Subject: Vote on Omar Design

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:53:10 -0800

Folks,

I'd like to push for a vote on Omar's design.   Overally, I'm pretty impressed 
with it and Omar seems willing to put in the effort required to get the site 
(including Advocacy and Techdocs) fully ported before or around 8.0.   Time's 
a-wastin'!

So, votes that we let Omar proceed and offer help on getting content ported to 
the 2nd design he submitted (with minor adjustments)?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 14:58:02 +1100

> (including Advocacy and Techdocs) fully ported before or around 8.0.   Time's 

That sounds cool.

What's the maintenance process for it going to be after it's installed?

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 20:01:05 -0800

Justin,

> What's the maintenance process for it going to be after it's installed?

CVS.   Or did you mean something else?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Gavin Sherry <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:05:49 +1100 (EST)

> What's the maintenance process for it going to be after it's installed?

Its just a design -- from what I can tell CSS additions, use of that CSS
and the addition of a menu. It uses the rest of the pgweb module as far as
I can tell. So, maintenance is the same as it otherwise would be, unless
I'm missing something here.

Gavin

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 18:02:12 +1100

> CVS.   Or did you mean something else?

That's cool, I just wasn't sure if there was going to be a large change 
involved or something.

It sounds like it'll fit in to the existing process, so there's nothing 
to be concerned about.

:)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:49:29 +0300

Hi,

> the 2nd design he submitted (with minor adjustments)?

I'd like to point out that the design we have now [1] is adequate, while the 
content is not. I'd also like to remind that the new site was made easy to skin, 
so applying the newer design will take a small amount of time. Fixing and 
porting the content will take a much longer time, though.

Therefore, I'm willing to support Omar's design, but *after* the content fixing 
and porting work is finished. This work may continue even in the current design.

I urge the people not wishing to have a pretty but content-free website to 
"vote" in the same way.

[1] http://wwwdevel.postgresql.org/

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Nov 2004 11:33:34 -0500

> the 2nd design he submitted (with minor adjustments)?

Why do I feel I am in the middle of some political power grab?  Omar has
been submitting patches which are being reviewed and getting committed
so things seem ok there. I have already laid out a case for problems in
Lukacz's design that I don't see anyone interested in addressing, but by
the same token I still have not seen a "stretchy" version of Omar's
design which we have said we need to see before we can swap. These calls
for voting are just hand-waving IMHO.

Robert Treat
-- 
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 08:41:04 -0800

> for voting are just hand-waving IMHO.

I don't think they are hand-waving. I think they are let's get off our 
butts and get a modern, usable design in place.

I also don't think it has anything to do with what people think is or 
isn't going on in terms of hard work as much as a want to have a new 
website design in place before 8.0.

Basically, all the designs that have been presented are light years (at 
least the versions I have seen) past what the community has now. They 
may not be perfect, but so what? Let's get something pleasant to look at 
in place.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

-- 
Command Prompt, Inc., home of PostgreSQL Replication, and plPHP.
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
+1-503-667-4564 - [email-masked] - http://www.commandprompt.com
Mammoth PostgreSQL Replicator. Integrated Replication for PostgreSQL

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Nov 2004 13:32:00 -0500

> butts and get a modern, usable design in place.

Are you saying that Lukacz design isn't an improvement? 

> website design in place before 8.0.

We already have a new design. 
 
> may not be perfect, but so what? Let's get something pleasant to look at 

Voting to swap designs (yet again) has nothing to do getting something
new in place.

Robert Treat

---

From: David Fetter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:40:37 -0800

On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 07:53:10PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> I'd like to push for a vote on Omar's design.   Overally, I'm pretty
> impressed with it and Omar seems willing to put in the effort
> required to get the site (including Advocacy and Techdocs) fully
> ported before or around 8.0.   Time's a-wastin'!
> 
> So, votes that we let Omar proceed and offer help on getting content
> ported to the 2nd design he submitted (with minor adjustments)?

Aye!

Cheers,
D
-- 
David Fetter [email-masked] http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 510 893 6100   mobile: +1 415 235 3778

Remember to vote!

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 10:57:31 -0800

> Are you saying that Lukacz design isn't an improvement? 

No, but in honesty I think Omar's is better. Not that Lukacz is bad, but 
Omar's currently takes into account the direction web design is going. 
If you look at Mozilla.org, RedHat etc...

> We already have a new design. 

Well to be honest, no we don't. I don't see it up on the website. I 
don't have my paycheck until the money is in the bank as they say.

