Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page

[macku]

@BdN3504: Nice work. Could you try to add small black/dark grey glow to players?

@Zagor:

1. The development items are pretty much hidden away. Perhaps we should simply move all development to a subpage and just keep a top-menu link to it.

I think this task is not for me. I just created layout that include elements mentioned on first post of this topic.

2. Why is there a left-side menu in wiki? And why the heavy bottom blob?

This menu was created before top dropdown menu. I can cut it away. Todo // Edit: by blob you mean? Please make screenshot and mark it.

3. Can we combine the css files into one? Or at least clearly describe how they are logically separated. I don't want to search for classes in three files.

There will be only two css files: main and for wiki. Main have almost all rules. reset.css will join to main. rockbox2.css is only for the second font page. wiki.css will be added only to wiki pages.
Css (and also JS) files are compressed now. I have sources files with comments inside.

4. The white-on-lightgray top menu is still too discrete. It blends in with the browser chrome and I think many people will have trouble finding it.

Better proposition? Black? What then with black Rockbox logo?

5. The heavliy antialiased G-clef favicon is pretty, but it's not *our* G-clef. Our clef is derived from the Rockbox logo. I'd like to keep that.

No problem to change at all. Todo.

6. I'd like to shrink som of the vertical spacing. Especially the white field feels a bit too far spaced.

To much margin. Todo.

7. I too prefer version 2 with the columns instead of rows. But the links are positioned asymmetrically. "Feature comparison" and "FAQ" should be side by side.

Just text. Can be edited. // Edit: my mad, wrong margins here.

8. The wiki text size is too small. Wiki is very text focused and must be easy to read.
9. The font size is different in different browsers, caused by specifying font size in 'em' rather than 'px'.

Todo.

As all of you choose second version of front page, I think we have a *winner*. Thanks for comments and cooperating 

// Edit:
Todo done
About fonts size. I checked it ones again on different browsers. On FF, Opera, Chrome and IE8 size is the same. Mismatch occur only on IE7.

[DancemasterGlenn]

Has everyone else clicked the "subversion" link at the top? It's beautiful.

Is there a need for a "Home" button when the logo at the top left could possibly be made clickable? That may not be desired, though.

[soap]

My wife is not web-savvy, or else I would enlist her, but I don't think the link to the forums is obvious enough.

Perhaps we could ask non-Rockbox'd friends to load said page with the intention of going to the forums and see how frustrated (or not) they get?
 

[Hillshum]

Has everyone else clicked the "subversion" link at the top? It's beautiful.

Is there a need for a "Home" button when the logo at the top left could possibly be made clickable? That may not be desired, though.

Not really an RSS feed like the icon implies though.....

[tenzip]

4. The white-on-lightgray top menu is still too discrete. It blends in with the browser chrome and I think many people will have trouble finding it.

Better proposition? Black? What then with black Rockbox logo?

Might I make a suggestion?

When moused over, the buttons light up in a pretty yellow color, and the selected button is black/dark gray.  Why not have the buttons yellow all the time, (except the selected one), and then just have the menu drop down when moused over?  IMO the gray color blending with the browser is not a problem, but making the buttons stand out a bit more would be good.

And having the Rockbox logo clickable for home page is a good idea.

[GodEater]

I don't want to speak for Zagor, but I'm assuming the "blob" he speaks of is hilighted in this screenshot - I don't see that it's necessary on any of the wiki pages.

[cool_walking_]

Not really an RSS feed like the icon implies though.....

Yeah, I think that's a bad idea (ab)using the RSS icons like that.  It would be nice to actually have RSS feeds for those things, though.

[macku]

Perhaps we could ask non-Rockbox'd friends to load said page with the intention of going to the forums and see how frustrated (or not) they get?

I don't want to speak for Zagor, but I'm assuming the "blob" he speaks of is hilighted in this screenshot - I don't see that it's necessary on any of the wiki pages.

Inside this *blob* (block maybe?) is Support column with Forum link. The same link is in top drop-down menu under support.
In my opinion is good to have this block on every site and have ex. quick access to last announcements. Now rockbox is not only main and wiki, but also some other pages.

// UP: RSS icon is rss link. Text is to normal page. [RSS](feed) Subversion(table with changes)

[Chronon]

I think that once a visitor enters the Wiki it should contain content specific to the wiki (i.e. maybe not the blob).

[cool_walking_]

// UP: RSS icon is rss link. Text is to normal page. [RSS](feed) Subversion(table with changes)

Well that's all well and good if people already know that, but to me it's quite counter-intuitive.

[soap]

Inside this *blob* (block maybe?) is Support column with Forum link. The same link is in top drop-down menu under support.
In my opinion is good to have this block on every site and have ex. quick access to last announcements. Now rockbox is not only main and wiki, but also some other pages.

I wasn't attempting to allege that there weren't (2?) links to the forums, just that they seemed "buried" to me, and was curious if any one else found them occult to a quick glance.

// UP: RSS icon is rss link. Text is to normal page. [RSS](feed) Subversion(table with changes)

Well that's all well and good if people already know that, but to me it's quite counter-intuitive.

I, too, didn't realize the icons and text went different places.  I think I would have figured it out right quick, though, if the demo page had in fact been fully operational.

[cool_walking_]

I think an icon to the left of text implies that the text and icon are considered one object.  However, if I saw something like "Project news (RSS)", I would be much more likely to consider them "separate, but related".

Part of it is that mousing over one piece would show that the other does not get highlighted/underlined, and thus is separate, whereas with the current design, I just think the image isn't highlighted because it's an image and people tend not to highlight image links on mouseover.  Maybe it would help if the RSS icon lightened when moused over (but not when the text is moused over).

[Zagor]

2. Why is there a left-side menu in wiki? And why the heavy bottom blob?

This menu was created before top dropdown menu. I can cut it away. Todo // Edit: by blob you mean? Please make screenshot and mark it.

"The blob" is the big blue field in the bottom, as GodEater said. It doesn't belong on the wiki pages.

In general, putting the same information in several places is not a good way to get it noticed. It just makes the pages more noisy and confusing. For this reason I also don't like the links in the footer. Those links are already present in the top menu.

4. The white-on-lightgray top menu is still too discrete. It blends in with the browser chrome and I think many people will have trouble finding it.

Better proposition? Black? What then with black Rockbox logo?

I can think of two variants to test:

1. Black background, as in the footer. In this case use the "complete" Rockbox logo with yellow background. This of course also requires changing all text colours. However a black header and footer makes the wiki pages (and other non-front non-colourful pages) very stark black/white.

2. Lightblue background. Allows keeping the text colour. Perhaps the footer should be blue too, then. It provides a little more colour/life to non-front pages and keeps a familiarity connection to the old design.

About fonts size. I checked it ones again on different browsers. On FF, Opera, Chrome and IE8 size is the same. Mismatch occur only on IE7.

That may be the case in Windows, but in Linux I get different font sizes in Opera and Firefox. I bet mac users get different sizes too. This is a known issue with css font sizing, solved by using pixel sizes instead. One pixel is always one pixel, on every operating system and every browser.

Most of my "complaints" are just minor quibbles and doesn't have to be fixed by you. If we fix the gray top bar and the font sizing, I think the design is good enough to implement. Then we can keep tweaking the live page instead.

[BdN3504]

please tell say stuff like that in the first place! i had to redo everything!

[macku]

Update
Say good-bay to grey top with image based menu text and welcome blue with normal text.
Rss feed icons are now highlighted after mouse is over them.
Deleted menu on bottom bar.
Font sizes are in pixels.

@BdN3504: I'm most forget to mention it. Sorry and thanks for new images.