Re: [CORE] Re: New logo PostreSQL

On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Bruce Momjian wrote:

I would prefer the section margin on the left, not right.

*whew* I thought that was just me :)

Very dark.

Agreed...

Very small. It does not spread across my 1024x768 window like the
current web site.

Not sure if that is the 'finished concept'...or, at least, I rather
thought it wasn't...what is there is just one gif of what they are
proposing, so I sort of thought it was 'scaled' down...(view page source)

I prefer our current logo. More color and depth.

This is the one that is hitting me the most...what they are proposing is
very much a two-dimensional image, whereas what we have now is more
three-dimensional...I'd like something that "jumps out at you"...its too
flat...

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

www.php.net ... has a 'modern' feel to it

You know what I just realized...does anyone realize how impossible it is
to *find* the mSQL web site? I just went through Altavista, and have
travel'd through the ftp site, the FAQ and a few other sites, and I
*still* can't find it...?

mSQL or MySQL? I think mSQL is dead. MySQL is at http://www.tcx.se.

http://www.gnu.org is terrible.

MySQL's site is pretty bland.

http://www.perl.org is not fancy enough, and not enough color.

http://www.php.net is ok, but a little dark and cluttered.

http://www.gimp.org is nice. Clean design, not cluttered. Nice use of color.
Similar to our current one, but jazzed up. The little gimp guys eyes
move every few seconds. Interesting. I wonder if we could do some kind
of SQL select running every few seconds with pgaccess displayed.

http://www.freebsd.org is nice.

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~patrick/cqcam is much too dark.

http://www.python.org is too cluttered on the top.

http://www.realaudio.com is a mess. Looks like a shopping mall. I can never
figure that site out.

http://www.unifix-online.com is not bad, but needs more much color.

http://www.wilsontechnology.com/ is the page I did, which needs color
and more graphics.

http://www.csmonitor.com/ is nice, but it doesn't spread across the
window.

http://www.oppenheimerfunds.com was interesting. Not cluttered.

http://www.pncbank.com/ is quite nice. The center is cluttered, but the
margins, colors, and layout are nice.

http://www.suburban-cable.com/ is a thought item. They put the menu
items on a remote control. Perhaps we could do an SQL table, and have
that contain the menu items. We could do it with the left margin, so it
would be

SELECT item
FROM menu
-----------
support
mailing lists
documentation
----------
(3 rows)

Kind of nifty for a left margin, if it could be done so it was not too
fancy and did not detract from the rest of the page. I could do up a
sample picture using tcl if that would help.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

http://www.netbsd.org
nice and clean. Cute logo :)

http://www.mulberrytech.com
green and white (with a bit of blue) suprisingly nice look

http://www.w3.org
nice clean logo and look. Too many links on page

http://www.javasoft.com
nice look. Currently has a dumb truck graphic...

http://www.plumbdesign.com/thesaurus
ok, not for us. But a really cool site.
(wait for the applet to download and then try the demo)

http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/modula-3/html/
too wordy, but I happen to like simple logos

http://www.freebsd.org is nice.

Nice, but the left-hand margin is too heavy.

http://www.gimp.org

Nice site. Given who they are, forgive them for a busy graphic.

- Tom

On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

Yes yes yes...I want that *grin* There are a few sites out there right
now that do that, actually, I just don't recall URLs...

http://www.gimp.org

Nice site. Given who they are, forgive them for a busy graphic.

I like this one too...and as for the graphic, whatever happened to that
direction *we* were working towards with the tables and whatnot?

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

On 09-Jan-99 Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:

http://www.freebsd.org is nice.

Nice, but the left-hand margin is too heavy.

Take a look at the old one http://www.freebsd.org/~meganm I like her
work better than the current freebsd page. Also look at some of her
other stuff: http://www.asis.com/~meganm/ Some good ideas.

Vince.
--
==========================================================================
Vince Vielhaber -- KA8CSH email: vev@michvhf.com flame-mail: /dev/null
# include <std/disclaimers.h> TEAM-OS2
Online Searchable Campground Listings http://www.camping-usa.com
"There is no outfit less entitled to lecture me about bloat
than the federal government" -- Tony Snow
==========================================================================

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.
The mouse thing was too distracting for me.

http://www.netbsd.org
nice and clean. Cute logo :)

I didn't like this. Not enough color, too much stuff on the page.

http://www.mulberrytech.com
green and white (with a bit of blue) suprisingly nice look

Nice look.

http://www.w3.org
nice clean logo and look. Too many links on page

Not sure. Didn't grab me.

http://www.javasoft.com
nice look. Currently has a dumb truck graphic...

