fairly proficient at implementation and would be happy offer what time I can afford to help implement. I understand the need to avoid having "too many cooks". Kurt. ---------------------------------------- Never underestimate the Power of Denial. ----- Original Message ---- > From: Carlos H. Cantu <li...@wa...> > To: Firebird Project Web Team <fir...@li...> > Sent: Thu, November 19, 2009 11:19:31 AM > Subject: [Firebird-website] A few thoughts about (new) site structure, and some good news... > > Afair, the latest discussion about new web design (when Mariu's friend sent > some proposals) stopped because we didn't have a desired site > structure to send to him. So, below is my draft, just to give a start, > about how I think content can be structured. Probably it is not > complete or perfect, but with a starting point, it is easier to move forward. > > Main page contents > - Official Project news > - Link to FirebirdNews > - Link to Firebird FAQ > - Next conferences/events > - Donation link > - Direct link to latest stable release > > 1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc) > 1.1 Sponsors list > 1.2 Members > > 2.Downloads > 2.1 Firebird Binaries > 2.1.1 FB 3.0.x > 2.1.2 FB 2.5.x > 2.1.3 FB 2.1.x > 2.1.4 FB 2.0.x > 2.1.5 FB 1.5.x > 2.1.6 FB 1.0.x > 2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc) > 2.3 Source Code > 2.4 Logos and images > > 3.Documentation > 3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs > 3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ > 3.3 Firebird License > 3.4 Actual Roadmap > > 4.Support > 4.1 Discussion lists > 4.1.1 International (english language) > 4.1.2 Regional (by country/language) > 4.2 Firebird related sites and portals > 4.2.1 Global (english language) > 4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language) > 4.3 Link to Tracker > > 5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site) > > 6. Contact > > 7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can > use even Google for this) > > > My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages > can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid > too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of > 3 clicks (even less, if possible). > > Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job > board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access > statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped > better than me. > > Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to > the website project redesign. As we already have some amount > collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for > a task to be done. > > Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3 > people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their > opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions > and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything > they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside" > opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they > want to. > > []s > Carlos H. Cantu > www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org > www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day > trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on > what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with > Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july > _______________________________________________ > Firebird-website mailing list > Fir...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/firebird-website |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-20 16:12:52
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Carlos, You were quicker than me :) so I'll join with my take in your thread. Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a): > > Main page contents > - Official Project news > - Link to FirebirdNews > - Link to Firebird FAQ > - Next conferences/events > - Donation link > - Direct link to latest stable release As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples. The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with minimal text. Second target is "Get Involved" featured image link. Excellent example how it should be done is on mozilla.org. Third is direct navigation to key site areas (in header): a) Learn about Firebird b) Get Support (community support list & forums, tracker, FAQ, companies that provide support) c) Join the community (community sites, events, etc.) d) Our Projects e) Get Involved (code, documentation, foundation etc.). This one should be in header on other pages than main one, as on main one it's highlighted in main area. If you noticed that there is no Download and Documentation area links, they're omitted on purpose. See comments on "Download" and "Documentation" sections. Fourth is a box on side (see the Ticker box on mozilla.org) with latests releases from all our product lines (recent from all maintained engine lineages, drivers, tools etc.). Divided by sub-project, contains only version numbers as links to download (or download pages if it's not a single file release). Fifth (under the main focus area) are news. Headlines with excerpts (each article would have it's own page). Only few, it should take a lot of real estate. About the design... White background is prefered. It doesn't need to use the current logo in header (or anywhere), could use background theme graphics, but not very intrusive. I would prefer fresh, artistic look over corporate one (but not *too much* cool). I think that mozilla.org stroke a nice balance on this. There shouldn't be any button links to other sites or projects, award badges etc. Footer. The Ring links should go away. It has to contain button link to SourceForge, Ohloh badge is not necessary and should go. The copyright notice should be in smaller font and doesn't need to occupy the whole width (could be a column like on mozilla.org). The footer could contains contact links, quick site navigation links to important areas etc., but shouldn't be too thick. About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean. We could also run a community competition for new one, but taking our previous attempts into account, I don't expect that something good would come from it. Community is great to make rehashes of existing graphics (buttons, banners,etc.), but not in design (we're all developers). So I'm going to raise the logo renewal on forthcoming foundation committee meeting (in December), so maybe we would get some monetary support to get new one designed by professional. However, this is early shot, there wasn't any discussion yet about it among project members, but I'm going to kickstart one after the conference. As I know others, this idea has a chance to pass through. > 1. About (project description - not too long - with links to history, etc) > 1.1 Sponsors list > 1.2 Members The main "About" page should be oriented to newcomers and should summarize the most important facts and points to further reading of interest for these users (Firebird limits and feature matrix, use cases / examples of important deployments, summary of application development options, available tools, compact explanation what makes Firebird distinct from other RDBM products). The main "About" page should also contain clearly visible link (or side box?) that would point to page oriented to press, with one page summary / project presentation for press agencies. It should contain link(s) to secondary "About" topics you mentioned: supporting / sponsor companies & individuals, project members (with personal pages). I'm not certain about history, because nobody cares about it, so I tend to let it go for good. > 2.Downloads > 2.1 Firebird Binaries > 2.1.1 FB 3.0.x > 2.1.2 FB 2.5.x > 2.1.3 FB 2.1.x > 2.1.4 FB 2.0.x > 2.1.5 FB 1.5.x > 2.1.6 FB 1.0.x > 2.2 Side Projects (ODBC, Drivers, FlameRobin, etc) > 2.3 Source Code > 2.4 Logos and images Our download portfolio is quite complex, and there are two general download usage patterns: 1. Get the update. We'll provide shortest, direct path to most recent releases for each product on main page. 2. Get the download of your interest. People go to specific web area they're interested in (product, community, etc.) and then decide they want related files. And right there is a link to related download page. Centralised Download area as key part of site user's experience (i.e. main navigation circle) is not practical for us, because our download matrix is quite complex, so it would be very complex net of pages that would need several steps to navigate anyway (everything three or more clicks away from main page). So going to product / other area and then to its downloads is often shorter path. However, we WILL HAVE such maze of twisted download pages, but as separate sub-domain (download.firebirdsql.org), standing aside from normal page flow. It has to be a two-dimensional matrix sub-site. The main page should contain links to most recent stable version of each category. An image with overlay text (version number) would be best, with some distinctive image for each product line. It would point directly to download file for single file releases or to release page for complex releases. There has to be a side box / menu for each product / category that would link to product download page (that would contain most recent stable on top, then development release, then older releases. > 3.Documentation > 3.1 Only Official Firebird Project docs > 3.2 Link to Firebird FAQ > 3.3 Firebird License > 3.4 Actual Roadmap The same as for Download area. Although we still don't have single comprehensive "free book" for Firebird, we have a lot of documents on many many topics. Putting it all under the user's nose (Documentation link on main page) does more harm than good, so we'll create doc.firebirdsql.org domain for this maze of twisted pages and link to relevant sections from related pages of main site (support, developers, community, CTO-related etc.). This doc sub-domain could be implemented as separate wiki site. > 4.Support > 4.1 Discussion lists > 4.1.1 International (english language) > 4.1.2 Regional (by country/language) > 4.2 Firebird related sites and portals > 4.2.1 Global (english language) > 4.2.2 Regional sites (by coutry/language) > 4.3 Link to Tracker Again, this is too overwhelming list of resources, we have to narrow it down. I'd like divide it into two areas: Support and Community. Support is strictly focused on users / developers seeking help with their problems. All important things should be on *single* page. There could/would be other pages with more detailed information linked from main one. Community area should contain sections for discussion lists, related sites and portals, events a other resources. More comments about community area at the end of this post. > 5. Foundation (links direct to foundation site) Foundation will get it's own sub-site at foundation.firebirdsql.org, and we'll link to it and its parts from relevant places, but it will not be part of main site navigation like it's now. > 6. Contact Not as separate area / menu link. We have too many different kinds of groups and contacts. I'll left contact to project Admins as part of footer copyright notice and at "About" area fro press etc., but generally contacts would be scattered around the site on places where they're most relevant. > 7. Search (this means, global search for the site contents - we can > use even Google for this) You completely forgot one from most important parts of our site - Developer's area for project members. It would be divided by sub-projects like its now, and part of main navigation (Our Projects). The main page for each project would be a show-case for it, with summary description, download link and other most relevant items for it. Each would have a sub-menu (horizontal bar) for download, user related info, developer related info etc. It may vary per project. > My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages > can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid > too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of > 3 clicks (even less, if possible). Agreed. But I'd like make it even simpler than you proposed :) > Project needs to re-think and drop some things, like the CONNECT!, Job > board, etc. I know some of you can measure the pages access > statistics, so probably you can determine what should be dropped > better than me. Although I would like maintain relation between project's site and community-related content, I'd like draw a line between it. Project site should be focused on project matters, and let the community to do its own things its own way. So I'd like propose to separate the community bits to its own sub-site community.firebirdsql.org. It would be still directly linked (part of main site navigation) to project's site, but outside the project's control and maintenance. We'll provide a skeleton site from community-related content we have now, with design and theme that main site would use. We could also maintain this front page / core, but otherwise we'll let community members to decide what should be there or even maintain it. So if community would decide to cancel CONNECT!, job board, whatever, or change or add anything on it, it's not our call. > Also, I have a GOOD NEWS: IBSurgeon is willing to donate USD 1.5K to > the website project redesign. As we already have some amount > collected, for the first time, seems that money is not the problem for > a task to be done. That's certainly great news. > Imho, the project needs to set up a really small group of 2 or 3 > people, to move this task forward. If we have 100 people giving their > opinion about everything, we will end up having endless discussions > and stay stuck. This group would have *total* power to do anything > they want (regarding the website, of course). They can ask "outside" > opinions about designs proposals or anything else, but only if they > want to. Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However, this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll do what we can. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-21 00:33:02
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PC> As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I PC> would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more PC> graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples. I partially agree with you. Yes, I love Mozilla site design, but they are not database guys, so I doubt we can be that simple :) Some years ago I was able to find who did the Mozilla design, maybe this info will be useful for us now. PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with PC> minimal text. I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and simple design. [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....] I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them are related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside people (professional web designers). They should suggest what colors to use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to approve or reject ;) PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean. Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change to a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe it just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do would be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user. Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different places is one of the faults of the currently site, imho. Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the visitors, and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also, some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the numbers of available items. >> 6. Contact PC> Not as separate area / menu link. We have too many different kinds of PC> groups and contacts. I'll left contact to project Admins as part of PC> footer copyright notice and at "About" area fro press etc., but PC> generally contacts would be scattered around the site on places where PC> they're most relevant. I avoided saying where things should be. I just wanted to build a structure of the site content. Someone from the project + the designer would decide where it would be, or how it will be presented (menu, link, section, sidebar, etc). PC> Agreed. But I'd like make it even simpler than you proposed :) If possible, it would be great! PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However, PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll PC> do what we can. Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able to do it now? For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with the job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of a great help for them. I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care about. PS: I wasn't able to comment all of your reply, since I just came back from a great bike ride that took 10h (including 4h under the rain). I'm really tired and just going to bed. Excuse me if I wasn't clear in any of the above comments. []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-21 16:51:48
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Carlos H. Cantu napsal(a): > PC> As the main page is the key, it needs extensive care and polishment. I > PC> would like have it very very simple, with minimal text and more > PC> graphics. Look at www.mozilla.org or www.opensuse.org for examples. > > I partially agree with you. Yes, I love Mozilla site design, but they > are not database guys, so I doubt we can be that simple :) Some years > ago I was able to find who did the Mozilla design, maybe this info > will be useful for us now. The mozilla.org was given as an example of desired page layout, not style. Its style is too "stylish" for our needs. I'd prefer something lighter in colours (soft tones, more based on lines than coloured surfaces). > PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e. downloads > PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started (single > PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with > PC> minimal text. > > I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new > users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and > simple design. They're more synonyms than opposites, don't you think? > [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....] > > I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them are > related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside > people (professional web designers). They should suggest what colors to > use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to > approve or reject ;) Nope. Designers don't have ultimate freedom in design. It's like an architecture. Architect can be free to express his imagination in his design, but still must follow the basics, whether he designs school, museum or business center, how it would be used, in what surrounding it would be etc. So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make with it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that they think would express it. About buttons and links, it's related to site structure and content, which is not something that designers should decide. > PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new one at > PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we just use it > PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long