:murb: [maarten brouwers] wrote:
Hi again,
First of all thanks for your warm welcomes. I think now things have become much clearer for me regarding to the _www-directory_.
Just to get things straight again (I like to have things straight before I start on somethings, so apologies to those who get bored...)
I'm with you...good the know the depth of the water before you plunge in.
*Limiting factors*
As far as limiting factors are consirned; sourcecast
Matthew says about this:
It is not demanding three column, but the Header has to be there, the top navigation bar has to be there, and the contents and body part must be there. This is quite limiting as far as design. Also, we cannot change too much, since the SourceCast servlets have specific output that cannot be changed very easily, in fact, it is near impossible.Flexability is there, but as also Louis Suarez-Potts says limited:
The body layout is perhaps less limited than the headers. We need to get additional clarificatin on WHAT really needs to be included in the header portion, etc. See marketing.openoffice,org for an example.
I can see what you mean. Actually, for the homepage, there is prettyFurthermore there seems to be an additude, if I understand Louis words correctly?
much tabula rasa. We do have to have some components there, such as the
tabs, login, footer, banner; the left navbar is totally manipulable.
But the banner can be changed, though not sure we would want to alter
the logo (we don't), and the tabs can be altered as well, ie, the could
be vertical. Still, the changes that we have seen are encouraging, and
I'm glad that people are taking those wanting to download and use the software seriously. To be sure, these are just proposals.
We are forced to compromise. It has little to do with SourceCast, as it happens, and a lot to do with the basic legacy architecture of the project.
Well we are forced to compromise anyway, SourceCast or not!
Ok, so we have to live with this. Design must do it alone. But the thinking of Louis goes on and I really agree to what is said; namely still having a development tab around, but keep the foreground user-centered, and keep the development part a bit on the background. Still, I can't argue for the developpers, and don't know how developpers at the mozilla-team have reacted on the changes to the mozilla site for example... but I truely believe that a more user-centric design could give the project much more cachet, and thus giving devoppers more pride? Maybe I'm completely wrong with this reasoning, but that is how I feel about it as a proud, but still bit geeky, user of OOo.
*Objectives*
The objectives of the www-site are: * Not just a banner * Show new developments * Introducing the key people * News * Events * ...
Well, these points have been mentioned by Louis, and I agree. It should also have the spirit of a great product, developped by hundreds, thousands(?) of enthousiasts. But though the latter is well made clear using a chaotic feel of the site, the feel of a very stable, MS Office competitive (professional) product lacks in my humble opinion.
*Style*
Well, i was a bit rambling about style (90's and stuff), forget about this, because that would make it I believe look too alternative (when I think of the 90's I think about grunge etc. ;) ). OOo should also appeal to business men and the average-user. To the point: I have been looking however to some place where I can find some information about who developped the icons for the latest OOo-builds, because they're much fresher imho (not that I'm completely satisfied by them, but it certainly looks better). At the marketing part of the OOo site i can only see some bugreports talking about OOo 1.1... is this the wrong place to search for other artwork being made for the 2.0 release?
Or should we try to define a new style, and might this be picked up by OOo?
What do you mean by this? "define a new style"????
Still, is there anywhere where I could at least download the icons
of the latest builds? Preferably EPS, or versions with a much higher resolution?
*Going in to practice*
Well, if most of my points are right and people feel like I should try to put my idea's into practice, I have just one question about the template system of SourceCast. Though I have already seen some workarounds hiding menu's, I'd like know to what HTML code I'm bound to. Is it just the div's saying footer, banner, etc., or is it more (also some parts of the table html) that can't be modified? Maybe someone who has already worked on a design can give me an almost empty HTML document which should be considered as a starting point for further design? Or should I try to focus only changing CSS code, and leave the HTML intact?
I'll try to get you some additional info on this...maybe tomorrow
Thangs again in forward for your information.
Kind regards,
Maarten Brouwers
-- ====================================================================== Kay Schenk
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." -- Mark Twain [Samuel Langhornne Clemens]
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