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Re: Txpq
I agree with a lot beeing said above (no need to re-type it) regarding colors and padding/spacing.
One thing though I noticed no one mentioned was the type. The box with the “PREVIOUSLY” is quite a handful to read. Use a better line-height in the CSS of the text and remove the justify alignment since you don’t use it anywhere else (atleast what I’ve seen).
Read up on type on webpages in this nice ALA article which learned me a thing or two.
Regarding the colourschemes, it’s all in the eye of the beholder: if you change to Jukka’s colours someone else will hate that instead of the one you got =D. Just learn that you can’t (sadly) please everybodys eyes.
IMHO I don’t like the background change on the hover since then the text don’t feel padded anymore. But if you dig it, go with it.
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Re: Txpq
Thanks for your comments, Henrik. The colours will revert back to Jukka’s scheme when the 12 days are up. Do you really think more spacing is needed? How exactly would you do it without widening the whole page?
Re lineheight and type, I am already doing most of what the ala article says, but have added a html {font-size:100%;} to style to compensate for IE browser resizing. Do you really think the Previously column line-height should be more than 1? Are you sure you cannot read it easily? With such a narrow column I think larger line-height makes it harder to read. And it looks dreadful left-aligned so justified it stays because there are only a few words to read. Can we agree to disagree on this one, or can you talk me into a real improvement?
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Re: Txpq
As I wrote earlier, it’s all in the eye of the beholder and his/her preferences apply. I can continue breathing even if you do not head my words. Promise, I know how to do that ;).
Regarding the line-height: It just looks, feels and reads so much better on the article where you use a higher line-height then on the frontpage. So you must have some reason why not as high on the front page. But what might it be?
Plugins: ob1_advanced_search 1.032b, ob1_search_score 1.0, ob1_pagination 2.5, ob1_title 4.1, ob1_modified 2.1
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— Sun Tzu
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Re: Txpq
My aim with the front page was to provide enough of the latest two articles so that readers could decide if they wanted to continue reading or not. If not they will see there is a list of recent articles and recent comments, also the survey (which for some reason seems to be a total waste of time), without scrolling down.
To get enough on the screen without scrolling down, I decided to reduce main article line-height from 2 to 1.5. This works OK with interviews (next one on Monday) because there are more paragraphs and therefore it seems more spacious. But you are right that the main article is not so easy to read as on the article page.
It’s down to compromises. Easily readable text is essential, I feel the headline and article image(s) are also near essential to draw people in (but any better ideas are welcome) and I feel that a clue to more stuff (recent articles and comments) is also essential. So those are my reasons. If you feel there is a better way to do it, please tell.
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Re: Txpq
You got me thinking, Henrik, and I’ve redesigned the front page making it more spacious and easier to read. I’ve finally gone for 1024px wide, but just for front page as I think the rest of the site is OK as it is, except for some minor changes I might make.
How do you like it folks?
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Re: Txpq
The 1024 width gives some worthy breathing space on the front page; a definite improvement. I’m not sure if you’ve changed the line-height at all (I never had a problem with it as it was) but, for what it’s worth, it seems easy on my untrained eye and highly readable.
Have to say though, the jump back to the 800 width on the other sections felt a tad “unexpected” even though I was fully expecting it courtesy of your post here :-)
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Re: Txpq
Thanks, Stef, the line-height is increased a bit and of course the narrow left column has gone all for the sake of better readability.
I’m determined to leave the 800 width for other pages. Lots of people land on the article rather than the front page so it won’t be a shock, and it’s better for usability. People have smaller monitors and can use the large size option without scrolling across, or they have their browser sidebar open so they can see it all without scrolling across. There’s also plenty of room for the article without needing to be any wider. Wide line lengths are harder to read. Plus I think it’s the perfect size cos it’s a perfect fit for 800 monitor plus a perfect fit for 1024 if you use large size. So I’ll take some convincing to change it ;-)
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Re: Txpq
All perfectly valid reasons to keep it the way it is :-) Like an inconsiderate klutz I always forget about people changing font sizes…
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Re: Txpq
No more inconsiderate than anyone else, I think, Stef. In fact probably more considerate. I have a large monitor and it was quite a shock to me to look at a 17” set at 1024 × 768 the other day. This forum was very hard to read as was TXPQ at the default size, so I’m glad I put the large size option there, cos enlarging via the browser doesn’t always bring great results ;-(
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#34 2008-01-14 19:07:38
- els
- Moderator
- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-06-06
- Posts: 7,458
Re: Txpq
Hey Peter, I like the new front page a lot, but the footer is acting strange in Firefox (Linux), it goes up with the content when you scroll: screenshot.
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Re: Txpq
Thanks for that info, Els. I have the footer set to position:absolute;bottom:0; which means it will scroll with the content if there is any scrolling to do. (It’s different on the large size). Your screenshot is about right. I get similar on some other browsers. The idea is that everything is there to read without scrolling but it works differently on different monitors as well as browsers and how many toolbars you have open etc. I’m still trying to find the best way to do this.
I didn’t know about the border around the Read More though. It doesn’t look so good. I’m using an image there because I found my normal text Read More link was invisible on 15” monitors so I decided to turn it round so it should be visible on them all. All a bit tricky…
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#36 2008-01-14 19:23:35
- els
- Moderator
- From: The Netherlands
- Registered: 2004-06-06
- Posts: 7,458
Re: Txpq
It doesn’t only scroll with the content, as you can see it’s partly covering the content (edit: depending on the height of your screen), and I don’t think that was your intention.
The border on the read more images is not there in Konqueror (but who uses Konqueror anyway…)
… and who uses Linux anyway… :/
Last edited by els (2008-01-14 19:29:57)
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