time ago > PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But tenth > PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that we need > PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an isometric > PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of fire (head > PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of surfaces > PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I mean. > > Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change to > a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe it > just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business > to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's designed poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons, banners, t-shirts, icons etc.). And believe me, it's almost impossible to design an appealing web page with this logo, many people tried hard many times and failed. Because the logo looks like amateur's attempt to make a logo (which it is), it makes all layouts look amateurish. Facelift would help either, as all attempts failed. You *may* come with some mixed and rendered image that wouldn't look completely awful (like firebirdnews button), but that will not fix the logo itself. Logo must look good even in two-colour (i.e. printed) flat mode. We use it only because we haven't anything better to replace it at the time, and the sole reason we still use it is pure inertia. The 10th anniversary is our best chance to overcome this inertia and get something better we could live with to the very end. Otherwise we'll be stuck with this nightmare to our 25th anniversary. I agree that we need a professional logo designer for this task, however we have to clearly specify its *parameters*. We definitely want a bird in it. Flames would be a bonus (we doesn't have them now). Because we need to use it on icons, it must look good when down-scaled. There are many "phoenixes" in the wild used as logos, and only one really appealing phoenix logo was for Phoenix Pictures movie production company (see http://www.phoenixpictures.com/). All others look from awful to mediocre, especially when portrayed as full birds, and that was in "full size", down-sized it's even worse. The "just head" suggestion is based on down-scale factor. > About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are > good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do would > be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user. > Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different places is > one of the faults of the currently site, imho. 1. It's not currently spread around the site (see Download and Documentation). Yes, there are sub menus, but without them it would be even worse, just take a look at Firebird Documentation Index page and imagine it would has it *all*, the same for Download when you'd look at Engine downloads. 2. My proposal contains both approaches: "all in one place" (focus on area and then drill down and down and down...) and "by context" (much shorter navigation path). It would come for almost the same money. I've just emphasized the preference for shortest path over central repository as part of initial user experience, but both is still there. > Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most > interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the visitors, > and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also, > some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the > numbers of available items. We do prioritize by potential user interest, but there are simply too many items so it would always look cluttered. The only one way how to make it more clean is to "select by context" as part of pageflow, plus provide the central repository for "librarians". > PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from other > PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and others have > PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this. However, > PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have to check > PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises, but we'll > PC> do what we can. > > Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be > you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the > control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the > necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able > to do it now? 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle the content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing. 2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to. Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/her way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it. But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to get over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it. What's interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside the project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually work on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it. So that's about the control, now about the "change". Yes, it would change. We didn't made it one or two years ago because we knew it wouldn't be shining. It would be a lot of work and at the end we would probably have more usable site, but not more appealing. So we postponed this task until we could actually do it better (i.e. with help from professional graphic and web designer). Now it seems we would have it, and the 10th anniversary is a good motivation to pass through this dark valley. > For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move > forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with the > job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of > a great help for them. Ideas are good, but even the best ones are just that - ideas. They don't magically materialize into something, someone has to make them in the reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with. > I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed > a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You > and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care > about. Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-21 19:57:24
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Comments to site-structure:
> My view is that the main (top) menu should not have subitems. Pages
> can have sidebar menus/links or even sub-sections. We need to avoid
> too much levels = people needs to find what they want with maximum of
> 3 clicks (even less, if possible)."
A two-row top-menu can in fact result in a more structured site, without
excessive clicks, top row1 corresponds to "the stairway of knowlede",
* Start - what's this (general description, licence, testimonials)
* Download - I'm interested
* Documentation - How do do what I want (with browsable help files (in
the long run))
* Help - I'm stuck - FAQ, mail list etc, forums (maybe, in the long run)
* Get involved, donate, foundation,dev's corner etc
* Ext.ref. just links to tools, support and other.
At level two, up to around seven subcategoires, (more becomes blurry)
At each "level1-page", there can be a quick-jump-list on the left
side, so information
can be strongly hierarcical, and yet quick to reach if the topic is
often requested.
(these quicklists can of course be selfmainaining upon page-statistics)
If the left menu holds further two levels, maby 8 items each, (except
the quicklinks-box),
it would make up a quite easy-navigatable site.
So from an outsiders perspective, here's my original suggestion:
Site
>Start
>Homepage w. news
> News archive
>Introduction
>Overview
>History
>Licence
>The FB Foundation
>Firebird brand
>Join / Donate
>Download
>Server
FB2
FB1
>Client
>ODBC
>JDBC
>PHP
>...
>Tools
>Logos
>Documentation
>Configuring
>Basics
>Obejct overview
>Tables
>Triggers
>...
>SQL
>SQL / DDL - kind of good ol' ib6 html ref.
>PSQL
>Internal functions
>Localization
>Security
>Advanced
>System tables
>UDF's
>Bundled tools
>Get Help
>FAQ
>FB terminology
>Newbie
>General
>Advanced
>Books
>Lists
>Get involved
>Conferences
>Foundation
>External resources
>Tools
>Extensions
>Support
>Hosting
> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.).
In fact I like it, (not the shaded one), it's not an easy one as it's
extremly light (both meanings),
but doesn't have to be completely disregarded. (I don't hold an AD-
exam but I have worked
with design, se pomada.se for references)
> don't want to hear that I should spend hours of my time to learn
> Drupal or
> whatever CMS so I could code another non-appealing website. Give me
> appealing
> CSS that looks great in all browsers that we could use instead such
> advices,
> and we could implement it right away. Did we get any? Nope, just the
> same old "use
> this, use that technology" b****.
Am I being harrased again here? Please feel free to quote me, but do
it with honersty.
Never have I insinuated that the site maintainers should learn drupal.
I know from
own experiences that it takes a good amount of time. Maintaining a
site in drupal
is not the same as building one. (But i do understand that it might be
unpleasant
not knowing what's "under the hood")
In fact regarding the drupal issue, which once again, was an open idea
from my
side on how to add public interest for firebird, I've been
reconsidering with the
following outcome:
+ A known cms may be add value to FB for anyone with respect for that
cms
- Use of a known cms may give credit to the cms, not to FB
- It may result in a kind of vendor-lockin
- Current sitemaintainers seems to want a understanding of the nuts
and bolts,
not just a administers backend. And current sitemaintainers seems
commited
to continue their work.