Too much stuff/scroll. No spread.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

At 3:54 PM -0800 1/12/99, Bruce Momjian wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.
The mouse thing was too distracting for me.

Dynamic action is an interesting concept, but nothing useful was done with
it. The stuff on the right should have just been deleted or else replaced
with a simple logo.

Also it takes too long to load. (JPL has dual T3's. It ain't my modem.)

http://www.netbsd.org
nice and clean. Cute logo :)

I didn't like this. Not enough color, too much stuff on the page.

I kind of like the design, but I don't think the headings and organization
are clear/informative enough. I have a hard time finding what I want and
*I* *use* *NetBSD*.

http://www.mulberrytech.com
green and white (with a bit of blue) suprisingly nice look

Nice look.

Agree. There may be about as much real stuff as the other sites have, but
it doesn't look busy or cluttered at all. The simple color scheme makes it
easier on the eyes than most web sites. Very elegant!

http://www.w3.org
nice clean logo and look. Too many links on page

Not sure. Didn't grab me.

Not as good as Mulberrytech, but not bad. Probably too many links, but
maybe they could have been grouped somehow?

http://www.javasoft.com
nice look. Currently has a dumb truck graphic...

Too much stuff/scroll. No spread.

Takes *way* too long to load. Only barely avoids overusing color in places.

This one looks to me like the designer was told to use every trick in the
book once on the page. He knew it was a bad idea and did the best he
could, but the result still lacks unity. Seriously, I suspect this page of
being designed by committee.

In summary: let's not let our (obvious) interest in the technology obscure
the real information we are trying to communicate. A simple design without
any gaffes will avoid distracting from that information. Maybe it won't
get anyone a promotion to head of the art department, but that's not our
goal.

Book recommendation: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by
Edward R. Tufte. (From memory, hope I got it right.)

Signature failed Preliminary Design Review.
Feasibility of a new signature is currently being evaluated.
h.b.hotz@jpl.nasa.gov, or hbhotz@oxy.edu

Bruce Momjian wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.

What, exactly, is spread? If you mean 'width' across the page, not
having it is, IMHO, a good idea. I like a clean narrow (possibly long)
page. I don't know about anybody else, but I like to do other things
when I'm browsing the web, and narrow pages give me more screen real
estate to do that (it's more intuitive to scroll down than across).
Wide pages are a pain on small displays, and waste precious screen space.

Just my $0.02

--
Nick Bastin - RBB Systems, Inc.
Out hme0, through the Cat5K, Across the ATM backbone, through the
firewall, past the provider, hit the router, down the fiber, off another
router... Nothing but net.

Book recommendation: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by
Edward R. Tufte. (From memory, hope I got it right.)

I just got a flyer in the mail about him and his three books. He is
speaking in Philadelphia in February. I don't think I will attend(I am
more of a reader), but want to look at his books. The local bookstore
has them in stock.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

http://www.mulberrytech.com
green and white (with a bit of blue) suprisingly nice look

Nice look.

Agree. There may be about as much real stuff as the other sites have,
but it doesn't look busy or cluttered at all. The simple color scheme
makes it easier on the eyes than most web sites. Very elegant!

http://www.w3.org
nice clean logo and look. Too many links on page

Not sure. Didn't grab me.

Not as good as Mulberrytech, but not bad.

http://www.javasoft.com
nice look. Currently has a dumb truck graphic...

Too much stuff/scroll. No spread.

Takes *way* too long to load. Only barely avoids overusing color in
places. This one looks to me like the designer was told to use every
trick in the book once on the page.

No duh! It's the JavaSoft page, for gosh sakes! What do we expect? :)

In summary: let's not let our (obvious) interest in the technology
obscure the real information we are trying to communicate. A simple
design without any gaffes will avoid distracting from that
information.

You're not off the hook that easily. We have already acknowledged that
we are design-impaired. And a good book on design won't cure us. So we
are trying to survey web sites and propose candidate looks. Got one or a
few to suggest which have the right look?

TIA

- Tom

Bruce Momjian wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.

What, exactly, is spread? If you mean 'width' across the page, not
having it is, IMHO, a good idea. I like a clean narrow (possibly long)
page. I don't know about anybody else, but I like to do other things
when I'm browsing the web, and narrow pages give me more screen real
estate to do that (it's more intuitive to scroll down than across).
Wide pages are a pain on small displays, and waste precious screen space.

I used fvwm, so I have multiple desktops, and Netscape gets to fill its
own at 1000x640. Our current page spreads the text across the browser
window. In a narrow browser, it disiplays narrow text. I agree you
can't define it to be wide by default, but it should be able to fill the
window. You can even define margins of whitespace, to say 10% of the
window width.

