Re: Possible tweaks to the appearance of the website

[Paul Morris]

Hi Urs, my responses are below...


Urs Liska wrote
> I think there is no official entity who makes such decisions. It's 
> rather like someone uploading a patch and others objecting against it or 
> not. As I experienced changes to the website are expected to raise more 
> objections than obscure changes to the code, simply because anybody can 
> have an opinion about the topic.

Ok.


Urs Liska wrote
>> - The gradients of the main nav bar are more subtle, like the gradients
>> in
>> other places.
> 
> I think this is an improvement. Looks more even and slightly more
> "modern".
> However, when IE <= 9 doesn't support that it's clearly not an option. 
> But I think I'd prefere a browser switch over discarding the idea 
> altogether.

Glad you like it.  These (or any) gradients in IE8 and IE9 are possible,
they just have to be done with images rather than with CSS.  So there's no
problem there.  

The question is whether solid colors (i.e. no gradients) are sufficient for
IE8 or IE9.  Will I need to create images for these browsers (so that they
also have the gradient look) in order for these proposed changes to be
adopted?

It might be helpful to know how much traffic the site is getting from IE8
and IE9.


Urs Liska wrote
>> - Active headings are a darker shade rather than being a reversed
>> gradient.
> 
> This is definitely an improvement. I found that reversed gradient always
> annoying.

Me too.


Urs Liska wrote
>> - The second nav bar is simplified to one consistent color, making it
>> clearer which is the active heading.
> 
> I prefer that too, but the contrast between active and non-active item 
> should be more. Probably I'd make the non-active backgrounds a little 
> bit lighter.

I tried it lighter before but it blended in with the light green background
in the top left corner too much.  In the latest version I have used a
different color, and made the active items dark enough to make the
distinction clear.


Urs Liska wrote
>> - The home page link/heading is "LilyPond" rather than the lily icon.
>> Since
>> LilyPond is not a big-budget commercial brand with a well known logo,
>> having
>> "LilyPond" here seemed like a good idea.  Also the icon is a bit too tall
>> to
>> fit comfortably in the space, and if shrunk for a better fit it would be
>> less clear what it is. The width of this link/heading now matches the
>> others
>> instead of being smaller.
> 
> I'm undecided about that. I wouldn't miss that image too much, but OTOH 
> it gives some liveliness to the page header.
> Apart from that I'm not sure that "LilyPond" is the right term here. 
> "LilyPond" - "Introduction" - "Download" doesn't seem like a natural 
> sequence. Actually it's "Home", isn't it?

I like my latest version's combination of both icon and "LilyPond" for this. 
I think using "Home" is not so common these days.  There's a well
established expectation that the first link in the navigation, usually with
the entity's logo or name, goes to the site's main/home page.  


Urs Liska wrote
>> - The light-green-to-white fade in the background is in both top left and
>> top right corners of the page. Since the site is a centered design this
>> is
>> more symmetrical. The white on green diagonal staff is removed for a
>> simpler
>> and less distracting look. (This is done with CSS gradients, but
>> ultimately
>> images may provide better results in some browsers (e.g. Chrome)).
> 
> I think I'd miss the background score here.
> The symmetry is a good idea, so maybe we could have some kind of 
> continuation on the right hand side, either the end of the same system 
> or an example of a different kind of notation.
> 
> On my system (Chrome on Linux) the gradients don't look good and show 
> quite annoying stripes. So maybe an image would be indeed better here.

Yep, there are the stripes on Chrome, not to mention the lack of support for
CSS gradients in IE8 and IE9...  Could possibly be done with images instead,
but while I like the symmetry, I'm fine with just leaving the background as
it is at this point.  

Cheers,
-Paul




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