Thread: Websites you like
Since it looks like the current mockup isn't too well received, please take the time to provide me with a list of your favorite open source project related websites, that way we can come up with a composite look that meets people's taste. Gavin
Gavin M. Roy wrote: > Since it looks like the current mockup isn't too well received, please > take the time to provide me with a list of your favorite open source > project related websites, that way we can come up with a composite look > that meets people's taste. Um, I like www.mozilla.org, that it seems to be newbie-end-user focused, has a decent color schema, and puts the general relevant information up front for people to find their way around. Hope that's helpful. :) Regards and best wishes, Justin Clift > Gavin > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
-----Original Message----- From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org on behalf of Justin Clift Sent: Mon 6/21/2004 1:03 PM To: Gavin M. Roy Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > Um, I like www.mozilla.org, Not so keen on that myself... http://www.kde.org http://www.zope.org I also quite like http://www.kitcampus.com/, though I realise the amount of graphics there would likely cause us problems. Regards, Dave
Gavin,
> Since it looks like the current mockup isn't too well received, please
> take the time to provide me with a list of your favorite open source
> project related websites, that way we can come up with a composite look
> that meets people's taste.
Actually, I like it, at least conceptually. I agree that the "giant logo"
has to go -- it loads funny on Konqueror, and adds significant K to the page.
But I like the format of the boxes and the news items. One other thing which
would have to change would be the link boxes; I don't think the space
allocated for them would be sufficient, given what we have to cover.
Comparisons
Zope.org : This is probably the best example of a "community CMS" in use.
Certainly more pleasing to the eye than www.openacs.org or www.php.net,
although all share the standard of header bar and two columns of links
flanking a central "information & news" section. While I don't have any
problem with that layout, since we're doing XML-CMS and not a CCMS, why not
be creative?
One thing I do think worth considering is the use of indents and bullets to
set off sections of links (left-hand column). While less visually appealing
than our boxes, it does take up less space and thus less scrolling.
Mozilla.org : a fun site that has shown us how to optimize for newbies and
make the site unnavigable for anyone else. The one interesting thing is the
use of contrasting colors -- the tan and the blue -- which provides visual
interest.
Tigris.org : typical (bad) Collabnet design in general. However, shows an
idea we might want to consider: providing the news as headline links instead
of summaries on the main page. This would free up the "main" area of the
front page for "how-do-I-find-it" information.
Other than that, I just looked up web sites for about 10 other OSS projects,
and they all suck.
--
-Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco
Hi, Gavin M. Roy wrote: > Since it looks like the current mockup isn't too well received, please > take the time to provide me with a list of your favorite open source > project related websites, that way we can come up with a composite look > that meets people's taste. Well, I liked the previous mysql.com (heh-heh), the navigation on the current one is too convoluted (intentionally, I think). I'd better give a list of (mostly usability) improvements I'd like to see: - Services (search, language selection) should be separate from navigation - Internal navigation should be separate from external (communities) one - Current position in site structure should be clearly visible The logo (not watermarked one) should really be made bigger. In its current size it is not immediately clear whether it is an elephant or, ahem, something else. Of course, I'd also like to see the ugly square banners gone, but that's neither your nor my decision to take. ;)
Dave Page wrote: > > Um, I like www.mozilla.org, > > Not so keen on that myself... Me neither. > http://www.kde.org That is better. It is also a pretty good example of how you can combine various myactivity.domain.org sites into one fairly cohesive appearance while still allowing artistic freedom. I also like http://www.debian.org. It's not the greatest design in the world, but you find all the information with a few clicks, and you're not drowned in boxes, sidebars, banners, and questionable design decisions.