> Voting to swap designs (yet again) has nothing to do getting something

My understanding was that the vote was to actually get Omar's design in 
place. It is also my understanding that Omar's design works with the 
existing framework (code etc..). That means, in theory that we could 
have a new design in place with a reasonable amount of work.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:07:44 -0800

Alexey, Robert,

> I'd like to point out that the design we have now [1] is adequate, while
> the content is not. I'd also like to remind that the new site was made easy
> to skin, so applying the newer design will take a small amount of time.
> Fixing and porting the content will take a much longer time, though.
>
> Therefore, I'm willing to support Omar's design, but *after* the content
> fixing and porting work is finished. This work may continue even in the
> current design.

I was under the impression that porting the content to Lucasz' design, putting 
it up, applying Omar's design, and then re-arranging the content to fit 
Omar's design, was much more work than just doing Omar's design.   Was I 
mistaken?

And Omar has already ported part of the content to his design as an example, 
and is willing to do more.    It would be one thing if you'd said that 
Lucasz' design was the only way we'd get a new site up by 8.0, but you've not 
said that ... so both options seem to be equivalent, and Omar's is the better 
looking design, at least I've not seen anyone say otherwise.

> Why do I feel I am in the middle of some political power grab?  

There's power to grab?   I never noticed.   All this time .... Off with their 
heads!   Oh, it feels so good.   ;->

> Omar has 
> so things seem ok there.

Yes, but Omar splitting his time between his design and Lucasz's is far less 
effective than Omar working full time on his design.

> I have already laid out a case for problems in 
> design which we have said we need to see before we can swap. 

Who's "we"?   I don't recall a spec document anywhere that says that the 
design has to be "stretchy", nor do I recall any discussion on this list to 
that effect.   Maybe my memory is faulty, give me a link.

Robert, I can recall a period last year where you were justifiably very angry 
at Core for making decisions and refusing to discuss the reasons publically.  
Now you are doing the same; saying that you have a right to guide the web 
site because you, Dave, Alexey and Devrim do most of the work (which you do) 
and that you don't have to discuss your reasons with anyone.    While the 
former is justifiable, the latter is not.   Not when Core does it, and not 
when you do it.

You may have very good reasons, but you've not expressed them anywhere I can 
read them.   So if you do, then open up.

From my perspective:
1) Omar's design is undeniably better-looking and easier to navigate than 
Lucasz's;
2) Porting to Omar's design rather than Lucasz's will make no difference in 
the go-live time of the web site;
3) Omar has demonstrated that he will be around to help with the port, which I 
don't think Lucasz is (since www-committers has no public archive, I can't 
tell if Lucasz has been helping quietly in the background).

If either of these points is debatable, then let's talk them out.   But so far 
I've not seen a single statement from you, Dave, or Alexey contradicting any 
of the above.

> These calls 

No, it's a vote on what we want Omar and others to work on; patching Lucasz's 
design or porting to his own.   I vote the latter -- unless, of course, you 
want to argue the 3 points above.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:19:21 -0400 (AST)

> have a new design in place with a reasonable amount of work.

The thing is, we already have a new design 
(http://wwwdevel.postgresql.org/) ... so its not 'a design' that is 
holding things up ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [email-masked]           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:30:34 -0400 (AST)

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Josh Berkus wrote:

> design has to be "stretchy", nor do I recall any discussion on this list 
> to that effect.  Maybe my memory is faulty, give me a link.

Actually, fixed width has been something that has been avoided as far as 
design is concerned since day one ... I even seem to recall a whole thread 
on it, since some like the whole 'fixed width' perspective (me included), 
while others like the 'use up what you can of my browser' design ...

> 1) Omar's design is undeniably better-looking and easier to navigate 
> than Lucasz's;

Can someone re-post Omar's design?  Make it easier to compare :)  The only 
thing I recall missing from it was the banner on the top of the right 
menu ...

> the go-live time of the web site;

Actually, isn't Lucasz's design already what is live on wwwdevel?  I'm not 
100% sure what the hold up on getting things live is ... but looking at 
wwwdevel, it all looks to be there ...

> No, it's a vote on what we want Omar and others to work on; patching 
> Lucasz's design or porting to his own.  I vote the latter -- unless, of 
> course, you want to argue the 3 points above.

The only thing the CFV missed, I believe, was links to the two design to 
make the determination ... I just don't remember Omar's design anymore :(

----

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 23:12:51 +0300

Hi,

> Omar's design, was much more work than just doing Omar's design.   Was I 

These tasks are orthogonal. Most of the pages would fit in any design and I 
doubt Omar did any changes to them at all when "porting".

> looking design, at least I've not seen anyone say otherwise.

I took a look at http://postgresql.tinysofa.com and it looks like the site has 
all the current content ported to the new[er] design, including advocacy stuff.

Thus +1 for Omar's design.

My main point was that we need content authors and editors now, not programmers 
/ designers. I have some doubts that Omar is a native English speaker and will 
be able to write content.

> effective than Omar working full time on his design.

The patches he sent are orthogonal to the design, ask him if you don't believe me.

> that effect.   Maybe my memory is faulty, give me a link.

