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Author Topic: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page  (Read 136661 times)

Offline GodEater

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Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« on: September 10, 2007, 06:09:19 AM »
This is a call for submissions from all you talented web designed folk out there for a new design for the front page at rockbox.org.

Things to bear in mind :

1) We reserve the right to reject any work at all, for any reason we spend 30 seconds coming up with. Or even no reason at all.

2) Submitting a rendered view of the page is not acceptable as an entry, we want the actual working code.  If you're the creative type, and can't do the web coding - try and team up with someone who can. Then you can put something together in Photoshop (or The GIMP!), and let your coding buddy turn it into something that works as HTML/CSS.  

3) Rockbox has a significant number of users who are either totally blind, or partially sighted. Make sure your submission is accessbile to these people too. Proper use of ALT tags and the like.

4) Above all your submission should be easy to maintain if we come up with some other stuff we want to put on the front page at some point in the future.

We also reserve the right to change these rules if we feel we have to :)

We don't want a complete free for all - we want something that is in keeping with the current design - so a similar colour palette, and we need a certain number of key things to be included on the page.

A) We'd like to keep the SVN submissions table, and the other dynamic content, but aren't sure about the best way to display this. So this needs to stay on the front page - but try something innovative with it. Surprise us.

B) A lot of people arriving at the front page of Rockbox.org seem to feel it should be a portal to more specific information, and not contain actual up to date information directly, for instance we think the list of supported models can probably be moved elsewhere into the site, since a lot of people either seem to miss it currently, or somehow think it's out of date. We *do* want a link to it though.

C) The "News" items change very slowly currently - we'd like it to reflect items from the MajorChanges wiki page, and perhaps some other specific items when we choose to include them (e.g. DevCon announcements).

D) Obviously we want the Rockbox Logo (none of the ones from the Logo competition please - none of those were ever liked well enough by everyone to replace the current logo - so stick to the official one please).

E) We still want the navigation bar at the side. If you think you can make it more accessible, then please do so.

F) Ideally, all layout on the page should be done using proper CSS layouts rather than the current nested tables design.

G) We need to keep all the sponsors logos - so don't throw them away.

H) We want to keep an area on the page which can show people what Rockbox is capable of looking like. Currently the idea we've been throwing around is to have this as a short-list of "Best of Rockbox themes". The actual image displayed will be randomly selected from this list whenever the page is re-loaded.

« Last Edit: September 10, 2007, 09:59:21 AM by GodEater »
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Offline psycho_maniac

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #1 on: September 11, 2007, 07:48:05 PM »
i really didnt want to post this because its not www.rockbox.org main page related because i figured id see posts in this topic but here it goes. Are there anybody working on this?
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Offline Yotto

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2007, 08:00:46 PM »
I am considering it, but need inspiration and time.  So far, I am lacking both.
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Offline axlgreasetires

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2007, 09:06:38 PM »
Wow i haven't done html coding in years i doubt that i could so much as create a table let alone reference the subversion etc.
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Offline mnhnhyouh

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #4 on: September 11, 2007, 09:55:12 PM »
I really like the idea of a rotating themes section, though I never visit the front page, just the latest build page to see whats going on and the forum page....

h
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Offline Yotto

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #5 on: September 11, 2007, 11:11:40 PM »
Is there any aversion to installing blogging software on the site, such as Wordpress or Movable Type? It requires php and mysql, and one database.  Assuming "Yes", I'll start playing with a mockup on my personal webspace that could be transferred over when (if) it suffices as a frontpage replacement.
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Offline Llorean

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #6 on: September 12, 2007, 12:29:22 AM »
Is there any reason for such software to be installed?

It seems somewhat overkill to install it for a mere front page redesign, so it seems like something like that should be backed up with what actual benefits it would offer that aren't addressed already.
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Offline Yotto

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #7 on: September 12, 2007, 01:38:24 AM »
One of the stated goals of the front page was:

Quote
4) Above all your submission should be easy to maintain if we come up with some other stuff we want to put on the front page at some point in the future.

The ease to maintain a (well-made) Wordpress theme needs seen to be believed. Also,

Quote
C) The "News" items change very slowly currently - we'd like it to reflect items from the MajorChanges wiki page, and perhaps some other specific items when we choose to include them (e.g. DevCon announcements).

Sounds like a blog to me.

Another reason to install it, and I am in no way trying to be confrontational here, is to have whatever theme I design as the front page.  I don't have the time to completely design and maintain a front page from scratch, but a wordpress theme would not only be (comparatively) easy to design, but it could, once written, be maintained by whoever currently does the news, as there would be no coding involved in daily/weekly updates.

If it's not an option, or if the chance of a front page based on it is low, then I won't bother with a mock-up. If it is, then I will.
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Offline Llorean

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #8 on: September 12, 2007, 02:29:38 AM »
Just saying that I don't think Wordpress would really benefit for a single page. A short PHP script could easily parse a line by line (Date) - (News item) text file for inclusion in the front page if avoiding coding is important, for example.

Just saying that while I'm not sure if it's an option or not, it sounds like a rather heavy duty solution to a single-page problem.
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Offline bluebrother

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #9 on: September 12, 2007, 03:01:10 AM »
Using Wordpress will also put more load to the server admins because of their frequent updates / security holes ;) Maybe a different software would be better suited? But I agree with Llorean that all that's needed could be done with a simple script.
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Offline mannequin

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #10 on: September 13, 2007, 07:43:38 PM »
the Subversion activity descriptions were really helpful, any reason they are gone now?
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Offline Febs

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #11 on: September 13, 2007, 08:50:55 PM »
They're not gone.  They're right here:  http://www.rockbox.org/recent.shtml
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Offline tdtooke

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #12 on: September 14, 2007, 06:50:25 AM »
How do I get to the old 6 months back on SVN activity.  At least I think it was 6 months?  That was a really helpful feature for me for working with patches when I hadn't been keeping up with the changes.
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Offline pixelma

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #13 on: September 14, 2007, 06:57:59 AM »
There were 2 other links - "since 2.5" and "since August 1st, 2006". The latter is reachable through http://www.rockbox.org/since20060801.html and I think the links will be put back soon.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2007, 11:34:11 AM by pixelma »
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Offline bascule

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Re: Redesign of the www.rockbox.org front page
« Reply #14 on: September 14, 2007, 09:58:25 AM »
http://www.rockbox.org/since-4weeks.html
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