[Webteam] Whaff?

[goran at krampe.se]

Hi!

karl <karl.ramberg at chello.se> wrote:
> The problem was that short pages clipped off the background ballon image.
> Like the Community/SqueakersDVD page. Some changes were made to sthe 
> stylescript to
> force the page to be a certain height but at the cost of having the 
> scrollbar
> Karl

Mmm, well - I understand that we seek various solutions to various
problems. And people sure have different opinions about "well behaved"
web pages. For example, some people think that limiting width and using
no resizing behaviour is quite fine - but I detest it. :)

Now, back to the issues at hand, my opinion is:

1. Skip the scrollbox. It annoys way too much.
2. Fix the base issue instead. I don't really think the balloon is done
justice in the current layout - unless you already know it IS a balloon
you can't really tell - it looks like some random noise behind the
navigation box. And I just noticed it actually hides the bread crumbs!

I really like the stylish balloon. I would like to give it a more
prominent position.

Ok, here is a proposition for brain food:

1. Let's be radical and move all "boxlets" to the left side! Nav on top,
then download, then the links section. This will buy us width and thus
also height because text will need fewer lines. So it actually makes
lots of sense. And I always find the "dual side bar" approach slightly
cluttered anyway.

2. Ok, where to put the balloon... Hmmmm, what about simply using it as
either a picture embedded in the text (smaller and with text flowing
around it) or a background faint "watermark" on the front page inside
the text area?

In fact, I think at least one or two small images could work inside the
introduction text - one could be a nice screenshot and the other could
be the futuristic balloon.

Another approach is using it on the /Download page - to the left of the
virtual machine bullet list - lots of space there, and that page is sure
to be a prime visit for many people.

regards, Göran