There *of course* wasn't any spec document (who do you think we are?) but there 
were discussions on that particular issue, back in spring I think.

Thus I'd very much like to see a variable-width version of Omar's design, I 
doubt there will be any serious problems to change it.

> 1) Omar's design is undeniably better-looking and easier to navigate than 

Agreed, with the exception of fixed-width issue.

> the go-live time of the web site;

Agreed.

> tell if Lucasz has been helping quietly in the background).

There *is* a public archive: http://gborg.postgresql.org/pipermail/pgweb-commits
You are right: Lukasz only did the design.

Speaking of which, if Omar wants to "be around", he should register a gborg 
account and convince Dave to add him as a pgweb project developer.

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 12:23:21 -0800

Alexey, Marc,

Link to Omar's design: http://postgresql.tinysofa.com

> doubt Omar did any changes to them at all when "porting".

OK, cool.    I was mistaken then.

> I took a look at http://postgresql.tinysofa.com and it looks like the site
> has all the current content ported to the new[er] design, including
> advocacy stuff.
>

Keen.

> My main point was that we need content authors and editors now, not
> programmers / designers. 

Yeah.   On my list, personally ...

> I have some doubts that Omar is a native English 
> speaker and will be able to write content.

Omar is from Australia.  ;-)

> The patches he sent are orthogonal to the design, ask him if you don't

OK, good.

> There *of course* wasn't any spec document (who do you think we are?) but
> there were discussions on that particular issue, back in spring I think.

Ok, I missed those.    I think we need a design document; I'd imagine that 
Omar and others have become kind of frustrated trying to guess at a spec they 
can't read.

> account and convince Dave to add him as a pgweb project developer.

Omar?

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Nov 2004 17:02:18 -0500

> Omar's design, was much more work than just doing Omar's design.   Was I 

I'm sure it would be more work, but swapping to Omar's design is not a
magic bullet for everything on the TODO list. 

> looking design, at least I've not seen anyone say otherwise.

Nope. the only one I have seen against the idea was Dave based on not
throwing out lukacz work, however I posted some reasoning where we might
want to do that. 
 
> that effect.   Maybe my memory is faulty, give me a link.

Read the archives, it has been discussed a number of times. It was
mentioned specifically in regards to this design here:
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-11/msg00146.php

> former is justifiable, the latter is not.   Not when Core does it, and not 

This is a baseless accusation and quite honestly I am offended by it. I
have never said the web team can guide anything without discussing our
reasoning. Hell I'm one of the few who have advocated making the web
development process more open. And we *have* discussed the changes right
here on this list. A Lot. 

> read them.   So if you do, then open up.

Reasons for what? When Omar posted his design, Dave said he needed to
see it stretchy, and Marc said it needed to have banner ads worked in.
I've not seen the former addressed at all and I've not seen any
agreement that the latter has been met enough (though I have seen some
banners added, so maybe it has).  All of this I have posted previously
on this list. 

> tell if Lucasz has been helping quietly in the background).

afaik the gborg mailing lists are all public archives, and thats where
you'll find our commit logs. (If it isn't, it isn't because we have
requested it to remain private. 

> want to argue the 3 points above.

What I want to see Omar work on is 1)Resolving the banner ads issue,
2)Resolving the stretchy issue, and 3) Working up a patch to implement
his design against current CVS. (For the record, all three of these
things have been asked about on this list) If these are done before the
"lukacz no left menu" issue (that I have, also for the record, posted
about on this list!) then I imagine we will make the swap very quickly. 

Robert Treat

---

From: Gavin Sherry <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:48:41 +1100 (EST)

> porting the content will take a much longer time, though.

I am half way through fixing the interfaces section and Josh, Robert
Bernier and I are working on case studies. Omar is working on advocacy and
techdocs integration.

I think the point, however, is this: to make this content more easily
accessible and to promote it better, he has introduced some new navigation
boxes and new styles within the content itself. It makes no sense to port
these to the existing design if that design will not be used.

Gavin

---

From: Gavin Sherry <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 09:49:41 +1100 (EST)

> Why do I feel I am in the middle of some political power grab?

Huh? You have *got* to be joking?

Gavin

---

From: Devrim GUNDUZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 01:07:52 +0200 (EET)

Hi Guys,

> the 2nd design he submitted (with minor adjustments)?

After talking with Omar...

I wanna say "Aye" (what does it mean? :)) )

Anyway, I've already translated the website into Turkish and very very 
impressed wtih the design -- excellent Omar!

--
Devrim GUNDUZ 
devrim~gunduz.org				devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
 			http://www.tdmsoft.com
 			http://www.gunduz.org

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 15:10:57 -0800

Robert,

> magic bullet for everything on the TODO list.

Absolutely correct.  I'm interested because Omar's offering to help port 
content.   If he weren't, I'd say "oh, ho-hum, another design".

> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-11/msg00146.php

Cool, will read up.    I may want to revisit this; I'm not certain that I'm in 
favor of "stretchy", but I don't remember the arguments.

> here on this list. A Lot.

Good.  Let's keep discussing them, and not accuse people of "power grabs" when 
they disagree?   

> requested it to remain private.

Actually, it's because GBorg is unhappy today.    

> his design against current CVS.

Those are pretty concrete.  Omar, got a response?

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:34:19 +1100

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
<snip>
> (http://wwwdevel.postgresql.org/) ... so its not 'a design' that is 

Cool.  I hadn't checked that recently, and it looks a lot better than I 
remembered.  Lucasz' design looks ok too.

Omar's design does look better than Lucasz' one, and is in line with the 
newer websites created for the Mozilla project.  But, they're both large 
improvements over the present design, so choosing either will be a good 
step ahead.

Out of the two, I'd pick Omar's one, but I'm not hugely bothered either 
way. ;)

Personally, I think it would be a good idea to add this vote to the main 
PG front page survey/poll thing:

***********

"Which proposed PG website do you prefer?"

+ Don't care
+ Lucasz (with it linked)
+ Omar's (with it linked)

***********

The "Don't care" at the top is to stop people mis-voting by hitting the 
button without choosing.  We could even put a news item at the top too, 
linked so that people can vote through that.

Worth doing?  I update the poll on the PG site if it is.

:)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
>      joining column's datatypes do not match

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 10:51:55 +1100

Hi all,

There's a new survey created for the PG home page, asking which design 
people prefer.

;)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

---

From: Omar Kilani <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:23:18 -0500

Josh,

> OK, cool.    I was mistaken then.

"Most" of the pages do fit any design. A lot of our changes don't.

The bit about not making changes is completely untrue, however, as can 
be evidenced by the patch Gavin committed (fixed up headings, content, 
etc) and some major content changes that we've made to give the site a 
more standardised, logical structure and enrich the content of the site.

>>Thus +1 for Omar's design.

As well as developer stuff, and docs stuff, and events reorganisation, 
and implementing a navigation element...

> Omar is from Australia.  ;-)

Me no English?

>>The patches he sent are orthogonal to the design, ask him if you don't

Of course they are. That's why I sent them as patched against pgweb.

However, creating patches related to the restructuring of content is a 
major pain and thus a waste of time to do, since it is navigation dependent.

The point is, the content follows the design, because you need to 
logically group the content. I got the second level navigation stuff 
going last night, where it dynamically adds the navigation to every 
section, and having an easily editable navigation allowed me to quickly 
move content around because it allows you to visualise what to move 
where very quickly.

> Omar and others have become kind of frustrated trying to guess at a spec they 

The design *is not meant to stretch*. Dave's original requirement (and 
just referencing Dave saying something [to us, even, after the fact] as 
conclusive proof of a discussed requirement doesn't mean it makes sense) 
was to fit in 800x600. No mention of stretchy.

Not to mention that stretchy doesn't really make any sense anyway. You 
get things like paragraphs spanning 1 line, which is much harder to read 
than if it was in the middle of your screen and spanning a couple. 
There's a reason why our design follows current web design mantra, and 
that's because it makes sense.

In either case, the design was designed on 1280x1024, I'm looking at it 
right now and it looks good -- I don't even notice the white space 
around the center column. Mainly because every other website does 
exactly the same thing. Your eyes are trained to focus on the center of 
the screen. And follow text across multiple lines. There's a reason 
newspapers have columns of small width and many lines.

Not to mention that the current Lucasz design is at 90% width anyway. So 
on the 800x600 it's even smaller than ours. 765 versus 720.

>>account and convince Dave to add him as a pgweb project developer.

Isn't gborg meant to be replaced with pgFoundry?

Anyway, I'm 'omar'. And I wish gborg used something a bit better than 
CVS, though. :)

> Those are pretty concrete.  Omar, got a response?

1) Never an issue, if you bothered to click past the front page. The ads 
have and always have been there, from the date of submission. From my 
original email:

"By clicking "About", you can see the design for the section navigation 
and the sponsor box."

2) As above.

3) http://postgresql.tinysofa.com/files/ has it tarred up. diff away, 
since it's not possible to diff in new images, etc.

Omar

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 19:59:32 -0500

On Friday 19 November 2004 18:10, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Good.  Let's keep discussing them, and not accuse people of "power grabs"
> when they disagree?
>

1) I wasn't accusing anyone

2) I didn't realize there was any disagreement.

3) You're the one who popped in out of the blue and started issuing calls for 
votes, hardly the tactic of someone who wants to keep a discussion going.

