[Grok-dev] Web site ready for relaunch?

[daniel]

Hey kev,
I'd like to make a suggestion that I think would help the clarity of the
frontpage.
First I'd like to say that the new website is really nice and a big
improvement.
This isn't a finished product but it's a good concept of what I think a
clear first impression should be.

http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php?id=775451&file=grokplonesitelayout.tar.bz2

if you untar this file I have two versions, the current version has the
normal name, my version with the different layout has the v1 in front of the
name.
You should notice several changes:

1. the big yellow verbs box is gone. It's for the best as it distracts,
confuses the site layout and takes up space which should be used by the
'What is grok' info below it. It's also a replication of the navigator.

2. I've used the artwork and moved them into the navigator, they're now
gray. When you mouse over them they should light up. Now the important
sections in the navigator are larger and more prominent.

3. I cut out the box with the RSS feed of the news. It seemed a bit
cluttered to me and there should really only be one link to the news. At one
point the three news items in there were almost identical and it just seemed
confusing to new users. I actually forgot to put a link to NEWS in the
navigator but that's where I would put it.

4. There's a favicon in there somewhere but it wasn't working for me. It's
just a shrunken version of the logo.gif.

Obviously the navigator needs to be beautified a bit, especially the text.
But if one of you guys wants to pick it up and try it go for it, it's just a
suggestion.

On Jan 20, 2008 11:48 PM, Kevin Teague <kevin at bud.ca> wrote:

> I think that what we have up on the preview site is now "good enough"
> to relaunch. Are there any objections or hold-on-i-found-a-major-boo-
> boo before switching over to the new site?
>
>
> What's Changed
> -----------------------
>
> Grok Releases
> ****************
>
> I updated the Grok release news items so that they are in the structure:
>
> /project
>   /releases
>     /<version-tuple>
>
> I added the 0.11.1 release notes:
>
> http://plone.grok.quintagroup.com/project/releases/0.11.1
>
> Note that the Latest release portlet is still a static template. I can
> make this dynamically updated from however we decide to structure the
> release content, if the Grok core devs can agree upon and write-up a
> simple Grok release proceedure.
>
> Top Level Pages
> ******************
>
> I was screwing around with the home page & friends a little bit more.
> I restored the "Download" link, but I removed the "Develop" link. For
> this link we had, "*Develop* your application with Grok.
> Documentation, forums, mailing lists." Which I couldn't figure out
> what to put for content for this besides links to the Documentation
> and Community sections. There is still lots of room for improvement in
> these areas. People want:
>
> * Marketing oriented text and images for: Evaluate/Download/Learn/
> Develop/Participate
>
> * Improvements to the Navigation area
>
> After we re-launch we can bring up a new preview site where we can
> sandbox improvements to this stuff. However we also need people
> willing to contribute art assets, layouts and text. If some design
> oriented folks are able to come up with image mock-ups for these pages
> and we can reach a general consensus of agreement to these areas I'll
> be willing to do the HTML/CSS/Plone grunt work to make it happen.
>
> Also for the most part I think we should focus more on adding useful
> content at the moment, e.g. better Grok project information (core
> development policies, Release notes, upgrade notes), better text
> explaining the unique benefits of Grok, etc. The content that people
> are willing to write and maintain should then inform the layout of our
> marketing oriented pages rather than vice-versa.
>
> Grok Blog
> ***********
>
> For now this is just news items inside a folder at /blog/. I added a
> couple of items:
>
> http://plone.grok.quintagroup.com/blog/snow-sprint-2008-grok-presentation
>
> http://plone.grok.quintagroup.com/blog/grok-web-site-relaunched
>
> If I've left anyone out or mis-credited for the web site relaunch
> post, please let me know.
>
>
>
>
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>



-- 

-- Daniel
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