Re: New website (inspired by the "Website layout" thread)

[Jeremy Messenger <mezz7@xxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 11:55:58 -0700, Amar Takhar wrote:

> On 2004-02-06 09:07 +0100, Jeroen Ruigrok wrote:
> 
>> >General HTML:
>> >* The website is now backwards compatible to first generation browsers, while 
>> >  some people see this as unimportant, I'd like to say a few things on this 
>> >  subject:
>> >	- A lot of people still use first generation browsers
>> 
>> Nobody who matters.  General available statistics on the Internet show
>> that even version 4 browsers and lower are dropping below the 1%
>> ballmark _combined_.  Not to mention that v4 and down have security
>> holes too numerous to mention.
> 
> Yes, speed is also a huge issue, 'nobody who matters' is an avenue Microsoft
> followed, look at the horrible mess they created.
> 
> If it's a technical site, be technical, nobody is comming to the site for the
> latest music video, they're comming to the site for a technical reason.
> 
> 
>> >	- Advanced CSS takes a while to compile (even on modern browsers)
>> 
>> Depends on the complexity of the CSS you create.
>> 
>> >	- It makes things look very broken for text-only browsers
>> 
>> Can't see anything that's broken.
>> 
>> >	- Advanced CSS is brutal for people using teleprompters for the blind
>> 
>> Not necessarily so.  Even normal HTML sites can be cumbersome for the
>> disabled (you have left out large other groups).  CSS can still be used.
>> Disability needs to be kept in mind for the entire design.
>> 
>> >	- This is a technical site, not http://www.disney.com
>> >* The site looks far better in text-only browsers. (eg, w3m
>> >www.dragonflybsd.org vs w3m dfly.ten15.org)
>> 
>> Viewing dragonflybsd.org in links and/or w3m doesn't show any problems
>> for me and the site is easy to use.
>> 
>> >Search engine enhancements:
>> >* added meta keywords
>> >* added meta http-equiv content type
>> >* any URLs ending in *.cgi are normally NOT indexed by search engines, 
>> >  this is very bad, as they assume it is dynamic content -- while some 
>> >  search engines are smart enough to figure this out, most are not.
>> 
>> Agreed.
>> 
>> >URLS:
>> >* Lowercase is far better for the URLs, as this is a technical site, 
>> >  most people will be typing in the locations by hand, thus uppercase is 
>> >  annoying.
>> 
>> Agreed.
>> 
>> >Added features:
>> >* CGI to handle error documents (found in /error, /cgi/error.cgi,
>> >thanks petef!)
>> 
>> You can of course also use static pages for this, which would have made
>> more sense given your stance towards static pages.  If you find the
>> referring URL information useful I wonder how much it adds for a small
>> website.
> 
> Of course you can, however using static pages does not give you the abilitity to
> show the referring URL, which is why custome error pages are better.
> 
> The fact that they are not static is extremely trivial, most people will hit
> pages that exist, vs pages that don't.
> 
> 
>> >* Site map -- this is *VERY* important, to help those users who are not sure 
>> >  what they are looking for, it allows you to link various areas of the site 
>> >  using alternate names.
>> 
>> Depends on the size of your site, in my opinion.  The current site is
>> hardly that big that people will get lost.
> 
> Start at the beginning and  it gets done, start later and you're adding 4,000
> links
> 
> 
>> >* Static pages are cool.
>> 
>> It has pros and cons.  Coolness factor is not relevant.
>> 
>> To sum it up: some parts coulds/should be changed, some others I would
>> advise strongly against them.
> 
> You still havn't said WHY you can't use it, this entire email has been short
> snippets of dis-agreeing.
> 
> Please give me some points, and examples of _why_ SGML does not work over
> XML/XSLT.

Because, it is clear that SGML is slowly dying in favour of XML. It's
today's technology. You can search for XML vs SGML in google.

Cheers,
Mezz

> 
> Amar.


-- 
bsdforums.org 's moderator, mezz.