- Even the most accredited cms:es comes and goes,
+ CMS modules may reduce devtime as new features are requested,
search, forum, commenting...
- There's no interest or need(?) for such new features.
> So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.
I am very happy to hear this (I'm sincere, not ironic). This was what
I was requested
in the fist place, I did not impose that it should come from your
side, nevertheless
after a few posts I was attaced by HB, (see firebird-general).
> Did we get any? Nope, just the same old "use this, use that
> technology" b****.
I have tried to ask as kindly as I can for white papers, drafts,
offered a wiki as a repostory for idéas,
indicating that I have things to offer, (but not wanting to bloat), as
in
> I've put together a sitemap and layout-draft - nothing spectacular
> but something
> to start from. I'd gladly share it with you.
Did *I* get any responses? Nope. Null. That's ok. However I don't
understand
why this list is public in the first place since outsiders both
present and from the past
are being mocked at. Feel free to do it, but open up a list for
yourself then. Currently
some of you are only proving Giovanni Premuda to be perfectly right.
And since you first now
are beginning to look at concept (wherever that put's the horse), how
could anyone possibly
contribute. I speak for my experiences - not the long history.
Finally, my sincere apologises to Pavel or anyone else offended by the
"powed by flatfiles"-joke,
it slipped my tounge as I was so profundly surprised. I'm sorry for
the words, but not the content,
apache.org isn't powered by thttpd even if apache is a fairly complex
piece of software.
Except for that I've tried to be creative and serious. If anyone has
found my posts to be valuable,
I'd be very glad to hear that, here or PM.
Sincerely,
/tjelvar eriksson
>> PC> The main visual focus should be targeted on new users, i.e.
>> downloads
>> PC> (latest stable release) + everything you need to get started
>> (single
>> PC> page, more about that later). It should be based on graphics with
>> PC> minimal text.
>>
>> I agree about making "major interesting stuff" very visible for new
>> users, but I would like to see a balance about clean/technical and
>> simple design.
>
> They're more synonyms than opposites, don't you think?
>
>> [.... a lot of quote cutted here ....]
>>
>> I will not comment all the items you replied, because many of them
>> are
>> related to design, and I think this need to be handled by outside
>> people (professional web designers). They should suggest what
>> colors to
>> use, or if there should be button or link, etc etc. We need just to
>> approve or reject ;)
>
> Nope. Designers don't have ultimate freedom in design. It's like an
> architecture. Architect can be free to express his imagination in his
> design, but still must follow the basics, whether he designs school,
> museum or business center, how it would be used, in what surrounding
> it
> would be etc. So we should clearly articulate our goal (what building
> we'd like get), how we'll use it and what impression we'd like make
> with
> it (which dictates style), then designer would sketch some ideas that
> they think would express it.
>
> About buttons and links, it's related to site structure and content,
> which is not something that designers should decide.
>
>> PC> About the Firebird logo... I think that we should come with new
>> one at
>> PC> our tenth anniversary. The current one is not very good, we
>> just use it
>> PC> because we didn't have a better one and didn't replaced it long
>> time ago
>> PC> because this was used on various materials, t-shirts etc. But
>> tenth
>> PC> anniversary is a good occasion to make a switch. I think that
>> we need
>> PC> simple, distinctive one that uses only one colour. Maybe an
>> isometric
>> PC> bird head (in a circle?) with some graphical resemblance of
>> fire (head
>> PC> feathers)? It should be created from few slick lines instead of
>> surfaces
>> PC> like current one. PG and MySQL logos are good examples what I
>> mean.
>>
>> Not sure if we need new logo, or even if it would be good to change
>> to
>> a new one after so many people are used to the currently one. Maybe
>> it
>> just need a facelift. Anyway, again, I think it is not our business
>> to tell how it should looks like. We need professionals for this job
>
> The logo is bad, we always knew that. It's not completely awful (but
> it's definitely not beautiful). The most important is that it's
> designed
> poorly, so it's very hard to work with it (make appealing buttons,
> banners, t-shirts, icons etc.). And believe me, it's almost impossible
> to design an appealing web page with this logo, many people tried hard
> many times and failed. Because the logo looks like amateur's attempt
> to
> make a logo (which it is), it makes all layouts look amateurish.
> Facelift would help either, as all attempts failed. You *may* come
> with
> some mixed and rendered image that wouldn't look completely awful
> (like
> firebirdnews button), but that will not fix the logo itself. Logo must
> look good even in two-colour (i.e. printed) flat mode.
>
> We use it only because we haven't anything better to replace it at the
> time, and the sole reason we still use it is pure inertia. The 10th
> anniversary is our best chance to overcome this inertia and get
> something better we could live with to the very end. Otherwise we'll
> be
> stuck with this nightmare to our 25th anniversary.
>
> I agree that we need a professional logo designer for this task,
> however
> we have to clearly specify its *parameters*. We definitely want a bird
> in it. Flames would be a bonus (we doesn't have them now). Because we
> need to use it on icons, it must look good when down-scaled. There are
> many "phoenixes" in the wild used as logos, and only one really
> appealing phoenix logo was for Phoenix Pictures movie production
> company
> (see http://www.phoenixpictures.com/). All others look from awful to
> mediocre, especially when portrayed as full birds, and that was in
> "full
> size", down-sized it's even worse. The "just head" suggestion is based
> on down-scale factor.
>
>> About the downloads and docs, I'm not sure if creating subdomains are
>> good idea. Yes, we have a lot of items, but the best thing to do
>> would
>> be to find a way to present this in a simple way to the user.
>> Spreading the same thing (contextually speaking) in different
>> places is
>> one of the faults of the currently site, imho.
>
> 1. It's not currently spread around the site (see Download and
> Documentation). Yes, there are sub menus, but without them it would be
> even worse, just take a look at Firebird Documentation Index page and
> imagine it would has it *all*, the same for Download when you'd look
> at
> Engine downloads.
