[boost] Re: Front page, one last time.

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-14 15:04:21

Rene Rivera wrote:
> David Abrahams wrote:
> 
>> http://redshift-software.com/~grafik/boost/index.htm
>> 
>> (for reference).
>> 
>> This is fantastic.  All in all a vast improvement, and the web
>> typography problem is solved!  

Oh darn.  I went through this whole process with Bill Venners of Artima
and failed to mention it earlier.

See my "web typography" post from 5 minutes ago.

>> And now, being -- as my wife likes to say
>> -- a fussy virgo, I have a little more input.
>> 
>> When you back up and look at the overall balance of the page layout, it
>> doesn't quite seem to work yet.  For one thing, we have the Google
>> search box floating all by itself over on the right, 
> 
> Which wasn't a problem on the original because the search was in the 
> content flow.

Right.

> Yes, I'll answer all that with.. My preferred layout when I do web pages 
> is this (using your example):
> 
>         T H E   C H I C A G O   T R I B U N E
>         -------------------------------------
>         content content content  right column
>         content content content  right column
>         content content content  right column
>         content content content  right column
> 
> It has a variety of advantages..
> * It puts the content vs. navigation in the natural, for most people, 
> left-to-right reading order.
> * It allows the use of any left side marks on the right column to act as 
> an additional separator instead of adding artificial ones as you suggest.
> * It allows more flexibility with the heading without breaking the 
> overall structure.
> 
> Note, I did not originally go this way because I know how much of 
> "traditional" group Boost is ;-) So I tried not to stray too far from 
> the current layout.

I think you should try it.  As you might guess from
http://www.boost-consulting.com I am not averse to it.

>> Another issue I have with many web pages is that when browser windows
>> are maximized, the lines of text are simply too long to read.  I lose
>> track of what line I was on when scanning back at the end of each one.
>> The only way to handle this properly would be to have a right margin
>> whose position is proportional to the font size used for display; I
>> don't think there's a way to do that with HTML, but then again I don't
>> know much.
> 
> The margins are already font proportional. I think you meant inversely 
> proportional? Which is not possible.

No, I mean proportional.  That is, I would like to have a maximum width
into which all of the page text will flow.  I'd like that width to
normally be considerably less than that of my screen, and I'd like it to
change proportionally to the font size.  If that's what you've got, it's
not showing up on IE6 or Firefox.

>> Last of all, the "revised date" and copyright don't seem to add anything
>> but distraction when placed on the left.  I think they belong at the
>> bottom along with the other things most people don't care about ;-)
> 
> I'll push it to the bottom.

Thangu.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
http://www.boost-consulting.com