Re: CSS for Help Docs

[Nicholas Curran <quasar austar net au>]

On Mon, 2002-02-04 at 12:08, Alexander Kirillov wrote:
> Looks better indeed.

:)

> To clarify about the logo: if I understand correclty, foot icon in your
> example is just part of background image. This, of course, makes it
> impossible to replace it with doc-specfific icon. We need to discuss how
> exactly we should put doc-specific icon in its place, how XSL and CSS
> stylesheets hould work together. I'll try to catch you on IRC tomorrow.
> As for headers and footers - no, I do not have any suggestions. But
> maybe someone else has? 
>  (Please, not extremes like this
> http://developer.gnome.org/doc/API/libgnome/libgnome.html ). 

Yuck!

> As for rendering of notes, tips, etc: I personally prefer softer and
> lighter colors; the ones you use now make it the most noticeable thing
> in the page, the first thing taht catches your eye  - which, IMHO, is
> not quite what we want. But this is just my opinion as a user, not that
> I have any experience in web design or have done any user testing.

Though they didn't seem that bad to me, I have lightened them up.  I do
think now that they look better.

> I
> really think we should get usability project people involved in this -
> after all, there are some real pros in user interface design there.
> Maybe you could just send an email to usability list asking for their
> comments?

I would, but I'm off to a Linux conference, so I will not be able to
respond to any email until Sunday.  Maybe I will when I get back, if no
one else does so.  However, it does seem someone from usability wrote
in:

Calum Benson (Usability Engineer) wrote:
> It looks nice, but there probably needs to be a way of turning off the
> coloured backgrounds for those users with certain vision deficiencies
> who need the highest contrast available.  I'm guessing there isn't an
> option in Yelp that would support that, so does somebody need to work
on
> a separate "high contrast" stylesheet?

If you (Calum) believe that they are not light enough now, I can easily
add a stylesheet that simply removes the colours from the original, that
Yelp could use on top of the normal CSS.  I could even check how they go
without any colour inside the boxes.

Prof. Dr. Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:
> The line above the footer goes nearly the whole paperwidth (which i
> nice), the line below the footer on the other hand does not extend all
> the way to the left. That doesn't look quite right.

Do you (Andreas) mean the line below the header?  Well, that should be
fixed very soon.  Alex Kirillov should make a posting sooner or later,
pointing to some docs created directly from XSL stylesheets with this
fixed, and looking really good. ;)

As for the icons, I did notice the white squares, but I was so concerned
with getting colour right, I ignored them.  Thanks to Daniel Carrera for
sending me the icons with transparently.  The caution icon got
scrambled, but I was able to make a substitute.

Thanks for the comments.  I'm still looking for more criticism.  If
anyone wants to experiment with the CSS over the next week while I am
gone, then that is fine by me.

See ya all when I get back.

Nick Curran
<quasar austar net au>