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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Yeah the new one has much better contrast and the tabs look cleaner. It will probably look better with anti-aliased text.
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#50 2005-08-25 04:44:58
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Anti-aliased text would require images, no?
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
I am not sure if this has been suggested before but why not use a CSS styleswitcher for the admin interface. That way, the user could decide which style they want. See this one from A List Apart
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
> mary wrote:
> Anti-aliased text would require images, no?
No, it requires a modern browser (Mozilla Firefox) and the right set of libraries (Xft, Freetype2 for Linux) to be present in your installation. The user asking this should better try a software upgrade, and he’s going to be more than satisfied.
Last edited by Etz Haim (2005-08-25 10:09:14)
VC3 :: weblog :: my wishlist
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#53 2005-08-25 16:30:35
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Ah, Linux stuff, right? (I am so guilty of using Windows in spite of hating it…)
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#54 2005-08-25 16:59:02
- igner
- Plugin Author
- Registered: 2004-06-03
- Posts: 337
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Not necessarily exclusively Linux… OS X does antialiasing, as does windows xp with cleartype enabled. Whether that antialiasing gets reflected in screenshots is another question entirely… and based on these screenshots, I’d have to assume it doesn’t (or it could just be that this text is below the size threshold for antialiasing).
And then my dog ate my badger, and the love was lost.
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#55 2005-08-25 17:38:10
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Ooh okay, I don’t use ClearType as it bothers my eyes severely (even with the “best” setting I could find): I have to work harder to read, it’s like staring at fluorescent light bulbs. 8x
I turned it on, took another screenshot, and turned it off again. If I just haven’t configured ClearType properly, let me know. All the other settings made the text appear faint brown or grey. 8x
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#56 2005-08-25 17:53:49
- igner
- Plugin Author
- Registered: 2004-06-03
- Posts: 337
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
ClearType’s not for everyone (or every display) — depending on a lot of factors it can make things worse rather than better. That being said, the anti-aliased text in the revised screenshot does look a lot better at this end.
I will say I’m still not keen on the icons for the edit / html / preview, but I’m generally not keen on icons in general, so that might have something to do with it :)
And then my dog ate my badger, and the love was lost.
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#57 2005-08-30 14:30:16
- andjules
- Member
- From: toronto
- Registered: 2004-10-20
- Posts: 44
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Mary, I feel terrible for you – what started as a simple volunteer face lift is turning into a monster.
dean has spoken: no icons. he’s probably right (and he’s certainly the boss), though i still hate vertically-rotated text (and vertically ‘lined’ text is much
w
o
r
s
e
:-)
dean has also spoken on the ‘jump’ menu – I personally like them because it’s like a collapsable sitemap (you can see – and go to – subpages of different parent tabs in one step) – but having two ways to do the same thing is generally not part of the ‘less is more’ approach, which is probably the biggest factor in textpattern’s success.
on that note, clivewalker’s suggestion of a style switcher is probably also the wrong direction (no offense) – more & more options/features is how open source projects tend to get out of control & lose their elegance.
- main tabs as they are
- subtabs go to a side nav (vertical) menu (with admin plugins able to impose subtabs under the ‘extensions’ tab, it’s pretty easy to imagine having too many subtabs to fit… though that would probably be a good indication that TXP is getting too complicated)
- “text”/“HTML”/“preview” side tabs actually go to the TOP of the text area (so that they’re not vertically oriented – which is what makes them suck right now, but with the current, horizontal main & subtabs, a third set of horizontal tabs would be too much in the current layout).
Last edited by andjules (2005-08-30 14:33:11)
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
mary, when I was on XP, there was another anti-alias option besides ClearType — a middle option between no anti-alias and ClearType — I forgot what it’s called. also from my experience, ClearType seems to look best on flat-screen CRT or flat-panel LCD monitors.
but having two ways to do the same thing is generally not part of the ‘less is more’ approach, which is probably the biggest factor in textpattern’s success.
agreed. i’d rather have one excellent way to do something.
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#59 2005-09-01 14:57:40
- andjules
- Member
- From: toronto
- Registered: 2004-10-20
- Posts: 44
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
Yes, there is ‘Standard’ option under start > control panels > display > appearance tab > effects > smooth edges of screen fonts
my understanding (could be wrong) is that ClearType is designed for a) LCD screens where b) the signal is digital, direct pixel mapping (e.g. a laptop or a via DVI output/cable)
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
I was thinking about this myself, was about to start a thread and saw that this one had been started. Wasn’t sure whether to start a new thread or join this one.]
My main contribution (apologies if this has been mentioned before) is that I think the ‘view site’ shouldn’t be a tab, but should the name of the site as a largish link at the top. I’ve done a mockup to show this.
Cheers,
Jon VC#9
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