All in all, pretty good. I do have some criticisms though:
o Fonts are way too small. I realize the size is relative to the user's
browser settings, but they shouldn't be set to "small" for normal reading.
o I think the term "Bug Tracker" is a bit too limiting. It is used to
track new features as well, so I think the wording on the current
Cayenne site is more appropriate.
o It's not clear to me why the Javadoc links are ordered the way that
they are.
o It could just be me, but info for most developers' needs are split
across the three sections (download, docs, mailing lists/bugs). While
the current organization makes sense to a certain degree, it may be
worthwhile to consolidate the most often accessed information.
o The fixed-width menu bar makes the page difficult to read if the
browser is resized for a "page reading" mode.
o Copyright should be ASF.
o Move the ASF incubation note away from the top. It shouldn't be the
first thing people read because they may not know what Cayenne or the DB
PMC are yet. Furthermore, the note does make it sound as if the project
is immature, regardless of what the last sentence says. I realize we
have this on the current Web site and I'm not a big fan of it. A lot of
people won't care it's an incubator project, and those that do can seek
out the info in a different spot (I would hope the big logo at the topic
would be a large indicator as well).
o Misc. edits in grammar.
o Main page layout is a bit confusing. Is the Modeler part of News?
Why is the Modeler where it is?
Anyway, it's a good first pass. I think a little more focus on
readability and logical organization will greatly enhance the page.
--
Kevin
Aristedes Maniatis wrote:
We've completed a design for the Cayenne web site. It incorporates a
number of important elements:
* navigation which can easily grow as needs change
* clear branding for both Cayenne and Apache (egg will change to a
more attractive feather when Cayenne incubates)
* news on front page
* screen shot of modeler which is attractive and shows enough detail
to be intriguing.
* slightly rejigged navigation elements to help make it easier for new
people
* very clean html and css which makes changes and incorporation in
template easy
- the html is very suitable for accessibility compliance and should
degrade well on crappy browsers
And of course it looks nice :-)
Full credit is due to Bruce Martin for the design work which ish group
has sponsored.
Comments please. Obviously more work is required to make this work
throughout the wiki site, but let's get the basic design comments first.
With the main (non-wiki) part of the site, can we use Apache server
side includes (or PHP) to add the header and navigation to each page?
Ari Maniatis
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