>
> 2. My proposal contains both approaches: "all in one place" (focus on
> area and then drill down and down and down...) and "by context" (much
> shorter navigation path). It would come for almost the same money.
> I've
> just emphasized the preference for shortest path over central
> repository
> as part of initial user experience, but both is still there.
>
>> Maybe a good approach is to first list the "most
>> interesting/desirable" things, that would satisfy 90% of the
>> visitors,
>> and a second level with extra stuff for people wanting more. Also,
>> some of the docs can be combined into single "books" to reduce the
>> numbers of available items.
>
> We do prioritize by potential user interest, but there are simply too
> many items so it would always look cluttered. The only one way how to
> make it more clean is to "select by context" as part of pageflow, plus
> provide the central repository for "librarians".
>
>> PC> Hmm, that would be probably Helen and me (with feedback from
>> other
>> PC> project members), as we have the most experience with it and
>> others have
>> PC> more important things to do than spend hours and hours on this.
>> However,
>> PC> this task would go far beyond our "available time", so I have
>> to check
>> PC> first whether we could ever make time for it. So no promises,
>> but we'll
>> PC> do what we can.
>>
>> Pavel, you and Helen already handles the site. If the "group" will be
>> you and Helen, we don't need it at all, since you are already in the
>> control, so what would change??? If you both weren't able to make the
>> necessary changes in the past months, do you think you would be able
>> to do it now?
>
> 1. I'm sure that Helen would gladly leave this task from hell to
> somebody else. But almost nobody in the project is capable to handle
> the
> content, as almost everybody has english as second language. Helen
> handles our materials (release notes, announcements, PR, web page
> content, everything) for us from the beginning, and she does an
> excellent job. Only candidate(s) that could potentially handle it is
> someone from Documentation project (Paul?), so ask him/them if they're
> interested to take this responsibility. Good luck fishing.
>
> 2. I would gladly relieve myself and pass over the website control if
> there would be anyone trustworthy for project admins to pass it to.
> Anybody has a chance in past nine years to approach us and work his/
> her
> way up on website and then eventually take full responsibility for it.
> But guess what, nobody did. Nobody cared enough about our website to
> get
> over pure clamouring about our "crappy work" and actually do something
> with it. Everybody was just happy that somebody else handles it.
> What's
> interesting is that all criticism to our work come only from outside
> the
> project, and nobody from project members (i.e. people who actually
> work
> on something in the project) was ever harsh on us about it.
>
> So that's about the control, now about the "change". Yes, it would
> change. We didn't made it one or two years ago because we knew it
> wouldn't be shining. It would be a lot of work and at the end we would
> probably have more usable site, but not more appealing. So we
> postponed
> this task until we could actually do it better (i.e. with help from
> professional graphic and web designer). Now it seems we would have it,
> and the 10th anniversary is a good motivation to pass through this
> dark
> valley.
>
>> For now, I'm just throwing ideas to try to make this task to move
>> forward. For sure there are capable people here that can help with
>> the
>> job, and I'm sure that you (with your currently experience) can be of
>> a great help for them.
>
> Ideas are good, but even the best ones are just that - ideas. They
> don't
> magically materialize into something, someone has to make them in the
> reality. We have enough good ideas for the eternity, but we're
> short-handed. So the best way to "move this task forward" is to help
> materialize them. There are plenty things that one can help with.
>
>> I thank you and Helen for what you have done with the site. We needed
>> a site, and you did it! Great! But now, we need to move on. You
>> and Helen already have other important tasks in the project to care
>> about.
>
> Does it mean that you're volunteering to take the full responsibility
> for the site? If you're not, there is no honourable way out for us.
>
> best regards
> Pavel Cisar
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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|
|
From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-28 18:20:29
|
All, Please let me add my two cents. This is mostly a reply to the [constructive part of] messages by Carlos and Pavel. I'm basically agreed with many things already mentioned here. I'm also in favor of the KIS principle. Text based, without much graphics (maybe except the home page), white background, uniform style using firebirdish colors (orange or red), no expandable sub-menus. The whole site generally consists of three levels: home page, sub-sections (to be jumped into via top menu) and documents (to be jumped into via a side-bar of a particular sub-section). Deeper level documents (if required) should be navigateable directly from the parent ones. I've seen an idea to omit some sections from the top menu (in favor of other links?), but I tend to disagree. In this case, sub-sections would have no possibility to jump there directly, or it would require different top menus for the home page and sub-sections. I'd rather prefer to have the same top menu at the every level. But this is surely discussable. There was a good point that we need target on a few areas and use some visual "welcome here" approach for the targeted audiences. I think we have three categories to handle: newcomers, current users and potential sponsors/contributors. So the home page should contain some clearly visible special navigation for them. I've codenamed these items "get started", "get updated" and "get involved". They should redirect to some aggregated pages containing (directly or through the links) the information that is of the primary interest of the appropriate audience (to save them time iterating through the entire menu system). Home page may also contain news, but only as shortcut links to the other pages with complete articles. The same for the download links. As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to demonstrate the aforementioned ideas: I'm not sure that IE would show the layout properly, so please use Firefox or Opera. Sorry for that, I'm not a web designer ;-) Level 0 (home page): http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html Level 1 (sub-section): http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/dev.html Level 2 (document): http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/roadmap.html Please don't consider them being a concrete proposal :-) I just hope they could be useful as a reference for the further discussion. I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section: * What is Firebird / Intro * Origin / History * License * Advantages / Key Points * SQL compliance * Fact Sheets / Success Stories * Organization / Sub-Projects Dmitry |
|
From: Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...> - 2009-11-29 20:33:10
|
Dmitry Yemanov wrote: > Please don't consider them being a concrete proposal :-) I just hope > they could be useful as a reference for the further discussion. > Even so it would be a HUGE improvement. A clean and professional design, XHTML 1.1, a clean CSS. Giovanni -- Giovanni Premuda |
|
From: Rustam G. <fir...@ma...> - 2009-11-28 20:04:21
|
Dmitry Yemanov > I'm also in favor of the KIS principle. Text based, without much > graphics (maybe except the home page), no expandable sub-menus. +1 > white background, uniform style using firebirdish colors (orange or red), I think, background and color is not the main problem etc. Current bg-color (light-green), bg-color in your link etc - all are good for most of peoples. I think, such "trifles" may be voted and forgotten. > Home page may also contain news, but only as shortcut links to the other > pages with complete articles. The same for the download links. > > As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to > demonstrate the aforementioned ideas: > > Level 0 (home page): > http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html Very pleasant for me! :) There are some wrong moments from my POV, but it is proposal and good step to begin. Some more such steps - and the work will move on. :) WBR, GR |
