I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in the way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the way that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I wanted to get some feedback on what I had done. Some concerns: 1. SSI and JavaScript seem like overkill. Each subproject can have their own look and feel by overriding the CSS (...cascading...) -- all of the images are in the CSS, not the page. 2. It relies rather heavily on transparent PNGs, which may cause problems for some (though I have yet to encounter any in the 4 browsers I have tried) 3. I only have 2 screen resolutions to try it out on, so I'm not sure if anyone else out there will have any rendering issues (it looks a little "chunky" in Safari -- will investigate further). 4. I have only finished the first page and part of the Download page (some of the site is really kind of confusing -- that needs to be resolved by someone, and I'll try more as I go along) 5. I would recommend establishing a wiki or "CRM" system where everybody who is registered (trusted users/whatever) can contribute; that might help to cut back on the profusion/diaspora/melee of information, some of which can and should be updated more frequently and with less of a hassle than putting it into SVN/CVS. 6. Lastly, and most importantly, I am not a professional web designer or graphic artist, so I definitely need some feedback about things people don't like/would like to see changed. -Gabe P.S. The image files are from Illustrator CS2 (another thing I needed to get better at in order to do this); please email the list to let me know if you would like to play around with them. (If you don't have a copy, somebody out there might know somebody who could let 'em have it for cheap.... wink wink, nudge nudge.)
On Jul 27, 2007, at 7:04 PM, Gabriel McArthur wrote:> I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in > the way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the > way that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I > wanted to get some feedback on what I had done.Note to self/dumba**: include web site next time. http://www.deadparrotsoftware.net/llvm
Looks nice :D -Keith On 7/28/07, Gabriel McArthur <madeonamac at gmail.com> wrote:> > On Jul 27, 2007, at 7:04 PM, Gabriel McArthur wrote: > > > I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in > > the way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the > > way that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I > > wanted to get some feedback on what I had done. > > Note to self/dumba**: include web site next time. > > http://www.deadparrotsoftware.net/llvm > _______________________________________________ > LLVM Developers mailing list > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev >
Gabriel McArthur wrote:> 6. Lastly, and most importantly, I am not a professional web > designer or graphic artist, so I definitely need some feedback about > things people don't like/would like to see changed.First off, the site design looks really nice! It's got that clean unassuming feeling to it and is very appropriate for LLVM! With that said, I now begin to nitpick. :) The body text is either too small or too low-contrast (or both). Please make it black. Yes, it might not look as pretty, but it will at least be high contrast. The four major boxes form a corner in the upper-left. Because of the drop-shadows, they have the image of not lining up even though they actually do. It looks jarring; try making the main green title piece an inset that doesn't line up with the other elements, or merging it with the "llvm" logo piece on the left somehow. Also, should the title piece really have the text at the bottom? And could it be a bit bigger? The font looks nice though. (I don't suppose you're taking a page from Apple's webpage design?) Also, there's blue-space above the top two pieces, but not to the left of them. The page isn't square. That's also a bit jarring -- think about your margins. While you're at it, the body text in the page is too wide for my browser leading me to have to scroll horizontally. That's a show-stopper for me. I know it's being caused by the width of the background image that includes the rounded edges, but I don't really know how to fix it cleanly. Hopefully you do. :) Finally, the footer looks too out of place, but I can't really place why. It might be because you're using an accent colour in a place that you don't really intend to accent. I read the HTML and CSS and I find that it's really clean! Very good job! I wouldn't even know where to begin thinking of a module web design strategy like this. Thanks Gabe! Nick
