Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site

Hey all, As you might know, the next major release of the Haskell Platform is coming up next week. We've had the current download site design for a while now: http://haskell.org/platform/ However, I'm thinking it would be nice to have themed release designs. Examples: http://www.gnome.org/ GNOME 2.30 Ubuntu, http://www.ubuntu.com/ and so on. If anyone is interested in a 2010.2 series design for the HP site, the repository containing the stylesheet is here: http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ And you can find the index.html and style.css in the download-website/ directory. We worked faily hard on the content, but feel free to play with the style. -- Don

Hi Don,
What's the ETA on getting the site wiki upgraded and to what version
will it be? If we're looking at another couple of weeks I'll come up
with a new wiki template this weekend to replace the current one.
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order?
Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
Regarding the home page, I think we should involve more piccies of
people active in the community at conferences and hackathons, etc.
Seeing pictures of Haskellers is great. It tells everyone this
language is busy and active, it motivates existing or budding
Haskellers to contribute and get active, and it's easy to slap a
picture up on the home page.
code.haskell.org's going a bit slow -- hope we're not facing another
weekend meltdown!
Ciao!
On 16 July 2010 20:09, Don Stewart
Hey all,
As you might know, the next major release of the Haskell Platform is coming up next week. We've had the current download site design for a while now:
However, I'm thinking it would be nice to have themed release designs. Examples:
http://www.gnome.org/ GNOME 2.30
Ubuntu, http://www.ubuntu.com/ and so on.
If anyone is interested in a 2010.2 series design for the HP site, the repository containing the stylesheet is here:
http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/
And you can find the index.html and style.css in the download-website/ directory.
We worked faily hard on the content, but feel free to play with the style.
-- Don
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

chrisdone:
Hi Don,
What's the ETA on getting the site wiki upgraded and to what version will it be? If we're looking at another couple of weeks I'll come up with a new wiki template this weekend to replace the current one.
For haskell.org? Thomas Schilling and Ian Lynagh are working on that (CC'd).
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order? Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
That's a great idea! :-)
Regarding the home page, I think we should involve more piccies of people active in the community at conferences and hackathons, etc. Seeing pictures of Haskellers is great. It tells everyone this language is busy and active, it motivates existing or budding Haskellers to contribute and get active, and it's easy to slap a picture up on the home page.
http://cufp.org is a bit like that now. -- Don

On 16 July 2010 20:37, Don Stewart
chrisdone:
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order? Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
That's a great idea! :-)
Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT. http://imgur.com/NjiVh Just an idea. My Inkscape-fu is weak. Here's one for a laugh: http://imgur.com/PQAgC I have ideas, I'm just not very good at executing them, haha. Probably a blue summer sky thing would fit better with the Haskell theme. Can someone with Photoshop make a shiny Haskell logo? I mean, literally shiny. Like the OS X logo.

chrisdone:
On 16 July 2010 20:37, Don Stewart
wrote: chrisdone:
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order? Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
That's a great idea! :-)
Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT.
That is really nice, and clearly "themed"! -- Don

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Christopher Done
Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT.
Just an idea. My Inkscape-fu is weak.
That looks great to me! I like blue, but I'd be in favor of a different color, like what you did, because blue is too common.

chrisdone:
On 16 July 2010 20:37, Don Stewart
wrote: chrisdone:
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order? Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
That's a great idea! :-)
Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT.
Just an idea. My Inkscape-fu is weak.
Here's one for a laugh: http://imgur.com/PQAgC
I have ideas, I'm just not very good at executing them, haha. Probably a blue summer sky thing would fit better with the Haskell theme. Can someone with Photoshop make a shiny Haskell logo? I mean, literally shiny. Like the OS X logo.
Here's a first cut in the repo with the new design converted to CSS http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/ If anyone would like to clean it up further, please send me patches to the style.css file or index.html.

On 17 July 2010 01:43, Don Stewart
Here's a first cut in the repo with the new design converted to CSS
http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/
If anyone would like to clean it up further, please send me patches to the style.css file or index.html.
Wow, this is totally awesome! Excellent work! I darcs send'd you a tiny patch to make the download section more centered (it was offset on my screen res). Will submit more patches when I get home.

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 1:43 AM, Don Stewart
Here's a first cut in the repo with the new design converted to CSS
http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/
If anyone would like to clean it up further, please send me patches to the style.css file or index.html.
If the background is going to tile, it should be tileable. Other options are to have only a single image, centered; or, split the images into a left and right part, place those separately, and use a stretchable background in the center. --Max

2010/7/17 Don Stewart
Here's a first cut in the repo with the new design converted to CSS
http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/
If anyone would like to clean it up further, please send me patches to the style.css file or index.html.
I have big fonts (magnifyed by 3 or so in firefox) and it happens that text with "Robust" etc gets displayed over download icons. Other that that, it looks nice.

