On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 10:51:04AM +0300, Roman Cheplyaka wrote:

Personally I find current homepage very sexy :) Yeah, I like the 1994 style, too. The "information architecture," however, leaves something to be desired. (Not that I'm an expert, by any means.)

Even those ugly spaces used to align headers are sexy. Ugh.   makes baby Hixie cry.

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 03:25:50AM -0700, Devin Mullins wrote:

Well, okay, skeleton at http://xmonad.twifkak.com/ .

Last spam for the night, I promise. It's now also a darcs repo, so you can 'darcs get' it and 'darcs send' me patches.

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 10:13:50AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

So I guess, lots of white space.

Okeydoke. It was a kitchy idea to emulate xmonad; I'm not tied to it. I just uploaded a version without the boxes. Is that sufficient, or is there something else about the guardian you're looking for? It doesn't expose much nav -- just a topbar for the major sections. Hrm, without the boxes, it looks empty. :P Perhaps something else should go on the home page? (Also, I dropped the cutesy question titles - they were already annoying me, and were subobvious.)

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 10:43:43AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

Getting there, here's what it looks like to me:

http://galois.com/~dons/images/screen.png

Yup. (Except I replaced the section titles.)

I'll do a mockup of a possible design based on this.

Cool! It still doesn't satisfy the date criterion. We don't have a regularly updated news section (last post Apr 1), and blogs don't warrant that much prominence. Perhaps just a "version 0.7, released 2008-xx-xx" in the download section?

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 11:05:34AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

Do you have a repo with the changes ?

darcs get http://xmonad.twifkak.com/ # hack hack hack darcs send

skytte:

I think the design is a little too cramped so I have added whitespace and did some experiments with putting headers in a column to the left of the body text. It worked out quite well imho.

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Devin Mullins wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 11:05:34AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

...

Do you have a repo with the changes ?

darcs get http://xmonad.twifkak.com/ # hack hack hack darcs send _______________________________________________

I didn't get 'darcs send' to send my changes so they are attached instead (with 'darcs send -o my-patch.out').

Screen shots would be great :) -- Don

* Martin Skytte [2008-07-07 23:26:48+0200]

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 11:00 PM, Don Stewart wrote:

...

skytte:

...

I think the design is a little too cramped so I have added whitespace and did some experiments with putting headers in a column to the left of the body text. It worked out quite well imho.

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Devin Mullins wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 11:05:34AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

...

Do you have a repo with the changes ?

darcs get http://xmonad.twifkak.com/ # hack hack hack darcs send _______________________________________________

I didn't get 'darcs send' to send my changes so they are attached instead (with 'darcs send -o my-patch.out').

Screen shots would be great :)

-- Don

Sure!

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s062376/xmonad.org-redesign.png

Neat! -- Roman I. Cheplyaka (aka Feuerbach @ IRC)

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 10:43:43AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

I'll do a mockup of a possible design based on this.

Any progress on this? I see more #xmonad static indicative of people not knowing about the FAQ, so I'm eager to see something done about it.

On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:05:18AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

me:

...

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 10:43:43AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

...

I'll do a mockup of a possible design based on this.

Any progress on this? I see more #xmonad static indicative of people not knowing about the FAQ, so I'm eager to see something done about it.

If someone dives in, I'm happy to look at it.

I'm confused. I interpreted "<dons> i'd like to do it." as one of: 1. You had different ideas for where to take the site than I did. 2. You had some ego invested in the site, and thus wanted to be the sole maintainer. If the former is true, I'm happy to make changes to a number of things, but need more specific guidance. If the latter is true, then it's not really worth my time to contribute. Lacking specific guidance and certainty that it's not the latter, I stopped working on it. Can you give me those two things?

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 10:01:11AM -0700, Don Stewart wrote:

Nope, go for it! I do not want to work on it, but am happy to offer advise. Okay.

