I think we need two more tables (boxes is probably a better word) in the very near future: one for news items ("just set up anoncvs; server upgrade at 12:00", etc.) and one for articles ("how to use albert with your .asd file; unit test framework study", etc.).
What do you think about it? Would they fit with our current layout? I think these need to be on the front page, but not necessarily on any other page.
Erik.
[butting in slightly]
Erik Enge erik@nittin.net writes:
I think we need two more tables (boxes is probably a better word) in the very near future: one for news items ("just set up anoncvs; server upgrade at 12:00", etc.) and one for articles ("how to use albert with your .asd file; unit test framework study", etc.).
What do you think about it? Would they fit with our current layout? I think these need to be on the front page, but not necessarily on any other page.
how about moving the "in this page" box under the Home|Mailing Lists|FAQ|Hosting bar? then put a news box on the left (merge news, recent projects, new articles, etc.) this would free up a good bit of space for the content of the page and avoid starting down the 18 tables route.
Marco Baringer mb@bese.it writes:
how about moving the "in this page" box under the Home|Mailing Lists|FAQ|Hosting bar? then put a news box on the left (merge news, recent projects, new articles, etc.) this would free up a good bit of space for the content of the page and avoid starting down the 18 tables route.
That's a pretty decent idea. Or perhaps we could make news/articles a part of the main part (middle part) of the index.html page.
Erik.
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 11:38:45AM -0400, Erik Enge wrote:
That's a pretty decent idea. Or perhaps we could make news/articles a part of the main part (middle part) of the index.html page.
An alternative tactic would be to put work on the assumption that most of our traffic will be people who already know both what Common Lisp and Common-lisp.net are:
* Move "About this site" to a separate, but clearly linked page, or to the very bottom of the index-page.
* Move "About Common Lisp" to a separate, but clearly linked page -- somewhere where newbies can find it.
* Dedicate dedicate index-page to news -- both site specific and to those of general interest to Common Lisp users.
Dunno about the layout, though.
Cheers,
-- Nikodemus
Nikodemus Siivola nikodemus@random-state.net writes:
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 11:38:45AM -0400, Erik Enge wrote:
That's a pretty decent idea. Or perhaps we could make news/articles a part of the main part (middle part) of the index.html page.
An alternative tactic would be to put work on the assumption that most of our traffic will be people who already know both what Common Lisp and Common-lisp.net are:
Move "About this site" to a separate, but clearly linked page, or to the very bottom of the index-page.
Move "About Common Lisp" to a separate, but clearly linked page -- somewhere where newbies can find it.
Dedicate dedicate index-page to news -- both site specific and to those of general interest to Common Lisp users.
Dunno about the layout, though.
There are a few points I'd like to address:
* If you put on the blog mask, there should be always new info. I don't think we can sport an article a week, so we shouldn't put this in a way that makes people think "gosh, but this site is /dead/! Last article is /three/ /months/ old!".
Keeping a fixed, timeless mini-article in front gets the timestamp off the radar.
In the event that this changes, I'm all for the front-is-news approach.
* Besides, I like to think that our vantage point should be put to use by giving someone who doesn't know Common Lisp all the important facts right away. Remember he is skeptical, so we shouldn't expect him to want to click on anything.
If I would start with anything, it would be KMP's interview on slashdot :-)
BTW, that is why I'd like a small page on "getting started", so that after two clicks and two pages of text the newcomer is downloading nice tutorials & demos and whatnot.
That said, I would put news in a box on the right, just above new projects. But it should be either fed with something, *anything*, on a daily basis (be it a new release of whatever) or disappear if no new news appear after a week or so, and then move that to a page called "press releases" or something that isn't supposed to be "new"...
Regards, Mario.
On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 05:50:00PM +0200, Mario Mommer wrote:
Keeping a fixed, timeless mini-article in front gets the timestamp off the radar.
Hmm. I'll need to mull over this. I see your point, but am not sure if I agree.
- Besides, I like to think that our vantage point should be put to use by giving someone who doesn't know Common Lisp all the important facts right away.
I suppose the question is do we primarily cater to people already using Common Lisp or people who hit our site nowing nothing about Common Lisp.
Personally I do believe that we are "morally responsible" for providing newbie-pointers given our domain-name, but I'd still make actual users a priority.
Remember he is skeptical, so we shouldn't expect him to want to click on anything.
Do we really want to cater to people who are too lazy to click on "Learning Lisp" ro "About Common Lisp"?
How about:
What Is Common Lisp (3-5 lines, followed immediately by link to "Learning Lisp")
About Common-Lisp.net (3-5 lines)
News...
BTW, that is why I'd like a small page on "getting started", so that after two clicks and two pages of text the newcomer is downloading nice tutorials & demos and whatnot.
Sure. I'd love to see this, but am not too keen on working it myself.
As a sideline: I've been thinking that one of the major problems for writing CL tutorials is the diversity of environments -- and unlike so many pother languages Common Lisp is sort of "environment-centric". The best way to go is probably to take the "use this environment for tutorial" route, and finish the tutorial by telling them about other options.
That said, I would put news in a box on the right, just above new projects. But it should be either fed with something, *anything*, on a daily basis (be it a new release of whatever) or disappear if no new news appear after a week or so, and then move that to a page called "press releases" or something that isn't supposed to be "new"...
Boxed news is fine, but I really don't think they should disappear. We don't have to call them "news" if thats any help. ,)=
What about "Noteworthy"?
Cheers,
-- Nikodemus
On Fri, Aug 15, 2003 at 05:26:33PM -0400, Erik Enge wrote:
I think we need two more tables (boxes is probably a better word) in the very near future: one for news items ("just set up anoncvs; server upgrade at 12:00", etc.) and one for articles ("how to use albert with your .asd file; unit test framework study", etc.).
What do you think about it? Would they fit with our current layout? I think these need to be on the front page, but not necessarily on any other page.
I do think some pages may benefoit from having several "boxes" per sidebar, but I think a bigger issue is that we should have different layout from pages that us eonly a single sidebar (like FAQ).
Cheers,
-- Nikodemus
On Sat, Aug 16, 2003 at 11:28:00PM +0300, Nikodemus Siivola wrote:
I do think some pages may benefoit from having several "boxes" per sidebar, but I think a bigger issue is that we should have different layout from pages that us eonly a single sidebar (like FAQ).
While I thought about it I changed the hosting page (plus some textual changes) and FAQ correspondingly to use a wider body.
Does this look ok?
Cheers,
-- Nikodemus
-
Erik Enge -
Marco Baringer -
Mario Mommer -
Nikodemus Siivola