[sword-devel] CrossWire website

[Chris Little]

Peter von Kaehne wrote:
> 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

The CSS non-application issues I've seen (which result in the unordered 
list being displayed as a bulleted, unordered list instead of a menu 
bar) have been on FF3 & Safari, on different systems, at different 
times. If there are bugs on those browsers, then there's code that 
should not have been rolled out to the public site yet.

> 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.

Your desire to color pages differently should be subsidiary to the basic 
issue of usability and legibility. If you couldn't come up with a good 
color other than red, you should not have changed it. Again, purple is 
not good on those live sites.

>>>> 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.

Here are some quick examples from 2 minutes of browsing:
www.ebay.com (Their menu links at top-right go all over the place.)
freshmeat.net (Last, "scoop" link goes offsite.)
www.logos.com (Last, "view/checkout" link, with appropriate 
highlighting, goes to a site with significantly different design.)
www.google.com (not a great example, but the final, dropdown menu item 
includes a link to YouTube)
eff.org (The donate to EFF link is raised and offset, similar to how we 
had the Bible link.)
gnu.org (Highlighted "Join the FSF" link goes offsite)
fsf.org ("Shop" link goes offsite)

The gnu.org link is almost identical to what I've proposed: Bible link 
far to the right with additional highlighting.

(I'm still waiting for that list of sites where wrapping menu bars can 
be found, but I'll point one out of the above that does it: 
freshmeat.net. But they've probably got the worst design of the lot.)

> They should at least anticipate that something is not
> standard about the link.

I wasn't surprised by any of these, but I do think additional 
highlighting will clarify the specialness of 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.

We can also add more highlighting to the Sword link, but I really think 
our users are more intelligent than you give them credit for being. I 
think they'll be able to figure out where they are no matter whether the 
visual designs match.

--Chris