D web site facelift

[Robert Jacques]

On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 23:08:11 -0400, Robert Jacques <sandford at jhu.edu>  
wrote:

> On Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:55:33 -0400, Walter Bright  
> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
>> David Gileadi was kind enough to spend some time redesigning the look  
>> of the D web site. A preview of it is up on d-programming-language.org.  
>> This isn't about the content, just the look/style/feel.
>>
>> Comments welcome.
>>
>> Please don't put links to anything other than the front page yet, as  
>> the organization may change.
>
> Generally, looks good.
> 1. I concur that medium-light gray on medium-dark gray is too low  
> contrast. However, I find the red bloom in the upper left corner, which  
> also reduces contrast, to be a greater hindrance to readability. Text  
> size seems fine by me.
> 2. The sub-menus (i.e. articles, language reference, etc.) are gliching  
> with opera 10.53 when zoomed. Part of the screen literally doesn't  
> refresh properly when scrolling and/or switching tabs. This only occurs  
> after you've entered at least one menu after zooming.

Some second thoughts.
The translate page select language combo box is lagging in it's rendering.  
First select language seems to appear and then the combo box after, which  
changes the control size. This control also seems fairly low on the page  
and tends to interfere with the text. Perhaps the translate portion can go  
on the left (as per the old site) and the wiki button raised higher on the  
page or into the header section. Also, "Add to or comment on this page on  
the wiki" seems verbose.

The search field is rounded but the combo isn't and is very close to it,  
giving the pair an odd look. Perhaps the combo box should be centered  
beneath the search field.

The placement of the DigitialMars/D logo is a little odd. I tried mocking  
something up in paint, with "Digital Mars" moved left into the corner  
position and "D Programming Language 2.0" moved right into the header  
space and learned that to do that you'd really want to re-work the Digital  
Mars logo a bit.

Also, I just ran into a much more major bug between the webpage and Opera  
10.53, though it seems to be an actual bug in opera and may not be  
consistent.