|
From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-28 20:41:03
|
Rustam, > I think, background and color is not the main problem etc. Sure. > I think, such "trifles" may be voted and forgotten. I don't event think it needs voting. I'd rather just leave it up to the web designer doing the "dirty work". The only voting I can think of is to choose from a few predefined sketches to collect the basic view of our preferences, like it was done with design schemes by Marius and his developer. > There are some wrong moments from my POV Feel free to share them! If they're not just about colors and other minor stuff :-) Dmitry |
|
From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-28 20:10:23
|
Dmitry Yemanov napsal(a): > > I've seen an idea to omit some sections from the top menu (in favor of > other links?), but I tend to disagree. In this case, sub-sections would > have no possibility to jump there directly, or it would require > different top menus for the home page and sub-sections. I'd rather > prefer to have the same top menu at the every level. But this is surely > discussable. The idea was to have top menu with "behavioural" topics (get files, get support, get involved etc.) instead "factual" topics (download, documentation, development etc.). Of course, there would be also center pages for some "factual" topics, but accessible via special sub-domain, and individual "documents" would be primarily accessed directly in particular context. In fact, your proposal has the same issue, just from different angle :) Your menu is topical, but home page also contains links to behavioural sections (Get started, get updated etc.) that are in turn not directly accessible once you leave the main page. So, as you can see, it's a compromise either way, we can just choose which one would fit our needs better. The topical approach you suggest has one crucial issue for me: it forces us to mix information of interests for different kind of site users into humongous resource sections (especially the download and documentation section is problematic). Just take a look at our current site for what and how much information we would have to "sink" into these two sections! However, I agree that topical menu is more clear (you'll find exactly what's in topic's name), as behavioural navigation may not be completely clear for everybody who never saw it before. Nevertheless the actual navigation with topical menu could (and probably would) be more complex and confusing once you start to drill down into sections. > There was a good point that we need target on a few areas and use some > visual "welcome here" approach for the targeted audiences. I think we > have three categories to handle: newcomers, current users and potential > sponsors/contributors. So the home page should contain some clearly > visible special navigation for them. I've codenamed these items "get > started", "get updated" and "get involved". They should redirect to some > aggregated pages containing (directly or through the links) the > information that is of the primary interest of the appropriate audience > (to save them time iterating through the entire menu system). We're on agreement here :) > As a homework, I've created a few sketches (surely amateur) to > demonstrate the aforementioned ideas: > > I'm not sure that IE would show the layout properly, so please use > Firefox or Opera. Sorry for that, I'm not a web designer ;-) > > Level 0 (home page): > http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/index.html > > Level 1 (sub-section): > http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/dev.html > > Level 2 (document): > http://www.firebirdsql.org/download/rabbits/dimitr/roadmap.html I liked the structural concept, however there is that menu/section divide thing :) Anyway, the content would be basically structured in the same way whatever menu/section scheme we would finally use, so I would like propose to create the content in new structure and then assemble it in both ways (it wouldn't be much additional work, they differ just in main page and menu header) as two separated "test sites" and let people decide which one works better for them. > I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section: > > * What is Firebird / Intro > * Origin / History > * License > * Advantages / Key Points > * SQL compliance > * Fact Sheets / Success Stories > * Organization / Sub-Projects Wouldn't the About us then become identical to Get started section? best regards Pavel Cisar |
|
From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-28 20:55:00
|
Hi Dmitry! Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good choice of colors and text sizes. Though I would remove the excessive glare from the logo, and would not use "pink" (or whatever the color of the "get involved" ballon is :-). I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and "rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site. I don't see too much problem having topical and behavioral together, if they are mixed in a way that will help the navigation and not confuse the visitor. I agree with many of your points and if we already had the site content available in a database, it would be less problematic and time consuming to test different layouts/approaches using real content. Thanks for spending your precious time with this. []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br DY> Please let me add my two cents. DY> This is mostly a reply to the [constructive part of] messages by Carlos DY> and Pavel. I'm basically agreed with many things already mentioned here. [....] |
|
From: Rustam G. <fir...@ma...> - 2009-11-29 02:43:59
|
Carlos H. Cantu > Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I > must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my > eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good > choice of colors and text sizes. +1 :) However, left menu run to bottom in my IE and i dislike this menu content. :) > I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and > "rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird > Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site. My thoughts too. In current site rabbits is efficient solution, but "umbrella" always really deadlocks me. :) And about CMS (forgot to wrote in previous letter) - if Marius's team already uses some Firebird-support CMS (Drupal or what else) - than let them independently choose the best they want. WBR, GR |
|
From: Lester C. <le...@ls...> - 2009-11-29 07:37:57
|
Rustam Gadjimuradov wrote: > Carlos H. Cantu >> Seems that you have other talents aside being a good developer ;) I >> must say that, in general way, your three page "demo" are nice for my >> eyes. They are clear, with good balance of text/graphics and some good >> choice of colors and text sizes. > > +1 :) > > However, left menu run to bottom in my IE and i dislike this menu content. :) > >> I really hate some of the terms used in the currently site, and >> "rabbit roles" is one of them (together with "Under the Firebird >> Umbrella). I would totally avoid using them in the new site. > > My thoughts too. In current site rabbits is efficient solution, > but "umbrella" always really deadlocks me. :) > > And about CMS (forgot to wrote in previous letter) - if > Marius's team already uses some Firebird-support CMS > (Drupal or what else) - than let them independently choose > the best they want. This demo has thrown up a number of things on my 'test environment' and highlights one of the problems of static html. I have text overlying boxes on some browsers. Not a major problem, but annoying enough, and certainly less annoying than some of the static sites I visit! A CMS framework SHOULD already handle the different requirements of .css and the like, and is not worth discussing here, but manually built pages need