[sword-devel] CrossWire website

[Peter von Kaehne]

Chris,

I do think that this discussion should be on the list. Hence I take it
back there.

>> Peter von Kaehne said
>> I do not experiment with live sites.
> 
> Chris Little said
> My comments pertained to the CrossWire site, which has seen various
> experiments over the last few days, relating to the menu bar. And, as
> I've mentioned, aside from changing wording & appearance, they don't
> always work (i.e. the CSS isn't consistently applied within browsers).

As I said, I do not see this as experiment, but as continuous
improvements and responses to what I was asked on the list. I have asked
very clearly when I received an initial flurry of suggestions and
corrections whether I should go off-site and put the old site back up,
but the wide spread consensus was that the site was now so much better
than before that this was not the right way forward.

With regard to browser inconsistencies I am trying to keep the two
stylesheets in sync, but if I missed something, please tell me.

I also do think there should be ways of making it work with a single
sheet, making IE fail gracefully rather than badly. Any suggestions are
welcome. I presume the key will be around exploiting a non implemented
child/relation pseudo class type CSS thing which will work everywhere
but for IE6

>> It is not signed off because apart from Troy there is no one to sign off
>> Flashcards and QPSword.
> 
> My main gripe here is with the coloring. Those sites are unattractive
> and very difficult to read. The coloring is virtually the only change
> they've had, and I have seen Troy object to the colors. These are now
> live sites, and they should not be.

That is incorrect. They have a) been split up onto several pages to show
in one screen without scrolling and separate information for developers
from info for users b) the top menu has accordingly expanded, c) the
side menu has been added, which is relevant as it links to help + adds a
link to swordweb etc d) some (minimal) info has been added in the
developer section regarding where to find help re cross compiling for
ARM (Qpsword)

I have chosen a different coloring to highlight the fact that you moved
to a sub section with a different navigation. I am happy to use any
other color there apart from the original, which is taken.

An additional element which I am working on is breadcrumbs which will
again improve navigation.

>>> 3) I still believe the "Read the Bible" link should be in the menu bar,
>>> highlighted by virtue of being offset far on the right.
>>
>> Off site links should not be in the top menu.
> 
> According to whom?

Navigation menus are by general convention intrasite menus. Please show
me a well designed site which does do this differently. Link lists
are/can be both (on and off site). If you surprise your users/visitors
and take them to a place they did not expect to be in - and see no way
to come back from apart from clicking a dozen of times the browser
backbutton (after having explored that section), you have created a
problem. They should at least anticipate that something is not
standard about the link.

> Should we then also remove The SWORD Project from the menu?

No, but we should make it abundantly clear that the SWORD Project is
part of the same site - by using the same basic design, but a different
colouring (or something else distiguishable - e.g the logo). I have
tried to achieve this by the proposed redesign of the SWORD site. You
have rubbished it, which is fine, but then you need to think through the
consequences of this. I have a solution which I think is valid.

Peter