Hi Miika,
Welcome! Well, the complaint you have is the same I had. And many others btw. Therefore some of us on this list, including me, are currently working hard (well sometimes) on creating a new HP. In the first place it's a redesign of the homepage, but it will affect some of the aspects of the OOo site in general.
The current status can be witnessed here: https://www.sc40.sfo.collab.net/ ... please let your critical eye show on this. Though I also prefer to use XHTML (as strict as possible ;) ), there are some constraints just because there are too many pages out there already anticipating on template elements of the old site (therefore there is still this ugly table element...)
Though the current design for the homepage is in a advanced state, imho not far from being final (when all the project leads are agreeing on it ;) ), there is still a lot to do. The download page needs an update, and many other subpages may, imho, get a more friendly overhaul... I got involved when the discussion was going on the redesign of the new homepage, so I started designing what I thought would be a good page, and this is how I got involved... so show what you've got!
g.,
Maarten
Miikka Leskinen wrote:
Greetings!
I became interested in this Website project for one simple reason: The Openoffice.org website really needs help. I myself am a beginning web deginer but I've been messing around with website design for many many years. Although I don't yet have a lot of experience on real web design posts (only one big project so far), it has been a learning process of some sort, so I guess can say I'm experienced.
Now that open source projects everywhere are switching to standards compliant design, I think OpenOffice.org should do that too. The current website doesn't look as professional as it could and isn't very accessible. In my opinion, it doesn't comply with some basic guidelines that modern websites should follow, or at least those haven't been taken into account very well. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The most important flaw and a place for improvement is that the structure isn't separated from content. The OpenOffice.org websites are huge, and the only way to make updating the website reasonable would be to use HTML (or as I'd prefer, XHTML) for structure and content, and CSS for styles, colors, fonts, layout, background images etc. The first thing to do is to lose the table layout. I'm not sure if you have already planned this, but probably you have.
I know the Website project has planned a lot and it's a mature project. Looking at website.openoffice.org I didn't actually find at which state the project currently is, so I'm talking very generally. The main thing, after all, is that the website needs redesign.
So if you ever come to the point where you need anything from a web designer who has knowledge on standards for valid coding, accessible web design for users with disabilities, making a website usable for the general public, some basic browser compatibility and working with XHTML and CSS, you can drop me a mail or two. I hope I can help you in this major redesign process in any way, if time and energy permits.
The number 1 resource I use in my work is of course http://www.w3.org/.
Regards,
Miikka Leskinen (login name: miles_fin)
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