On Jul 27, 2007, at 7:40 PM, Nick Lewycky wrote:> The body text is either too small or too low-contrast (or both). > Please > make it black. Yes, it might not look as pretty, but it will at > least be > high contrast.One of my concerns as well. The Webkit and openSUsE sites seem to be similar -- maybe just darker and not yet black.> The four major boxes form a corner in the upper-left. Because of the > drop-shadows, they have the image of not lining up even though they > actually do. It looks jarring; try making the main green title > piece an > inset that doesn't line up with the other elements, or merging it with > the "llvm" logo piece on the left somehow.Ok, this is a general comment to everybody wanting to make a comment: If you have specific issues, please make sure to name your browser version, your OS, and your screen resolution -- I can't fix what I can't see.> Also, should the title piece really have the text at the bottom? And > could it be a bit bigger? The font looks nice though. (I don't suppose > you're taking a page from Apple's webpage design?)No, but thanks for thinking so :) It's designed to make you read it. That's why it's down there and white on green -- it kind of compels you to look.> Also, there's blue-space above the top two pieces, but not to the left > of them. The page isn't square. That's also a bit jarring -- think > about > your margins.Again. Browser, OS, Resolution.> While you're at it, the body text in the page is too wide for my > browser > leading me to have to scroll horizontally. That's a show-stopper > for me. > I know it's being caused by the width of the background image that > includes the rounded edges, but I don't really know how to fix it > cleanly. Hopefully you do. :)And again.> Finally, the footer looks too out of place, but I can't really place > why. It might be because you're using an accent colour in a place that > you don't really intend to accent.That's bothering me too, though I'm not yet sure how I want to fix it.... Be thankful that the sidebar is no longer a collection of brick-red bubbles, however. ~8')
Wow, that looks really good. I'm amused to see code I wrote in the background of the logo. ;-) My only concerns have already been voiced by others, but I thought I'd throw my vote behind them too: 1) I'd like it if the body test could be a little bit darker. Doesn't need to be purely black, but I think it's a bit too light right now. 2) The footer looks out of place. Part of that may just be its coloring: it doesn't go with anything else on the page. Thanks, --Owen On Jul 27, 2007, at 5:04 PM, Gabriel McArthur wrote:> I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in the > way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the way > that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I wanted > to get some feedback on what I had done. > > Some concerns: > 1. SSI and JavaScript seem like overkill. Each subproject can have > their own look and feel by overriding the CSS (...cascading...) -- > all of the images are in the CSS, not the page. > 2. It relies rather heavily on transparent PNGs, which may cause > problems for some (though I have yet to encounter any in the 4 > browsers I have tried) > 3. I only have 2 screen resolutions to try it out on, so I'm not > sure if anyone else out there will have any rendering issues (it > looks a little "chunky" in Safari -- will investigate further). > 4. I have only finished the first page and part of the Download page > (some of the site is really kind of confusing -- that needs to be > resolved by someone, and I'll try more as I go along) > 5. I would recommend establishing a wiki or "CRM" system where > everybody who is registered (trusted users/whatever) can contribute; > that might help to cut back on the profusion/diaspora/melee of > information, some of which can and should be updated more frequently > and with less of a hassle than putting it into SVN/CVS. > 6. Lastly, and most importantly, I am not a professional web > designer or graphic artist, so I definitely need some feedback about > things people don't like/would like to see changed. > > -Gabe > > P.S. The image files are from Illustrator CS2 (another thing I needed > to get better at in order to do this); please email the list to let > me know if you would like to play around with them. (If you don't > have a copy, somebody out there might know somebody who could let 'em > have it for cheap.... wink wink, nudge nudge.) > _______________________________________________ > LLVM Developers mailing list > LLVMdev at cs.uiuc.edu http://llvm.cs.uiuc.edu > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/llvmdev-------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 4166 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20070727/52d523d9/attachment.bin>
On 27/07/07, Gabriel McArthur <madeonamac at gmail.com> wrote:> I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in the > way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the way > that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I wanted > to get some feedback on what I had done.Very nice and clean. A few comments: 1) The header looks like it could be 1/2 as tall without losing anything. 2) Please use ems (or some other non-absolute size) for the widths. I really like my big, widescreen monitor, but sites that set the content width to 800 pixels just look silly, especially since I have the font sizes somewhat higher than usual. (80 em is often a decent choice for the main content area.) 3) The headers in the sidebar don't wrap, so the "oject" in "The LLVM Project" ends up under the main content section. (Though solving 2 may well solve this one as well.) Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.8.1.4) Gecko/20070630 BonEcho/2.0.0.4 ~ Scott