On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Christopher Done wrote: On 16 July 2010 20:37, Don Stewart chrisdone: Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order?
Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc. That's a great idea! :-) Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT. Just an idea. My Inkscape-fu is weak. Looks nice. I particularly like that the three text sections are more
balanced (the current design is somewhat asymmetrical and busy on the right
hand side).

Christopher Done wrote:
Maybe you could work on a theme like this. Probably OTT.
Just an idea. My Inkscape-fu is weak.
I love the way he says "my fu is weak" after just posting a single image which is radically better than anything I have ever produced in 20+ years of doing computer graphics! o_O Anyway, I'm loving the current theme. But if we're redesigning the site, I'd like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is. That is all. Thanks, Andrew.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 7/17/10 06:49 , Andrew Coppin wrote:
I love the way he says "my fu is weak" after just posting a single image which is radically better than anything I have ever produced in 20+ years of doing computer graphics! o_O
Don't conflate ability to operate a piece of software with ability to do graphical design. (I have no problem with the former but am lousy at the latter. :)
Anyway, I'm loving the current theme. But if we're redesigning the site, I'd like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
+1 I'd consider this mandatory. It's amazing how many projects apparently *don't*. - -- brandon s. allbery [linux,solaris,freebsd,perl] allbery@kf8nh.com system administrator [openafs,heimdal,too many hats] allbery@ece.cmu.edu electrical and computer engineering, carnegie mellon university KF8NH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.10 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkxB1xIACgkQIn7hlCsL25V1jwCeMFCfmOYwbGdyG3aoRA2/pu0o 524AnROWgU59aqQn5A/zYbrQHvgk6O7t =CcUT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Brandon S Allbery KF8NH wrote:
On 7/17/10 06:49 , Andrew Coppin wrote:
I love the way he says "my fu is weak" after just posting a single image which is radically better than anything I have ever produced in 20+ years of doing computer graphics! o_O
Don't conflate ability to operate a piece of software with ability to do graphical design. (I have no problem with the former but am lousy at the latter. :)
Join the club. I've operated and built ray tracers, fractal generators and so forth, but when I want to actually draw something, I always end up staring at a blank screen thinking "hmm, what might be cool?" I have no idea how the professionals do this. Try drawing a cube and writing on it "cornflakes". It looks rubbish, right? Now go to any shop that sells cornflakes... all the boxes look amazing, right? How the **** do they do that??

allbery:
like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
+1 I'd consider this mandatory. It's amazing how many projects apparently *don't*.
We can certainly continue to link to old versions, to the old contents.html and the changelogs, as is currently planned.

Don Stewart wrote:
allbery:
like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
+1 I'd consider this mandatory. It's amazing how many projects apparently *don't*.
We can certainly continue to link to old versions, to the old contents.html and the changelogs, as is currently planned.
And unlike previous releases, this one seems to have a changelog. (It's nontrivial comparing two Cabal files trying to figure out what changed!)

andrewcoppin:
Don Stewart wrote:
allbery:
like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
+1 I'd consider this mandatory. It's amazing how many projects apparently *don't*.
We can certainly continue to link to old versions, to the old contents.html and the changelogs, as is currently planned.
And unlike previous releases, this one seems to have a changelog. (It's nontrivial comparing two Cabal files trying to figure out what changed!)
Actually, it just got trivial: $ diffcabal old-platform.cabal haskell-platform.cabal Cabal 1.8.0.2 -> 1.8.0.6 QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 -> 2.1.1.1 alex 2.3.2 -> 2.3.3 array 0.3.0.0 -> 0.3.0.1 base 4.2.0.0 -> 4.2.0.2 bytestring 0.9.1.5 -> 0.9.1.7 cabal-install 0.8.0 -> 0.8.2 cgi 3001.1.7.2 -> 3001.1.7.3 directory 1.0.1.0 -> 1.0.1.1 extensible-exceptions Added: 0.1.1.1 fgl 5.4.2.2 -> 5.4.2.3 filepath 1.1.0.3 -> 1.1.0.4 ghc 6.12.1 -> 6.12.3 happy 1.18.4 -> 1.18.5 hpc 0.5.0.4 -> 0.5.0.5 old-time 1.0.0.3 -> 1.0.0.5 process 1.0.1.2 -> 1.0.1.3 regex-base 0.93.1 -> 0.93.2 regex-compat 0.92 -> 0.93.1 regex-posix 0.94.1 -> 0.94.2 stm 2.1.1.2 -> 2.1.2.1 template-haskell 2.4.0.0 -> 2.4.0.1 unix 2.4.0.0 -> 2.4.0.2

