[Grok-dev] Re: heading layout on website

[Martijn Faassen]

Hey Kevin,

Kevin Teague wrote:
[snip]
> Some ideas that I was thinking about doing to improve the design:
> 
>  * Fixing up the URLs, e.g. /docs/tutorial feels much nicer to me than 
> /tutorial.html

Yeah we'll have to do something like this at some point, definitely.

>  * Splitting the Tutorial into multiple pages - it feels very 
> overwhelming and intimidating as one big page. The addition of the 
> sub-heads helps a lot already. The PDF idea is great! For a text of this 
> length I think a lot of people will prefer to print it  out

I agree we should split it up (though I think "all in one page" is still 
interesting to offer as an alternative. it makes finding things in it 
more easy). I've introduced chapters into the tutorial so we can do 
this. It will require a bit of messing with the doctest Python APIs to 
do so, but I recall having done it in the past so it *is* possible. 
Volunteers?

>  * Enhanced navigation:
> 
>    - breadcrumbs across the top as we start adding more content

+1

>   - Navigational sidebar for sub-pages or for the "Contents" section of 
> the Tutorial. I was thinking about a design that looked like stone slabs 
> - although would be tricky to implement.

+ 1

>   - Stone corners for the main layout - I think I like the web site 
> being fairly caveman themed as opposed to say a more clean, 
> straightforward layout. However, if we keep the main contents having the 
> stone corners, the images could use a do-over and be made to look better

I like the caveman theme, though I think it should be subtle (except for 
the pictures with Grok in it), and not too dramatic. We want to strike a 
balance between fun/playful and serious/practical. I think so far we 
have this balance, though.

>   * Enhanced header: The primary navigation bar across the top and the 
> Grok header stills feels very rough. There are lots of ways this could 
> be improved.
> 
>     I was thinking about something like carved-out-of-stone navigation 
> tabs using a technique like this:
> 
>     http://alistapart.com/articles/slidingdoors/
> 
>      Then the stone slabs could be made to look like they are have had a 
> field of grass growing over them and finally Grok appears to be resting 
> on the grass. That's fairly ambitous, and in the end it might just look 
> wonky - but I think we could make the header look better somehow :)

Sounds good to me if someone does the work. :)

>   * Grok logo: I like the current Grok typeface. I was thinking about 
> taking the crosshatched pattern from Grok's tunic and applying it to the 
> orange part of the lettering the logo - I think that could look worthy 
> of an official Grok logo?

That would be nice. If we could get it to look good when smaller, as 
you'd like to place a logo in various places.

>   * Web badges: Powered By Grok and I like the Django "I wish this site 
> were powered by Grok" badge idea.

If Django already has it, we shouldn't steal it too obviously. "Powered 
by Grok" would be nice though. ("Bashed Together by Grok"? "GROK CLUB". 
Hm, Grok Club is cute :)

> Hopefully I'll get some time to play with some of these ideas in the not 
> too distant future, but right now I've got to see about getting php 
> Point of Sale integrated with a Plone site ... trying hard not to 
> rewrite phpPOS in Grok ... :)

I'm glad you're still planning on contributions and am I am looking 
forward to seeing some of this stuff implemented. I hope we (Darryl? :) 
can make some progress with the tutorial generation, where we have:

* tutorial with each chapter on its own page. Perhaps even each section? 
This needs generator work and the introduction of new navigation 
elements. This should become the main entry point to the tutorial.

* PDF tutorial for download.

* one-page tutorial as we have now, for quick search access for those 
who prefer it.

Regards,

Martijn