[gentoo-dev] Re: status of http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org

[Duncan <1i5t5.duncan@cox.net>]

Curtis Napier posted <438174BD.9060100@gentoo.org>, excerpted below,  on
Mon, 21 Nov 2005 02:18:21 -0500:

> http://wwwredesign.gentoo.org
> 
> Also, I only use GNU/Linux and I have only tested on the following
> browsers:
> 
> Mozilla-1.7
> firefox-1.0
> Opera-8.5
> Internet Explorer-6 under CrossOver Office
> Epiphany-1.8.2
> Links-2.1 in text mode and graphics mode.
> 
> If you have access to a Macintosh, Windows, *BSD or any other OS or
> Browser please test the site and include your OS and the browser version
> in your feedback. I haven't received feedback from Konqueror or Safari
> so feedback from those browsers would be much appreciated.
> 
> The only major outstanding issue is the contents of the menu in the grey
> bar at the top and what should appear in the 5 purple boxes directly
> under them. Currently I have that menu listed in order of what a new
> Gentoo user would need to access first. If you have a better idea of
> what should be included in this menu or think something important is
> being left out please send that in your feedback as well.

You mention links but not lynx.  I tried it in both lynx and links/text
mode. It's quite impressive in lynx, due to the colors, and decent in
links (but you knew that already).

The following is pointed out *NOT* claiming that I'm a web dev, or
could do any better (or even close to as good).  However, as a browser
user who has had to educate himself a bit due to author assumptions about
defaults that don't always hold. and because you /asked/.  =8^)

*  Set the base tag.  I sometimes save web pages for my own
use, and like them to work when I do. Adding a <base href= ...>
tag would be very useful, here. Without it, saving just the HTML to disk
breaks the page rather drastically, because it can't find the CSS and
images, as they are relative links.  Good to have the links relative; good
the formatting is separated from the content to the degree the page breaks
without the CSS; bad that there's no base href tag to "unbreak" things
when the html page gets viewed on its own.


*  (This may be an inheritance issue.  I didn't check full inheritance
but I'm using Konqueror, so if it's an inheritance bug, that's what
it's in.)  You don't set background color for ads/ads-main or
jumppad-main. What happens if a user's preferences are dark backgrounds,
light text?

- The ad links don't show up, for one thing, because they are set dark and
become almost invisible on a dark background.  (Browser's link color
settings, a foreground item, overruled, without overruling bg prefs, not
good when they happen to be almost the same color!

- The individual jumppads have bg set (good), so the text shows up there,
but they appear contrasted against a dark background, as jumppad-main
doesn't set bg, which doesn't look so good.

- The content column, with bg set to white, contrasts very sharply with
the ad column.

- Generally useful rule -- if you muck about with changing some
colors from the user's/browser's defaults, change both background and
foreground, and consider what the effect will be with both light and dark
defaults, for anything you do /not/ specifically set.  Try viewing the
page in a browser set to light text on dark background, and dark text on
light background, as the defaults, to be sure.  (It's amazing the number
of sites that get this wrong, setting one but not the other on some or all
elemets, or fail to set bgcolor when a bgimage is set, for those who don't
surf with images turned on.)


*  Consider the effects of different user/browser font sizes.  Here, the
white text in the purple boxes (Why Gentoo section) ran into the gray
bottom border at my default text size.  Scrolling text size up, to where
it'd be if I were sight impaired, ran the white text from that area into
the white background area below.  (Scrolling text size down, it fit into
the boxes nicely and was indeed very attractive, so I see the effect you
are going for.)  Perhaps make those images, so the font size is constant
with reference to the boxes intended to contain it?  (You'd then set alt
tags for those not viewing images, of course.)


*  I like the jumppad images!  That's quite impressive and professional
looking, something I'd be proud to show others who know I run Gentoo!


*  Consider making the "Why Choose Gentoo?" section question visible
(something other than display=none). IMO, that would add meaning to the
features bullet-pointed in the purple boxes.  Maybe make that a
purple-background header above that section?


*  Entirely personal preference:  I don't happen to like what I'd call
puke-yellow-green (#83b300), but that's just me.  I'd prefer either a
stronger yellow or a stronger green (or would choose a dark cyan, similar
to the background of the phparchitect ad, for the white backgrounded
stuff, and a lighter cyan similar to that of the sevenl ad, for the dark
backgrounded stuff).  Purple is cool, tho!  =8^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


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