[Fedora-websites-list] Re: Fedora Websites Agenda

[Hrishikesh Ballal]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 12:00 -0500,
fedora-websites-list-request(a)redhat.com wrote:
>  
>  5. Usability improvements on the wiki
>  There have been several good suggestions for improvements to the wiki.
>  First, there was the idea of making a more general-purpose FrontPage
>  to
>  better serve visitors.  Then, assorted improvements for the wiki's
>  themes.  A lot of progress has been made, lets see what else needs to
>  be
>  done.  The latest idea, courtesy of Rahul Sundaram, is the restoration
>  of the 'Parent' links provided by MoinMoin's default themes.  These
>  links, which allow a visitor to quickly browse to any page's parent in
>  the hierarchy, disappeared during the creation of the
>  kindofblue/sinorca4moin theme.
>   
Hello All, 
"Kind of Blue" the new Fedoraproject.org theme was designed by Diana
(Fong) of Redhat. I think that we should consult Diana with any redesign
such as the placement of the 'Parent' links. I am not sure if she is
subscribed to the list but can someone check that? 

I am currently working with Diana to implement a generic front page. A
mockup is at http://www.isity.net/temp/reformat.png . We may need to
have a different CSS for the front page because I am having a hard time
incorporating it in the limited functionality design functionality that
wiki gives.

I guess any comments on the mockup will be welcome. Since I am familiar
with the website and the wiki, I can spend sometime to implement other
improvements that may come up. 

Hrishi

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

>  Hello All, "Kind of Blue" the new Fedoraproject.org theme
> was designed 
>  by Diana
>  (Fong) of Redhat. I think that we should consult Diana with any redesign
>  such as the placement of the 'Parent' links. I am not sure if she is
>  subscribed to the list but can someone check that?  
>  
I subscribed her to this list precisely for such discussions.

>  I am currently working with Diana to implement a generic front page.
> A
>  mockup is at http://www.isity.net/temp/reformat.png . We may need to
>  have a different CSS for the front page because I am having a hard time
>  incorporating it in the limited functionality design functionality that
>  wiki gives.
>  
Thank you for your work.

Having a wiki as frontpage but one that looks elegant is kind of hard 
but this mockup is a nice start . Dropping the "Get Fedora" title might 
be good.

Patrick Barnes , can we get your patch to hide the sidebar for users not 
logged in, included in the wiki implementation?.  More people relate 
"Development" to coding. Maybe that can be calling Participating or 
Community instead to emphasize on other forms of contributions too.

If we get the sidebar hidden by default, would it be possible to arrange 
the links to be something other than a straight list?. Also many links 
that are present in the current frontpage http://fedoraproject.org seems 
to be missing in your mockup. Is that intentional?

regards
Rahul

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Hi
>
> > Hello All, "Kind of Blue" the new Fedoraproject.org theme was
> > designed by Diana
> > (Fong) of Redhat. I think that we should consult Diana with any redesign
> > such as the placement of the 'Parent' links. I am not sure if she is
> > subscribed to the list but can someone check that? 
>  I subscribed her to this list precisely for such discussions.
>
> > I am currently working with Diana to implement a generic front page. A
> > mockup is at http://www.isity.net/temp/reformat.png . We may need to
> > have a different CSS for the front page because I am having a hard time
> > incorporating it in the limited functionality design functionality that
> > wiki gives.
> >
>  Thank you for your work.
>
>  Having a wiki as frontpage but one that looks elegant is kind of hard
>  but this mockup is a nice start . Dropping the "Get Fedora" title
>  might be good. 
Overall, that mockup looks good, and does one thing that I wish we
could
do properly with the wiki and current theme: placing content in
columns.  This can be done using the wiki.  In fact, that entire mockup
can be done using wiki markup.  The problem comes when the viewport is
resized.  Due to the way the pages are constructed and the style
applied, reducing the viewport below a certain depth invariably breaks
the page.  The sidebar and page content end up mangled, as the page
content leaks into the sidebar.  I have been unable to come up with a
solution that will work in the current implementation of the wiki.  The
ability to override styles and use raw HTML has been a barrier.  I'm
sure a few people on this list remember early experiments with the
current FrontPage design.  We had used side-by-side content in the "Get
Fedora" section, and it broke at a little under 1024x768.
>  Patrick Barnes , can we get your patch to hide the sidebar for users
>  not logged in, included in the wiki implementation?.  More people
>  relate "Development" to coding. Maybe that can be calling
>  Participating or Community instead to emphasize on other forms of
>  contributions too.
>
>  If we get the sidebar hidden by default, would it be possible to
>  arrange the links to be something other than a straight list?. Also
>  many links that are present in the current frontpage
>  http://fedoraproject.org seems to be missing in your mockup. Is that
>  intentional? 
I have created a new wiki page and uploaded the patch:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PatrickBarnes/MoinMoin

As far as the missing links, placing the same bar that is on the current
version at the top of that mockup wouldn't look bad and would provide
the necessary links.  I agree with changing "Development" to
"Participating" or "Contributing", and I'm also concerned with
the
"Links" header.  Those aren't user-centric links, and might be confused
for such with that header.
>  regards
>  Rahul
>  
I love the wiki, but sometimes I hate it, too.  I hope we can figure out
how to make all of these things work the way we want them to.  I'd
really like to see this wiki provide both a wonderful example of what
can be done with a wiki and a brilliant Linux distribution website.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

www.n-man.com
--

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, 2005-11-08 at 15:31 -0600, Patrick Barnes wrote:
>  I love the wiki, but sometimes I hate it, too.  I hope we can figure
> out
>  how to make all of these things work the way we want them to.  I'd
>  really like to see this wiki provide both a wonderful example of what
>  can be done with a wiki and a brilliant Linux distribution website. 
Let's be careful about trying to make a Wiki into what it is not.

It is an OK way to edit content.

It is a great way to spur contribution.

It is a very easy way to make changes to content.

What it is not is a CMS.

Once we add the functions of a CMS, it is now a CMS with Wiki-editing
functionality.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, IMO.

Where it makes sense to _not_ use a Wiki, let's not.  I think the front
page for the project is just such a location:

* It does not need regular editing by the community.
* It does not need to be hampered by tool functionality.
* It does need to be visually appealing.
* It does need to be easily changeable by specific editors.

A CMS can handle all this.  In the meantime, how about using good ol'
XHTML and CSS that we check into CVS and is pulled into index.html on an
hourly basis?

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/

[Diana Fong]

The missing links...**Hrishi** I had meant to include directions to
leave the current links that appears up top as it currently is.
Yea...apologies for the confusion...please keep the links as is.

Thanks
diana




>  If we get the sidebar hidden by default, would it be possible to
> arrange 
>  the links to be something other than a straight list?. Also many links 
>  that are present in the current frontpage http://fedoraproject.org seems 
>  to be missing in your mockup. Is that intentional?
>  
>  regards
>  Rahul