Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
The wiki definitely has a place, in my opinion... I would just like to see it, at the very least, follow the same design/theme/style as the main NAnt site. That is, put the navigation tree and NAnt header on each wiki page. That way, navigating to and from the wiki is pretty easy... On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 10:07:21 +0800, Troy Laurin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:46:28 -0800, brant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any reason why we don't just use the existing Wiki as the Default Home page; and build up the content from that? I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I think a wiki is an excellent collaboration device for support, because it can be updated easily and by any concerned party... but I think these features actually make it a *bad* match for a home page. This is where the official information regarding the project should be found. Of course, you could restrict edits to the official pages to the regular contributors, but then why are you using a wiki? In addition, if you look at the content of the menu in discussion, 90% is located in the release folder, which contains generated html pages and doesn't mesh well with the wiki world. Wiki sites are supposed to be structure-simple and content-rich. I think a project home page needs to be structure-rigid as well as content-rich. This doesn't mean that the wiki doesn't have a place, but it doesn't have to be the main home page to be a useful resource. -- Troy --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
Troy Laurin wrote: On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:46:28 -0800, brant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any reason why we don't just use the existing Wiki as the Default Home page; and build up the content from that? I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I think a wiki is an excellent collaboration device for support, because it can be updated easily and by any concerned party... but I think these features actually make it a *bad* match for a home page. This is where the official information regarding the project should be found. Of course, you could restrict edits to the official pages to the regular contributors, but then why are you using a wiki? I quite agree. Wikis also result in navigation structures that shout this was designed by committee, i.e. not at all. Sometimes they're useful, but more often they turn into black holes of time-consuming, interesting discussions that don't answer the question. Wiki sites are supposed to be structure-simple and content-rich. I think a project home page needs to be structure-rigid as well as content-rich. This doesn't mean that the wiki doesn't have a place, but it doesn't have to be the main home page to be a useful resource. I think you've hit the nail on the head with both these paragraphs. Gary --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
Is there any reason why we don't just use the existing Wiki as the Default Home page; and build up the content from that? If the existing Wiki isn't great (which I don't think it is); we could move to a nicer / fancier one like MediaWiki. I have used OpenWiki as well which is very nice and stylable. just a suggestion. cheers b --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
I second this... it would be nice to have the wiki integrated with the rest of the site. Right now, it doesn't seem to be used as much as it could be. Jim On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:46:28 -0800, brant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any reason why we don't just use the existing Wiki as the Default Home page; and build up the content from that? If the existing Wiki isn't great (which I don't think it is); we could move to a nicer / fancier one like MediaWiki. I have used OpenWiki as well which is very nice and stylable. just a suggestion. cheers b --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 09:46:28 -0800, brant [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there any reason why we don't just use the existing Wiki as the Default Home page; and build up the content from that? I'm not so sure this is a good idea. I think a wiki is an excellent collaboration device for support, because it can be updated easily and by any concerned party... but I think these features actually make it a *bad* match for a home page. This is where the official information regarding the project should be found. Of course, you could restrict edits to the official pages to the regular contributors, but then why are you using a wiki? In addition, if you look at the content of the menu in discussion, 90% is located in the release folder, which contains generated html pages and doesn't mesh well with the wiki world. Wiki sites are supposed to be structure-simple and content-rich. I think a project home page needs to be structure-rigid as well as content-rich. This doesn't mean that the wiki doesn't have a place, but it doesn't have to be the main home page to be a useful resource. -- Troy --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