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 17:15:34 -0800 (PST)

On Sat, 20 Nov 2004, Justin Clift wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> There's a new survey created for the PG home page, asking which design people 
> prefer.
>
> ;)

How very Rico Suave of you :) Good choice.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>     subscribe-nomail command to [email-masked] so that your
>     message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

-- 
Co-Founder
Command Prompt, Inc.
The wheel's spinning but the hamster's dead

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:56:19 +0300

Hi,

> more standardised, logical structure and enrich the content of the site.

Yes, but these changes were made for current wwwdevel design and can be ported 
to your one with zero additional work.

> Me no English?

Sorry if it offends you, but your name is not quite English-sounding to me.

> move content around because it allows you to visualise what to move 

BTW, the issue I had with Lukasz' design is that current position within the 
site's navigation structure was not highlighted. I see the same is true with 
your design. Can this feature be added?

>> Ok, I missed those.    I think we need a design document; I'd imagine 
>> that Omar and others have become kind of frustrated trying to guess at 
>> a spec they can't read.
> 

That's because you didn't bother to ask for spec *before* designing, no?

> that's because it makes sense.

"current web-design mantra"? Fixed-width is so 90s! Besides, table-based designs 
are also so 90s: look at new mysql.com done with strictly CSS-based approach.

Joshua pointed us in the direction of Mozilla and RedHat sites. Well, Mozilla's 
one has a variable-width approach. As for RedHat... well... the more I look at 
that the more I see some uncanny *similarities* with your design. Care to comment?

> newspapers have columns of small width and many lines.

I know how to resize my browser windows, thank you. I hope that everyone else 
who uses PostgeSQL knows that, also.

> on the 800x600 it's even smaller than ours. 765 versus 720.

That's complete BS and you probably know it. To stretch it to 95% (or to make 
margins constant width) one needs only to fix one style declaration.

P.S. I had some questions [1] concerning your language-handling patch [2]. Care 
to answer?

[1] http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-11/msg00233.php
[2] http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-11/msg00211.php

---

From: Omar Kilani <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 08:35:22 -0500

Alexey,

> Yes, but these changes were made for current wwwdevel design and can be 
> ported to your one with zero additional work.

The other way around, however, doesn't. That's the point.

Those changes weren't made for the current wwwdevel design. They were 
made for our design, and back ported to the current one. The time wasted 
back porting for no good reason is the issue.

> Sorry if it offends you, but your name is not quite English-sounding to me.

Neither is yours. Yet I never presumed anything about your level of 
English competency.

It's a global world and you're on the Internet. People with non-English 
sounding names are everywhere, and a lot of them speak and write better 
English than those with English sounding names. Please be mindful of 
this fact before making assumptions about people.

> BTW, the issue I had with Lukasz' design is that current position within 
> the site's navigation structure was not highlighted. I see the same is 
> true with your design. Can this feature be added?

It can. But, we're trying to finish the content first. Getting there.

Since the side navigation persists across every category, and the top 
element is always the root of the category, it didn't/doesn't seem 
necessary.

> "current web-design mantra"? Fixed-width is so 90s! Besides, table-based 
> designs are also so 90s: look at new mysql.com done with strictly 
> CSS-based approach.

The HTML can be redone at any time by changing one file, thanks to the 
CMS. Even then, it's valid XHTML. And, it looks the same in Mozilla, 
Opera and IE. Oh, and it looks great in a text browser, too.

The current wwwdevel design uses tables, too. And if fixed width is so 
90s, then why is every major company still using it? Even design 
companies like Adobe and Macromedia? What about well respected web 
development resources like A List Apart (http://www.alistapart.com/)? 
Yahoo also used fixed width. As does www.diveintomark.org.

Do you like how mysql.com looks? Do you think their *users* care if 
they've used divs or tables? mysql.com doesn't validate. Would you stop 
using mysql because of that?

If you resize your browser window to 800x600, mysql.com looks horrible, 
as the top navigation elements move onto a new line.

> Joshua pointed us in the direction of Mozilla and RedHat sites. Well, 
> Mozilla's one has a variable-width approach.

Let's take a look at mozilla.org. I'm on 1280x1024. The mainContent div 
is using 910 pixels of my screen, and it's centered. The side navigation 
is using 225 pixels until it meets the text. Therefore, there's 910 - 
225 pixels = 685 pixels of usable screen real estate in which I have text.

Now, let's compare this to our design. 765 pixel main content table. 165 
pixels until the side navigation meets the text. 765 - 165 = 600 pixels 
of usable space for text. I get the exact same results for 1024x768 -- 
it didn't scale up.

800x600: Mozilla = 732 - 182 = 550 pixels of usable real estate.
800x600: postgres= 765 - 165 = 600 pixels of usable real estate.

Mozilla.org is a very nice looking site. But that nice, variable width 
site is valid... HTML 4.01. Setting the validator to XHTML 1.0 
Transitional gives 74 errors. Do you care? Will you stop using 
Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla?