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 2:10 PM, Don Stewart
andrewcoppin:
Don Stewart wrote:
allbery:
like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
+1 I'd consider this mandatory. It's amazing how many projects apparently *don't*.
We can certainly continue to link to old versions, to the old contents.html and the changelogs, as is currently planned.
And unlike previous releases, this one seems to have a changelog. (It's nontrivial comparing two Cabal files trying to figure out what changed!)
Actually, it just got trivial:
$ diffcabal old-platform.cabal haskell-platform.cabal Cabal 1.8.0.2 -> 1.8.0.6 QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 -> 2.1.1.1 [etc.]
Okay, so where do I go to find out the difference between, say,
QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 and 2.1.1.1?
--
Dave Menendez

dave:
Actually, it just got trivial:
$ diffcabal old-platform.cabal haskell-platform.cabal Cabal 1.8.0.2 -> 1.8.0.6 QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 -> 2.1.1.1
[etc.]
Okay, so where do I go to find out the difference between, say, QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 and 2.1.1.1?
--
Currently, the way to do this is: * Visit: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck-2.1.1.1 * Visit: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck-2.1.0.3 And note any differences in the documentation. Hackage doesn't yet provide support for changelogs. However, it does provide support for repository links, from which we can construct a changelog. That's right: you have to read each repo to get the full changelog, unless the author has been nice to add it to the .cabal file. I think what we need is: * Every HP package has to have a .cabal file with the source repository type and link. If we have the source repo and type, I can write a tool to extract the changelogs between each release automatically. -- Don E.g. * darcs * http://code.haskell.org/QuickCheck/
From here we can:
$ darcs get http://code.haskell.org/QuickCheck/ And running darcs changes: Thu Jun 17 07:52:28 PDT 2010 * Bump version number Thu Jun 17 06:53:22 PDT 2010 * Change of plan: look at GHC's version number instead of the * version of base when deciding whether to depend on the ghc * library Thu Jun 17 06:40:22 PDT 2010 * Added README to the source distribution Thu Jun 17 06:33:38 PDT 2010 * Updated the README Thu Jun 17 06:33:27 PDT 2010 * GHC 6.8 support Thu Jun 17 06:13:54 PDT 2010 * Added support for the new base library (I hope!) Thu Jun 17 02:59:14 PDT 2010 * Remove the pointless last field of the version number Thu Jun 17 02:32:46 PDT 2010 * Fix homepage link Wed Apr 28 08:04:02 PDT 2010 * Added my file of weird examples Thu Apr 22 08:37:11 PDT 2010 * Bump the version number Thu Apr 22 08:27:39 PDT 2010 * Don't force the shrink list too early Fri Jan 22 10:25:20 PST 2010 * Added an Arbitrary instance for complex numbers Tue Jan 12 07:34:00 PST 2010 * Changed the way that size increases Tue Jan 12 07:33:52 PST 2010 * Changed the cabal version number Tue Jan 12 06:47:25 PST 2010 * Skip shrinking on interrupt Tue Jan 12 06:47:04 PST 2010 * Added isInterrupt to Test.QuickCheck.Exception

The changelog feature would be very useful---dumping repository
history is no substitute for it because it is too low level (contains
too much noise). Generally, I would expect that whoever makes the
release of a piece of software should be in charge of writing a
summary of what's new since the last release. In the case of the
Haskell platform I would expect just a highlight of major new things
(e.g., adding/removing new packages, or updates that solve some well
known problem, or add an interesting new feature).
It would be nice to standardize on the format of a CHANGES file: then
hackage could render it nicely, and the HP could automatically compute
a mashup of the CHANGES files for the packages that it distributes.
-Iavor
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 11:16 AM, Don Stewart
dave:
Actually, it just got trivial:
$ diffcabal old-platform.cabal haskell-platform.cabal Cabal 1.8.0.2 -> 1.8.0.6 QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 -> 2.1.1.1
[etc.]
Okay, so where do I go to find out the difference between, say, QuickCheck 2.1.0.3 and 2.1.1.1?
--
Currently, the way to do this is:
* Visit: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck-2.1.1.1
* Visit: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/QuickCheck-2.1.0.3
And note any differences in the documentation.
Hackage doesn't yet provide support for changelogs. However, it does provide support for repository links, from which we can construct a changelog. That's right: you have to read each repo to get the full changelog, unless the author has been nice to add it to the .cabal file.
I think what we need is:
* Every HP package has to have a .cabal file with the source repository type and link.
If we have the source repo and type, I can write a tool to extract the changelogs between each release automatically.
-- Don
E.g. * darcs * http://code.haskell.org/QuickCheck/
From here we can:
$ darcs get http://code.haskell.org/QuickCheck/
And running darcs changes:
Thu Jun 17 07:52:28 PDT 2010 * Bump version number
Thu Jun 17 06:53:22 PDT 2010 * Change of plan: look at GHC's version number instead of the * version of base when deciding whether to depend on the ghc * library
Thu Jun 17 06:40:22 PDT 2010 * Added README to the source distribution
Thu Jun 17 06:33:38 PDT 2010 * Updated the README
Thu Jun 17 06:33:27 PDT 2010 * GHC 6.8 support
Thu Jun 17 06:13:54 PDT 2010 * Added support for the new base library (I hope!)
Thu Jun 17 02:59:14 PDT 2010 * Remove the pointless last field of the version number
Thu Jun 17 02:32:46 PDT 2010 * Fix homepage link
Wed Apr 28 08:04:02 PDT 2010 * Added my file of weird examples
Thu Apr 22 08:37:11 PDT 2010 * Bump the version number
Thu Apr 22 08:27:39 PDT 2010 * Don't force the shrink list too early
Fri Jan 22 10:25:20 PST 2010 * Added an Arbitrary instance for complex numbers
Tue Jan 12 07:34:00 PST 2010 * Changed the way that size increases
Tue Jan 12 07:33:52 PST 2010 * Changed the cabal version number
Tue Jan 12 06:47:25 PST 2010 * Skip shrinking on interrupt
Tue Jan 12 06:47:04 PST 2010 * Added isInterrupt to Test.QuickCheck.Exception
_______________________________________________ Haskell-platform mailing list Haskell-platform@projects.haskell.org http://projects.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-platform

