On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 04:59:20 UTC, Hubert wrote:
> First I wanna say that I've become a huge fan of D, and I hope one day I can replace all my creative projects with a D codebase. With that said, I do agree that D could use a redesign. I've not been monitoring this thread very closely, but the design suggestions I've seen so far has dissapointed me. Don't misunderstand me; the proposals look good, but they are in my opinion too conservative.
>
> Now I've given it a shot and created a first draft on how I imagine a future Dlang.org could/should look like, keep in mind that nothing is final yet:
>
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/oicmwoboku136jq/dlang_test_redesign.png
>
> My emphasis has been on creating a friendly first impression; a lightweight page to introduce newcomers to D and get them started quickly. I think this is a sane design approach when it comes to D's current position in the "market". I've not yet begun any work on the views for the documentation and similar pages with a larger amount of copy.
>
> (I hope I haven't missed any earlier design proposal that already looks like this.)

I'm not a fan of the colours and the general way it looks, but I do really like the three columns of text for the three big points. I'm not sure how to put that on a home page and keep some consistent navigation in place, so that would require some playing around with. You could maybe sacrifice sidebar navigation on the home page to allow enough space to fit in the text columns at 1024px width, I'm not sure.

A few other people have mentioned fluid container widths. I actually know exactly what to do with that, I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. I think I make some progress, but then life gets in the way a little bit. I'll come back to it soon and work a little more on the site.

On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 06:10:09 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/26/14, 8:47 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 07:39:50PM -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>> On 7/26/14, 6:30 PM, w0rp wrote:
>>>> The std.algortihm documentation doesn't look good, and I don't have
>>>> any good ideas for it.
>>>
>>> I find std.algorithm among the best documented libraries out there! I
>>> must be in denial... -- Andrei
>>
>> "No, I'm not in denial! It can't be!!!"
>
> Well correction: I think it's among the better documented modules in std. -- Andrei

Still, all the documentation do not looks good.

On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 15:16:52 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> I check various parts of documentation (not DDOC-generates Phobos part but manually written articles) on a regular basis. It is often faster to find via navigating then search query because term usage is spread all across.

But you will get all that from the documentation subsection?

I do think the frontpage should indicate that D is a systems programming language, though. I also think code samples that highlight main language features constructs belong on the front page. It should try to quickly give an enticing answer to questions like these:

What is this D thing google sent me to?
What does it look like?
Is this project abandoned or active?
Where can I get a trouble free install?
What is the license?
Where is the newbie tutorial?
How active is the community/where are the forums?

The second level would be answers to questions like:
Where are the specs?
Benchmarks?
Academic papers?
Bugfix responsiveness?
Etc..

On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 04:59:20 UTC, Hubert wrote:
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/oicmwoboku136jq/dlang_test_redesign.png
>
> My emphasis has been on creating a friendly first impression; a lightweight page to introduce newcomers to D and get them started quickly. I think this is a sane design approach when it comes to D's current position in the "market". I've not yet begun any work on the views for the documentation and similar pages with a larger amount of copy.
>
> (I hope I haven't missed any earlier design proposal that already looks like this.)

Sort of reminds me of Ocaml's webpage, but more minimalistic.

I think a lot of good ideas could come from looking at other language's webpages, Haskell's new webpage is similar to Ocaml's but has less content(it's also not finished yet)

On Thu, 21 Aug 2014 17:12:37 +0000
via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:

> Don't forget that programmers are hipsters, and we need to take care of our image.
i'm glad that i'm not a programmer then.

On 08/21/2014 01:37 PM, "Théo Bueno" <munrek@gmx.com>" wrote:
> On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 17:31:45 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>> On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 17:24:28 UTC, Théo Bueno wrote:
>>>> Also please avoid personal insults :P
>>>
>>> I wasn't insulting, my intention was to mention the fact that this argument is not entirely a matter of productivity, but a fear of change.
>>
>> I was referring to "Don't forget that programmers are hipsters" statement ;)
> 
> Oh. Let me rephrase :
> Don't forget that programmers are undeclared hipsters :D
Duck hipstering - if it looks like a hipster, acts like a hipster...it was a hipster before it was cool. Stop declaring your hipsters as "auto" :P

-- 
Matt Soucy
http://msoucy.me/

On 08/21/2014 12:59 AM, Hubert wrote:
> First I wanna say that I've become a huge fan of D, and I hope one day I can replace all my creative projects with a D codebase. With that said, I do agree that D could use a redesign. I've not been monitoring this thread very closely, but the design suggestions I've seen so far has dissapointed me. Don't misunderstand me; the proposals look good, but they are in my opinion too conservative.
> 
> Now I've given it a shot and created a first draft on how I imagine a future Dlang.org could/should look like, keep in mind that nothing is final yet:
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/oicmwoboku136jq/dlang_test_redesign.png
> 
> My emphasis has been on creating a friendly first impression; a lightweight page to introduce newcomers to D and get them started quickly. I think this is a sane design approach when it comes to D's current position in the "market". I've not yet begun any work on the views for the documentation and similar pages with a larger amount of copy.
> 
> (I hope I haven't missed any earlier design proposal that already looks like this.)
> 
> 
It reminds me a lot of http://zeromq.org/, which is TOLERABLE not not, in my opinion, great.

-- 
Matt Soucy
http://msoucy.me/

On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 15:16:52 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 15:14:05 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
>> On Thursday, 21 August 2014 at 12:09:38 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
>>> It probably looks good as a landing page for a newcomers but I will annoyed with extra forced navigation very quick through daily usage of the web site. It sacrifices productivity in favor of good looks.
>>
>> Hmm... I don't remember, when I last visited the front page, I don't even know, what it looks like. What one would need there and what productivity you plan to get there?
>
> I check various parts of documentation (not DDOC-generates Phobos part but manually written articles) on a regular basis. It is often faster to find via navigating then search query because term usage is spread all across.

Such things should be probably integrated in a documentation start page: language reference, library reference, articles, papers, wiki, howtos, books. There's too much to integrate into single navigation menu.

Thanks for the response! I do agree that the colors are way too "hot" (I've must've been quite tired when I submitted that mockup)

Someone noted that the concept that I pitched had too much whitespace, which is a sentiment that I do not share. There's a lot of issues with the readability in the current design; way too wide columns just to name one thing. I must also completely disagree with the "90's anachronism" part.

You may feel that a "Getting started" section and simplified link/navigation structure might be insulting or inefficient, but is the site supposed to cater to the entrenched D-practitioners? As long as the readability and the layout of the documentation is accurate and clear what does it matter to you? There's not any inherent value in complexity.

On Friday, 29 August 2014 at 02:36:22 UTC, Hubert wrote:
> You may feel that a "Getting started" section and simplified link/navigation structure might be insulting or inefficient, but is the site supposed to cater to the entrenched D-practitioners? As long as the readability and the layout of the documentation is accurate and clear what does it matter to you? There's not any inherent value in complexity.

I simply don't see good layout fitting into the same style. And having documentation sub-pages with totally different design is also pretty bad from the point of view of the visual style.

If you can show any sketches how it can be used for more technical content I may be convinced :)