Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page

[BdN3504]

Target Status is mostly developer oriented information.

agree

Feature Comparision is often outdated, and likely to stay in a very useful state. A simple feature list of Rockbox generally would be better.

agree

Buyer's Guide is also not so useful. It's mainly useful for people already wanting to use Rockbox, rather than people wanting to find out if they can use it on their player. And price information, etc, will often fall out of date.

disagreeI think this addresses users who might have had a rockboxed player in their hand and think about getting one themselves, or who simply have heard about rockbox by friends etc. price info etc. are vague and not maintainable easily but i think it's very good, if you present new users which device they might want to look out for, since they can consider the various hardware pros and cons of the devices at a glance.

Screenshots might be useful.

eh.

FAQ might or might not be useful, depending on which you point to, but would be better as simply a project description, which is already covered in why choose rockbox.

agree

Glossary is useful.

disagree i don't think there is anything you can't understand right now if you look at the front page, not having read the glossary except for current build maybe. but that could be also addressed with some pop up when people hover over that word, or simply a link to the glossary in the word itself. should be possible to check if a word is in the glossary and then create a link, when it's shown on the front page, right? how do others feel about this?

if you include shots of the players, could you create something that will show a shot of a different random player anytime you visit the site? like this:

or if you hover over the different makers, pop up that sub menu and the corresponding shot is shown. that'd supernice

[macku]

http://macku.to.pl/rockbox/rockblue.html
This is just front page. The subpages will just have the top (grey) & bottom (black) bar and white main area for text with submenu on left. I think.

@Zagor:

1. It's very, uhm, orange. :-) How would it look with the orange backgrounds being shades of blue instead?
2. The top white-on-gray navigation is hard to read.
3. Where do developers go?
4. I'd love to see some sub-page sketches. A new theme needs to work well with wiki and the tracker too.

1. To much orange? Don't you like orange? :-) Check the new orange with blue version.
2. Now it should be better.
3. By "where" you mean forum, bugtracker, etc?
4. I will try make some mockup later.

@BdN3504:

you used some kind of mirroring for the "Project news, Sub... etc." IMO either use the same effect on all elements of that bar or leave it out. the home support etc.

done

i don't know how you will handle the subcategories. see on the current site downloads, documentation, support etc. all have subcategories

I was thinking about showing sub-menu after entering menu-category page on the left side. I will present it on subpage later.

At the bottom i think the announcements is a bit misleading, especially with the numbers below that item. it's a forum thread, right? i think major changes would fit better on the front page.

Announcements box of course can be replaced by Major changes. And the numbers are on fly switch between each announcement entry.

i think you should add "our sponsors" or something of that kind above the sponsors, because i don't think the user will understand that the shown icons represent them.

done

@Llorean and @BdN3504:

I feel exactly the opposite about the white bar in the middle. It feels like noise to me. It's splitting navigation between two areas, and most of the information it's prominently displaying
isn't particularly useful to potential users.

My idea was to show quick links to most important information for new user. I grab the links that in my opinion can be useful. They can be replaced with different links, just propose new one ;-)

if you include shots of the players, could you create something that will show a shot of a different random player anytime you visit the site? [...] or if you hover over the different makers, pop up that sub menu and the corresponding shot is shown. that'd supernice

Nice idea. Will try it.

PS: For the future, sorry all for my english.

[AlexP]

I *really* like this.  It would be good to have a prominent "For Developers" link (showing svn etc.) and the subpages sound good, but I'd love to see a mockup.

Keep going, it is clear you have some substantial design skills, and as for your English - a) it is fine, and b) content can be tweaked anyway

[macku]

Subpage: http://macku.to.pl/rockbox/rockblue_page.html

[GodEater]

I also like this a lot

[macku]

http://macku.to.pl/rockbox/
All of my today work with new layout. Last one includes dev info (wiki + mailing). Tomorrow I will try to put players list somwhere.
Waiting for comments.

[j8048188]

looks great!

[BdN3504]

looks great!

indeed.

[Zardoz]

Like the redesign ideas, although I prefer the softer 'bluer' versions of the current lot. Just to mention, the present, used, front page has a spelling error! Enthusiastic is missing its 't' ...... in the 'project news' section. By the way what does "Rockbox is now a...... part of Apple's development team!" mean exactly?

[Febs]

By the way what does "Rockbox is now a...... part of Apple's development team!" mean exactly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_fool

[GodEater]

I actually like the white area in the middle. I think it's a good to split out areas for "special attention" in terms of navigation. What's in that white area can be changed - that's MUCH easier than the design itself.

Having just had a quick chat with Bagder about this, we're both of the opinion that unless anyone has some serious issues with the design itself, rather than what macku has decided to put into specific areas, we should really go ahead with this.

A web page design is not going to be 100% perfect for everyone from the get go, but unless we actually put one up and start using it, and perfecting it as we go, we might as well bin this idea since it'll never move forwards.

So my vote is go for it.

[cool_walking_]

I really like this one, too.  Just a few small niggles, not really about the design itself:
1. Isn't the "What is Rockbox?" section only needed on the front page?
2. The different-coloured RSS links - isn't the orange icon a standard of sorts?

[AlexP]

I actually like the white area in the middle. I think it's a good to split out areas for "special attention" in terms of navigation. What's in that white area can be changed - that's MUCH easier than the design itself.

Agree

A web page design is not going to be 100% perfect for everyone from the get go, but unless we actually put one up and start using it, and perfecting it as we go, we might as well bin this idea since it'll never move forwards.

So my vote is go for it.

I completely agree - the content is a different matter - we can tweak which links actually appear, but the design itself is great and I'd love to see it happen.

[Febs]

Having just had a quick chat with Bagder about this, we're both of the opinion that unless anyone has some serious issues with the design itself, rather than what macku has decided to put into specific areas, we should really go ahead with this.

A web page design is not going to be 100% perfect for everyone from the get go, but unless we actually put one up and start using it, and perfecting it as we go, we might as well bin this idea since it'll never move forwards.

So my vote is go for it.

Gets my vote as well.

[scorche]

A web page design is not going to be 100% perfect for everyone from the get go, but unless we actually put one up and start using it, and perfecting it as we go, we might as well bin this idea since it'll never move forwards.

As a reminder, this means that the forums template, wiki template, and the themes site is going to have to be redone to match the style as well.