The major problem is that if you go with text that is inside an
image/imagemap, you can't just have the text wrap inside the window.
There is no way around that unless you can auto-size the image based on
the browser size, but that probably is impossible. Any text trapped
inside an image is going to look very small in a large browser window
because you have to design for the smallest browser window, which
probably has a width of ~600 pixels.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

You're not off the hook that easily. We have already acknowledged that
we are design-impaired. And a good book on design won't cure us. So we
are trying to survey web sites and propose candidate looks. Got one or a
few to suggest which have the right look?

I must say I am surprised at how many of us like/dislike the same items,
and I don't think it is because we are all programmers. Books basically
look all the same because there is good design, and bad design. Web
pages are too new and the technology changing too quickly for a standard
design to become popular, but I think eventually many of those _bad_ web
pages will be replace with good ones.

In fact, most large companies have terrible web sites, especially the
home page for the site.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

I must say I am surprised at how many of us like/dislike the same items,
and I don't think it is because we are all programmers. Books basically
look all the same because there is good design, and bad design. Web
pages are too new and the technology changing too quickly for a standard
design to become popular, but I think eventually many of those _bad_ web
pages will be replace with good ones.

In fact, most large companies have terrible web sites, especially the
home page for the site.

I will bolster my argument with two examples:

In the 1960's, typesetting in a variety of fonts became easier as
lithography became more popular than the manual typesetting process.
Many publications used very strange layouts as they tried the new
possibilities, but eventually returned to good typesetting standards.
Same thing happened in the 1960's with the advent of new fabrics and new
methods for dying fabrics.

Second, everyone has seen the Mac-created documents of the 1980's. The
use of many typefaces made the documents look more like ransom notes.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.

What, exactly, is spread? If you mean 'width' across the page, not
having it is, IMHO, a good idea. I like a clean narrow (possibly long)
page. I don't know about anybody else, but I like to do other things
when I'm browsing the web, and narrow pages give me more screen real
estate to do that (it's more intuitive to scroll down than across).
Wide pages are a pain on small displays, and waste precious screen space.

I used fvwm, so I have multiple desktops, and Netscape gets to fill its

I use a mac, so maybe that's my problem.. ;-) Actually, it doesn't make
any difference if I want to be able to see what I'm working on and the
browser at the same time (they'd have to be on the same desktop), but I
see your point.

own at 1000x640. Our current page spreads the text across the browser
window. In a narrow browser, it disiplays narrow text. I agree you
can't define it to be wide by default, but it should be able to fill the
window. You can even define margins of whitespace, to say 10% of the
window width.

Ok, we're on the same page here, I just wasn't sure what you meant by spread...

--
Nick Bastin - RBB Systems, Inc.
Out hme0, through the Cat5K, Across the ATM backbone, through the
firewall, past the provider, hit the router, down the fiber, off another
router... Nothing but net.

I hate to come back to same thing over again, but I still think that
www.php.net is a nice example of 'spreadability', as well as color and
graphics...its just got a nice "feel" to it.

I like the fact that the buttons let you *know* that you are over top of
it...and the use of javascript for doing the submenus is attractive (see
the search feature)...

The gimp page, also, does a nice job of making buttons that 'turn' when
you move over top of them...

I *really* like the dynamic/interactive sense to them, vs the same old
dry, "don't do anything until the user clicks" sort of pages...

My 2bits :)

On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Nick Bastin wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

http://www.parc.xerox.com
simple look, but very dynamic action
(scrappy, run your mouse across the menus)

I didn't like this. Too much white space, did not spread across page.

What, exactly, is spread? If you mean 'width' across the page, not
having it is, IMHO, a good idea. I like a clean narrow (possibly long)
page. I don't know about anybody else, but I like to do other things
when I'm browsing the web, and narrow pages give me more screen real
estate to do that (it's more intuitive to scroll down than across).
Wide pages are a pain on small displays, and waste precious screen space.

I used fvwm, so I have multiple desktops, and Netscape gets to fill its

I use a mac, so maybe that's my problem.. ;-) Actually, it doesn't make
any difference if I want to be able to see what I'm working on and the
browser at the same time (they'd have to be on the same desktop), but I
see your point.

own at 1000x640. Our current page spreads the text across the browser
window. In a narrow browser, it disiplays narrow text. I agree you
can't define it to be wide by default, but it should be able to fill the
window. You can even define margins of whitespace, to say 10% of the
window width.

Ok, we're on the same page here, I just wasn't sure what you meant by spread...

--
Nick Bastin - RBB Systems, Inc.
Out hme0, through the Cat5K, Across the ATM backbone, through the
firewall, past the provider, hit the router, down the fiber, off another
router... Nothing but net.