Iavor Diatchki wrote:
The changelog feature would be very useful---dumping repository history is no substitute for it because it is too low level (contains too much noise). Generally, I would expect that whoever makes the release of a piece of software should be in charge of writing a summary of what's new since the last release. In the case of the Haskell platform I would expect just a highlight of major new things (e.g., adding/removing new packages, or updates that solve some well known problem, or add an interesting new feature).
It would be nice to standardize on the format of a CHANGES file: then hackage could render it nicely, and the HP could automatically compute a mashup of the CHANGES files for the packages that it distributes.
Yep, I agree with everything you just said. As somebody who occasionally releases (admittedly useless) packages on Hackage, it's really quite irritating that there isn't an easy way to say what changed. (As for scanning a repo to find changes, that's very low-level, you'd need a backend for every possible version control system, and for those people who don't even use source control, it's not going to work at all. Not to mention people who use source control, but don't have anywhere to put a repo online...)

On 18 July 2010 21:23, Andrew Coppin
As somebody who occasionally releases (admittedly useless) packages on Hackage, it's really quite irritating that there isn't an easy way to say what changed.
(As for scanning a repo to find changes, that's very low-level, you'd need a backend for every possible version control system, and for those people who don't even use source control, it's not going to work at all. Not to mention people who use source control, but don't have anywhere to put a repo online...)
Hi Andrew I'll look to adding textual diff to my Cabal diff tool - Precis. Currently it parses the modules in a package and compares metrics on the source files between project revisions to identify semantic changes. Unfortunately the results are often very poor in practice - for the QuickCheck revisions that Don posted above it didn't generate any differences. Though lower tech, textual diffs might actually be better than semantic ones with false negatives.

On 19 July 2010 04:16, Don Stewart
Hackage doesn't yet provide support for changelogs. However, it does provide support for repository links, from which we can construct a changelog. That's right: you have to read each repo to get the full changelog, unless the author has been nice to add it to the .cabal file.
I think it would be nice if Cabal had (optional) readme and changelog (or just an overall generic documentation) field, so if a package had such a file then Hackage could show it.
I think what we need is:
* Every HP package has to have a .cabal file with the source repository type and link.
For FGL, I'm trying to track down a copy of the old repository that used to be on darcs.haskell.org. Once I've done that I can update it and then publish that in the new code.haskell.org repository.
If we have the source repo and type, I can write a tool to extract the changelogs between each release automatically.
http://hackage.haskell.org/package/change-monger ? However, an explicit "higher-order" Changelog is usually preferable IMHO as it can describe what's actually changed rather than "whoops, I missed another corner case in my previous patch". -- Ivan Lazar Miljenovic Ivan.Miljenovic@gmail.com IvanMiljenovic.wordpress.com

Andrew Coppin
Anyway, I'm loving the current theme. But if we're redesigning the site, I'd like to repeat one request: Please, please, please make it easier to - Download older versions of HP. - Find out which HP release contains what. - Figure out what the difference between release X and release Y is.
Shouldn't be there also an explanation of what happens if you have release X installed and later you install release Y (obviously, X < Y)? Some of the worries an user can have: - if some program depends on having release X, would it still works with Y. - would the installation of Y replace X, or would I have both versions. This issue seems to be open [0]; some advice about what should be expected would be very nice. Best, Miguel. [0] http://trac.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ticket/46

It would be great if the new design were compatible with the new wiki
design ( http://lambda-haskell.galois.com/haskellwiki/ ). It doesn't
have to be *that* similar, just compatible.
On 16 July 2010 19:37, Don Stewart
chrisdone:
Hi Don,
What's the ETA on getting the site wiki upgraded and to what version will it be? If we're looking at another couple of weeks I'll come up with a new wiki template this weekend to replace the current one.
For haskell.org? Thomas Schilling and Ian Lynagh are working on that (CC'd).
Regarding the Haskell Platform, maybe a summer theme is in order? Sunrise, here's a whole platform upgrade. Get it while it's hot, etc.
That's a great idea! :-)
Regarding the home page, I think we should involve more piccies of people active in the community at conferences and hackathons, etc. Seeing pictures of Haskellers is great. It tells everyone this language is busy and active, it motivates existing or budding Haskellers to contribute and get active, and it's easy to slap a picture up on the home page.
http://cufp.org is a bit like that now.
-- Don
_______________________________________________ Haskell-platform mailing list Haskell-platform@projects.haskell.org http://projects.haskell.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/haskell-platform
-- If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

