Re: Collected suggestions for index.html changes...

["Curtis C. Hovey" <sinzui cox net>]

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 01:50, Steve Hall wrote:
> From: "Curtis C. Hovey", Tue Jan 13 01:03:29 2004
> > On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 00:47, Steve Hall wrote:
> > >
> > > Ok, attached is patch and image required to complete. One caveat
> > > is the png transparency--somebody will need to verify in IE and
> > > let me know if it needs to be indexed to 256 colors or something.
> > > 
> > > Open to comments.
> > 
> > It's very bad form to replace nice semantic and accessable text with
> > an image. 
> 
> A title tag and alternate text easily accomplish the same thing. Let's
> not forget that GNOME is also intended to be beautiful, not *just*
> accessible.

Not all search engines use alt and title elements.  Google, to name the
singularly most important search engine, does not index alt and title
attributes because they are frequently abused by misguided Web
developers.

> > "The GNOME Project" is the single most important piece of
> > information about this page, and it must be absolutely clear to
> > idiots (search engine bots are first-class idiots). 
> 
> So are we writing pages for search engines or for humans? Sorry, but
> the title appears as such an afterthought graphically. Indeed it was,
> as the entire rest of the site attests.

Yes we are.  Not writing for search engine is a common mistake.  All
users use search engines to find pages.  If the search engine cannot
understand the page, the user will never find it.  The homepage is
directed to new users who are just discovering GNOME.

> 
> > Even if the image were used, it is semantically a h1. 
> 
> Squeezing it up to the top may mathematically make it first, but
> graphically it doesn't read at all. (Well, ok, it is big, it has
> *that* going for it.)

Use an image to say a 1000 words.  This image says three, the same three
that are already in the page.  HACKING in gnomeweb-wml contains this
priority message:

  - Eliminating EVIDENCE OF EVIL such as images-as-text, font tags, and
	anything else that doesn't help us shift towards XHTML Strict


> > I think we could get the same presentation CSS using font-size and
> > relative positioning. 
> 
> As posted much farther up thread, relatively positioned objects are
> not easily accomodated among absolute ones. Try pushing your font size
> up a few clicks, particularly on any browser other than gecko-based.
> (The majority of web browsers.) I even start getting overlap in
> Epiphany at two clicks.

True.  But CSS is what the Web uses to make presentation beautiful. 
More experimentation is need to find the right presentation rules.  If a
user has large fonts, he must want to read the page--he cannot read the
image since the image's text doesn't scale.

> I think the real issue is that the design is changing. The original
> design was a very basic page with a simple graphic/nav header. H1 on
> the page was the title.
> 
> Now we have columns, right sidebars, splash graphics, header graphics,
> header titles... it's too much. We're arguing over where the title
> goes because it's no longer obvious. Let's keep it simple, it will be
> easier to maintain, clearer to read and in line with the remainder.
> 
> 
> > I like the image design.
> 
> Just trying to balance text on the right with the graphic on the left.
> It still concerns me that we're using a proprietary font, but I was
> only matching the current splash graphic below.

I think we all agree on the font.  We updated the CSS for the page, and
future images that have text must use free fonts.

-- 
__C U R T I S  C.  H O V E Y____________________
sinzui cox net
Guilty of stealing everything I am.