Re: WANTED: Design for documentation (Photoshop power users!)

[Patrick McCarty]

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Valentin Villenave
<address@hidden> wrote:
> 2008/9/17 Patrick Horgan <address@hidden>:
>
>> Thanks, it let me get a good look at it.  All in all, so far I prefer
>> Patrick's except for unvisited links.
>
> OK, two Patricks in one discussion... You just lost me guys :-)
>
> I like the "default" theme's blue-grey colors *very* much, it feels
> both calm and serious. Patrick McCarty's theme has more fantasy
> though, and that could be motivating.

I like Andrew's design too.  I'll make some further comments regarding
my design below.

> I'm gonna say a dirty word, but... Is it forbidden to have any
> background-image, for instance in the TOC frame on the left?
> I was thinking of some kind of a texture, maybe something brushed, or
> discrete oblique lines like what I used to have with the Lilypond
> Report...
> If this is forbidden, I won't insist though.

It's not *forbidden* by any means.  ;-)

IMO, it would be difficult to create a textured background image that
works well with the smaller font-size of the links in the TOC
(retaining legibility, etc.).  But if you or someone else can create a
satisfying gradient, I say we should try it out.

Regarding my design...

My main focus with this design is cross-browser and cross-platform
compatibility.  Since the default padding, margins, line-height, etc.
vary from element to element, and from browser to browser, I added
many more CSS style rules in order to give the designer *control* over
all of these dimensions.  As a result, the padding, margins, and
font-sizes in my design are pretty consistent across browsers and
platforms.

Color choice is not my forte, so I am willing to change the color
scheme.  I really like Andrew's color scheme, FWIW.  Of course the
color scheme is very important, since this is *the* main thing people
will notice.  For example, the "green" I chose for the h1 header looks
horrendous on the Windows platform, but it looks great on my GNU/Linux
system.  This color definitely should be changed in the final style.

Font size for monospace fonts is something I've been struggling with,
but I only discovered the reasons for the issue recently.  Firefox and
Safari use 16pt fonts as the default size for sans-serif and serif,
but use 13pt for monospace.  So if the code examples appear in a
smaller font size for you, hopefully you are using Firefox or Safari.
:-)

I hope I made clear the motivation for my design.

Thanks,
Patrick