Thomas Schilling wrote:
It would be great if the new design were compatible with the new wiki design ( http://lambda-haskell.galois.com/haskellwiki/ ). It doesn't have to be *that* similar, just compatible.
Hmm. That's really not very pretty... (Or maybe it's just that I dislike brown? I didn't like Ubuntu mainly because it's brown.)

Haters gonna hate.
The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default
monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work
fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list.
On 17 July 2010 11:53, Andrew Coppin
Thomas Schilling wrote:
It would be great if the new design were compatible with the new wiki design ( http://lambda-haskell.galois.com/haskellwiki/ ). It doesn't have to be *that* similar, just compatible.
Hmm. That's really not very pretty... (Or maybe it's just that I dislike brown? I didn't like Ubuntu mainly because it's brown.)
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
-- If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

Thomas Schilling wrote:
Haters gonna hate.
Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK.
The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list.
Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one that everyone is happy with. ;-)

On 17 July 2010 13:37, Andrew Coppin
Haters gonna hate. Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK. The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list. Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one
Thomas Schilling wrote: that everyone is happy with. ;-)
Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Whether we like the default theme or not right now, I still think it's important that the first thing a newbie sees makes a good impression. The fact that you can change the default theme to something else is irrelevant. Personally I agree it's a bit Ubuntu without the modernness, it's more Age of Empires/CIV, we-do-archeology-with-our-italics-serif-font (I find it a chore to read, can't imagine what people who aren't native to the Latin character would think), and the Haskell logo is oddly placed so that it looks more like an advertisement, search should always be on the right hand side, navigation should really be on the left, putting on the right is iffy. I do like the orange links. But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy). Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple. Hats off to Thomas for implementing a more friendly theme.