I'm fine with a new direction, that being said, let me clear up a misconception and ask more questions to get moving in the right direction. >>Since it looks like the current mockup isn't too well received, please >>take the time to provide me with a list of your favorite open source >>project related websites, that way we can come up with a composite look >>that meets people's taste. >> >> > >Actually, I like it, at least conceptually. I agree that the "giant logo" >has to go -- it loads funny on Konqueror, and adds significant K to the page. > > I've not tested for Konq. The "giant logo" took 12k total, and the entire page was graphically light with under 20k total of graphics. Even on a 56k modem that should load quite quickly. >But I like the format of the boxes and the news items. One other thing which >would have to change would be the link boxes; I don't think the space >allocated for them would be sufficient, given what we have to cover. > > This lends the question of how much different do we want the site to look? Most of the sites presented by everyone were very similar in structure, and also not very graphically oriented, which is fine, it's just a matter of what are we trying to achieve. We have the main site which is fairly bland design wise, then a site like advocacy which tries to make a graphical presentation, but the design doesn't say "PostgreSQL" when you look at it. I think it would be good to try and achieve a middle ground here, something that is visually appealing with well organized content. This leads me to the next question, can we agree upon the answers for the following questions? 1) How big should the template web page be sans ads and content - total KB for the layout html, navigation, graphics, but excluding any content. 10K, 25K, 50K? If we can't come to a common consensus as to target, lets at least choose a maximum size. 2) HTML Version, Compliance, etc... (HTML 3.0, 3.2, 4.0, XHTML) 3) Can it/should it use CSS (1.0?)? 4) Colors: Can the site use colors and/or pictures and graphics that fall outside the current gray scale and gray-blue? 5) Design goals - Should the design goal be to come up with something that looks like other sites, but with a unique PgSQL touch, or should it strive to be individualistic, and stand out when compared to many of the sites listed? Do we want to deviate much from what's there now? What are the tolerance levels for pushing the envelope? 6) Once we get a few more design suggestions submitted, how do we narrow the focus and chose one, since we can't please everyone? Maybe we can get a statistical breakdown of the top 10 browsers and versions for the current site, at least on the main repository at hub.org to get an idea of what browsers we're primarily designing for. Gavin
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > Sent: 21 June 2004 19:09 > To: Gavin M. Roy; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > > > Other than that, I just looked up web sites for about 10 > other OSS projects, and they all suck. Funny that, I came to roughly the same conclusions. Made me feel a whole lot better about the current site that's gone from 'wow, that's nice' to 'what a load of tosh - call yourself a web designer?' (which I don't incidently) - in about 12 months. :-) /D
On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 17:40, Dave Page wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > > Sent: 21 June 2004 19:09 > > To: Gavin M. Roy; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > > > > > > Other than that, I just looked up web sites for about 10 > > other OSS projects, and they all suck. > > Funny that, I came to roughly the same conclusions. Made me feel a whole > lot better about the current site that's gone from 'wow, that's nice' to > 'what a load of tosh - call yourself a web designer?' (which I don't > incidently) - in about 12 months. > > :-) > Dono about websites I like, but the horde framework looks nice... at least in it's default configuration. > /D > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Gavin M. Roy > Sent: 21 June 2004 22:30 > To: josh@agliodbs.com > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > > 1) How big should the template web page be sans ads and > content - total KB for the layout html, navigation, graphics, > but excluding any content. 10K, 25K, 50K? If we can't come > to a common consensus as to target, lets at least choose a > maximum size. Well, we say max 12KB (iirc) for banner ads, so there's 24KB already. Same again for a banner - say 50KB total? More and more ppl have broadband these days, so size is less of an issue for most. I also wonder if we should provide a text-only version of the site. Certainly in .uk this sort of thing is now a legal requirement as we have to provide services that are accessible to anyone - I don't think it would be a bad idea for us to do the same (shouldn't be difficult with templates either). > 2) HTML Version, Compliance, etc... (HTML 3.0, 3.2, 4.0, XHTML) We had spoken about XHTML1.0 in the past. Dunno if Alexey's code is written to that standard though? > 3) Can it/should it use CSS (1.0?)? Yes, I don't see why not. We use CSS at the moment. > 4) Colors: Can the site use colors and/or pictures and > graphics that fall outside the current gray scale and gray-blue? I think the main bulk of the site needs to be in 'corporate colours', however I have no aversion to adding other colours where relevant. For example, the www.kitcampus.com site I mentioned earlier paints the left-hand bar in different colours depending on what section of the site you are in, however the main part of the page remains in the blue shades. > 5) Design goals - Should the design goal be to come up with > something that looks like other sites, but with a unique > PgSQL touch, or should it strive to be individualistic, and > stand out when compared to many of the sites listed? Do we > want to deviate much from what's there now? What are the > tolerance levels for pushing the envelope? MY feeling is that this depends entirely on the usability. If you come up with a great looking, individual design that is usable and functional, then I don't have a problem with it. > 6) Once we get a few more design suggestions submitted, how > do we narrow the focus and chose one, since we can't please everyone? Let's see what we get before going there, but I would suggest that core and/or the webmasters make a decision in the event (and only in the event) of the rest of the list disagreeing. > Maybe we can get a statistical breakdown of the top 10 > browsers and versions for the current site, at least on the > main repository at hub.org to get an idea of what browsers > we're primarily designing for. Well, you could have got it from http://www.postgresql.org/stats/webalizer/, but the stats seem to have stopped running. How do we turn them back on Marc? If you can make do with data from the first half of January, then it looks like: 1 311686 11.08% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) 2 266239 9.46% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1 3 234921 8.35% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) 4 145996 5.19% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0; .NET CLR 1 5 96669 3.44% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98) 6 84485 3.00% MnogoSearch/3.2.14 7 66267 2.36% Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko 8 60186 2.14% Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) 9 55310 1.97% Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/2003100 10 48941 1.74% Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko 11 47470 1.69% Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux) 12 40830 1.45% Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030 13 35650 1.27% Mozilla/4.5 (compatible; HTTrack 3.0x; Windows 98) 14 26375 0.94% UdmSearch/3.1.21 15 25338 0.90% Mozilla/3.01 (compatible;) In other words, it looks like IE rules... Regards, Dave.
