Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2005 14:46:11 -0700 From: "jdow" <jdow@earthlink.net> To: <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: new FreeBSD-webpage Message-ID: <061601c5cb88$88e99f50$1225a8c0@kittycat> References: <b41c75520510060225h2eeecdd8w@mail.gmail.com><di2s9q$4ss$1@sea.gmane.org> <43455D3E.5040007@mbnet.fi><20051006204336.GA36557@neptune.atopia.net><20051006213326.GA33286@xor.obsecurity.org><20051006213740.GA37835@neptune.atopia.net><20051006214904.GB33546@xor.obsecurity.org><20051006221541.GA38659@neptune.atopia.net><20051006224214.GD8320@freebsdmall.com> <p06230925bf6c70609977@[128.113.24.47]>
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From: "Garance A Drosehn" <gad@FreeBSD.org>
> At 3:42 PM -0700 10/6/05, Murray Stokely wrote:
>>On Thu, Oct 06, 2005, Dan Ponte wrote:
>> > One idea is to revert to the old design, which suited people's
>> > needs just fine. However, I doubt that will happen.
>>
>>Uhm, it didn't suit people's needs just fine. It was total crap
>>with dozens of disorganized links all over the front page and
>>second level pages topping 100k as they had just grown larger
>>and larger over time and noone had stepped back to look at how
>>bad it all was for someone coming to the site for the first
>>time to find any useful information.
>
> I agree with Murray. I'm sure the new design can be improved upon
> some more, but the previous web pages had gotten to the point that
> they actively annoyed me. Too large, too much info crammed into
> some of the pages. I have been saving URL's directly to some inner
> web pages, for no other reason than to avoid bringing up the main
> web page. And once you're AVOIDING the web page, then it doesn't
> much matter how much info was crammed into it.
As a newbie (to FreeBSD not to 'nix) I found the older pages had the
information more accessible than the newer pages, which I rather
involuntarily had the opportunity to A/B test when I was installing
FreeBSD for the first time. Between FreeBSD coming up actively user
hostile (DECUS UNIX from 197x was no worse) and the web page changes
t became a challenge to find the documentation pages I needed to work
with.
I also disable font size selection on the browsers I use. I have a
large screen. I like to sit comfortably back and use large fonts
to lose the "dottiness" of 8 dot high fonts such as many of the
news service and blog pages use. This makes fixed size pages all
neatly calibrated in pixels look like <excrement> warmed over
twice. Pages that adapt to reality are much nicer.
With regards to the rather spartan new front page I note that while
I was setting up 5.4-RELEASE I also noted that there was a 6 in test
and had filed that for investigation once I got basic essentials more
or less working. When I went back to do that I had to mouse around for
10 minutes before I found 6-CURRENT was what that former link had been
about. (In the mean time I found 7-CURRENT with no references to
6-CURRENT. I mumbled to myself, "WTH, FreeBSD is doing marketdroid
tricks with version numbers? Can't be!")
So for what it is worth this is the reaction of a newbie (but only to
BSD rather than DECUS, SVR4, and Linux) who faced an involuntary A/B
test. I much prefer the old first page, although I cannot say I was
hugely in love with it. As observed it was a little busy. But over
compensation is not a correct response to "a little". It's line you
moved 20 dB when 1 dB would have been sufficient.
{^_^} Joanne
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