Orxonox

The new orxonox web page will be placed inside Trac (the wiki), so everyone can change it and add content.

Trac will be updated soon, so we get template support.

The plan:
https://dev.orxonox.net/attachment/wiki ... GP1158.JPG
https://dev.orxonox.net/attachment/wiki ... GP1159.JPG
viewtopic.php?t=159
http://people.ee.ethz.ch/bknecht/orxonox_website.jpg

The first draft:
* The header was done by beni's brother.
* The html and css is a cheap rip-off from http://listen-project.org/ with some changes. I know there are bugs.
* The menu items "api" and "pps" are missing (there was no space left)

Link: http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~wenners/files ... draft1.htm

In my opinion, there are too many menu items. Maybe we should drop some or consider two menus (like on the screenshot or on http://developer.pidgin.im/ ) But that would be ugly.

Any other suggestions?

Hi Nowic,

Very well done mock-up!
I understand what you mean, there is not more place for menu-items and we can't drop any of them.

In awareness of this, I think your suggestion to make a pidgin-like approach with a separated developer section is a good one.
Perhaps you manage to create more similar menus and sub-menus designs so they do not differ so much in style as they do in the pidgin example.

Maybe it's possible to make a hack, so the buttons that are related to the public page (screenshots, download, about, forum, wiki) only appear while being on the public page, and the track-related buttons (timeline, source, tickets, api, pps, home) only in the wiki. With the buttons wiki/home the user can swith between the two modes.

Advantage: The default user doesn't want to see options like "api" or "browse source", he just wants screenshots and some informations. On the other side, the developers don't need to click through the gallery, they just want the wiki-options.
Separating the two sections with a simple hack would solve the problem with the space for the buttons and make the page more clear.

Disadvantage: You'll have to code that hack. Well, it's pretty simple, but it complicates the updating to newer track-versions. But hey, you wanted to create a website, so do it, just extending the track is a bit too cheap.


Oh, and by the way: I liked the idea you proposed, black background with stars and so on, a bit like the forum. But it's too white now. We're not selling business stuff, we're creating a game.
The design is good for the wiki, but not for the public page. You won't expect a game behind that page.

Simple solutions are good solutions. I really don't want to change the trac source.

I didn't take a closer look at the template system yet, but the menu seems to be defined as text and CSS code (no images). That means it could look anything we like (and I'm able to code). But there are just too many items for one row.

Maybe we could just hide the development buttons on certain pages with a java script hack. I'll think about it.

User: Home, Screenshots, Download, About, Development, Forum
Dev: (Wiki), PPS, Timeline, (Roadmap), Browse Source, View Tickets, API

Do we really need "PPS"? Wouldn't a link on "Home" or "Development" be enough?

A quick javascript hack to hide certain parts of a page on demand:

http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~wenners/files ... _test.html

In the final version I'll check the url. If it is a user page, it hides all the stuff we don't want on a user page. This solution is not very flexible, but solves our problem in a simple way. Browsers with no java script support just don't hide it.

Do you like it?
If we agree on a menu structure, beni's brother could start designing the "user" menu images. (like here: http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~bknecht/orxonox_website.jpg )

The trac menu will get a background image or a color that matches the header.

@x3n: The current header is too bright for a dark background. But I could use a decent gray, so it looks less business like.

Thanks for the feedback!

Yes, the java-hack is a good idea.

Oh, and i forgot one thing in the last post:
You could leave the "Home" button out, clicking on the Orxonox-header has the same effect. That would save some space. But if we have enough space with the java-hack, that won't be necessary.

@background: I agree, a dark background doesn't fit to the header. Either you have to make a darker header (if I remember correctly, the poster for the last convention used a dark background for the same motif) or you try the decent gray. But only if it looks good, I could live with a white background too.

I will start updating the Orxonox server now, so
...if you see this post, everything is still normal...
I expect the update to take some hours and will report back, when it's done.

Thanks! I'm going to start with the template on friday (short holiday trip).

I would give you the gallery stuff, if I could but I haven't found a single mail address on the whole listen page. Inow know the ip of their chief programmer, but still can't write a mail to him...

There is a lesson to be learned: We should maybe include some contact info in the main page; just some short contact info in a box above or below the news box.

We have a forum, that's enough contact I think.

Well... with contact I didn't mean dating platform but mail addressand all the stuff which is on the old page like mail lists and irc channel.
I didn't want to promote a community meeting place

Well yeah. Guess you're right. It couldn't hurt to make it easy to find one's ICQ number or mail address. We will have something like the credits. We should put contact information either there or link from there directly to the user pages where a lot of us have some contact information.

Thx @ patrick for upgrading.

I have merged most of the draft into our page. Now I'm waiting for the images of the main menu.

http://dev.orxonox.net/

@hofzge: very sad, but I could still steal some of their CSS code

I am really sorry, but congrats on your thieving skills

Really something new.

I'll show the page to my brother and ask him for an update of the banner. Hopefully he'll answer soon.

And yeah, congrats on those thieving skills