On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote: > Maybe we can get a statistical breakdown of the top 10 browsers and > versions for the current site, at least on the main repository at > hub.org to get an idea of what browsers we're primarily designing for. http://www.postgresql.org/awstats.pl?config=www.postgresql.org I'm updating the stats right now, since what is there is only as recent as February :) ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Dave, > Well, we say max 12KB (iirc) for banner ads, so there's 24KB already. > Same again for a banner - say 50KB total? More and more ppl have > broadband these days, so size is less of an issue for most. Hmmm ... thought that we were going to dump the banners ads on the new site? They've not been terribly active, and they annoy some people. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: Josh Berkus [mailto:josh@agliodbs.com] > Sent: 22 June 2004 16:44 > To: Dave Page; Gavin M. Roy > Cc: pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > > Dave, > > > Well, we say max 12KB (iirc) for banner ads, so there's > 24KB already. > > Same again for a banner - say 50KB total? More and more ppl have > > broadband these days, so size is less of an issue for most. > > Hmmm ... thought that we were going to dump the banners ads > on the new site? > They've not been terribly active, and they annoy some people. I never heard any agreement to drop them. Whilst I don't care much either way, they do give publicity to related projects, and are our way of payment for the mirrors. Some of the operators might get annoyed if we suddenly remove that service and offer nothing in it's place. Regards, Dave.
Dave, > I never heard any agreement to drop them. Whilst I don't care much > either way, they do give publicity to related projects, and are our way > of payment for the mirrors. Some of the operators might get annoyed if > we suddenly remove that service and offer nothing in it's place. Oh, right, I forgot about the mirrors. -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Tue, 22 Jun 2004, Josh Berkus wrote: > Dave, > >> I never heard any agreement to drop them. Whilst I don't care much >> either way, they do give publicity to related projects, and are our way >> of payment for the mirrors. Some of the operators might get annoyed if >> we suddenly remove that service and offer nothing in it's place. > > Oh, right, I forgot about the mirrors. And we are getting the occasional commercial enterprise signing up ... in fact, just got Andrea to figure it out, and there is roughly $900CDN in the pot right now for PostgreSQL ... now, that amount is based on what was billed out for banners, *not* on what was received ... there may be some open invoices in teh system that she needs to void out, so it may drop ... Once Andrea gets the 'unpaid invoices' VOIDed (note, banners never go up until the invoice is paid, and go down automatically on expiration date), we'll work on getting a cheque sent out for deposit ... ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 01:26, Marc G. Fournier wrote: > On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote: > > > Maybe we can get a statistical breakdown of the top 10 browsers and > > versions for the current site, at least on the main repository at > > hub.org to get an idea of what browsers we're primarily designing for. > > http://www.postgresql.org/awstats.pl?config=www.postgresql.org http://search.postgresql.org/awstats/index.html the one on www doesn't seem to display all the stats. > > I'm updating the stats right now, since what is there is only as recent as > February :) > > > ---- > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) > Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? > > http://archives.postgresql.org
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004, John Hansen wrote: > On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 01:26, Marc G. Fournier wrote: >> On Mon, 21 Jun 2004, Gavin M. Roy wrote: >> >>> Maybe we can get a statistical breakdown of the top 10 browsers and >>> versions for the current site, at least on the main repository at >>> hub.org to get an idea of what browsers we're primarily designing for. >> >> http://www.postgresql.org/awstats.pl?config=www.postgresql.org > > http://search.postgresql.org/awstats/index.html > the one on www doesn't seem to display all the stats. what's it missing, and how do I add it? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Marc G. Fournier wrote: <snip> > http://www.postgresql.org/awstats.pl?config=www.postgresql.org > > I'm updating the stats right now, since what is there is only as recent > as February :) Hmmmm, can we change the link on the PG "Admin" pages to point to that. The link there still points to the /stats/ directory. :-/ Regards and best wishes, Justin Clift
Hi, Dave Page wrote: >>2) HTML Version, Compliance, etc... (HTML 3.0, 3.2, 4.0, XHTML) > > We had spoken about XHTML1.0 in the past. Dunno if Alexey's code is > written to that standard though? The forms are generated, but they are well-formed XHTML (and can be made valid, if needed). The other stuff is in templates, so whatever standard to use is up to the template editors.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Alexey Borzov [mailto:borz_off@cs.msu.su] > Sent: 23 June 2004 08:21 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Gavin M. Roy; josh@agliodbs.com; pgsql-www@postgresql.org > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Websites you like > > Hi, > > Dave Page wrote: > >>2) HTML Version, Compliance, etc... (HTML 3.0, 3.2, 4.0, XHTML) > > > > We had spoken about XHTML1.0 in the past. Dunno if Alexey's code is > > written to that standard though? > > The forms are generated, but they are well-formed XHTML (and > can be made valid, if needed). The other stuff is in > templates, so whatever standard to use is up to the template editors. Excellent. I guess XHTML then Gavin :-) Regards, Dave.