"Rene Rivera"  wrote

> I think the important question is:
>
>     Will developers accept and live with whatever Joel and I come up with as a
> new BoostBook style?

Does BoostBook have a current L & F style? I thought it was meant to be
style-free, or are you talking about something other than L & F?

The only thing I could find re design is in <more/design.html#introduction>.
 Here it states " Boost places no requirements on the design of HTML
documentation for library submitters." Then goes on to state guidelines.

Then regarding the boost style-sheet in <more/design.html#boost-style-sheet>.

"The concept of using cascading style sheets to format HTML is such a good idea
that it can be beneficial to apply this across the entire Boost site. Of course
we can't require this (if Boost were to require such trivia for submissions it's
likely that many programmers would be discouraged from contributing). However, a
"standard" Boost style sheet (http://www.boost.org/boost.css) is supplied
anyway, so that a contributer can quickly and easily produce clear and
consistent documentation that reflects a Boost "brand" if they so choose. If, at
a later date, it's decided to update the Boost "brand", it may be done in this
single file and all documents using the style sheet will automatically be
updated."

Maybe <more/design.html> could be used to focus the debate which it looks
inevitable to me that you wont avoid having ;-)

> If the answer is yes. The Joel and I can go away and work on it. If not, then
> our question is what process do we need to follow to get developers to agree
> on a design?

Sounds to me that you need to post some sort of notice on the developers list
regarding what you want to / are trying to do. I have found various threads e.g

"[website] More Improvements.." 02/04/2005

also

"Website Wizard? [was: Re Signals Library]" 17 May 2002 21:00

But nothing more specific.

Firstly... Whats the problem exactly? Is it documentation, website, unifying
website and doc, specifically not unifying website and doc, personal Artistic
dislike of (lack of) common BoostBook style? It would be helpful to point out
where BoostBook L& F is laid out (if there is one) so it is possible to see what
we are talking about.

I would be happy not to have to worry about L & F (Authors should be concerned
with content only and leaving L & F to Editors/publishers shouldnt they?). It
might be worth interrogating authors re those two specific question. Equally,
from the handful of replies so far this issue needs to be handled sensitively as
no-one likes having power taken away without good reason. OTOH maybe many of us
dont know what the possibilities of professionally designed  L & F are, so
(more) demos of proposed styles with rationale, closely contrasted with the
status quo should convey what it is you are trying to achieve.

The subject is judged on "artistic" rather than logical grounds, which means you
need to have some easy to understand , non-technical speak rationale. IOW what
will be guiding your design? That might be just more enjoyable reading (Does
reading gnu gcc docs make you feel miserable etc), corporate boost image,
professional look or whatever. IMO you also need to work  hard to be definite
and precise about why you have made certain design decisions, because I would
guess part of the audience of technical authors is not used to artistic rather
than technical arguments.

IOW what you really need is a boost design manifesto or something like that.

regards
Andy Little








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