Re: developer website tabs mock-up

[James Henstridge <james jamesh id au>]

Ryan Pavlik wrote:

> James Henstridge wrote:
>
> > Here's something I put together over the weekend:
> >  http://www.gnome.org/~jamesh/web-test/developer.html
> >
> > I've taken some real content from the various developer websites to 
> > give a better impression of how the "developer website tabs" would work.
> >
> > I've also lifted the updated Gnome logo off of Sebastien's masthead 
> > mock-ups to see how they fit in (this was done fairly quickly in the 
> > gimp using the colour -> alpha tool, so we shouldn't use this 
> > particular image on the main website).
> >
> > I mentioned this on IRC, where I got some positive and some negative 
> > responses.  Some  of the problems people mentioned include:
> >
> >    * Confusion over the row of links above the row of tabs
> >    * Looks too busy/confusing (possibly due to different alignment of
> >      the two rows of links)
> >    * Not clear how the first row of links relates to the second row
> >
> > Does anyone else have anything to add?
> >
> > James.
> I would be inclined to suggest the tabs, if used, should be the top 
> level navigation, therefore revealing "sub-links" that are different 
> on each tab, and therefore are a little less confusing.  I suspect 
> this might be a bit much, however, since that's a cross-site thing.
>
> If there's any way the line under the active tab could be removed, and 
> the non-active ones could be made to look like the active one does 
> now, it would futher the "tab" metaphor a bit more naturally: 
> otherwise the other tabs sort-of just float.

I'm not sure what you mean about the line under the active tab.  There 
is no bottom border under the active tab on the systems I've tested with:
   http://www.gnome.org/~jamesh/images/devel-tabs-v3.png

As for the tab colouring, the idea is that the active tab and the 
content below it are joined (as they would be with physical notebook 
tabs, which the UI is modelled after).  So it makes sense for the active 
tab colour to match the page background colour.

The other tabs were darkened, and have the bottom border visible to 
separate them from the main page content.

James.