Gert Driesen wrote: You have some very good points there, but I'm not sure that CruiseControl is a very good example of a website... the left-hand menu is good from a UI point of view... as you say, the link target areas are large, and links and elements are all very obvious... but the menu content is remarkably poor, to the point that as a newcomer to the website I would have had a nightmare trying to work out the system if I weren't already familiar with CC.Net, and even knowing the layout of their website now, I still find it hard to find information in their site. I can't speak for the entire site, as I haven't really started using Cruise Control, but I was able to quickly spot the Getting Started link. From there, subsequent navigation is not the home page's problem. Though I will say that a Getting Started link, if there is one, ought to be the first one under documentation, and their build loop and results jsp links are inappropriate for the home page, at least as is. I should also add that I think I subconsciously took the idea for a separate developer's page from the Python site. I find their site too busy overall, as well, but I do like the large section separators in the left hand menu, and the things that I want most often are available without scrolling or more than one click. Maybe the issue isn't so much limiting the total amount of information, but just limiting the topmost level links and biasing the order towards newcomers, so that downloads are all under one heading, and come before the Contributing section, possibly even before the Documentation section. I agree that there are loads of items in the menu, but that is only because I wanted to not only make documentation for the current release, but also for previous releases and the latest nightly build available online. I certainly agree that making all this information available is a great idea, and it's much, much better than the clumsy navigation on the SourceForge site. I'm just suggesting some simplification at the top level - possibly by moving detailed links to a separate site map page (not a full site map, just a useful one), or possibly by making the tree structure narrow and deep. Gary --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
Okay, I no longer like css. It seems like every single web page I try to design requires some combination of relative and absolute sizes that is difficult to impossible to achieve in css. For me, anyway. Basically this means I don't have anything html-y to show for my efforts, but attached is a suggestion for re-organisation of the hierarchical layout based on my interpretation of comments to date :-) Criticism is encouraged, the more constructive the better. Imagine that the XML is the source for an XSL transformation that would generate the html menu, assuming I ever got my styles working. Basic commentary: * I've incorporated Gary's suggestion that the things that people are most likely to want are highest in the list. * I'm not using the /release/latest symbolic link so people's bookmarks (probably to documentation) will stay correct for the version they are using even if a new version is released. ie- the bookmark points to the version they are using, not the 'latest' version. * Old documentation and old releases are available through the archive links, rather than directly from the menu. Still easy to get to, without cluttering up any pages. With regard to the styles side of things, I was trying to incorporate another of Gary's comments and make the click target areas for both the tree expand/contract widgets and the links larger, to make them easier to click, as well as making links more obvious. I also like the idea of somehow marking external links as such, as the CruiseControl website does (I like _that_ part of the site ;-). Bombs away, -- Troy menu.zap Description: Binary data
Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
From: Gert Driesen [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 2:37 AM I'm sorry I didn't get to this sooner, as I come down on the hate side of hierarchical menus that Troy mentioned, at least for home pages. The problem is that hierarchical menus encourage large menus with many entries. And that makes things harder to find and less accessible, not easier. For comparison, take a look at the Cruise Control page at http://cruisecontrol.sourceforge.net/index.html . This has between 11 and 15 items, depending on which ones are expanded. On the other hand the last proposed NAnt page has, if I counted correctly, about 70 items when fully expanded. The other advantage of the Cruise Control site is that the selection items are nice, large buttons - which makes it much easier for people who either have wrist pain for whatever reason or mice that are acting up. This doesn't necessarily mean getting rid of the idea of a hierarchical layout on the home page, but I do think it needs to be much, much simpler. My basic design philosophy is that home pages need to be targetted to the people who never or rarely come to the site. Experienced, frequent visitors will bookmark the pages of interest (which effectively allows them to create a customized hierachical menu) or figure out the fastest navigation paths. So may I suggest putting yourself in the place of the new user, and try to optimize the page for that person. Create a separate, sub-home page for contributors, and just have one link to it from the home page. Remove everything else that's only of interest to contributors. Move the link to the introduction to be the first thing under the documentation heading, not buried under User Manual. Combine the Releases and Nightly Build sections under one heading, called Downloads (because that's the jargon most commonly used, and hence the one that people expect to see). But besides all that, I think the single best thing that could be done is to put a direct link to Tasks, Targets, Expressions, Functions, etc. on each and every page of the online manual (not the entire web site). The idea is that whenever you're looking at a specific task, it should be one click to get to the function index, expression page, etc. and vice versa. Just my two cents, wholesale, for what it's worth. Gary --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Troy Laurin Sent: woensdag 16 maart 2005 2:39 To: Gary Feldman Cc: nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage Gary, You have some very good points there, but I'm not sure that CruiseControl is a very good example of a website... the left-hand menu is good from a UI point of view... as you say, the link target areas are large, and links and elements are all very obvious... but the menu content is remarkably poor, to the point that as a newcomer to the website I would have had a nightmare trying to work out the system if I weren't already familiar with CC.Net, and even knowing the layout of their website now, I still find it hard to find information in their site. Having said that, I like and agree with your suggestions for improving the usability of the site for newcomers... I'll have a play and try to create some comparisons of the different ideas. I agree that there are loads of items in the menu, but that is only because I wanted to not only make documentation for the current release, but also for previous releases and the latest nightly build available online. Other than that, I'm rather satisfied with it (definitely compared to the current homepage). Gert --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
