Thread

  1. Revamp'd Web Site...

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-07-22T18:55:20Z

    	I just did a relatively major cleanup of the WWW site, and am
    looking for feedback.
    
    	Bsically, I was growing tired of looking at the site, and
    constantly reloading the same data over and over again (the 'index' on the
    left, for starters).
    
    	I think the new format looks okay, and believe I've covered over
    any 'errors' that would creep in, but if anyone finds any, please let me
    know?
    
    	The mirrors won't see it until tonight, but if you want to go look
    at it now, check out:
    
    	http://www.postgresql.org/index.html
    
    
    
    
  2. Re: [ANNOUNCE] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Hugo van der Kooij <hvdkooij@caiw.nl> — 1998-07-22T20:18:10Z

    On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
    
    > 
    > 	I just did a relatively major cleanup of the WWW site, and am
    > looking for feedback.
    > 
    > 	Bsically, I was growing tired of looking at the site, and
    > constantly reloading the same data over and over again (the 'index' on the
    > left, for starters).
    > 
    > 	I think the new format looks okay, and believe I've covered over
    > any 'errors' that would creep in, but if anyone finds any, please let me
    > know?
    > 
    > 	The mirrors won't see it until tonight, but if you want to go look
    > at it now, check out:
    > 
    > 	http://www.postgresql.org/index.html
    
    Can you also clean up the announce mailinglist? Over 50% of the messages
    are SPAM! Unless you do something about it I have no option but to declare
    hub.org a unsafe domain and deny any SMTP traffic origination from it.
    
    Hugo.
    
    	+------------------------+------------------------------+
    	| Hugo van der Kooij     | Hugo.van.der.Kooij@caiw.nl   |
    	| Oranje Nassaustraat 16 | http://www.caiw.nl/~hvdkooij |
    	| 3155 VJ  Maasland      | (De man met de rode hoed)    |
    	+------------------------+------------------------------+
        "Computers let you make more mistakes faster than any other invention in 
          human history, with the possible exception of handguns and tequila."
    		(Mitch Radcliffe)
    
    
    
  3. Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Aleksey Dashevsky <postgres@luckynet.co.il> — 1998-07-22T21:57:02Z

    hi!
    Did you rename start page of PostgreSQL site from index.shtml to
    index.html by an accident or with some special purpose?
    It is very important to maintainers of mirrors,'cause we used to begin
    mirroring from www.postgresql.org/index.shtml -- URL www.postgresql.org
    automatically throws to your nearest mirror !
    
    Al.
    On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
    
    > 
    > 	I just did a relatively major cleanup of the WWW site, and am
    > looking for feedback.
    > 
    > 	Bsically, I was growing tired of looking at the site, and
    > constantly reloading the same data over and over again (the 'index' on the
    > left, for starters).
    > 
    > 	I think the new format looks okay, and believe I've covered over
    > any 'errors' that would creep in, but if anyone finds any, please let me
    > know?
    > 
    > 	The mirrors won't see it until tonight, but if you want to go look
    > at it now, check out:
    > 
    > 	http://www.postgresql.org/index.html
    > 
    > 
    > 
    
    
    
  4. Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-07-23T16:43:12Z

    On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Aleksey Dashevsky wrote:
    
    > hi!
    > Did you rename start page of PostgreSQL site from index.shtml to
    > index.html by an accident or with some special purpose?
    > It is very important to maintainers of mirrors,'cause we used to begin
    > mirroring from www.postgresql.org/index.shtml -- URL www.postgresql.org
    > automatically throws to your nearest mirror !
    
    	Ack...I had figured that most mirror sites were using either the
    'mirror' package, or, now, rsync :(
    
    	Yes, I changed it to index.html on purpose...with .shtml, every
    time a person hits a page wiht that extension, your server has to
    "process" the file for any SSI directives.  This causes extra load on your
    machine(s), which at least one mirror site showed concern about :(
    
    	
    
     > 
    > Al.
    > On Wed, 22 Jul 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
    > 
    > > 
    > > 	I just did a relatively major cleanup of the WWW site, and am
    > > looking for feedback.
    > > 
    > > 	Bsically, I was growing tired of looking at the site, and
    > > constantly reloading the same data over and over again (the 'index' on the
    > > left, for starters).
    > > 
    > > 	I think the new format looks okay, and believe I've covered over
    > > any 'errors' that would creep in, but if anyone finds any, please let me
    > > know?
    > > 
    > > 	The mirrors won't see it until tonight, but if you want to go look
    > > at it now, check out:
    > > 
    > > 	http://www.postgresql.org/index.html
    > > 
    > > 
    > > 
    > 
    
    
    
  5. Re: [GENERAL] Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Statistical Solutions <statsol@statsol.com> — 1998-07-23T17:35:39Z

    Having spent about one year on revamping my own site, I am very
    appreciative of the efforts you made.  However, I would suggest ditching
    frames if at all possible.
    
