I agree with you completely, design is very important. Thank you for your list
OSWD designs; I particularly like the penultimate one (Dreamy), although as
John points out FlexWiki really does need a fluid layout, rather than the fixed
widths of these designs. By all means feel free to modify these designs and
submit them for inclusion in FlexWiki. Now that we have the feature to
dynamically switch between designs it would be great to have a good number to
choose from.
FlexWiki is already distributed with two different styles: Classic, a minor
update on the old FlexWiki style, and the new default Chocolate (or Espresso,
or whatever else you want to call it). It is easy enough on any installation to
change the default to something else, to add new styles, or to override certain
CSS elements. However, I think the issue at heart here is whether a
"contentious" colour like brown should be used on the FlexWiki.com web site.
Well, in defence of brown, take a look at this:
http://www.cliczune.com/2007/11/brown-zune-1-on.html
Derek.
From: Szabó Marcell
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:50 PM
To: 'FlexWiki Users Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [Flexwiki-users] FlexWiki Style Feedback
Unfortunately or not, design is very very important. Even in a very early beta
test. Fresh experience: our beta testers were much more satisfied with a
community portal after we put a simple oswd skin on it.
Pick some of these (the first few fit the best I think)
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3134
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3268
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3194
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3557
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3459
http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3465
It would be very nice, if there were at least two skins (ie. the first two) in
the fw distro, and a showcase of the skins on flexwiki.com.
SzaMa
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Derek Lakin
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 9:55 AM
To: FlexWiki Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Flexwiki-users] FlexWiki Style Feedback
I get your point. I doubt there are any statistics out there on the number of
people that dislike brown so much that it would put them off a web site
completely. Generally speaking, the tones in the new style are neutral, but the
background colour for the sidebars is quite dark.
If enough people here on the mailing list agree that lighter colours should be
used for the sidebars in the default CSS, then it can easily be changed (it's
just a simple JPEG image and one colour value in the CSS) and I'd be more than
happy to do so.
As I mentioned before, if the community would prefer to see something different
as the default style, or if they would like to contribute additional
alternative styles, then feel free to do so.
Thanks again,
Derek.
On Nov 14, 2007 8:27 PM, Jimmy Sieben <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
While you can't please everyone, I think you can definitely make a conscious
decision to do something that won't turn a lot of people off.
Neutral colors are safe, and I am afraid that brown is not in the same category
of "safe" colors for a professional web product, and as you point out there are
accessibility issues as well.
I worry that the current default Flexwiki.com look risks turning people off
before they can even discover what is great about the software.
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Derek Lakin
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 9:33 AM
To: FlexWiki Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Flexwiki-users] FlexWiki Style Feedback
Web site designs and style, as with any aspect of design and style are always a
matter of taste. If anyone doesn't like the new brown look, then I'm sorry, but
we can't please everyone. FlexWiki has always had the ability to customise the
CSS for the Web application and we have also added in the ability to
dynamically switch between defined stylesheets. The current implementation also
includes a stylesheet to revert to the "classic" FlexWiki style if the new one
is not to your taste.
If there are specific accessibility issues or bugs, then please raise these on
the BugTracker [1] and we will endeavour to fix them as soon as possible.
I'm not about to apologise for the new look and feel; I designed it according
to a style that I liked and it was available in the pre-RC releases for some
time before it was put live on flexwiki.com for people to report bugs and to
provide feedback. As I said, it would be impossible to come up with a style
that everyone likes, which is why we implemented the ability to change the
style and why FlexWiki has always had the ability to customise the CSS.
I appreciate your feedback (negative or otherwise) and encourage you to develop
alternative styles that we can provide with the FlexWiki installation.
Many thanks,
Derek
[1] http://www.flexwiki.com/default.aspx/FlexWiki/SourceForgeBugTracker.html
On Nov 14, 2007 11:28 AM, Nathan Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Nov 13, 2007 6:28 PM, Walt Crosby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Change the name to "Espresso" and it suddenly takes on a pleasing,
> comforting tone ;)
>
>
Maybe 'Espresso' will stick better than 'chocolate.' I personally am
not a huge fan of brown in general (my wife and I argue over that all
the time, ;) so I feel that I'm particularly biased, and I'll admit,
it was the driving force in figuring out how to do the alternate
stylesheet work. I don't know what to do except to do some sort of
poll and then, more importantly, get the work submitted. Derek has
done a ton of work in this area and even if Espresso/Chocolate/Brown
gets out voted, I think that it'd be silly to vote in a change without
some sort of replacement to go with.
Aside from chocolate, there is one thing that I would like to see
changed: I believe that the borders are too wide. I don't know if they
were widened for a particulary purpose, but there is considerable
whitespace "wasted" on a normal 4x3 monitor, and a ton on 16x9
monitors. This is particularly noticable on the LeftBorder, but the
RightBorder could use a little Jenny Craig, too.
-nathan
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