Something crossed between the menu system of the awesome site, or the side bar menus proposed earlier, with the simplicity of the current layout would be ideal. Yeah, okay, the awesome header looks very pretty. (I'm a sucker for deco.) I'm not going to be able to deliver pretty. I guess, then, with my current design, you don't like that I exposed the sub-section links? I certainly can't turn the navbar into a topbar without removing them. Or, you know, onhover.

At Mon, 7 Jul 2008 03:25:50 -0700,

Critique welcome. Passes validation as xhtml transitional and css 2.1.

I would suggest that passing html 4.01 (strict) validation would be more useful. See this page: http://hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml And, this related posted I recently sent to the haskell server pages list when dealing with some related issues: http://groups.google.com/group/haskell-server-pages/msg/299c958a96bfba25? and this article: http://www.digital-web.com/articles/html5_xhtml2_and_the_future_of_the_web/ Short Version: - serving xhtml as text/html is broken and provides little or no useful benefits - serving xhtml as application/xml+xhtml does not work with konqueror or IE (and probably lynx and links) - in my opinion, HTML 5 has a much greater chance of succeeding than any version of xhtml. So, you might as well use HTML 4.01 strict. - in my opinion HTML 5 and WAS 1.0 will be pretty cool. In my opinion, the *only* reason to use xhtml would be if: - you wanted to use some feature that *only* works with xhtml (such as MathML, svg, etc). - you actually serve the page as application/xml+xhtml, which means that: - you are completely fine with the page not being viewable at all with konqueror, ie, links, lynx, and several other browsers. Up until a few months ago, I also would have used xhtml, but now I am pretty much HTML all the way. Anyway, I am happy to answer any questions you have, and I won't complain if you decide to stick with xhtml. j.

At Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:04:14 -0600, Justin Bogner wrote:

Jeremy Shaw wrote:

...

- serving xhtml as application/xml+xhtml does not work with konqueror or IE (and probably lynx and links)

I'm not sure what the behaviour in IE is (I don't have access to such a browser at the moment), konqueror, lynx, and links2 all render pages acceptably when served as application/xml+xhtml, though they may process them as html instead of xhtml (I'm not sure on this front).

Personally, I wouldn't consider this "not working" or "not viewable at all".

I stand corrected. It appears than *only* IE8 is broken. I have tested FF3, Safari, Konqueror 3.9, links and lynx successfully by viewing this page: http://www.robinlionheart.com/stds/xhtml/?type=application/xhtml%2Bxml which properly sets the Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml HTTP header.

Most of the other "problems" with xhtml are more like common pitfalls for document writers who don't understand the differences between html and xhtml and don't test their documents thoroughly.