to take that into account! (And IE6 is not dead - MANY large organizations simply can't afford to replace W2k! ) Another +1 for a proper CMS is the latest news section. This should be built automatically FROM the news articles, which is another reason for having a central site, rather than referring to other sites for news and other activity. And I include the tracker in that ;) But the main complaint about the 'demo', and one that is not easy to solve, is that it barely fills half of the width of my browser so the bulk of the page is white space. This is one of my criticisms of the existing site as well, but at least that stays to the left of the browser. I know that 'dynamic pages' play havoc with some web designers 'esthetic's' but with wide screen monitors at high resolution becoming more common ( has anybody tried buying a 1024x768 monitor recently ) some consideration should be given to that aspect. Since I do now have to use glasses for close work, I switch the browser to 150% text. Try that on the demo page ..... and on wiki.firebirdsql.org A dynamic CMS approach is a lot more than 'complicating things' - it takes care of a lot of the 'complicated things' that get forgotten when manually creating each page .... If I get some time over the next couple of days I'll take the demo layout and create a theme for it on bitweaver so people can see how it might look, but changing the header on the existing wiki site is a 5 minute job, and the top menu can be reworked just as easily. -- Lester Caine - G8HFL ----------------------------- Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php |
|
From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-28 21:02:14
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Pavel, > The idea was to have top menu with "behavioural" topics (get files, get > support, get involved etc.) instead "factual" topics (download, > documentation, development etc.). Of course, there would be also center > pages for some "factual" topics, but accessible via special sub-domain, > and individual "documents" would be primarily accessed directly in > particular context. > > In fact, your proposal has the same issue, just from different angle :) > Your menu is topical, but home page also contains links to behavioural > sections (Get started, get updated etc.) that are in turn not directly > accessible once you leave the main page. > > So, as you can see, it's a compromise either way, we can just choose > which one would fit our needs better. Exactly. I'm not pretending that my concept is better, it's just some alternative to consider. I think that the "factual" pages have to be reached from everywhere while the "behavioural" ones make sense mostly to those opening the home page. > The topical approach you suggest has one crucial issue for me: it forces > us to mix information of interests for different kind of site users into > humongous resource sections (especially the download and documentation > section is problematic). Just take a look at our current site for what > and how much information we would have to "sink" into these two sections! I agree this requires special attention. I just hoped it could be kinda "solved" by the properly sectioned structure and layout (i.e. avoid having everything on a single page). > Anyway, the content would be basically structured in the same way > whatever menu/section scheme we would finally use, so I would like > propose to create the content in new structure and then assemble it in > both ways (it wouldn't be much additional work, they differ just in main > page and menu header) as two separated "test sites" and let people > decide which one works better for them. This sounds appropriate to me. >> I'd also like to suggest pages that could reside in the About section: >> >> * What is Firebird / Intro >> * Origin / History >> * License >> * Advantages / Key Points >> * SQL compliance >> * Fact Sheets / Success Stories >> * Organization / Sub-Projects > > Wouldn't the About us then become identical to Get started section? Only partially. The "Get Started" section would also contain links to the downloads, documentation and probably support (at least newsgroups). Something like this: Get Started: About, Downloads, Documentation, Support Get Updated: Downloads, Documentation, Development, News Get Involved: Foundation|Sponsorship, Development, Documentation It doesn't mean these aggregated pages should contain all the references from the every mention section, only most important of them (and with user-friendly textual explanations like "Pay special attention to" or "Follow this section"). I've been thinking about behavioural pages as "smart collections" that don't have their own documents but only links to elsewhere. In this case, the About menu is still required as a container which its own documents. Dmitry |
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From: tjelvar e. <tj...@fa...> - 2009-11-29 21:57:27
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> Yes, i think about this way too. But, some of moments - such as > main color scheme, menu and navigation scheme, site structure > and home page structure+blocks+content - must and can be > "selected" before designers begin to work. kuler.adobe.com is a good starting point for creating site color profile. > m also in favor of the KIS principle. Text based, without much > graphics (maybe except the home page), no expandable sub-menus. +1 Any graphic elements except logo requires work as site grows. And may easily become blurry as new fonts / elements are added. > I think, 5-7 menu items is optimal. My suggestion - > Home - Downloads - Documentation - Development - > News & Events - Support & Community - About. +1 5-7 elements, gives good overview. > For additional navigation sub-pages can have additional > menu bar (under the top) or left menu column - as Carlos > already said, i agree. Also i agree about 3-4 level limitting. I see good reason for second topmenu level - diminishes menu options to the left (2-level) to a fair amount. > This demo has thrown up a number of things on my 'test environment' and > highlights one of the problems of static html. I have text overlying boxes on > some browsers. IMHO, pages, flat files or in a database, should contain no html, wikisyntax / markdown lasts better over time. Final cross-browser output is the template responsibility. And hierarcical content structure keep things in place and may autogenerate menus and teasers / listnings. > The topical approach you suggest has one crucial issue for me: it > forces > us to mix information of interests for different kind of site users > into > humongous resource sections (especially the download and documentation > section is problematic). Just take a look at our current site for what > and how much information we would have to "sink" into these two > sections! Selected download item may contain shortcuts to appropriate elements in the docs (or/and shortcuts to current pdf's). "Release info, configuration" etc may all be in hierarcical docs. regards //Tjelvar eriksson |
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From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-28 21:17:38
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Carlos, > Though I would remove the excessive glare from the logo, I paid almost zero attention to the logo (and avoided designing the header section at all), these two are simply outside my skill set. They deserve serious attention from the web designer though. Those talks about our logo being suboptimal have some value, as IMHO it can hardly fit any professional design. I hope to be proved wrong. > and would not use "pink" (or whatever the color of the > "get involved" ballon is :-). That was a random color choice. Anyway, the demo was not about colors of balloons ;-) > I agree with many of your points and if we already had the site content > available in a database, it would be less problematic and time consuming > to test different layouts/approaches using real content. In our case we'll need to have a layout skeleton done by the designer beforehand. My demo (while being css based) was not intended for the real world testing. Dmitry |