RE: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
-Original Message- From: Troy Laurin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: dinsdag 15 maart 2005 4:03 To: Gert Driesen Cc: nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage Hi Gert, all, Responses inline. ... Also, it's currently impossible to tell which entries are links and which are just holders for child items, without waving the mouse over each item... eg, Documentation and Contributing aren't links, but Releases and Nightly Builds are. Modifying the styles so links are more obvious is definitely (again imho) a must. Feel free to provide a proposal. GUI/Web design isn't really my cup of tea. I won't manage time tonight, but I'll try to send something through tomorrow night. No hurry. Also, the default size of the menu on the left is taller than the page itself! If using a similar menu system to this, it might be worth collapsing the user manual section by default, and also to combine Releases and Nightly Builds into a single Downloads section, also collapsed by default. The Release and Nightly Builds section do not just provide downloads. They also contain links to the docs matching each release/nightly build. For the non-javascript people, the Downloads link would replace the Releases and Nightly Builds links, since they go to the same page anyway. That was a mistake in my proposal. The Nightly Builds item should have no link, or have the same links as the Archive section. Does the tree script support adding Collapse all and Expand all links to the bottom of the menu? Useful for those times you just want to get it out of the way, or when you want to see everything so you can find what you're after... it also tends to make the default state (expanded, partially expanded, etc) of the menu less critical. Just added them (see attached version). Then again, it might just be an excuse to put more content in the front page. Guess I'd prefer a good menu and more content ;-) Doesn't really sound like a bad thing, does it? :-) As a first cut, it certainly feels more functional (and professional :-) than the current page. I think it's certainly worth ironing out any issues and updating the site with a trendy new look. For now, I'm only updating the home page itself. We'll need to look into modifying the other pages, while keeping it maintainable. Definitely get it right before making changes everywhere :-) Does sourceforge support server-side includes? That could be a simple way to get a common menu (and even the header) into every page in a consistent fashion. Not sure, but most of our documentation is auto-generated, so we might be able to use that. Alternatively, (and I'm reluctant to suggest this, mostly because of the people expected to access the site, as Orion suggested) you could modify the site to use a frameset... the menu could be moved into the left-hand frame, with the option for the header to be in a top frame, or in-line with the content. The benefits are that navigation is consistent for all pages, plus the download size for each page is much smaller, and the menu remembers its own state between pages (since it is never reloaded). The drawbacks are of course that it is very hard to make a frames-based website friendly to non-frames-enabled browsers, without providing a second copy of the website that doesn't use frames... but does mean twice the website maintenance! I'd like to avoid frames (at almost all cost). At the same time as I look at the styles for the menu links, I'll look at the site web, and see how inter-linked everything is, see how feasible it might be to create a site that's made for frames but still usable without frames... unless you (or Nant's users) really don't _want_ frames, of course. Let me know if you want a hand with the script behind the hierarchical menus, I'm not exactly a web designer, but I've done my dash with javascript (including *shiver* cross-browser support) and would be willing to look at any issues. Have a look at the update I sent as reply to Orion's feedback. Excellent! Works consistently under IE and FireFox... I don't use any other browsers, so can't say how it works in anything else :-) Do you think I should bring it online in its current state (see attachment) ? Gert NAnt Home.zap Description: Binary data
RE: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Orion Edwards Sent: zondag 13 maart 2005 21:00 To: Gert Driesen Cc: nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [nant-dev] Redesigned homepage Looks nice, however 2 suggestions: 1) the javascript collapsible menu on the left should probably go all the way up to the top, rather than be underneat the header. 2) said menu is really messed up, things move around, extra line breaks in funny places, and it doesn't look right (firefox 1.0/winXP for me)... Probably want this to work. Also is there a reliable fallback if javascript is turned off? Seeing as sourceforge is the kind of place where you're going to pick up all the weirdos who use lynx and have no javascript, etc, there probably should be :-) It indeed looks like crap on Firefox. I'll look into it. Thanks for the feedback ! Gert --- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. Start reading now. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=6595alloc_id=14396op=click ___ nant-developers mailing list nant-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nant-developers