Hi Chris,
I like it, I just have 2 small observations:
1. I don't think it's actually centered, on my resolution from the left to the "The Haskell Platform" is about 8 inches, but from the right to it is 11.
My eyes just keep telling me "something's wrong"
2. Could you maybe update the windows flag from that xp flag to the current mate one? I think it would also look better on that design http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows_generic_...
Or the current windows 7 flag http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows7_v_Web.j...
The colors I believe are much nicer on those.
Regards,
Phyx
-----Original Message-----
From: haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Done
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 14:32
To: Andrew Coppin
Cc: haskell-cafe@haskell.org
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site
On 17 July 2010 13:37, Andrew Coppin
Thomas Schilling wrote:
Haters gonna hate. Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK. The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list. Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one that everyone is happy with. ;-)
Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Whether we like the default theme or not right now, I still think it's important that the first thing a newbie sees makes a good impression. The fact that you can change the default theme to something else is irrelevant. Personally I agree it's a bit Ubuntu without the modernness, it's more Age of Empires/CIV, we-do-archeology-with-our-italics-serif-font (I find it a chore to read, can't imagine what people who aren't native to the Latin character would think), and the Haskell logo is oddly placed so that it looks more like an advertisement, search should always be on the right hand side, navigation should really be on the left, putting on the right is iffy. I do like the orange links. But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy). Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple. Hats off to Thomas for implementing a more friendly theme. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Have you got SVG or PNG versions of those logos?
On 17 July 2010 14:54, Phyx
Hi Chris, I like it, I just have 2 small observations:
1. I don't think it's actually centered, on my resolution from the left to the "The Haskell Platform" is about 8 inches, but from the right to it is 11. My eyes just keep telling me "something's wrong"
2. Could you maybe update the windows flag from that xp flag to the current mate one? I think it would also look better on that design http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows_generic_...
Or the current windows 7 flag http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows7_v_Web.j...
The colors I believe are much nicer on those.
Regards, Phyx
-----Original Message----- From: haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Done Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 14:32 To: Andrew Coppin Cc: haskell-cafe@haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site
On 17 July 2010 13:37, Andrew Coppin
wrote: Thomas Schilling wrote:
Haters gonna hate. Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK. The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list. Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one that everyone is happy with. ;-)
Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Whether we like the default theme or not right now, I still think it's important that the first thing a newbie sees makes a good impression. The fact that you can change the default theme to something else is irrelevant. Personally I agree it's a bit Ubuntu without the modernness, it's more Age of Empires/CIV, we-do-archeology-with-our-italics-serif-font (I find it a chore to read, can't imagine what people who aren't native to the Latin character would think), and the Haskell logo is oddly placed so that it looks more like an advertisement, search should always be on the right hand side, navigation should really be on the left, putting on the right is iffy. I do like the orange links. But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy).
Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple.
Hats off to Thomas for implementing a more friendly theme. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Wikipedia has both http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windows_7_logo.svg I don't have an svg editor, but you'd have to remove the "Windows 7" text, but that should be trivial.
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Done [mailto:chrisdone@googlemail.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 14:58
To: Phyx
Cc: Andrew Coppin; haskell-cafe@haskell.org
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site
Have you got SVG or PNG versions of those logos?
On 17 July 2010 14:54, Phyx
Hi Chris, I like it, I just have 2 small observations:
1. I don't think it's actually centered, on my resolution from the left to the "The Haskell Platform" is about 8 inches, but from the right to it is 11. My eyes just keep telling me "something's wrong"
2. Could you maybe update the windows flag from that xp flag to the current mate one? I think it would also look better on that design http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows_ge neric_v_web.jpg
Or the current windows 7 flag http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/gallery/logos/web/Windows7_v _Web.jpg
The colors I believe are much nicer on those.
Regards, Phyx
-----Original Message----- From: haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Done Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 14:32 To: Andrew Coppin Cc: haskell-cafe@haskell.org Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site
On 17 July 2010 13:37, Andrew Coppin
wrote: Thomas Schilling wrote:
Haters gonna hate. Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK. The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list. Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one that everyone is happy with. ;-)
Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Whether we like the default theme or not right now, I still think it's important that the first thing a newbie sees makes a good impression. The fact that you can change the default theme to something else is irrelevant. Personally I agree it's a bit Ubuntu without the modernness, it's more Age of Empires/CIV, we-do-archeology-with-our-italics-serif-font (I find it a chore to read, can't imagine what people who aren't native to the Latin character would think), and the Haskell logo is oddly placed so that it looks more like an advertisement, search should always be on the right hand side, navigation should really be on the left, putting on the right is iffy. I do like the orange links. But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy).
Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple.
Hats off to Thomas for implementing a more friendly theme. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Webdesign for an open source project is pretty much doomed from the
beginning. Design requires a few opinionated people rather than
democracy. This is design is a result of a haskell-cafe thread which
naturally involved a lot of bikeshedding. It has its flaws, but it's
certainly better than the old design and I know of no programming
language website that has a particular great design, either.
Sure, there's always room for improvement. Usability tests would be
nice, but they're also time consuming. Fighting CSS to do what you
want it to and make it work on at least all modern browsers is
annoying and a huge time sink as well. I put the search field on the
right (it's not very useful anyway), but otherwise I disagree with
your requested changes. I would be willing to consider a different
background image if you send me one (I may play around with a few
myself).
The logo on the left is inspired by http://www.alistapart.com. It
works quite well on pages that are not the home page. The main
feature of the design is that it scales quite nicely to different
screen sizes (on recent enough browsers) -- try resizing your window.
Also note that the exact contents can be edited (and probably shoud
be).
/ Thomas
On 17 July 2010 13:31, Christopher Done
On 17 July 2010 13:37, Andrew Coppin
wrote: Haters gonna hate. Well, I don't *hate* it. It just looks a little muddy, that's all. I tend to go for bright primary colours. But, as you say, each to their own... The actual layout isn't bad. A bit tall-and-thin, but otherwise OK. The new wiki will have a user preference to switch back to the default monobook style. You can always do that if you want. It doesn't work fully, yet, but that's on my ToDo list. Heh, well, maybe if we make half a dozen styles, there will be at least one
Thomas Schilling wrote: that everyone is happy with. ;-)
Hi Andy, thanks for the kind words. Whether we like the default theme or not right now, I still think it's important that the first thing a newbie sees makes a good impression. The fact that you can change the default theme to something else is irrelevant. Personally I agree it's a bit Ubuntu without the modernness, it's more Age of Empires/CIV, we-do-archeology-with-our-italics-serif-font (I find it a chore to read, can't imagine what people who aren't native to the Latin character would think), and the Haskell logo is oddly placed so that it looks more like an advertisement, search should always be on the right hand side, navigation should really be on the left, putting on the right is iffy. I do like the orange links. But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy).
Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple.
Hats off to Thomas for implementing a more friendly theme. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
-- If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands.

