January 18, 2015
On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:27:43 UTC, aldanor wrote:
> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:16:15 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 2015-01-18 03:18, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> I took the better part of today working on this:
>>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See demo
>>> at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>>
>>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>
>> It looks absolutely horrible. It was way, way better before
>
> On iPhone 6: D, Rust, Python, Ruby websites (Ruby being particularly gorgeous and D looking particularly ancient and out of place):
>
> http://imgur.com/7Vb2ynM
> http://imgur.com/SGKUd2q
> http://imgur.com/bXk1lf9
> http://imgur.com/njSgbzW

Looks like tweets occupy valuable screen estate on this device.
January 18, 2015
I'll add: as a user I don't really wan't to see Acknoledgments, Appendices and Sitemap buttons. This doesn't seem as important as seeing Forums.


On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:34:15 UTC, ponce wrote:
> I like it. It feels good to have code.dlang.org featured prominently.
>
> Nitpicks:
>
> - Main thing is see is that for the left button you reversed the natural flow of light. It will feel a _lot_ less alien if the bottom of nav button is darker than the top, rather than the current. Currrently such button brings much attention since this principle is reversed.
> - two different links to code.dlang.org
> - I'm a huge user of one-click-to-D-forums, the forums are always interesting to read and I've been doing just that for six years now. Maybe the Community panel should be expanded by default.
>
> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 02:18:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> I took the better part of today working on this: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See demo at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>
>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>
>> I'd appreciate your help with reviewing and pulling this, and also with improving the colors (which I'm terrible at) and page tracking as mentioned in the pull request.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andrei

January 18, 2015
On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 07:44:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 1/17/15 11:42 PM, DaveG wrote:
>> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 04:44:56 UTC, Israel wrote:
>>> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 02:18:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> I took the better part of today working on this:
>>>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See
>>>> demo at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>>>
>>>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>>>
>>>> I'd appreciate your help with reviewing and pulling this, and also
>>>> with improving the colors (which I'm terrible at) and page tracking
>>>> as mentioned in the pull request.
>>>>
>>
>> I'm no designer, but I do have some comments. Without consistency it
>> just looks a bunch of parts rather than a singular thing. Some elements
>> have gradients, some don't. Some elements have round corners, some
>> don't. Elements with borders use different widths, some have none. In
>> regards to borders, we engineering types (maybe it's just me) tend to
>> put boxes around stuff to represent discrete units when basic design
>> concepts, like proximity and contrast, may be better suited for the
>> task. I just took a quick pass at it in the browser:
>> Original: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/114394/D-site/current.png
>> Cleanup: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/114394/D-site/001.png
>> Cleanup w/o bg: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/114394/D-site/002.png
>>
>> Think "consistency and subtlety". Good design generally goes unnoticed.
>
> Looking good. Could you please do a pull request after mine gets in? Thanks! -- Andrei

The thing with the red gradients looks incredibly horrible/ bad constrast actually makes it physically (eye strain) unpleasant. The cleanup looks better, but now the site has 3 columns with 3 different styles (not just colors, but e.g. flat vs gradient, edgy vs rounded, having that extra border on the bottom vs not having it)

Dlang.org needs design by a designer, not by art-insensitive programmers. No, I'm not much of a designer either, unfortunately. But it should not be too hard to find a student with decent art sense who can do much better than this.

Also, note that the collapsible menu can be done in pure CSS, no JS needed, which would allow it to work consistently even with NoScript.
January 18, 2015
this one looks pretty good!
January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 12:35 AM, Kapps wrote:
> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 02:18:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> I took the better part of today working on this:
>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See demo
>> at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>
>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>
>> I'd appreciate your help with reviewing and pulling this, and also
>> with improving the colors (which I'm terrible at) and page tracking as
>> mentioned in the pull request.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Andrei
>
> Not sure if it's related to any of this, but the main page now contains
> broken links to the Library Reference.
>
> Instead of going to /phobos/index.html, it's going to
> /phobos/index.html.html. Doesn't happen from forum.dlang.org, only
> dlang.org.

Ouch, a lot of links got björked. Fixed and uploaded: https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/commit/13cc207be4635f4e1b847b439c7191e751e503d5

Andrei
January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 2:24 AM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:
> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:16:15 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> On 2015-01-18 03:18, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> I took the better part of today working on this:
>>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See demo
>>> at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>>
>>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>
>> It looks absolutely horrible. It was way, way better before.
>
> Sorry Andrei, but +1 on Jacob! ;-O

Suggestions on how to make it better? -- Andrei

January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 2:36 AM, ponce wrote:
> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:27:43 UTC, aldanor wrote:
>> On Sunday, 18 January 2015 at 10:16:15 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>>> On 2015-01-18 03:18, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> I took the better part of today working on this:
>>>> https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pull/780. See demo
>>>> at http://erdani.com/d/.
>>>>
>>>> What do you all think? Is it an improvement over what we have now?
>>>
>>> It looks absolutely horrible. It was way, way better before
>>
>> On iPhone 6: D, Rust, Python, Ruby websites (Ruby being particularly
>> gorgeous and D looking particularly ancient and out of place):
>>
>> http://imgur.com/7Vb2ynM
>> http://imgur.com/SGKUd2q
>> http://imgur.com/bXk1lf9
>> http://imgur.com/njSgbzW
>
> Looks like tweets occupy valuable screen estate on this device.

Can we ditch the twitter div on mobile? (Pull request would be nice, thanks.) -- Andrei

January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 2:46 AM, ponce wrote:
> I'll add: as a user I don't really wan't to see Acknoledgments,
> Appendices and Sitemap buttons. This doesn't seem as important as seeing
> Forums.

Yah the actual content of the menu is subject to a different set of changes. Right now I'm focused on the styling. -- Andrei

January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 5:41 AM, Kiith-Sa wrote:
> The thing with the red gradients looks incredibly horrible/ bad
> constrast actually makes it physically (eye strain) unpleasant. The
> cleanup looks better, but now the site has 3 columns with 3 different
> styles (not just colors, but e.g. flat vs gradient, edgy vs rounded,
> having that extra border on the bottom vs not having it)

I'll replace the gradient with flat colors today.

> Dlang.org needs design by a designer, not by art-insensitive
> programmers. No, I'm not much of a designer either, unfortunately. But
> it should not be too hard to find a student with decent art sense who
> can do much better than this.

I agree. Note that the difficult part for me was (a) finding the right stuff online, (b) learning the stuff involved in getting it to work on our site and degrade nicely without javascript, (c) getting the mechanics integrated.

In the process I changed ONE thing: the colors. EVERYBODY disliked the colors, but only ONE soul proposed others.

> Also, note that the collapsible menu can be done in pure CSS, no JS
> needed, which would allow it to work consistently even with NoScript.

I searched for ways to do accordion menus without Javascript for maybe a couple of hours today, no avail. My conclusion was it can't be done, or at least not with what's available for free. But of course that's based on two hours' worth of accumulating expertise. I challenge you to make a pull request that achieves accordion menus without Javascript. Feel free to start from my branch and change the code from there.


Andrei

January 18, 2015
On 1/18/15 8:33 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 1/18/15 5:41 AM, Kiith-Sa wrote:
>> Also, note that the collapsible menu can be done in pure CSS, no JS
>> needed, which would allow it to work consistently even with NoScript.
>
> I searched for ways to do accordion menus without Javascript for maybe a
> couple of hours today, no avail.

I meant yesterday, not today. I'm emphasizing this because I was hoping for pure CSS menus _before_ I got the current ones. The challenge remains: do pure CSS menus and I'll offer you my awe. -- Andrei