Re: [Gramps-devel] Wep Report Update Proposals

[James G. S. (jim) <jg...@sa...>]

Jason Simanek wrote:
> Hello GRAMPS folks,
> 
> I have put together two slightly different proposals for the web report
> outputs. I would like you to review them and let me know what you think.
> I really like #2 personally. I am hosting them on my server since I
> don't know how these files fit in with the existing development system
> you have set up.
> 
> NOTE: There is almost no custom styling present so that we can focus on
> the semantic structure of the pages.

Nice approach.
..and generally, nice work from my view of the general markup. Others
may be able to give more focused feedback on content handling. I do have
a couple of comments below, though.

> 
> Proposal #1
> http://www.bohemianalps.com/dev/GRAMPS/Proposal-1/index.html
> This is basically the same site structure as the existing report. I have
> focused on consistent terminology. With the markup I tried to move away
> from using tables for every layout.
> 
> Proposal #2
> http://www.bohemianalps.com/dev/GRAMPS/Proposal-2/index.html
> With this one I took it even further. I don't think 'surname' should
> have its own directory, it should be part of 'people'. I have eliminated
> the surname page re-sorted by 'Number of Entries'.

Just wondering: are there any other alternatives to the labels "Home"
and "Surnames"?

Entry page might contain additional summary info, I suppose. Or perhaps
that belongs on a stats page?

On the principle of "You can never predict what will be important to
users", tabulated data sort options seem good if there's _some_
possiblity it will be meaningful. What's the cost in this case?

> Major Changes I'd like you to review:
> 1
> Site markup cleaned up and focused on semantic clarity (e.g. use tables
> for tables of information and nothing else).

Yay! Yay!! on keeping table-usage for tabular data. Yay!!! for
validating html.

> 2
> Navigation is now an unordered list with the id 'ActiveSection' applied
> to the list item of the active section for helpful interface feature. I
> have given the 'ActiveSection' a colored background to help illustrate
> the benefit of this change.

Good. Non-css people may not know. but this is common practice now, and
offers versatile styling possiblities such as horizontal navbars (for
just one example)

> 3
> All elements can be styled generally across the site. However, each
> unique page's primary content is contained in a DIV with a unique ID for
> more specific styling.
> 
> 4
> People List: Added a few items since there's plenty of room for more
> helpful info: GRAMPS ID now a separate column, patronymic, gender, death
> date

I suppose this might be the page where different folks might want
different options?

> 5
> Added thumbnail image to individual Place and Source pages.
> 
> 6
> Maybe this could be an option in the web report, but I replaced the
> existing gallery/media list of names with a list of thumbnail images
> that would default to being display:block float:left so that they would
> make a grid that expands to the viewer's window width.
> 
> 7
> On any table featuring the 'Letter' column, I have made the letter a
> link to the "name" bookmark on that page. That way people could bookmark
> or send other people a link to a specific area of the table according to
> the 'Letter' column.

The letter being itself a link in unstyled rendering is slightly
confusing. Would this become one of those what-do-you-callit
purple-low-contrast paragraph-mark thingies via styling?

> 8
> Page titles are set to go from right to left so that the detail about
> the current page is the information furthest to the left.

Except having a (short) sitename prefix on the left really helps finding
 things in bookmarks lists.

Maybe: site-prefix: reverse-order-breadcrumb-list

> It is very unlikely that I got this right the first time through. I am
> expecting to hear many complaints but hopefully a lot more helpful
> suggestions.

Maybe we can have a zen-gardens contest? Sortof-seriously, I bet that
might point out additional markup considerations (as well as provide
some canned style/theme options).

For example: maybe the <div class="navbyline"> should be a separate id.
As a user, I would rather that went in (or with) the footer. having a
separate id would make it easier to reposition, wouldn't it?

Thanks again for well thought-out proposals, and nice work.

Regards,
..jim

PS: I like the fact that the html is readable (sensible line breaks)
    <.. although _I_ would have used 2-space indents. ;-)  ..>

..jim