Look at what the semi-variable width design does to the "Firefox 1.0 is 
here" div. There's a huge light blue space between the green box and the 
Firefox logo. It doesn't look good. The same thing would happen to the 
elephant on the front page in our design.

Variable versus fixed width shouldn't hold up progress. Yes, it's 
possible to make it variable width, and yes, I understand the geek 
factor of variable width: scalability, flexibility, etc. But it does not 
take into account usability or aesthetics, which are much more 
important. If variable width is a requirement, then the requirement is 
flawed.

Everything has pros and cons. When taking our design into account, I 
believe the pros far outweigh the cons. That makes it a winner to me.

> As for RedHat... well... the more I look at that the more I see some
> uncanny *similarities* with your design. Care to comment?

Look at mozilla.org, macromedia.com, apple.com, redhat.com, nikon.com, 
wacom.com, ford.com, benq.com, fiat.com, blogger.com, gmail.com, 
oxygen.com, nbc.com etc.

Rounded design is the style right now. You can even read some 
interesting articles about rounded edges being "in vogue." Square edges 
are so 90s. ;)

> P.S. I had some questions [1] concerning your language-handling patch 

1) Didn't see it in .htaccess. Revert if you like. Though I haven't seen 
anyone not have it in their code.

2) I wanted to experiment with many other languages, as per our pgweb, 
and wanted an easy way to change things without knowing the control 
codes for 9 different languages. Since the internationalisation support 
wasn't really 100% anyway, I had a look around at other websites, most 
notably WikiPedia, and saw that most people use entities for encoding. 
So I did. Revert if you like.

3) It handles them by ignoring them:

+            $accepts_lang = explode(';', $accepts_lang);
+            $accepts_lang = $accepts_lang[0];

Since they're already sorted, and you want the first valid language.
Again, revert if you like. Or add support for q.

Best Regards,
Omar Kilani

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 12:16:44 -0800

Robert, Dave:

Hey, I wanted to settle -- or at least discuss -- the "stretchy" issue on 
website designs.    Aside from Omar's design, I think this is a useful issue 
to settle for a draft website spec, and *having* browsed the archives, I 
don't feel that it was ever discussed fully.  Tom, Robert and Dave have 
expressed that they *like* variable-width in the past, but I cannot find any 
discussion on the WWW list that lays out why we would, as a group, find it 
important to choose variable over fixed width.

So, some comparisons:
If you look at corporate websites, they tend to go for fixed-width:
www.ibm.com
www.hp.com
www.redhat.com
www.ca.com
www.sun.com
http://www.novell.com/linux/suse/index.html
www.vmware.com
www.apple.com
www.harpercollins.com
... in fact, I've been trying this morning to find a large tech software or 
hardware manufacturer web site that uses variable-width, and cannot.   

The sites that go for variable width seem to be:
(a) News sites
www.the451.com
www.slashdot.org
www.theregister.co.uk
... but not, interestingly, www.cnn.com
(b) Open Source projects/companies
www.mozilla.org
www.mysql.com
http://www.jboss.org/products/index
www.kde.org
www.debian.org

... actually, it's interesting how the web world is split; the big proprietary 
software/hardware companies seem to almost universally opt for fixed-width, 
and those centered around OSS projects are pretty much universally 
variable-width.    Partly the OSS projects are explainable because many (if 
not most) of them use community website packages which tend to be universally 
variable-width.

What this means, I don't know.   Thoughts?

What it seems to show me is that either format strategy is "valid" and 
"contemporary" and that our decision should be based on practical and 
aesthetic concerns, and not on what's "too 90's".

So, do people have reasons why one is better than the other?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:04:40 +0300

Hi,

First of all: that's the kind of attitude we value here. I'm sure that you'll 
feel at home in our web team. ;

> this fact before making assumptions about people.

Judging by the quality of this rant, you *are* the native English speaker and 
are perfectly able to write content for postgresql.org. Glad to know.

> element is always the root of the category, it didn't/doesn't seem 

Usability stuff, you know.

> important. If variable width is a requirement, then the requirement is 

I fail to see how fixed-width adds to usability while variable-width reduces it.

> believe the pros far outweigh the cons. That makes it a winner to me.

That's your design so you cannot be objective, obviously.

> wacom.com, ford.com, benq.com, fiat.com, blogger.com, gmail.com, 

Right now I'm looking at redhat.com and see the *same* 
three-links-and-a-search-box thingy on the topmost part of the page and the 
*same* grey-menu-with-rounded-edges-and-white-letters as on 
http://postgresql.tinysofa.com/

> anyone not have it in their code.

Oh, I didn't realise that so many sites actually use this. It is considered Bad 
practice in Russian-language part of the internet: there are several charsets 
for Russian, the page may be recoded and it is quite possible that charset 
embedded in page's HTML will not match actual charset.

