proposal for kdevelop.org new website design

[Amilcar do Carmo Lucas]

Hi Sam,

First of all thank you for your time, you have really invested a lot of though 
and effort into the website design.

On Sunday 09 May 2010 19:33:09 Sam S. wrote:
> A. *Clean-up*
yes, agreed.

> In detail, I propose to:
> 
>    1. *Get rid of "moduleentry" everywhere*
OK.


>    2. *Unified, sensibly-named layout columns on all pages*
yes, good point

>    3. *Unified markup for lists of aggregated news/blog items*
Also OK, design reuse is always a good decision.

>    4. *(Possibly) switch from the current absolutely-positioned
> columnslayout to a fluid
>    columns layout...*
Not a good idea if that requires changing the order of the html.
The current order was especially conceived for slow connections and search 
engines.
It should be kept unchanged whenever possible.


> B. *Additional features*
> 
>    1. *Breadcrumbs bar*
> 
Yes I can do that, the pages have classes already and I could use that info.

>    2. *Quick-access boxes for horizontal links within page classes*
Sorry this one I did not understood yet.
What is wrong with the layout of the "other versions" boxes ?


> C. *Content changes & restructuring*
> 
>    1. *Cleaning up the top links*
> 
>    --> only Download, Features, Screenshots
>    (Niko has already done this on the test site.)
I used info from real the navigation patterns of kdevelop.org users to create 
those links. The ones currently online are really the most visited pages on 
the website.
I still think that all of them belong in there.
The only exception is the sitemap link, It should be moved to the place you 
have it now.

 
>    2. *Cleaning up and restructuring of the navigation menu links (left
>    column)** for KDev4.x*
> 
>    Back when my proposal for the new website design was first discussed, I
>    think it was agreed upon to remove the "Links" section from the
> navigation menu, as it doesn't link to any useful content anymore.
yes.

 
>    In addition to that, I've made various other changes to that menu in my
>    mockups compared to the current state of the website. These changes can
> be seen as suggestions for a cleaner and more easily-accessible navigation
> menu. What do you think?
Sorry where are those changes, can you repost a link.

>    3. *Rephrasing the "What is KDevelop and KDevPlatform" text on the front
>    page*
OK.

>    4. *A dedicated 'About' page*
I kind of already have such pages, take a look at 3.5/kdevelop.html

>    This would be the page that you get to when clicking the "About" link in
>    the left navigation menu as I propose it.
>    Also, the "more info..." links in the "What is KDevelop and
> KDevPlatform" and "KDev3 vs KDev4" boxes on the front page would link to
> this page. It would be a simple static page, not one that needs to be
> duplicated for each release like e.g. the screenshots page.
>    It's purpose would be to:
>    - *explain what KDevelop is, what it is not, what it's
>       purpose/goal/vision is, etc.* (more verbose than the text on the
> front page, but without going into technical details - for that, it should
> refer
>       to the 'Features' page)
>       - *explain what KDevPlatform is*
>       - *explain the difference between KDev3 and KDev4* (in general terms,
>       more verbose than on the front page, but not comparing all the
> individual features - for that, it should link to the wiki page with the
> comparison table.)
>       - *explain who is behind the development of KDevelop* (explain its
>       open-source nature, it's relation to the KDE project, etc.), and
> link to the
>       'Authors' page of the current release.
>       - *link to the FAQ page* (as that is not linked to in the navigation
>       menu)
But yes your version has the advantage of being version agnostic.


>    5. *A dedicated 'Features' page*
> 
>    This would ideally present KDevelop's features with detailed text and
>    close-up pictures in a professional manner. I have some cool ideas for
> that, but they'll have to wait for now as I'm focusing on the CSS
> re-design currently :-)...
> 
>    For now, even an empty page with just one sentence that states that this
>    page has not been finished yet and in the meantime links to Andreas's
>    release anouncement would imo be much better than linking to some
> section of some wiki page directly from the "Features" top menu link.
> That's just unprofessional imo (for such a "core" page of the website),
Yes, my Idea is to migrate the wiki pages to the website once they are stable.
Wiki has proven to be a great tool to collaborate, so I decided that all 4.0 
pages would at first be exclusively wiki pages and that at some point would be 
migrated to the website look at translated.

So basically our developers can contribute to the features pages, including 
screenshots at once it is finished just copy paste in to the website and let 
the translators translate it.


> and also it means there's no easy way to reach the KDevelop 3 features
> page then (since wiki pages don't integrate with the "See also: This page
> for KDevelop version x.x" paradigm).
Yes of course I'm aware of it, it's just a transitional phase.


>    6. *New pages for everything else that doesn't have a KDev4-page yet but
>    appears in the main menu or quick-access boxes in my mockup...*
> 
>    ...especially "User Manual", "Tutorials", "Tips & Tricks", and the
>    various "How to contribute" links.
>    It wouldn't matter if these were only empty wiki pages initially with
>    only one or two sentences, and only slowly gain content after time.
> Still better than nothing, or than linking to outdated stuff by default.
> 


-- 
Amilcar Lucas
KDevelop developer/webmaster