On 17 July 2010 16:21, Thomas Schilling
Webdesign for an open source project is pretty much doomed from the beginning. Design requires a few opinionated people rather than democracy. This is design is a result of a haskell-cafe thread which naturally involved a lot of bikeshedding. It has its flaws, but it's certainly better than the old design and I know of no programming language website that has a particular great design, either.
This is why I mentioned that with theme support, we can provide lots of alternatives and then vote on the best one. Like the logo. That's democracy.
Sure, there's always room for improvement. Usability tests would be nice, but they're also time consuming.
This is what I said:
On 17 July 2010 13:31, Christopher Done
wrote: Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got.
On 17 July 2010 16:21, Thomas Schilling
Fighting CSS to do what you want it to and make it work on at least all modern browsers is annoying and a huge time sink as well.
I don't know about that; Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and IE8 are
pretty much equivalent from a CSS2 stand-point. It's not like anything
fancy is needed.
On 17 July 2010 16:21, Thomas Schilling
I put the search field on the right (it's not very useful anyway), but otherwise I disagree with your requested changes.
I wasn't requesting any changes, I was demonstrating that I could pick at parts of the design but in the end it's down to user testing:
On 17 July 2010 13:31, Christopher Done
wrote: But also if we liked it, regardless, we should do user testing (checkout Don't Make Me Think, Rocket Surgery Made Easy).
Then I said no one's going to do user testing, so maybe a vote would be the best:
On 17 July 2010 13:31, Christopher Done
wrote: Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default. That seems most efficient and fair. I'll certainly make a couple.
On 17 July 2010 16:21, Thomas Schilling
I put the search field on the right (it's not very useful anyway), but otherwise I disagree with your requested changes.
But now you've put the login on the left, which should also be on the right:
1. https://github.com/
2. http://ubuntuforums.org/
3. http://www.reddit.com/
4. http://www.amazon.com/
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
6. http://www.youtube.com/
7. http://www.facebook.com/
8. http://twitter.com/
9. http://www.myspace.com/
10. http://www.ebay.com/
11. http://wordpress.com/
12. http://www.flickr.com/explore/
13. http://dictionary.reference.com/
See how the login is always on the top right? It's a usability
standard. You can see how the sites focused on searching (google,
youtube, twitter, myspace, ebay) have the search bar in the middle,
but the ones where searching is secondary is always on the right. Logo
on the left, search and login on the right, menu on the top or the
left (or on the right if you want to freak your visitors out).
On 17 July 2010 16:21, Thomas Schilling
The logo on the left is inspired by http://www.alistapart.com. It works quite well on pages that are not the home page. The main feature of the design is that it scales quite nicely to different screen sizes (on recent enough browsers) -- try resizing your window. Also note that the exact contents can be edited (and probably shoud be).
It actually fits in on A List Apart (same theme). But, again, these criticisms are academic; design it how you like. Once the new Wiki's up we can submit patches/modifications or different themes and vote. One easy way to do user testing which is actually useful is through a site like reddit or Hacker News. I got valuable feedback from Hacker News, because the people were my target audience, i.e., none-Haskellers: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1393593 It's possible to use the same method for haskell.org. It just requires some follow through to actually do what people request.

Christopher Done
Sadly nobody has the time nor inclination to do proper web development and actually test designs and get feedback, so I suppose we're working with the time we've got. At least with theme support, we can write a load of themes, and then perhaps do a vote on what people think makes the best impression as a default.
Feedback seems rather easy to get, but I think it's better with somebody with ability and inclination just takes charge. Anyway, some suggestions for the wiki theme: The blurb ("Haskell is an..") is nice, and I'm just dying to click on the links from the text, but it could do with more of them. "Open source" could perhaps point to licensing and the proliferation of Hackage packages, "twenty years of cutting edge research" could point to the history of Haskell, "active community" could link to a list of blogs, IRC, mail, etc. The list of debuggers, profilers etc is good, although I'd like a link to the quickcheck family of tools somewhere. "Performance" is also missing, we used to(?) do well on the shootout, and it's a common concern. I don't mind the italics much, but I don't like the sans serif on the rest of the page. The brown slab at the top seems a bit lonely, perhaps the right and left sidebars should have the same color, framing the page proper? Colors are generally good, beige and orange gives a calm, soothing effect. But then I'm an Ubuntu user :-) The warm summer theme from the platform is better, though, so if somebody wants to port that, I'm in favor. The logo seems out of place, and should have navigation underneath. Two text panes with different colors look somewhat odd to me, and the list of hackage updates is great, perhaps it should be smaller in size and have date stamps to better show the activity? Currently it makes the page too long, nobody is going to scroll all the way down to the footer. Anyway. I hope this is useful, and will let this particular bikeshed rest for now. -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants

On Jul 16, 2010, at 11:09 AM, Don Stewart wrote:
If anyone is interested in a 2010.2 series design for the HP site, the repository containing the stylesheet is here:
I like the content. The layout has some flaws when rendered on my environment (Safari 4, but with perhaps narrower than most peoples windows): * The background image tiled looks pretty bad - since I see repeats and it doesn't really tile. * The three columns at the bottom overlap! Perhaps this is a valid case for a <table> rather than three <div>s and CSS layout. * The word "Download" isn't actually part of the download link. Many people might think to click on the Download text itself. Can we make that a link that auto-detects your OS and redirects appropriately? On Jul 17, 2010, at 7:21 AM, Thomas Schilling wrote:
Webdesign for an open source project is pretty much doomed from the beginning. Design requires a few opinionated people rather than democracy.
Truer words were never spoken! Good web sites always proceed from a single graphic designer's vision. Great ones combine that with, tweaking after deployment based on log analysis and A/B testing. I saw we just appoint a short group of designers and let them at it, and deploy it, and then see how it fares! I nominate Thomas and Christopher! As for CSS wrangling, I've got a fair bit of experience at that. I've even done it in the context of MediaWiki themes(*). If anyone needs some help on that aspect, I'm volunteering. I'm pretty sure I could reproduce Christopher's image in XHTML/CSS if desired. - Mark Mark Lentczner http://www.ozonehouse.com/mark/ IRC: mtnviewmark (*) My work on http://www.contextfreeart.org/ involves getting MediaWiki (used for the download and documentation sections), phpBB (for formus), custom PHP (for the gallery), and static pages to all style identically with CSS. I think I mostly succeeded.