    If for no other reason than that frames make it virtually impossible for
    search egines to comprehesively index your site.  The search engines will
    now see only the frameset page and whatever keywords you put there.
    search engines like excite ignore keywords entirely because lamers started
    spamming the keywords tag.  so search engines like excite won't turn up
    any relebvant info on postgres from your site.  bad for publicity.
    
    secondary reasons to ditch frames are the navigation difficulties they
    present (back button backs out of only the frame which has current focus
    and that scrollbars eat up valuable real estate on a browser window; not
    lynx friendly etc etc.
    
    i recently learned a design trick from a friend who is a real pro at this
    stuff (www.peterme.com) and I am working on version three of my site that
    will incorporate this
    
    global navigation starts top left and moves across from lef tto right
    local naviagation starts top left and moves top to bottom
    
    so if you have a hierarchical site such as:
    
    index.html
      friends
        mike.html
        joe.html
      foes
        jack.html
        john.html
    ....
     and so forth,
    
    the home page would offer
    
    HOME FRIENDS FOES
    across the top.
    
    When you got to the FRIENDS section, you'd have
    HOME FIRNEDS FOES across the top and
    MIKE
    JOE
    
    going down the side.
    
    This works very well and is aform well understood and liked by many
    people.  so the idea is to create table templates
    that has at least two rows and two columns laid out as follows:
    
     ----------------------------
    | global nav buttons/links  | 
     ----------------------------
    | l |                       |
    | o |   Content goes here   |
    | c |                       |
    | a |                       |
    | l |                       |
    |   |                       |
    | n |                       |
    | a |                       |
    | v |                       |
     ----------------------------
    
    at that point, you just have to decide whether you wnat to use the table
    percent feature to control the width of tables or the pixel definitions.
    since NS doesn't render tables correctly, it is better to choose the pixel
    definition, and based on large generalities, allowing a table to be 612
    pixels wide will allow it to fit nicely in most users screens, and some
    users with big screens and/or high pixel denisty will see only part of
    their browser window filled with content.
    
    just my two cents,
    steve doliov
    
    
    
  6. Re: [GENERAL] Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-07-23T18:49:49Z

    On Thu, 23 Jul 1998, Steve Doliov wrote:
    
    > secondary reasons to ditch frames are the navigation difficulties they
    > present (back button backs out of only the frame which has current focus
    > and that scrollbars eat up valuable real estate on a browser window; not
    > lynx friendly etc etc.
    
    	I'm lost as to what you mean about the back button...if I hit
    'back' on my browser (Netscape under Win95), it goes to the last frame I
    viewed, regardless of how many different frames I viewed, which is the
    same  as before...
    
    	The scroll bar had always been there, and, except on the smaller
    resolutions, there is no more or less real estate being taken up...
    
    	As for lynx friendly...I've viewed the currently layout under
    Lynx, and it appears fine to me *shrug*, but I'm also running a relatively
    new version of it (2.8.x)...but, the old uses tables in many places which
    also don't look good or come up under older Lynx's...
    
    > i recently learned a design trick from a friend who is a real pro at this
    > stuff (www.peterme.com) and I am working on version three of my site that
    > will incorporate this
    
    	Looked at his site, and its not quite the same effect that we're
    trying to accomplish.  For starters, I find it very slow to load, and I'm
    running on a T1 right now, and, for two, under Lynx, it doesn't look any
    better then, it not worse then, what I've currently got up.
    
    	The one thing I like about what is up there now s that you can go
    to the 'frame-list' under Lynx, and get a listing of the pages available,
    without cluttering up the screen...the old PostgreSQL site didn't provide
    that ...
    
    
    
    
  7. Re: [ANNOUNCE] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Herouth Maoz <herouth@oumail.openu.ac.il> — 1998-07-26T10:30:38Z

    At 21:55 +0300 on 22/7/98, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
    
    
    > 	I think the new format looks okay, and believe I've covered over
    > any 'errors' that would creep in, but if anyone finds any, please let me
    > know?
    
    Did you purposefully want the background colors to be as the user's browser
    wants them? That is, you haven't defined any background (neither image nor
    color), so most Netscape users will see either White (on Windows) or gray
    (on all other machines), or in my case, pale blue (as that is my default
    color). It is usually preferable to set the site's background in the BODY
    tag of each of the pages, so as to have everybody see the same combination
    of colors. As far as I recall, the site used to have a white background.
    
    On another matter, which I wrote to you before on the private channel.
    Perhaps you filter out my mails? I hope not: The mini-faq which is
    published every week in the General mailing list is outdated, and contains
    names and descriptions of mailing lists which no longer exist, and doesn't
    contain the ones that do. A mini-faq is suppose to help, not to mislead, so
    I advise fixing it.
    