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From: Carlos H. C. <li...@wa...> - 2009-11-29 00:33:32
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DY> In our case we'll need to have a layout skeleton done by the designer DY> beforehand. My demo (while being css based) was not intended for the DY> real world testing. And I not saying the contrary. My point is that it is always better choose/test a layout if it shows real info, and it is much easier to produce them if the content is coming from database, unless someone likes to exercise copy/paste skills ;) The static x dynamic content subject was being discussed a few days ago, and IMHO, this is +1 for dynamic (so my comment). This is not the first time that layouts, structures, logos, etc. are being discussed, and all the previous attempts ended in nothing being done because there was too many suggestions, ideas, etc. but no agreement, and I'm seeing this happening again. So, I'm leaving this entire discussion, because as I already said, my opinion is that 2 or 3 (max) capable persons/professionals should handle this task without having to explain or ask approval for each proposed change. []s Carlos H. Cantu www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org www.warmboot.com.br - blog.firebase.com.br |
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From: Rustam G. <fir...@ma...> - 2009-11-29 02:30:26
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Dmitry Yemanov > I don't event think it needs voting. I'd rather just leave it up to the > web designer doing the "dirty work". The only voting I can think of is > to choose from a few predefined sketches to collect the basic view of > our preferences Yes, i think about this way too. But, some of moments - such as main color scheme, menu and navigation scheme, site structure and home page structure+blocks+content - must and can be "selected" before designers begin to work. > Feel free to share them! If they're not just about colors and other > minor stuff :-) OK, lets begin, here "too many letters". :) My thoughts (for clearness i'll state from "what we should not to do" to "what we can/must do") : 1. No 2-level menus (like mysql.com). I don't dislike dropdown menus, but if it can be avoided - it must. Or, compromisse way - hyperlinked dropdownable menus (such as current "download" and "doc" menus, but not like current "development" and "licensing"). I think, 5-7 menu items is optimal. My suggestion - Home - Downloads - Documentation - Development - News & Events - Support & Community - About. Top menu bar (and cap as a whole) must be the same in all site pages. I think, here is nothing to discuss. For additional navigation sub-pages can have additional menu bar (under the top) or left menu column - as Carlos already said, i agree. Also i agree about 3-4 level limitting. 2. No "heavy" and overweighted homepage and main subsection pages. Not like microsoft.com, oracle.com and others - good example of bad sites, created by the whole army of professionals for money. As starting point, i like Dmitry's offered design of homepage. "About" text is too bad, "SF Award winner" block is inapproriate in the home page etc, but all of this - is details, main - blocks and structure - is good as for me. What must be instead of right-top block - I don't know, may be it's better drop it ... but i think about "subproject-buttons" - Flamerobin etc. Or, another way: right-top block - last news, right-bottom - friend-site banners (firebirdnew, ibphoenix etc). Good example for meditation and comparision - site ubuntu.com. No design like mozilla.org, please, but opensuse.org is not bad. 3. Now is not a time to discuss or even talk about subsites (community.firebirdsql.org etc), which Pavel mentioned. 4. Logo. I disagree with Pavel, I think current logo more good, than bad. And Carlos's poll confirms this. May be it needs some cosmetical redesign, but it isn't directly related with site redesign. In any case, I think it's not time to "re-branding". -- If someone has forgotten last year's design proposals - just compare them with current proposals. :) |
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From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-29 08:38:25
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Rustam Gadjimuradov wrote: > > "SF Award winner" block is inapproriate in the home page Just to clarify, as I haven't mentioned this block in my description. This is a "hot news" balloon, i.e. it would represent something we'd like to make more visible for the visitors. Our awards (as in my example), new big sponsor, pleasing benchmark results, etc. Its contents is expected to change regularly. IMHO, such PR element does belong to the home page. Dmitry |
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From: Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...> - 2009-11-29 20:42:58
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Dmitry Yemanov wrote: > > Just to clarify, as I haven't mentioned this block in my description. > > ... > IMHO, such PR element does belong to > the home page. > > +1 -- Giovanni Premuda |
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From: Rustam G. <fir...@ma...> - 2009-11-30 02:13:17
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Dmitry Yemanov > This is a "hot news" balloon, i.e. it would represent something we'd > like to make more visible for the visitors. Our awards (as in my > example), new big sponsor, pleasing benchmark results, etc. Its contents > is expected to change regularly. Ah, OK. I think you positioned it as more static thing. I think about it too - in addition to already mentioned - most important news (conference, etc), major releases (even alpha/beta) etc. If no important news/releases - there may be "donate" button or NewYear Greeting. :) > IMHO, such PR element does belong to the home page. Sure. Pavel, Dmitry, Carlos - may be it's time to resume this thread and form the teams/workgroups ? WBR, GR |
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From: Pavel C. <pc...@ib...> - 2009-11-30 11:39:56
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Rustam Gadjimuradov napsal(a): > > Pavel, Dmitry, Carlos - may be it's time to resume > this thread and form the teams/workgroups ? Already set into motion. I've started to work on the plumbing followed by raw selected content conversion, but it's interrupted by imminent QA on 2.5 RC1 release. Then Helen would start to tidy up the content and designers could start they work. best regards Pavel Cisar |
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From: Dmitry Y. <fir...@ya...> - 2009-11-30 11:49:51
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Pavel Cisar wrote: > > Already set into motion. I've started to work on the plumbing followed > by raw selected content conversion, but it's interrupted by imminent QA > on 2.5 RC1 release. Then Helen would start to tidy up the content and > designers could start they work. I thought there should be some decision making group to be created and introduced here, which is expected to be responsible. Now you speak about various activities, but I still have no idea how it's going to be managed. While I volunteer to assist, I don't see my role in this effort yet. Dmitry |
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From: Giovanni P. <gpr...@so...> - 2009-11-30 13:23:28
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Dmitry Yemanov wrote: > I thought there should be some decision making group to be created and > introduced here, which is expected to be responsible. Now you speak > about various activities, but I still have no idea how it's going to be > managed. While I volunteer to assist, I don't see my role in this effort > yet. > Me too. I'm quite willing to help with tedious tasks, like cleaning up the markup of current contents, but only if the decision-making process is public. One thing is having the effort managed by a steering group, another thing is having the decision making hidden behind closed doors. Successful open source projects are managed in the open, even if the final decisions are taken by the individuals that accept responsibility for certain areas. -- Giovanni Premuda |
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