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Bug 735458 - Guides and API Reference pages are messy, hard to read
Guides and API Reference pages are messy, hard to read
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: website
Classification: Infrastructure
Component: developer.gnome.org
current
Other Linux
: Normal normal
: ---
Assigned To: GNOME Web maintainers
GNOME Web maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2014-08-26 15:47 UTC by Allan Day
Modified: 2018-09-24 10:42 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
mockup (423.14 KB, image/png)
2014-08-26 15:47 UTC, Allan Day
Details

Description Allan Day 2014-08-26 15:47:26 UTC
Created attachment 284516 [details]
mockup

The pages at https://developer.gnome.org/guides and https://developer.gnome.org/references are rather difficult to read, and don't look great. Given that they are a central navigation point for the website, they need to do a better job.

Specific issues:

 * The varied length of the page descriptions means that there is no regular vertical spacing, which makes the list hard to read.

 * The links themselves are very big.

 * Descriptions are too far from the lists.

 * The [more versions, languages, or options...] links introduce a lot of competing visual noise, which makes it harder to pick out the useful text in the page.

 * Guides: a lot of the link descriptions don't read like quick descriptions. For example: "We very much appreciate any reports of inaccuracies or other errors in this document. Contributions are also most welcome. Post your suggestions, critiques or addenda to the team." "Frequently asked questions." "Glade is a user interface designer for GTK+ applications."

 * Guides: the "Developers" box on the right seems to serve no discernable purpose.

 * Guides: some pages don't have descriptions.

As a first step, to improving the page, we could:

 * Reduce the font size of the links.

 * Move the descriptions closer to the links.

 * Change the [more versions, languages, or options...] link to "Previous Versions", and move it below the descriptions.

 * Guides: put the How Do I...? pages in a separate section.

 * Guides: add the GTK+ Getting Started guide, other cleanups as listed on https://wiki.gnome.org/DocumentationProject/Tasks/DeveloperDocs


A rough mockup is attached.
Comment 1 Frederic Peters 2014-09-06 11:25:09 UTC
>  * Change the [more versions, languages, or options...] link to "Previous
> Versions", and move it below the descriptions.

In the mockup those links now replace the link to the development version, it's fine to keep a single link but "Previous Versions" may not be a good label then.

Anyway, in:

commit 17677d103b75860dd697829dd6b36dd426833038
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 13:23:48 2014 +0200

    style: various adjustments to margins and sizes
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458

commit 9893f31381cd000a6048cadd99d1c917cd1aaa4d
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 12:58:37 2014 +0200

    do not include the link to development version anymore
    
    The "other versions/languages/..." link, renamed to "Previous versions" has
    taken its place.
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458

commit d837c949045e3cb5f938644d50cd5609622d5f05
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 12:57:52 2014 +0200

    move "previous versions" link in its own paragraph
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458

commit 4401d6165fb40860f9f55febe24a825b8d6c80bb
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 12:55:24 2014 +0200

    change "other versions/languages" link to "Previous Versions"
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458
Comment 2 Frederic Peters 2014-09-06 11:57:31 UTC
commit e7cbd6ac8c670afd0cbe88b391f45fb4c1a58437
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 13:56:28 2014 +0200

    remove "developers" introduction text box
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458

commit 4c2246d316c909695c9ccdc8604b06f8baa50370
Author: Frédéric Péters <fpeters@0d.be>
Date:   Sat Sep 6 13:48:56 2014 +0200

    give the "how do I" pages their own section
    
    https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=735458
Comment 3 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2018-09-24 10:42:52 UTC
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