Re: [LogiLogi-list] Merged improvements into D

> Ok, it's good that it's already not so late and I ended playing
> arround with UI colors, layout etc, but some advance still.
>
> See the two files UI_proposal_D_softblues.svg and UI_proposal_D_softcolors.svg

First of all I like the colorscheme of softblues; that's surely an
improvement over all previous color-schemes...

Also the addition of the little person-pics or even the thinker for
those without gravatar is a nice idea...

Secondly I'm not overly happy with how things went this evening and
tonight, and especially not about you then taking into consideration 
the user-impression test and saying the Mix is ok, but then tonight 
taking the design many versions back especially on many good bits of
the header and the text-clouds without, regard to the user's views 
about them (& not merging them in yet)... 

Still, I do see what you said on using the D-file for the font-sizes
and because of some other tweaks, as a working file, and merging the
improvements into it, so here per your request I merged some into
UI_proposal_D_softblues.svg and also added one new improvement, which
I hope should finally mean a good place for the create logi button;
central, and still not in places where it adds overcomplexity to the
design...

I will go over the improvements one by one:

- First of all the create new logi button. I added it to the right of
the secondary tabs (which are now proper tabs again instead of links). 
So we now have Search, Browse, View tabs and then the New-button. Hard 
to miss, and in a spot that would make sense for an user to look 
into...

- This also allows the bottom of the query-bar (the design-one, instead 
of the mere bar) to be simpler, so it just has the peergroup-selection,
and is easier to implement (one less image needed). Also putting the
peergroup selection there is meaningfull as it has consequences for
the rest of the page, just like the query, and also will be there in
all logis views, so it's more consistent to have it there than tucked
into another box below it.

The query bar also has the advantage that we have no weird situations
when pplz with higher resolutions visit the site. The title bar can
stretch to the side, while the query bar and the tabs stay put, nicely
separated from the background & sides...

- Also I changed the curve of the connecting bit between the title bar
and the query-bar a bit, so it fits nicely around the create logi 
button and is also more simmilar to the other curves on the page. 

- The connecting bit is there because it provides a nice background
for the Create, View, Browse or Find logis description, because it
makes things look more connected (also prevents a clash between the
query bar and the title-bar), and because it can be there without
causing illogical top-tabs or something (still don't think that even
if it did users would care, at least those I asked on the Mix layout
did not, but schwa if you want this) as there are likely going to be
sub-tabs for, besides logis, at least changes (logis, users, etc),
groups (user-groups and peer-groups) and help likely too (as that
links to help-logis). Then for the mainpage we can make something
beautifull...

- The tags in the query bar are good in size, but giving them the same
color as the menu-bodies seemed a bit problematic to me for if we want
to show them in clouds and things like that.

- The little help-icons are I think a good thing for usabillity, and I
would suggest having them for unregistered users on by default, and at 
least for contenders, remarks, comments, and incoming links... PPlz
liked them.

- The box around the logi also needed to stand out a bit, I think
and while not sure about the color, I assumed it was an unused bit of
the color-scheme, that seems reasonable, but might also be changed...
I also changed the color as it could be a bit confusing that the
selected 'View' had the same color as the buttons, leaving the user 
maybe wondering whether to press it. With the different encirceling 
color we don't have this problem and can color the not-selected edit 
and insert ones like buttons.

- And these tabs on the logi are also, I think better put on the
inside and to the right as then they give the title a bit more
headroom and are less in the way...

- I suggest for the background-color of the selected contending logi
we use white again, as from the border-color and the pointy thing
between it and the logi it is already clear enough what their
relationship is, and while it might be nice and logical to have it
colored like a menu-title, I think it's just not beautiful (at least
2 users specifically mentioned it as being repulsive in the 2designs
version), and also brings hoop-jumping with regard to the background-
color of the ratings (the white blob around them)...

- As already hinted at, the informative, and social teasing text-
balloons are back for unregistered users. This because users simply
were positive about them, and because they also do explaining and
motivation. The greyish informative texts like the one that was there
for remarks are no match for this. I suggest differentiating them from
the link-popovers for clarity (and the link-popovers would take up
more space if embedded cleanly into the design), and implementing them 
as images for simplicity... (later on we could even generate them with
LLCorners with some small modifications to that).

Also I added the Welcome back in front of the user-name in the title-
bar, as it's good to be friendly and polite, and not everything has to
look as formal and stiff as a banking-application.

- A small fix was applied to the incoming links, John Searle was too
much to the left...

- The border-colors of the recent votes and remarks were made light-
blue so they fit in better and stand out less...

These are the improvements. I hope you see them as improvements too,
Bruno, but where you don't I think we need to discuss them (instead of
us just 'yes', 'no', 'yes', 'no'-ing), or maybe even have a small
user-survey again, as most of these things are too important to the
design to let them pass by, or be decided by ego's or other forces 
than quality...

(Some fonts might be weird because of the windows-linux divide (I
changed none but added info-icons which might be placed wrongly for
windows), but I also uploaded a png so you at least can see how it's
without those... here:
http://www.logilogi.org/pub/UI_proposal_D_softblues.png)

In all I do think it was good to have the font-coloring and sizes of
the D-file as in the other design they still were not styled & often
too small and less beautifull... so good work on that :)

> The blues scheme is the one I like the most, but the colors are a
> matter of personal taste, and the green looks good, and a red, black,
> violet, would do too. We could have it as an option, not hard to do,
> and a high contrast schema would be good for some people.

Indeed, we agree on this, the blues is best and I think also most
fitting with many color-preferences...

(& yup we can have color-styles-selection by users & a setting later on)

> This time I took in count font sizes and small details, so I suggest
> start using this file as base (I'm talking about the blues one). If
> you Wybo want to make modifications, go ahead, or do them in other

I did the transfer for you...

> file and I'll incorporate them, either if you want to bring back you
> proposals or whatever, just add them here so we keep the fonts, tabs,
> etc. Also if you want another color scheme, I'll incorporate to this
> layout. We can then move this file as the base UI svg and maybe erase
> most of the files from the svn if you think so.

We can leave the files for archival purposes, to see where we've
been...

> I'll move now to the html work, will report on this later.

Good that we're now moving into html, and it looks like a good
skeleton & start...

If you encounter any problems with the query-bar or the header-bar (&
connecting bit) or think them too hard to do, I can help out some time
on implementing those as I already have an idea of how to do them with
images.

greetings,

Wybo

PS: The dentist-visit went well this morning, no problems left. I
might make a start updating the controllers for the xapian
link-resolving this afternoon, and this evening + night I will be at
the student- association, for a party since weeks...

> -- 
> Bruno