[H-GEN] webpage

[Clinton Roy]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and
Unix-related topics. ]

hello all :)

This is a rather long post, I don't want to step on anyone's toes, so
I'll explain myself fully (hopefully).

Well, as promised a long time ago, I'm doing some webmaster stuff.

First of all I'll outline my own personal problems with the current
webpages:

1) Not standard's compliant HTML, run tidy over them and watch the
errors scroll past...and keep watching...

2) Some stuff is in weird places, the news and errata section is
particularly bad, but there are pieces of really useful information in
completely the wrong places.

3) Replication of information, which has turned into a maintenance
problem, the FAQ being the main culprit here. We most certainly need
a FAQ, we just shouldn't have to update it all the time. 

4) A little too much use of <pre> for my liking, it looks icky, and
doesn't let you use style sheets much.

And now, the chief problem that I've heard about the humbug site:

5) It doesn't have the next meeting information right up the front.

So, what am I going to do about it?

To answer each point above:

1) Stick to the HTML 4 and CSS 2 standards, and use tidy to check it
all. Now, this does make using the site a little hard under lynx, but
we'll work around that eventually. Lynx is just such a crappy client.

2) Completely reorganizing the site and shuffling all the data around
so it is more logical and hopefully easier to find.

3) My first thought would be to just have links to the authoritive
pieces of information, but that increases the number of clicks to find 
info, perhaps it could just be #included somehow...

4) Slowly marking up the <pre> elements. The constitution will take
the longest time.

5) Have the information about the next meeting on the front page :)

So far, I've got a rough version of the front page done, and have
moved a lot of the information over to the new format. I'm not
very happy with some of the HTML, particularly the index and the
HUMBUG acronym, they use too much formatting info and not enough
structure. The index should be done using lists, but darned if I know
how to get the spacing as it appears now.

The HUMBUG acronym is just full of visual formatting information,
icky...

After this transition phase is complete, I'll be going through the
webpages with a fine comb to make sure the information is up to date.

So, now would be a good time to come up with any suggestions to do
with the webpage.

The work in progress is at 
http://student.uq.edu.au/~s344025/humbug2/index.html

known problems:
* the meetings page isn't anywhere near finished
* the talks have not been copied over
* the meetings reports from the news page don't work
* the portal is pretty, erm, useless, that's kinda a pet project of
  mine, so it might take some time :)

One last thing, please send all the problems to me,
latent at humbug.org.au, and not to the current webmaster =)

Thanks to Elice for getting those colours out of my head and onto my
screen :)

byebye
-- 
``it's the perfect hassle, for the perfumed kiss''
			- Smashing Pumpkins, Daphne Descends
Clinton Roy
http://student.uq.edu.au/~s344025/

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