[FusionAdmin] The New Layout -- Mockup

[Alyssa Hung]

As with Guillaume, I think the reflections look a bit strange from where 
they are, but I think that the look may be improved if we move line to 
which the tabs are attached to under the links (instead of above).

I'd also much, much prefer a base colour other than blue. If the logo we 
select for the artwork contest turns out to feature a main colour other 
than blue, then that criticism would be about more than my personal 
taste. ;)

One of the ideas I liked from RYX's design is that he  had the same base 
colour (dark or light grey, depending on the colour scheme) for all 
pages, but different highlight colours for each section. It makes it 
very easy to know, at a glance, what section one is in. Especially if a 
link from one section links to a page in another section.

Aside from my gripes about colour, I wish to congratulate you on 
succeeding in a truly fluid layout! :D I've seen too many pages that, 
despite the "fluid" layout they were supposed to have, exhibited 
artifacts such as elements overlapping other elements if the browser 
window is shrunk down to what I consider a comfortable size. The current 
proposed design doesn't have such problems until it's _really_ small. ^_^

Also, while playing with the fluid layout, I stumbled across this:
http://s81.photobucket.com/albums/j239/Deciare/opencompositing-org/?action=view&current=screenshot1-1.png

Notice how the word "Fusion" wraps into the reflection? I think it'd be 
kind of interesting to have reflections that include text, but not 
exactly the same text as the tab's caption. Instead, the text could be 
(tiny) fine print that very briefly describes what can be found in each 
section. That text would show only when the link was hovered.

For example, the reflection for the Documentation link might be 
captioned "FAQ, plugins, setup". The caption for Community might be 
"forums, scripts, themes". The last line would fade partially into the 
white of the reflection, making it look as though the rest of the list 
is trailing into the distance. Here's a mockup of what I mean:

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j239/Deciare/opencompositing-org/tabs-mockup.png
(^Also a shameless plug about less blue, more other colours. :P)

I also think that h1, h2, etc. may be coloured the same as the tabs for 
their respective sections. It's a lot like the way ccsm currently uses 
the the system highlight colour for its headers along the left.

Also, why are there borders to the left and right? If I have a window 
decorator theme with extremely thin or no borders, then the in-page 
borders look a bit out of place...

I love the fade-to-grey effect at the bottom of the page, and wish that 
it would always be visible even when my window isn't tall enough to show 
it. The copyright stuff could go onto the very last line of the 
completely-faded-to-grey instead of a separate colour bar at the bottom 
of the page.

Sorry if any of that sounded like nitpicking... Because I'm sure some of 
it was. :P


~Alyssa


Will Farrington wrote:
> A mockup of the theme is currently available here:
> http://www.opencompositing.org/admin/site/
> 
> Note: it is password protected. This was done for a REASON. Quite
> frankly, I don't want to deal with umpteen bajillion people each
> clamoring about a different, small aspect of the site design. The twenty
> or so people who are subscribed to this list are all the relevant
> feedback we need on this matter.
> 
> The username: fusion
> 
> The password: blKc9456
> 
> So, guys, please offer any criticism of the design.
> 
> _______________________________________________
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