Re: New index.html-- any objections?

[Aaron Weber <aaron ximian com>]

On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 13:30, Steve Hall wrote:
> From: Aaron Weber, Jan 6, 2004 11:52 AM
> > 
> > There's a mockup of www.gnome.org/index.html up here:
> > 
> > http://www.viralata.net/gnome/top_page_mockup_v10.html
> > 
> > Aside from the mention of the 12/31/03 deadline (which we should of
> > course delete, now that it's past), does anyone have any objections
> > to this page?
>
> Generally, the page rocks, except for the header title ("The GNOME
> Project") through the header image simply does not work:

> o Black text, without outline, shadow or any other separating haze is
>   nearly impossible to read over any background image with colors
>   darker than about "#eeeeee".

As long as it's big, it's close enough, and besides, it only repeats the page title. It's not important content, really.

> o Use of a variably sized object within a fixed size space is asking
>   for trouble:
>   * For me, the "j" decends out of the header (Win32, Firebird 0.7,
>     normal size font)
>   * Readibility can easily be lost when other objects are re-arranged
>     around the title. For me, the title overlaps the navigation text
>     at IE's "largest" font setting.

That's not perfect, true. I tend not to worry as much as other people do about font sizing-- no matter *what* we do, at some point, someone is going to have a font that makes things unreadable. I mean, if they put it in Klingon 28 there's not much we can do to stop them. But you're right that we'd be better off with an absolute image size there.

> o The whole point of the design is the contrast of the header image's
>   spatial quality against the page body's 2D quality. Splotching text
>   across the header is at best graphically insensitive. ;)

As far as I am concerned, the point is "better than what we had up earlier." :)

> *Please* consider placing header titling the way it is done at
>
>   http://www.gnomedesktop.org/
>
> that is:
>
> o Scaled absolutely
>   * Fit and position
>   * Unaffected to browser zoom level
> o Right justified (balanced)
> o Right justified (not obscuring the background image)
> o Contrasting in color
Contrasting color, well... I dunno. But the fit I agree with. Why right-justified?

> have to add that the top nav
> links are spaced too far apart and suffer wrapping problems at small
> res/large font.)
Good point. We need to address the sitewide topnav; I think jdub's new design will include that. 

Also, you may notice that the topnav is not the same as the topnav for the rest of the site; how do you like this choice of links and order? Should we put this on the rest of the site's topnav, or go back to the older topnav?

a.