On 2007-07-27, at 22:46, me22 wrote:> 2) Please use ems (or some other non-absolute size) for the widths. I > really like my big, widescreen monitor, but sites that set the content > width to 800 pixels just look silly, especially since I have the font > sizes somewhat higher than usual. (80 em is often a decent choice for > the main content area.)I have no significant complaints, but it sounds like folks want fluid widths. Probably the simplest technique would be to float the left nav using a negative-margin… #leftnav { float: left; width: 200px; margin-left: -210px; } body { margin-left: 220px; } #footer { clear: left; } And I guess I second whinging re the drop shadows and misfit footer coloration. — Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/llvm-dev/attachments/20070728/f33da503/attachment.html>
On Fri, 27 Jul 2007, Gabriel McArthur wrote:> I offered to do the web site a couple of weeks ago. Life got in the > way temporarily, and it took me a long time to make it look the way > that I wanted and to make it look the same in IE6. Anyway, I wanted > to get some feedback on what I had done.Oooh, very cool. I don't hate it, which is quite the accomplishment ;-) Lots of other people are nit-picking the presentation, I'll pick on the content (besides, obviously people hate my presentation skills significantly more than yours :). Specifically, please please please consider using the content that I've started setting up the the 'website' module in subversion. You can see what I have so far here: http://testing.nondot.org/> Some concerns: > 1. SSI and JavaScript seem like overkill. Each subproject can have > their own look and feel by overriding the CSS (...cascading...) -- > all of the images are in the CSS, not the page.I agree partially. The reason for SSI's has two parts: 1. I want the sidebar to be defined in a single place. 2. I want the documentation to integrate "perfectly" with the web page, and "good enough" when viewed standalone. For example, if you take a look at this page: http://testing.nondot.org/AdvUsers.html you can load the html file locally (which doesn't process the SSIs) and the page is quite readable (though not perfectly valid html). I don't see a good way to do this without either client or server side SSIs. I'm much more fond of SSIs than CSIs, because you don't need the client to be smart :)> 2. It relies rather heavily on transparent PNGs, which may cause > problems for some (though I have yet to encounter any in the 4 > browsers I have tried) > 3. I only have 2 screen resolutions to try it out on, so I'm not > sure if anyone else out there will have any rendering issues (it > looks a little "chunky" in Safari -- will investigate further).no opinion> 4. I have only finished the first page and part of the Download page > (some of the site is really kind of confusing -- that needs to be > resolved by someone, and I'll try more as I go along)Yeah, the current web page has evolved into a really unorganized mess. Some will trivialize the amount of content that is available in the svn repository, but I spent a huge amount of time trying to figure out how to categorize things better and how to make the site more accessible for 'newbies'.> 5. I would recommend establishing a wiki or "CRM" system where > everybody who is registered (trusted users/whatever) can contribute; > that might help to cut back on the profusion/diaspora/melee of > information, some of which can and should be updated more frequently > and with less of a hassle than putting it into SVN/CVS.I'm not sure what you mean. We do have a wiki, do you think the main site should be there? The organization that I would like to see is: 1. The page is explicitly broken into subprojects. The top-level is served out of the 'website' module. 2. Each subproject (e.g. core, llvm-gcc, clang, hlvm, etc) gets its own subdomain (e.g. http://clang.llvm.org, these already exist, but currently have an autoforward set up). 3. Each subproject gets a www directory (the top-level for their subdomain's content) and a docs directory (which gets checked out under www, e.g. http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ ) 4. Each subproject can in theory do their own thing, and I think it would be good for the major different subprojects to have different color schemes, but they should use the same web scaffolding. Ideally the customization would just be through their local css file. Does this seem reasonable?> 6. Lastly, and most importantly, I am not a professional web > designer or graphic artist, so I definitely need some feedback about > things people don't like/would like to see changed.Looks pretty nice to me! -Chris -- http://nondot.org/sabre/ http://llvm.org/