OpenDisc Forum » Development

1. ayeomans
   Member
   12 posts

   I find the programs page rather difficult to read, since the text ends up only 2.5 cm wide. And that's on a 1280x1024 display, though admittedly I have a bookmark list down the left. I'd suggest the simplest fix would be to make it a single column table, so the icons go above the text block.

   Perhaps a neater approach would be to use the actual HTML files on the CD, so it is effectively a pre-view of the CD itself. Possibly in a frame; though stylistically it would be nicer to converge the design of the web site with the CD.

   If bandwidth were not a problem (:-) it would be neat to make the whole CD available off the web site, perhaps linking to the home sites for downloads.

   Posted 9 months ago #

2. ChrisGray
   Project Lead
   156 posts

   Strangely enough somebody said the opposite; that I should condense the page and have two programs per row, because there was too much whitespace on the page. What browser do you use?

   The html files on the disc require the corresponding css files, so it's not entirely easy to have all that work with the software the site uses. The idea is to keep the programs listing short, so people can venture onto the official site(s) to find out more details if they are interested.

   Providing downloads for the individual programs would be doubling up on a lot of other SourceForge hosted programs and others hosted elsewhere. We already link to the official sites for each project - the icons and titles of each program lead to the relevant site.

   Posted 9 months ago #

3. ayeomans
   Member
   12 posts

   The *is* too much whitespace on the page, as the table column with the program icon has a lot of white space around it. I checked with Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer 7, both were very similar. My effective browser window is about 1100 pixels wide.

   I did some quick experiments with the HTML and quite liked it with the program icon being part of the text, and the column width being increased. Here's a sample bit of code: (fingers crossed on formatting!)
   

   <table style="text-align: left; width: 100%;" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
   <tbody><tr>
   <td style="width: 200px; text-align: left; vertical-align: top;"><a href="http://dia-installer.de/"><img src="OpenDisc%20_%20Programs_files/dia.png" alt="Visit the official Dia website." border="0"></a>
   <a href="http://dia-installer.de/">
   <strong>Dia</strong></a> can be used to draw a variety of
   diagrams to suit your needs, such as entity-relationship models, UML
   diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple circuits.</p>
   <p> It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format, and export
   diagrams to a number of formats including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG.
   You can also print diagrams, including those that span multiple pages.</p></td>
   </tr>
   </tbody></table>

   Posted 9 months ago #

4. ChrisGray
   Project Lead
   156 posts

   I'll give this a try and see how it looks. :)

   Posted 8 months ago #

5. amp3030
   Member
   3 posts

   Hi!
   Here is what it looks like on my screen (1024x786 pixels).
   http://ampbox.googlepages.com/TheOpenDiscWebshot.png
   I think 'programs' page is very important for a visitor who is looking for a little motivation to download the entire disk image. There is probably no such page for OpenEducationDisk.

   Thanks Chris! :)

   Posted 8 months ago #

6. ChrisGray
   Project Lead
   156 posts

   Certainly looks nicer on mine, I'll have a play with it tonight and see if I can get it closer to 100% width.

   Posted 8 months ago #

7. ChrisGray
   Project Lead
   156 posts

   It took a little longer than I would have liked, but I've fixed it now. Instead of 80% I've stretched it out to the full width, though I did keep the seperate column for the icons - they're all different sizes and the text didn't look good unaligned.

   Thanks for your help! :)

   Posted 8 months ago #

8. ayeomans
   Member
   12 posts

   Looks much better! At least for 1024-pix wide screens. Thanks.

   Posted 8 months ago #

9. HANtwister
   Contributor
   20 posts

   Since there's already a topic open, I'll just add another one of my "just-my-two-cents" comments here.

   Would it be a good idea to have a link to the instructions for burning an ISO (Latest Version page) underneath the links on the side to download the ISO?

   -HN

   Posted 7 months ago #

10. ChrisGray
    Project Lead
    156 posts

    I was thinking of having a smaller text "what is an ISO?" or just a simple "?" beside the link, so people could find the instructions easier. Can't hurt, I'll have a look before 07.12 streets.

    Posted 7 months ago #

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