> Again, revert if you like. Or add support for q.

OK, I'll add support for it later.

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 09:21:08 +1100

Alexey Borzov wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> First of all: that's the kind of attitude we value here. I'm sure that 
> you'll feel at home in our web team. ;

Alexey,

You're the *last* person to know what kind of attitude this web team values.

Generally we value people who communicate well, know their stuff, and 
respect others.

I would be good if you could get the hang of the "respect others" in 
your communication, because presently you give a *very* bad impression 
of yourself that really isn't appreciated.

Omar doesn't go around making personal insults and degrading others when 
they don't agree with him.  You do.  That's extremely uncool.

Regards,

Justin Clift

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 14:31:33 -0800

Justin,

> You're the *last* person to know what kind of attitude this web team

Hey!   Chill out.    Alexey was making a joke.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 09:31:44 +1100

> Hey!   Chill out.    Alexey was making a joke.

*That* was a joke?

In that case, sorry.  I'm not sure how it was a joke, but heck, I'll 
accept that it might have been.  ;)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 23:02:05 -0400 (AST)

> So, do people have reasons why one is better than the other?

I like fix-width since it tends to mean that the "layout" will be the same 
no matter how I stretch/shrink my browser ... for example, the news links 
will always span the same # of lines, as opposed to sometimes spanning 
three lines cause I'm too narrow, or on one line because I stretch it to 
its limit ...

----

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 11:26:19 +0300

Hi,

> You're the *last* person to know what kind of attitude this web team 

Well,
1) It was a joke as Josh already pointed out.
2) Does your comment imply that I am the lowest one in the food chain of the web 
team? Always glad to learn that my contribution is valued... ;

> Generally we value people who communicate well, know their stuff, and 

Generally you do, but for some strange reasons these people do not stay here for 
long. ;

> they don't agree with him.  You do.  That's extremely uncool.

Hey, I don't remember making any *personal insults*. Care to elaborate?

---

From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:30:01 -0500

I'm not a layout person, but I will wager that any
professionally-trained designer will tell you that variable-width
layouts are asking for trouble.  I designed a few templates that
looked great, untl someone with a 1600x1200 or whatever monster LCD
maximized the window - then that carefully crafted layout was blown to
bits...

My $0.02.

-- Mitch

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:07:14 -0500

Thats because most "professionally-trained" designers are idiots when it comes 
to web design. They want to create artwork like on TV's and magazines 
(because what they really want to be are graphic artists), and they don't 
understand that the web is a different medium.  Different users have 
different monitor sizes, and the view text in different font-sizes, and they 
will even view the new website in different languagues.  Anyone who has study 
web usability will understand that trying to force your viewpoint of a design 
on someone else just leads to trouble. 

Robert Treat

On Sunday 21 November 2004 10:30, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [email-masked])

---

From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 16:34:48 -0500

Let's not confuse opinion with fact here.  Whether you like fixed
width or variable is opinion.

Multicolumn text becoming unreadable when the column widths are not
controlled is a fact.

Anyone can design a layout that stretches to utilize all available
screen real estate. But that doesn't mean that the aesthetics or
usability remains constant as the layout dramatically changes - it
either looks great at larger sizes (and lousy on small ones), or great
on small sizes (and lousy on large ones).

I personally don't have a preference, but can say there are some very,
VERY intelligent people who have put a tremendous amount of time and
effort in order to learn what does and does not work.  Perhaps the
pundits on C|Net or eWeek are the 'idiots' that you effortlessly
categorize, but there are also professionals out there that have
expertise that is significantly superior to anyone on this list.

-- Mitch, knowing when his expertise reaches its limits (hint hint)

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:30:01 -0500

> width or variable is opinion.

Whether you "like" it is opinion (highly dependent on the proximity of your 
browser settings to those of the designer in the fixed widht world).  

Which one is better practice of good web usability is not, it is variable 
width. 

> Multicolumn text becoming unreadable when the column widths are not

Entire websites becoming unreadable because the site design cannot adjust to 
people who need to read with large font sizes is a fact.  

variable width <> uncontrolled.  take a look at mozilla.org or debian.org, for 
sites that scale very well over several hundread pixel differences in browser 
width. 

> on small sizes (and lousy on large ones).

Again, look at php.net. Aesthetically speaking, it looks great on both small 
and large browser sizes.   

Further you're still overlooking that a fixed width website cannot maintain a 
constant aesthetic or usable interface, since things like browser size, 
monitor size, screen resolution, text size, languague, and use of graphics, 
can all be changed on the users end.   

> expertise that is significantly superior to anyone on this list.

The professionals who have studied this are not the pundits on eWeek and C|
Net, and they have come down on the side of variable width websites.   

> -- Mitch, knowing when his expertise reaches its limits (hint hint)

-- Robert, who happens to have a bit of expertise on this subject, as I use to 
do information architecture and web usability work professionally. 

