Subject: Old revised version, and a new one

From: Michael Glaesemann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 04:59:54 +0900

Hello all!

I've uploaded a revised version of the page Andreas hosted for me 
before at
http://www.grzm.com/postgresql_org/html/index.htm

Within the limitations of the table format it used, I think most of the 
CSS problems have been corrected. I've tested it on Safari, and the Mac 
versions of MSIE5.2, Opera 6.03, Mozilla Firebird, and Camino. They're 
pretty much the same, though the fonts appear bigger in Opera. I'm not 
sure why, though it might be because the default font size in Opera is 
bigger than in other browsers. I don't think this particular design 
(with fixed sidebar widths) has much of a future, but I wanted to try 
to eliminate the previous CSS mistakes.

I've also loaded an alternative version without fixed sidebar widths.

http://localhost/pgweb/html/index3.htm

I've tested this one as well (same browsers), and feedback in browsers 
on other
platforms as well as page design are of course appreciated. I organized 
it a bit differently, though I think pretty much everything's still 
there. Again, font sizes are appear bigger in Opera on my machine. How 
big of a problem is this? Another thing I'm concerned about is the tag 
line in the banner: when the window is narrow, the line breaks causing 
some height problems.

WIthout resorting to an image or making the font really really small, 
the line will break when the window narrows, though we could probably 
choose the mode of failure. And there's of course the option to just 
cut it. I replaced the links with the tag line because I thought there 
was quite a bit of duplication in this design, with the reworked 
sidebar.

Thanks again, Andreas, for hosting the previous version!

Michael

---

From: Michael Glaesemann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 09:58:09 +0900

On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 05:44 AM, Dave Page wrote:
>> I've uploaded a revised version of the page Andreas hosted
>> for me before at http://www.grzm.com/postgresql_org/html/index.htm
>
> Hi Michael,
>
> Unfortunately I have a number of problems with this design:
>
> 1) The fonts have all shrunk. We purposefully increaed the sizes on the
> current site to what they are now.
>
> 2) The "Welcome To..." text is very close to both the menu bar and 
> event
> boxes etc.
>
> 3) The sidebars touch the bottom of the ads, yet they have left/right
> borders.
>
> 4) The colour of the text in the event/news boxes is too light against
> the grey background.
>
> 5) Resizing a little below 800 wide causes odd wrapping in the header.
>
> Don't take that as harsh criticism though - we just need to iron out
> these issues :-)

No problem. Feedback is a good thing. Those are all things that can be 
easily handled. And I agree with you on 2, 3 and 5. Good to know about 
1, and will try increasing the sizes. As for 4, the two options that 
spring to mind are changing the color of the text or making the text 
bold, and this might be solved anyway when the font size is increased. 
I'll try all of them, but any preferences?

The two things I'm happiest about is I haven't yet heard about 
*mistakes* causing huge problems in browsers (though those may yet 
come) and I was actually able to get the host thing worked out in less 
than 30 hours (thanks to those five folks at hub.org)—my 5am URI slip 
notwithstanding! ;)

Thanks for the quick feedback!

Michael

---

From: Michael Glaesemann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 10:12:08 +0900

On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 05:34 AM, Andreas Grabmüller wrote:

> The path for the alternative is incorrect ;)
>
> http://www.grzm.com/postgresql_org/html/index3.htm

Thanks, Andreas! Glad you figured it out. I'll get the hang of this 
yet, I swear it ; ) For your added viewing pleasure, you might want to 
check out
http://www.grzm.com/postgresql_org/html/indexc.htm
I added some background colors to see how things were lining up when I 
was debuggin g. (Not intended for production use!)

> That one has some really nice elements, there are others I don't like.

Thanks! I wanted to try some things to provide some design contrast and 
explore some options. There are things I'm definitely not happy with: 
the right sidebar is kind of plain, the survey should be set off more 
visually, the GBorg section on the left is heinous, need more 
distinction in the news/events articles themselves, to name a few.

Michael

---

From: "Dave Page" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2003 09:51:35 -0000

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Glaesemann [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: 14 November 2003 09:41
> To: Dave Page
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Old revised version, and a new one
> 
> 
> On Friday, November 14, 2003, at 05:24 PM, Dave Page wrote:
> >> From: Michael Glaesemann [mailto:[email-masked]] As for 4, the 
> >> two options that spring to mind are changing the color of 
> the text or 
> >> making the text bold
> >
> > Make the colour navy blue or something similar.
> 
> I'll give it a shot.
> 
> > There was one thing - the text around the language box is invisible 
> > unless you select it, but even then it seems to flash somewhat 
> > bizarrely. Screenshots attached.
> 
> Talk about service! Thanks for the pics. This is what you 
> were talking about before,

We aim to please :-)

> >  (aside from the fact that some of the text doesn't even display in 
> > IE6).
> 
> Right? 

Yup.

> I'll look into it. A brief google on "css ie6 hidden text" 
> brought up a couple different mailing list threads. It seems 
> IE6 has issues with padding and divs, so hopefully I'll be 
> able to find a good workaround.

:-)

Regards, Dave.