Thought I'd bring Neimeijer's design into the mix, because I think
it's brilliant (and it's been built):
(For some reason it didn't appear in this thread in my GMail inbox;
perhaps the Subject field got altered. Posting this here incase it
happened like that for everyone else so that we can continue the
discussion within this thread.)
On 17 July 2010 18:18, Niemeijer, R.A.
Here's my take on the new design:
Screenshot: http://imgur.com/9LHvk.jpg Live version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/623671/haskell_platform_redesign/index.htm _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

I still like the original design on http://imgur.com/NjiVh a lot better, It has a simple modern design to it in my opinion :)
-----Original Message-----
From: haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org [mailto:haskell-cafe-bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Christopher Done
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2010 19:31
To: Mark Lentczner
Cc: haskell-platform@projects.haskell.org; haskell-cafe Cafe
Subject: Re: [Haskell-cafe] Design for 2010.2.x series Haskell Platform site
Thought I'd bring Neimeijer's design into the mix, because I think it's brilliant (and it's been built):
(For some reason it didn't appear in this thread in my GMail inbox; perhaps the Subject field got altered. Posting this here incase it happened like that for everyone else so that we can continue the discussion within this thread.)
On 17 July 2010 18:18, Niemeijer, R.A.
Here's my take on the new design:
Screenshot: http://imgur.com/9LHvk.jpg Live version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/623671/haskell_platform_redesign/index.htm _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

I still like the original design on http://imgur.com/NjiVh a lot better, It has a simple modern design to it in my opinion :)
+1. It is simply beautiful. Much more striking and memorable than the blue diver. Regards, Malcolm

Malcolm Wallace wrote:
I still like the original design on http://imgur.com/NjiVh a lot better, It has a simple modern design to it in my opinion :)
+1. It is simply beautiful. Much more striking and memorable than the blue diver.
I really like the background image; it's nicely striking and much more memorable than the diver. The font selection, color scheme, and central logo are decent, but I'm not a fan of the presentation of the OS icons nor the content of the footer. The two-box "What is Haskell?","What is the Haskell Platform?" footer works a lot better IMO. The icons are a bit harder to fix though; right now they look bolted on and discontinuous with the rest of the design. -- Live well, ~wren

markl:
I like the content. The layout has some flaws when rendered on my environment (Safari 4, but with perhaps narrower than most peoples windows):
* The background image tiled looks pretty bad - since I see repeats and it doesn't really tile.
Yes, noted.
* The three columns at the bottom overlap! Perhaps this is a valid case for a <table> rather than three <div>s and CSS layout.
Agreed and implemented. That was easier!
* The word "Download" isn't actually part of the download link. Many people might think to click on the Download text itself. Can we make that a link that auto-detects your OS and redirects appropriately?
If someone has code for this?
As for CSS wrangling, I've got a fair bit of experience at that. I've even done it in the context of MediaWiki themes(*). If anyone needs some help on that aspect, I'm volunteering. I'm pretty sure I could reproduce Christopher's image in XHTML/CSS if desired.
Well, perhaps poke around here: http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/index.html http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/download-website/style.css It's a darcs repo, so darcs get http://code.haskell.org/haskell-platform/ will work. -- Don

Don Stewart
* The three columns at the bottom overlap! Perhaps this is a valid case for a <table> rather than three <div>s and CSS layout.
Agreed and implemented. That was easier!
Scaling is still a bit off, the three columns below the logo are only centered for a specific resolution. With my wide single-window setup, they are positioned to the left, so that the logo is over the "Cutting edge" column. -k -- If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
participants (20)
-
Andrew Coppin
-
Brandon S Allbery KF8NH
-
Christopher Done
-
David Menendez
-
Don Stewart
-
Iavor Diatchki
-
Ivan Miljenovic
-
Johan Tibell
-
Ketil Malde
-
Malcolm Wallace
-
Mark Lentczner
-
Max Rabkin
-
Miguel Pagano
-
Paulo Tanimoto
-
Phyx
-
Serguey Zefirov
-
Simon Michael
-
Stephen Tetley
-
Thomas Schilling
-
wren ng thornton