> > Thats because most "professionally-trained" designers are idiots when it
> > comes to web design. They want to create artwork like on TV's and
> > magazines (because what they really want to be are graphic artists), and
> > they don't understand that the web is a different medium.  Different
> > users have different monitor sizes, and the view text in different
> > font-sizes, and they will even view the new website in different
> > languagues.  Anyone who has study web usability will understand that
> > trying to force your viewpoint of a design on someone else just leads to
> > trouble.

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 12:28:22 -0400 (AST)

On Mon, 22 Nov 2004, Robert Treat wrote:

> Entire websites becoming unreadable because the site design cannot 
> adjust to people who need to read with large font sizes is a fact.

This is a *good* point ... I tend to run my X at a font size that most ppl 
looking at it have to squint or go right close to the monitor for ... I 
know some that have to run larger fonts because of eye sight problems ...

----

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:19:21 -0800

>Which one is better practice of good web usability is not, it is variable 
Ahh your second point is still very much an opinion. It doesn't
matter how much you state it as a fact, it is still an opinion.

>sites that scale very well over several hundread pixel differences in browser 
True but it still doesn't scale to 1600x1200 and nor should it.
I think it is definately a good idea to allow resizing to a particular
size that is smaller. Mozilla does an excellent job to 640x480.
I think that is a little extreme and that 800x600 is plenty.

>Again, look at php.net. Aesthetically speaking, it looks great on both small 
Well actually php.net looks horrible in general but I get your point.

O.k. I have a question, it sounds like everyone is arguing about different
things.

Are we arguing that the website should be fixed-width as in:

A. I am 1024x768 I will not resize PERIOD.

Or:

B. I am 1024x768 I will not resize to smaller than that.

To be honest this whole time I was arguing that we don't need
to scale UP. E.g; we can set the max to 1024x768 if you have a bigger
screen, great but it will still be 1024x768. However if you have a smaller
screen, we will try an accomodate you to a resolution of X.. (my IMHO would
be 800x600).

If I am incorrect on this argument, let me say now that we absolutely need
to allow scaling to smaller resolutions (to a point). Anything else would
be very silly.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

-- 
Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
+1-503-667-4564 - [email-masked] - http://www.commandprompt.com
PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 09:58:19 -0800

Josh, Robert, people:

> >Whether you "like" it is opinion (highly dependent on the proximity of
> > your browser settings to those of the designer in the fixed widht world).

Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames are 
necessary.

From what I can tell, Fixed-width vs. Variable-width is a *tradeoff*, and you 
gain and lose things either way.    Let me sum up the pros for each:

Fixed-Width
	-- Supports more polished designs
	-- More "corporate"
	-- supports better visual organization of navigation
	-- better for websites with many images
	-- cuts down on scrolling
	-- emphasizes design

Variable-Width
	-- Supports a greater variety of browser/language settings
	-- More "open source"
	-- better for large quantities of text content
	-- emphasizes content

Do people agree with the above points?

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 10:03:28 -0800

>Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames are 
Ahhh I haven't see one flame in this thread??? I don't believe that
Robert would have considered that a flame (at least I hope not).

>Do people agree with the above points?
I agree with everything but the emphasizes.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:31:10 -0400 (AST)

> Do people agree with the above points?

I think that about sums it up ... not sure about the more "open source" vs 
"corporate", but for arguments sake, okay :)

----

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 15:58:44 -0500

On Monday 22 November 2004 13:03, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >Can we kill this now?    We're none of us so rich in free time that flames
> > are necessary.
>

Not a flame, just an uneducated response :-)  For a long while people argued 
the world was flat even after Magellan made his way back around, but for the 
people who had studied it, the jury was out and we knew it was round. 

Now, I'm willing to concede that there are some places where fixed width can 
be used without sacrificing usability, like a kiosk system or possibly on a 
small company intranet where you have a single browser mandate, and the 
computers involved are all uniform, however an internationalized web site of 
an open source project certainly doesn't fall into that category.  

> > -- cuts down on scrolling

i don't believe it leads to more polished design.  actually just the opposite, 
since a good variable width design is what really looks slick imo, probably 
because it is hard to do.

i dont see how it supports better visual organization of navigation either. 
actually i would tend to think it is worse, since your more likely to 
introduce issues with horizontal scrolling or wasted/unused browser space 
with fixed width.   

> >Do people agree with the above points?

Let me add a few pluses for variable width:
-- allows users to resize text as needed
-- promotes better scanability of site content

---

From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 01:57:45 -0000

> Do people agree with the above points?
 
Only if you move most of the items from "fixed-width" into the
"variable-width" category. Browsers are for content, not
presentation. You can guide, but not enforce. You can still
have a great looking web site without specifying a single
absolute measurement.
 
- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200411222058