Right. I believe my main argument is really comes down to: "Why use XHTML if you aren't really going to use it?" It is my understanding that if you are not setting the HTTP Header, Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml, then absolutely nothing you put *in* the document will cause the browser to use the XHTML engine instead of the HTML engine. As a result, that means you can *only* use features found in HTML 4.01 Strict. Alternatively, we *could* use the correct Content-Type, but then IE users would not be able to view the page. Since that only seems to affect windows users, maybe that would be ok -- though some search engines might also have problems. These are the two advantages I can see for using XHTML served as text/html, and why I think they aren't that important to xmonad.org. 1. You can parse valid XHTML with an XML parser I would counter that you can just as easily parse valid (and invalid) HTML with a TagSoup parser (such as, http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~ndm/tagsoup/). I expect (purely opinion) that most people who are in the habit of parsing websites are going to be most familiar with tagsoup parsing anyway, since so few sites validate as XHTML. 2. Your site will be ready for the day when IE supports application/xhtml+xml. All you have to do is change the mime-type and everything is good to go. I am not sure if this is really a big win. In order for that to be true, it means that you have to make sure all of your pages always work correctly when served as text/html or application/xhtml+xml just in case some day you decide to make the switch. That seems like a lot of on-going work for something that may never happen. And, if you did make the switch, and went 100% application/xhtml+xml, you would probably want to clean out all the hacks needed to make sure that the documents really work correctly when served as text/html or application/xhtml+xml. You wouldn't have to, but I bet you would want to ;) In my opinion, the primary advantage of using HTML for xmonad.org is that it will make it easier for contributors to hack on it, and will reduce the total amount of testing needed. As you noted, many people do not understand the differences between xhtml and html, and do not test throughly enough. I think it is probably true that most people who want to contribute to xmonad.org are going to be those kinds of people. There is some hope that if we use plain HTML, and run it through an HTML validator, the results will be somewhat reasonable. I think it would be much more difficult to ensure that all 3rd party submissions work equally well as text/html and application/xhtml+xml. So, it is much more likely that we will just end up with broken XHTML that only works when served as text/html. Or, we will get less contributors. So, I see no compelling reasons to use XHTML, just a lot of possible problems. And I see no reasons not to use plain old HTML. On the other hand, since I only expect xmonad.org to serve content as text/html, it really does not matter that much in the end :p j. ps. I think the real issue is what makes you feel warm and gooey on the inside. Using XHTML is attractive because it is based on XML, and XML is nice and regular. Every open tag has a close tag, etc. So, when you use XHTML, you feel like everything is nice and clean, neatly buttoned up, extensible, and so on. However, I think that only holds if you are serving your content as application/xhtml+xml. When you serve it as text/html, eveything gets messy. So, when serving content as text/html, I prefer to serve real HTML 4.01 Strict, because then everything is nice and orderly again (though, slightly less regular, and not extensible). Using XHTML can also give you a feeling of being cutting edge, because you are using the cool new technology. W3C declared HTML dead and recommend XHTML in 1999, so surely it is going to catch on one of these days, and you'll be at the forefront right ? But, I think using HTML 4.01 Strict can make you even more cutting edge. See, the really cool kids know that HTML 5 is the future, so by using HTML 4.01 we are getting ready for the future that is already coming thanks to the WHATWG. We are not duped by the false promises of the W3C. :p Or something like that. I don't even look at the xmonad.org homepage anyway, so what do I care ;)

Also, here's something that xmonad.org really ought to do too: don't serve filename extensions! http://xmonad.org/contrib.html should be http://xmonad.org/contrib , and the link on the front page should go to that... because what if we decide to change the content-type?-- and what do users care what type it is in their minds and bookmarks?-- there is nothing inherently html about the file, and it makes it harder to use another file extension like xhtml to tell Apache that it's xhtml. For Apache, I put in the top of my website http://isaac.cedarswampstudios.org/ a .htaccess with: Options MultiViews DirectoryIndex index Jeremy Shaw wrote:

...

Most of the other "problems" with xhtml are more like common pitfalls for document writers who don't understand the differences between html and xhtml and don't test their documents thoroughly.

Right. I believe my main argument is really comes down to:

"Why use XHTML if you aren't really going to use it?"

It is my understanding that if you are not setting the HTTP Header, Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml, then absolutely nothing you put *in* the document will cause the browser to use the XHTML engine instead of the HTML engine.

Obviously if you serve XHTML you use Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml !--(well, at least you've argued effectively that serving something with DOCTYPE XHTML but Content-Type html is stupid.) I do it with my website, XHTML 1.0 Strict, application/xhtml+xml, in UTF-8. HTML syntax is confusing, since I know XML, and it's easy to catch my mistakes with a validator, and IIRC its default charset isn't UTF?. I don't care about IE, I just tell my friends to use Firefox... although it seems alright to use hacks to serve it as text/html to IE if necessary, because IE is broken anyway (IIRC its Accept: is rather implausible anyway). Also, even if HTML5 is the future, it sounds there is "XHTML5" to go with it so I can keep writing non-confusing web pages. There is not only one future. (Also, at the time I started it, it was less obvious that "XHTML > HTML" was a mostly dead idea.) As for the issue of putting non-well-formed XML content into your webpages because it's automatically generated: that's a bad idea! If your tools are broken enough that they don't always generate well-formed XML (let alone valid!), or if you want to allow your users to serve broken content, it needn't break your page -- there are tags for that very purpose, such as <object>. For example, since http://irrepressible.info/'s javascript for your site uses document.write() and IIRC doesn't conform to Strict, I put it in another file that's HTML 4.01 Transitional and include it using (I hope your e-mail client doesn't interpret this as HTML, because it's plain text in this email!!!: <object data="irrepressible.html" type="text/html" width="180" height="150"><a href="http://irrepressible.info/">irrepressible</a></object> ) Perhaps, ideally a web-server would say so if you were trying to serve invalid content, instead of serving that content (unless an explicit override perhaps). P.S. wow, my pages under http://isaac.cedarswampstudios.org/muse/ are beautiful (to my eye) -- I had forgotten how much work I had done tuning the formatting and color! -Isaac

