[sword-devel] CrossWire website up and running

[Peter von Kaehne]

Chris Little wrote:
> Just a few quick comments:
> 
> The page is looking nicely improved. I like that it is mostly visible 
> from within a single screenful, with minimal scrolling necessary.

Thanks!

> Most of my complaints probably pertain the the icon bar. There's the 
> strange mouseover growth behavior that others have mentioned. Maybe it's 
> supposed to look like the MacOSX dock, but it really just comes off as 
> jarring. 

Changed

> I think the usual thing to do here is some kind of highlighting 
> (e.g. switch between the plain icon and a version that is glowing with 
> yellow or such).

Changed

> Of the icons, all use transparency except the Windows icon, which has a 
> solid white background.

need to find a solution as IE6  can not deal with transparency

> I can't see the need for a Java section any more than I can see the need 
> for C++, Qt, Python, or JSP sections. The technology behind the software 
> isn't a significant piece of information to the user, so I think Duke 
> and the Java section should just go.

The section has a reason insofar as some platforms we do not cater for
regularly can be reached by Java. E.g. Gnomesword was only recently
ported to Solaris and with some significant difficulties (despite being
Unix and all). So IO though this is a good fall back for the BSD's ,
SCO, HP and whatever unixes etc.
> 
> We don't have any Palm software (though I do think that PalmBiblePlus 
> and UniBible should be linked to from our Handhelds section). Since we 
> don't have any Palm software, it's a bit confusing to have an icon of a 
> Palm V representing that section.

I just thought this was an odd looking PDA. Shows my age. If you know of
a nice icon somewhere else, I am delighted.

 I'd recommend either a generic,
> unidentifieable handheld or that plus a phone. Even an iPhone might 
> work, since we do plan to support that.
> 
> "The Sword Project" in the menu bar is still not cased correctly (SWORD).

Done

> In general, I'm afraid I don't care for the menu bar. I don't think 
> "Read the Bible" should have been demoted to the sidebar. 

The head menu should never link out of the site. It is jarring and
horrible. We could presumably create a styled version of SwordWeb ("just
for us") and leave the other one running as the standard one.

> I don't think 
> the news section belongs within the CrossWire site as opposed to the 
> Sword site (but we can discuss that in IRC). 

Strongly disagree - the news content goes already way beyond Sword,
includes Jsword, various front ends and more. Option one would be to
narrow it down to SWORD proper or option two - more naturally - is to
move it to CW and open it up a bit.

I don't like with widening
> that came with going from 2 lines to 1. And I think there is some 
> slightly non-standard ordering of the menu bar items.

reordered, hopfully more standard. Widening? It displays on all kinds of
sizes ok for me.

> The top of the page also has a lot of poorly-employed space. I know you 
> didn't touch anything above the menu bar, but I wonder whether we could 
> use that space a little better. We may want to shorten/widen the logo, 
> design a more modern-looking logo, or even nuke the uppermost burgundy 
> bar. We could potentially center the logo on the page and flank it with 
> 3-4 menu items along the page borders, e.g.:
> 
> Home                                                      Volunteers
> News                      CROSSWIRE                       Publishers
> About Us                                                     Contact
>  

Various thoughts here. My preference would be to create a big link for
reading the Bible on the right. I would then use the same space for
supsites and their respective logos (so they exist)


Peter