I'm a bit late, but count my vote for the new page, but without frames.
Very few ofthe hugely populated sites on the web use frames, and there's
bound to be a reason.
A few more comments:
> 1) I dumped the mouse rollover and replaced the 44 different menu
> gifs with one navbar gif. This should help our European friends
> suffering from slow load times due to downloading separate gif files.
Keen. But this makes navigation tough for people who turn off images (or
use lynx)... with separate images, each image's alt tag becomes a link.
With an imagemap, it's customary I think to put a navigation list at the
top or bottom of the page, normally delimited by pipes ("|") of the
options... I don't see anything like that on this page, but I'm not using
a text browser, so I may be confused.
> 2) The text now wraps around the navbar. Some found the white space
> below the navbar ugly. I'm not convinced this is any better.
Count my vote for the old way, but it's not a real strong vote. I guess
we use space better with the wrapping on. Both look acceptable.
> 3) The status table should display OK in netscape.
>
> 4) The MSIE improperly terminated string bug is not fixed. I actually
> think its a bug in MSIE.
Examining the source, there are three offending lines in the source code:
src="http://js1.hitbox.com/js?acct=WQ50041406EA90EN0&m=w147&n=Main+Page
">
x2="<img src='http://hg1.hitbox.com/HG?hc=w147&cd=1&hb=WQ50041406EA90EN0&n=Main+Page
";
<img src="http://hg1.hitbox.com/HG?hc=w147&cd=1&hb=WQ50041406EA90EN0&n=Main+Page
"
Each of these lines has a real line break before the ending quote. This
is what causes the problem in IE. I'm not saying it isn't a bug, but it
is fixable; simply remove the carriage return. I'm sure it's the resutl
of a line-wrap turned carriage-return somewhere.. WordPad and NotePad are
notorious for that, but it happens all over the place.
> 5) I added alt tags to all <IMG> entries.
>
> 6) The icons at the bottom of prime.htm are in a neat little row - thanks
> to someone that suggested putting them in a table.
>
> Here are the big open issues. I've not decided how to resolve them.
>
> 1) I really wanted the menu to stay fixed in a frame (I like being able
> to navigate anywhere in the site with one click and no scrolling), but
> sentiment against frames is quite strong. Also the current navbar doesn't
> fit in all screens (its 623 pixels high). I could offer a frames, non-frames,
> and text-only versions without too much trouble.
Consider making the NAV Bar smaller. Maybe decrease the font on the blue
links by a couple of points. You coul also put Marin's head to the right
of the banners instead of on the left, which would gie you a bit of space.
I agree with the anti-frames sentiment, tho. I have no real objections to
multiple pages, but people generally stick with what they're given unless
compelled not to, and it's a bit more aministration. Still, it's an
option.
> 2) The status and benchmark pages - the most difficult to convert to the
> new style - now have trouble fitting in the browser window. I can try smaller
> fonts or add enough text above the tables so that they appear below the
> navbar.
I'm sure there's a way to force them beneath the NAV bar, but I can't
think of it... used to have this sort of problem all the time. Have you
tried an <HR> or a solid <BREAK> tag? I'm rnning out of time to
experiment myself.
> 3) A redesigned banner at the top of every page. Many others have
> remarked how they too are poor graphic artists!
Can't help you here. I like the colors in the tables, and the look of the
NAV Bar. The Entropia banners look good (which they would, I guess since
the people claiming not to be graphic artists didn't make them!)... what
about putting arin's head on the right side of the GIMPS banner, in the
same way that 2^P-1 is on the left side... that could fix the NAV Bar
height problem, and maybe make the banner more attractive at the same
time.
> 4) And, of course, organizing the content! Along with displaying it
> in pleasing fonts and colors on a compatible background.
Can't help you there at all; knowing where everything is from vieweing it
all the time makes rethinking that kinda tough.
> The latest incarnations can be viewed at:
>
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/prime.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/status.htm
> and
> http://www.mersenne.org/newhtml/bench.htm
>
> More comments are of course welcome!
>
> Thanks again,
> George
Keep up the good work; Everything really looks great,
---Chip
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| Chip Lynch | Computer Guru |
| [EMAIL PROTECTED] | |
| (703) 465-4176 (w) | (202) 362-7978 (h) |
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