On Tue, 8 Jul 2008 00:55:31 +0200 Jesús Guerrero wrote:

As an example, you can check this site I am designing (it's a basic template and something experimental, but it's just an example). The relevant pieces of my xhtml files are these:

And of course I forgot to paste a link :lol: Sorry, here it is: http://jesgue.homelinux.org/yobonobo/ ;) -- Jesús Guerrero

Hello,

When I say that XHTML is not supported by IE, I specifically mean, if you serve XHTML with the Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml, it will be completely unviewable in any version of IE. (It turns out that these days, konqueror, lynx, opera, safari, and firefox all work fine, so only IE is busted).

[Note: I hope you find the rest of this message informative and helpful. Reading it over, I think it sounds a bit like an attack -- which it is not supposed to be. So, be sure to read it in a happy, pleasant, and helpful tone. And, also, I could be wrong about some of this stuff -- it is hard to fine accurate information on the net about it.]

No problem. I asked for it, and I am more than glad that you took the time to explain it to me. I could never consider it in a harsh way :)

The reason your sites work is because you are using the Content-Type text/html, and the browsers are doing their darnest to figure out how to render the code using their HTML engines.

So, it turns out that it's my server. Nice to know. I will investigate it further.

According to the w3c, you *should not* serve XHTML 1.1 Strict with the text/html http header:

Yep, we agree in that. The problem is that I have been serving the wrong mime type without noticing it.

Additionally, your homepage fails to validate:

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fjesgue.homelinux.org%2Fyobonobo%2F&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0

Due to live editing. No problem there, it will validate and break lots of times until it's done.

If you were to configure your server to properly serve as application/xhtml+xml, then IE users would not be able to view the page.

I am not particularly inclined to migrate to html to fix something that I did not break (it's IE's fault). But I suppose I will have to consider the pros and cons.

So, they question is, what benefit are you hoping to get by serving (invalid) xhtml as text/html?

None. As I said, I thought I was serving xhtml. Otherwise I wouldn't have done it. Again, thanks for all the insight and wisdom. It's been helpful. I keep an eye on the new design of the xmonad site :) Cheers. -- Jesús Guerrero

On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:30:44 -0700 Calvin Smith wrote:

On 07/07/2008 07:23 PM, Jesús Guerrero wrote:

...

...

If you were to configure your server to properly serve as application/xhtml+xml, then IE users would not be able to view the page.

I am not particularly inclined to migrate to html to fix something that I did not break (it's IE's fault). But I suppose I will have to consider the pros and cons.

On some of my sites I serve XHTML as application/xhtml+xml to all browsers except IE (and browsers that say they can't handle it, like IE *should* say) and as text/html to IE. This is with XHTML 1.0 however. You're not supposed to do that with XHTML 1.1, but it is permitted with XHTML 1.0.

I wrote up a howto last year explaining how to configure Apache to do this. It's pretty simple. Maybe it'll be of use to you if you decide to stick with XHTML: http://protempore.net/~calvins/howto/xhtml-apache/

Thanks, lots of good info on this thread. Regards. -- Jesús Guerrero