Promoting D projects (or internet marketing 101)

[Sean Kelly]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Tom wrote:
>>
>> http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/
> 
> To be frank, I don't like that page, I think the graphic designer was 
> more interested in making it look pretty than be usable. For example:
> 
> 1) Blue text on a black background is a no-no, it's very difficult to read.
> 
> 2) It's a fixed width layout. Let the user decide his browser window size.

I kind of like the page, though I think it's a bit 'cute'.  However, I 
do agree with the above.

> 3) I don't like the navigation on the right - that's the normal place 
> for advertisements and my eye just wants to ignore it.

I learned from a film student friend of mine that the eye naturally 
travels up and to the right across an image.  This is used a lot in 
character and object placement in film to make something or someone 
appear more or less imposing, larger or smaller, etc.  For web pages, I 
think it relates to what you feel is important on the page.  The eye 
will naturally start on the left side of the page so the most important 
items probably belong there, with less important ones to the right.  I 
think it's a matter of context, however, whether navigation items are 
more or less important than the page content.  For tree-oriented 
navigation (file browsers, class hierarchy documentation) I think it 
makes sense for navigation to be on the left, but for article-oriented 
navigation I think it makes sense for navigation to be on the right. 
The Ruby website seems article-oriented so the layout works for me, but 
I would expect it to change if I navigated to a reference manual or 
similar document.

> 4) The fonts are too small (a problem that rears its ugly head when one 
> gets a little older!)

The font can be resized in the browser view options so this doesn't 
bother me.  Having two monitors side-by-side with different resolutions, 
I tend to change font size a lot from within the browser depending on 
which screen the browser window is displayed.

> 5) The site jarringly switches to look like: http://www.rubygarden.org/faq/

To be fair, this is a completely different website.  But I do think the 
ideal solution would be for the main Ruby stylesheet to be public domain 
so related sites could use it and therefore present a consistent look. 
The same applies here.  With a public selection of logos, stylesheet, 
etc, all D sites that wanted to could appear similar, making 
cross-linking less jarring.  It also saves web-inept people like me from 
having to be creative about layout, since a template of sorts would 
already be available.  I think you said that the digitalmars stylesheet 
is already public?


Sean