    Herouth
    
    --
    Herouth Maoz, Internet developer.
    Open University of Israel - Telem project
    http://telem.openu.ac.il/~herutma
    
    
    
    
  8. Re: [GENERAL] Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Herouth Maoz <herouth@oumail.openu.ac.il> — 1998-07-26T11:22:48Z

    At 20:35 +0300 on 23/7/98, Steve Doliov wrote:
    
    
    > Having spent about one year on revamping my own site, I am very
    > appreciative of the efforts you made.  However, I would suggest ditching
    > frames if at all possible.
    >
    > If for no other reason than that frames make it virtually impossible for
    > search egines to comprehesively index your site.  The search engines will
    > now see only the frameset page and whatever keywords you put there.
    > search engines like excite ignore keywords entirely because lamers started
    > spamming the keywords tag.  so search engines like excite won't turn up
    > any relebvant info on postgres from your site.  bad for publicity.
    
    My own opinion in this issue:
    
    I belong to the pro-frames people. I maintain a site which is frames-based.
    I know there is great objection to frames, but I agree with Marc that you
    lose almost the same amount of realestate, have to load the same data over
    and over, and you have to scroll your entire page when you look for
    something in the navigation bar, when you don't use frames.
    
    But I have a few points to make.
    
    * The "back" button's behavior is, in fact, intuitive for most users.
      In the begining, Netscape had the "back" return from the entire frame
      set and that was very frustrating when all you wanted to do was back
      up one operation. They changed this in following navigator versions.
      Mostly because MSIE drew better reactions...
    
    * You _can_ bookmark a frameset as well as a frame. If you focus on
      one frame, you'll bookmark that specific frame. If you are not focused
      on any of the frames, you'll bookmark the whole thing. In order to
      revoke focus from all frames, simply click in the "Location" field.
    
    * Although it is tempting, Marc, I strongly advise that you lose the
      bottom frame.
    
      Remember that evetually, your pages *will* be searched and encountered
      from outside the frames. Therefore you really should have your
      copyright notice at the bottom of *each page*. And - very important -
      have a link back to the home page, which will give the frustrated
      user the context in which to view the page and get more information.
    
      There are utilities which automate the process for you without
      resorting to server-side includes and their overhead. After all, this
      is a batch operation - stamp all the pages with the same info, and
      their own modification dates included as "last modified on". You can
      probably write a perl script to do this very quickly - but there *are*
      tools (at least for the Mac and Windows) which already have this sort
      of thing.
    
    * In order to make life easier on lynx users, older browser users
      (there are still people using Netscape 1 today!), and search engines
      which don't know how to interpret FRAME tags, you should have a
      NOFRAMES section, with links to all the pages and sub pages in your
      site.
    
    * Lose the frame borders. Distinguish the frame from the body by background
      color. Saves realestate, and very few people bother to resize frames
      anyway.
    
    If you want to see an example of all these advices in real life, you can
    take a look at my site. It has nothing to do with Postgres, it's just a
    hobby. Take a look at it with both Netscape and lynx:
    http://www.maccabi.co.il/ - sorry for the self-promotion, but I have no
    other example readily available.
    
    Herouth
    
    --
    Herouth Maoz, Internet developer.
    Open University of Israel - Telem project
    http://telem.openu.ac.il/~herutma
    
    
    
    
  9. Re: [GENERAL] Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Michael <wwwadmin@wizard.ca> — 1998-07-26T16:50:12Z

    > * In order to make life easier on lynx users, older browser users
    >   (there are still people using Netscape 1 today!), and search engines
    >   which don't know how to interpret FRAME tags, you should have a
    >   NOFRAMES section, with links to all the pages and sub pages in your
    >   site.
    
    VERY IMPORTANT.. I know personally, when searching Online docs, I use Lynx
    extensively...
    --
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    Michael - System Administrator              Working in Cheap Canadian Dollars
    Unix Administration - WebSite Hosting - Network Services - Programming
    Wizard Internet Services - TechnoWizard Computers - Wizard Tower TechnoServices
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    (604) 589-0037          Beautiful British Columbia, Canada
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    
    
    
    
  10. Re: [GENERAL] Re: [MIRRORS] Revamp'd Web Site...

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-07-26T18:50:00Z

    On Sun, 26 Jul 1998, The Web Administrator wrote:
    
    > > * In order to make life easier on lynx users, older browser users
    > >   (there are still people using Netscape 1 today!), and search engines
    > >   which don't know how to interpret FRAME tags, you should have a
    > >   NOFRAMES section, with links to all the pages and sub pages in your
    > >   site.
    > 
    > VERY IMPORTANT.. I know personally, when searching Online docs, I use Lynx
    > extensively...
    
    	Newer versions of Lynx support frames...I know, I test with Lynx
    :)
    
    
    Marc G. Fournier                                
    Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
    primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org