I'm pleased to announce a significant update to perldoc.perl.org, the Perl documentation website.
The main change is a complete new visual design, bringing a fresh, modern look to the site. Additionally there are a number of new features to aid navigation and usability - a floating page index window, recently read pages list, improved Pod rendering, and many more.
Can you provide the old colours (with link rel="alternate stylesheet")? I don't like dark pages for documentation.
Re:too narrow
ambs on 2009-07-17T20:22:15
I know this is bad, to have a lot of working changing the webpage design, and the first comment is, bring the old back.
Unfortunately I agree with daxim. This design is too heavy (in colors and distracting boxes) for documentation, and too narrow (when we all have panoramic screens.
I think the old design was cool.
Before finishing, just as an external example, look at http://www.gtk.org/ . The main page have lots of collors, and fixed width, but when you get to the documentation ( http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/stable/glib-Miscellaneous-Utility-Functions
. html ) you get a clean, light and wide, design.And to finish, thank you for your dedication to http://perldoc.perl.org./ I think it is relevant and useful. But as well, I think constructive comments are helpful.
Cheers, Alberto
Re:too narrow
fhew on 2009-07-17T23:42:55
I have to agree with the 'too narrow' comment even though I can live with the colours. This 'narrow' presentation is not only silly in the day of the wide screen, but it also breaks the HTML philosophy of letting the user's browser and physical display determine the most appropriate presentation. Ie. why should I endure a narrow presentation with wide gray borders just because you have to?Too narrow and too wide
tgape on 2009-07-19T03:06:30
I agree on the colors being a bit too dark, at least on the sidebar and top (that is, those places which are dark.)
Judging by a comparison of the referenced picture above and the current look, I think it's been tweaked to handle the too narrow complaint. However, that just puts the real complaint into sharp relief - it breaks the HTML philosophy of letting the user's browser and physical display determine the most appropriate presentation. Why should I have to endure a horizontal scrollbar just because you have a wider screen than I have?
I personally recommend leaving the sidebars have a fixed width, but let the content in the middle flow according to the user's browser.
And, while I'm complaining, I'll just mention, I run NoScript for several reasons.
I don't usually have strong design opinions. This time is no exception. =) I like it, and I think it's better than the old site, which was also fine.
Hi Folks
Surely in this day and age we can do better than that.
Re:Sorry, but it's ugly, ugly, ugly
Ranguard on 2009-07-18T07:54:15
Surely in this day and age we can do better than that.
I think it's fantastic your volunteering to do all the work to make it 'better'. Please let me know when you've implemented a 'better' version so we can all critique it.
I think what has been done is a fantastic start and kudos to all involved, if there are a few minor issues (width), then I hope someone (with CSS / design skills I do not have) is able to help by submitting patches.
Re:Sorry, but it's ugly, ugly, ugly
vek on 2009-07-20T22:03:43
Wow, that was helpful. Well done.
I thought you might appreciate this. It's from Daniel Burrow's release notes for aptitude 0.4.11:
When you're tired of being beat with a stick, you're tired of Debian.
It's nice to see how warm and encouraging the Perl community can be. Just another big happy family.
In any case, thanks for all the work Jon. I use perldoc online more or less daily, and this seems like a reasonable time to say thanks.
My only quibble would be that you probably want a bigger search box closer to the middle as seen on google and search.cpan.
The documentation page *is* wide enough, even on a 1600x1050 widescreen (there is a reason newspapers have columns).
All in all, pretty happy with it.
It's slick. It's beautiful. I'm really impressed. Congratulations for that, and I'm happy to see an attempt of a proper design for a Perl site - it looks done by a graphic designer and not by just any programmer, as most Perl sites.
It also, has the limitations of a design by a graphic designer: it appears to have been made with a particular screen size in mind. Now there, the touch of a programmer (technical-analytical mind) would be welcome, to make it actually properly adjust to the window size of people, instead of horizontally centering it. I know, it's CSS, it's not easy to make it DWIM... but it would be nice.
Re:Well done
jj on 2009-07-19T01:01:26
Thank you for your comments, nice to hear you like the new design.
If you've got any suggestions for more suitable colours for the syntax highighting, just drop me a mail at jj@jonallen.info and we can have a chat about it. I'd be very interested to see what you've got set up in TextMate (I use Komodo Edit on a Mac btw), so please get in touch.
Great new look!
Are the original source material for the design available for us to use in derived design?