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

I hate to come back to same thing over again, but I still think that
www.php.net is a nice example of 'spreadability', as well as color and
graphics...its just got a nice "feel" to it.

At least on my monitor, the site seems too dark (all imho of course).
The blue is dark and the black lettering across the top does not stand
out. It does spread nicely, but I'm not fond of the 3-sided wrap-around
border; if it was just on two sides (at the left and top?) I might be
happier with it. As it is, it seems to shrink the page. Again, that may
just be a color issue...

I like the fact that the buttons let you *know* that you are over top
of it...and the use of javascript for doing the submenus is attractive
(see the search feature)...

Yes, the button action is nice, and the page loads reasonably quickly
(though shows nothing on my system until completely loaded). How is it
that kind of code to maintain?

- Tom

On Wed, 13 Jan 1999, Thomas G. Lockhart wrote:

I hate to come back to same thing over again, but I still think that
www.php.net is a nice example of 'spreadability', as well as color and
graphics...its just got a nice "feel" to it.

At least on my monitor, the site seems too dark (all imho of course).
The blue is dark and the black lettering across the top does not stand
out. It does spread nicely, but I'm not fond of the 3-sided wrap-around
border; if it was just on two sides (at the left and top?) I might be
happier with it. As it is, it seems to shrink the page. Again, that may
just be a color issue...

Hey, I don't want to copy the site...:) I want something
original...something that is distinctly us. I just like the way that the
php site...flows.

I like the fact that the buttons let you *know* that you are over top
of it...and the use of javascript for doing the submenus is attractive
(see the search feature)...

Yes, the button action is nice, and the page loads reasonably quickly
(though shows nothing on my system until completely loaded). How is it
that kind of code to maintain?

I believe its all javascript, but could be wrong...

Marc G. Fournier
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

I hate to come back to same thing over again, but I still think that
www.php.net is a nice example of 'spreadability', as well as color and
graphics...its just got a nice "feel" to it.

I like the PHP page as well, mostly because of the feeling that it's all
'contained'...much like (gasp) www.msnbc.com (at least it used to be
that way) and www.ibm.com, with a definite top and bottom to the page.
Pages deeper in the site tend to be longer, because the content dictates
it, but I think you'll find that users like a nice, compact design.

I like the fact that the buttons let you *know* that you are over top of
it...and the use of javascript for doing the submenus is attractive (see
the search feature)...

I like the PHP submenu for search as well...very clean, and quick.
However, I can't be in support of those features if they come at the
expense of load time. The PHP site loads very quickly, mostly because
the images are solid colors, and therefore, very small. Too many JS
rollovers, or animated GIFs, can make your page take long enough to load
that the viewer might just decide that mysql's page loads faster... A
trick to this of course is to use Adobe's ImageReady, or a similar app
(sorry, but GIMP doesn't quite have the flexibility in this category...)
to alter/compress the graphics for speedy presentation on the web,
without losing any quality. By just taking all of the images through
ImageReady and tinkering with them, we (corporate webmaster and I) were
able to cut average load time on the corporate web site in half. Just a thought...

--
Nick Bastin - RBB Systems, Inc.
Out hme0, through the Cat5K, Across the ATM backbone, through the
firewall, past the provider, hit the router, down the fiber, off another
router... Nothing but net.

"Thomas G. Lockhart" wrote:

At least on my monitor, the site seems too dark (all imho of course).
The blue is dark and the black lettering across the top does not stand
out. It does spread nicely, but I'm not fond of the 3-sided wrap-around
border; if it was just on two sides (at the left and top?) I might be
happier with it. As it is, it seems to shrink the page. Again, that may
just be a color issue...

I'm not sure what the site was originally designed on, but it's very
nice looking on a mac, but a little dark on a PC (lighter under X than
windows, tho'). This is of course due to the use of different gamma and
a slightly different color map on the different platforms, but if you
know about it, you can compensate for it (use highly contrasting colors,
don't make anything too dark, etc.)

Yes, the button action is nice, and the page loads reasonably quickly
(though shows nothing on my system until completely loaded). How is it
that kind of code to maintain?

Geoff Long (corp. webmaster) and I had that image loading problem when
we tweaked the graphics for maximum performance on our corporate
website. Still not sure why it does it, but I'm looking into it. As
far as the code is to maintain, the PHP site doesn't look that
complicated, although I've grown accustomed to the convienence and
flexibility of Web Objects, so I could be totally wrong.. :-)

--
Nick Bastin - RBB Systems, Inc.
Out hme0, through the Cat5K, Across the ATM backbone, through the
firewall, past the provider, hit the router, down the fiber, off another
router... Nothing but net.