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

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

On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 21:40, Steve Hall wrote:
> From: "Curtis C. Hovey", Tue Jan 13 13:51:30 2004
> > On Tue, 2004-01-13 at 13:17, Steve Hall wrote:
> > > 
> > >   http://www.mindspring.com/~digitect/gnome/gnome.org-screenshot.png
> > > 
> > > Barbaric, eh?....
> > 
>   [snip]
> > 
> > But what does the line wrap have to do with the image? Are you
> > suggesting that we create an image map for the banner links? 
> 
> No! Just that whatever goes into the absolutely sized header box, be
> absolutely sized. The title is disrupting the nav links because it
> re-sizes. You can't stuff a re-sizable object into an absolutely sized
> box. I feel I am repeating myself.
> 
> 
> > > If this is where our HACKING guidelines or any other rigid
> > > adherence to theoretical guidelines or standards get us, then
> > > we've taken a wrong turn somewhere. 
> > > 
> > > I appear to be a lone dissenter here. Does anyone else care?
> > 
> > We care, images aren't the solution though. Anytime a design fall
> > back on an image, the design has failed. The font issue I see in the
> > image is a CSS issue. I think mastering the CSS is the correct
> > solution.
> 
> Trust me--long time readers of this list know I have great... er,
> patience working out CSS issues. This conflict can not be mastered
> with CSS without unwise absolute sizing, defeating the whole purpose
> behind using CSS in the first place.
> 
> Other areas of the current site manage the header better by allowing
> it more flexibility to grow as font changes. They have no conflicts
> within the header itself, and the remainder of the page floats around
> quite admirably.
> 
> Where did the idea that the front page be suddenly re-designed come
> from? I do believe I started the whole appeal to face lift the protest
> look, but I never intended to imply a re-design, only to brighten the
> front door (jdub ;) or make it conform to the rest of the site.
> 
> I see no reason to re-design the site yet again, only to implement it
> the first time. (Am I laughing or crying at this point?)

I completely agree with you.  Users are asking for content, not a
redesign.

I took a stab at addressing your concerns, and while i think I
simplified the CSS of the front page, that required me to change the
page (some much for not changing the front page).

Take a look at
http://members.cox.net/sinzui/go/index2.html

I don't like it for 3 reasons, and I'm not really willing to pursue the
matter much more.  

1. Because the header image is fixed height I set the font-size units to
px. This must happen because since this text is only allowed to appear
on the image.  The sizes can be tuned, but not made adjustable to what a
user may need.
 
2. Without having adventures with the cascade to import browser specific
CSS (like the W3 uses), we cannot use control the base font size; the
user decided how big the font is.  I also fixed the default font-size in
px.  Now I cannot increase the font-size when I view the page on a very
large screen.  I also abbreviated 'About GNOME' to 'About' because I'm
not likely to have any expectations that the link is about elephants. 
The font-size could be adjusted, but

3. The image has it's whitespace/padding built into it.  I think cutting
image down, and move the text into HTML text is right.

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