Re: Index page for projects.gnome.org

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Hey Olav!

Olav Vitters wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm working on an automated index for projects.gnome.org (so,
> http://projects.gnome.org). It retrieves information from the various
> DOAP files hosted in the various modules.

Great stuff - really good idea.

> I want the main page for projects.gnome.org to show a quick overview of
> the information available in the DOAP files.
> 
> I have a current example:
> http://people.gnome.org/~ovitters/tmp/repositories.html

Couple of design observations here...

 1. You'd do well to differentiate between the project titles and the
descriptions (using font size and possibly weight). It'll make it easier
to read.

 2. Increasing the vertical padding between each item will also help.

 3. If you do 1 and 2, you probably don't need the bullets.

I've done a _very_ rough mockup to show you what I mean [1].

> It uses XSLT 2 (requires Saxon, xsltproc won't do) to transform
> http://git.gnome.org/repositories.doap into above HTML. Anyway,
> technical bits don't really matter.
> 
> What I think is:
>  * Show project name as defined in the DOAP file
>  * Give a short description
>  * Link to homepage if known
>  * Link to Bugzilla if known
>  * Link to mailing lists if known
>  * Link to git.gnome.org/browse
>  * Link to download location if known (download.gnome.org)
> 
> Most important is the project name, description and homepage. Think
> download is least important.
> 
> What I still want to do in the example:
>  * Short ruler with links to each letter
>  * Short overview of used icons and their meaning (one line if possible)
> 
> Anyway, I need some good icons for:
>  * Bugzilla
>  * Mailing lists (usually it'll link to a mailing list!)
>  * Git (some version control icon?)
>  * Download icon
> 
> Icons/images should be small (prefer 16x), fit in the GNOME style and
> have a good license. Can anyone help me with that?

I've had a quick look through gnome-icon-theme. There are a few good
possibilities [2, 3, 4, 5]. The last one is probably the most tenuous (I
might get told off by the designers for icon abuse!) I'd be surprised if
there isn't a Tango-style bug icon on the interwebs somewhere....

> Further, is the location of the icons ok? I played around with having
> them right aligned.
> 
> Note: I've used columns in the example. It'll automatically use multiple
> columns if your browser support that.

Best,

Allan

[1]
http://gitorious.org/gnome-design/gnome-design/blobs/master/www/projects.gnome.org/project-index.png

[2]
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-icon-theme/plain/gnome/16x16/actions/help-faq.png
[3]
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-icon-theme/plain/gnome/16x16/categories/applications-development.png
[4]
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-icon-theme/plain/gnome/16x16/emblems/emblem-downloads.png
[5]
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-icon-theme/plain/gnome/16x16/emblems/emblem-mail.png
-- 
Blog: http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org