From owner-freebsd-doc Wed Sep 26 11:23:33 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from lists.blarg.net (lists.blarg.net [206.124.128.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6481337B41C; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:23:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from thig.blarg.net (thig.blarg.net [206.124.128.18]) by lists.blarg.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CEC2BCB6; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:23:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([206.124.139.115]) by thig.blarg.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA25289; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:23:27 -0700 Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.11.3/8.11.3) id f8QILxF59637; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:21:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from swear@blarg.net) To: Nik Clayton Cc: Jun Kuriyama , doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Branching www/ for XML development References: <20010921001517.N1162@clan.nothing-going-on.org> <20010922113521.W1162@clan.nothing-going-on.org> <20010925173240.F31744@clan.nothing-going-on.org> <7m1ykud8oh.wl@waterblue.imgsrc.co.jp> <20010926125652.S31744@clan.nothing-going-on.org> From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 26 Sep 2001 11:21:58 -0700 In-Reply-To: <20010926125652.S31744@clan.nothing-going-on.org> Message-ID: Lines: 50 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Please say if kibitzers are unwelcome in discussions like this; I'm new here. Re: Reading content through portholes. Pros: Easier to read narrower columns. Saves one navigation click (assuming that a navigation page (often the previous or home page) is one click away). It hard to argue against the methods of professional marketeers who seem to like this layout (though I doubt that it is needed or worth the disadvantages for www.FreeBSD.org). Cons: It may be just my imagination but I'm sure I'm not alone in finding reading through portholes just disturbing or claustrophobic. Also makes makes me feel I'm having something forced upon me which I didn't ask for want (even if it IS good for me). Makes me kind of mad at the provider. Makes it harder to refer to the context of what one is reading. Many people don't read like computers and need to go back and forth some. Encourages the many people who dislike long pages (for reasons I usually don't understand) to create more pages which makes the context problem even worse. Bloats the amount of data needed to be downloaded since all that border stuff is downloaded for every page whether useful or not. (I think that the case, unless frames are used, which I doubt is the plan.) Doesn't work as well for the majority of users with small monitors as for the fewer who have large monitors. Final comments: I was wondering if a navigation bar could always have a link that would bring up the content in a one- or two-panel window? Maybe a two-part link -- one for the new browser window in the current X window and one for a new X window. This would make printing pages of context (or parts) nicer too, without all the surrounding junk. For many pages (articles, etc) I think it would be best to let the content author do everything except a panel or two at the bottom for navigation and anything the web site wants to say. (Actually, I'd also have a small footer frame with a few links to the home page, nav page, page index, etc., but I guess frames have been ruled out.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message