Ruby Visual Identity Team

ruby-talk
21

gabriele renzi wrote:

James Britt ha scritto:

Each box shows resources culled from links posted to del.icio.us. Clicking the resource name just loads that page. Clicking the little 'i' next to a resource shows you what people have posted it and their extended comments. A modern browser is required. Haven't tested in older browsers (or even many current ones), so field reports are welcome so that it degrades nicely

(my two cents)
the [i] button is interesting, but It is not that obvious to me what it does, I wonder if there is a way of making it more clear :confused:

Good question. The intent was to provide a way to render some metadata about each link; link title themselves are not always properly descriptive, yet people should not have to go click a link and load another page just to see that it isn't what they thought.

The tricky part is providing enough information to a new user as to what that little icon is for without that same information just getting in the way once a user is no longer new. Maybe mouse-over pop-up help. Something, anyway.

Also, the boxes have too many elements, imo. Once you provided a nice search/faceted browsing interface, you should not need all those articles in the home.

Hm. Partly I wanted to have a set of boxes that showed either the 10 top-rated (e.g. most mentioned on delicious, or whatever the criteria is) or the 10 newest. Maybe 5 or 7 is better. Browsing by tag/topic is done from the 'browse' page; each box would have a browse link as well that took you to that browse page, preloading the search criteria for tags that map to that category.

But the matter of clutter is certainly something to watch for; part of me thinks that simple links to predefined facet browsing might be better. (With sufficient JavaScript the boxes could be collapsible as well, I suppose, by default showing only topic titles linking to a full browsing page.)

Btw, I'd globally prefer listing some latest link (like in current ruby-doc) and provide browsing links based on the (meta)tags

That's an option, but that could also be obtained via an RSS feed. I might be wrong, but I think fewer and fewer people are getting news and site updates by actually going to the site in question.

James

22

Francis Hwang wrote:

I nominate me to redesign ruby-doc.org. I appreciate the offer, but altering the aesthetics without changing the underlying behavior is not going to work.

Hear, hear. I think that the problem with Ruby's online presence is not a matter of visual appeal or the lack of nice logo. The problem with Ruby's online presence is much more about functionality. For example, when I look at ruby-lang.org my first thought is not that the site has the wrong colors or fonts, but that the last post to the front page was in December ... which would make a newcomer think that Ruby is sleepy little language, and nothing of interest has happened to it in the last two months.

This isn't meant as a criticism of James or whoever runs ruby-lang.org, just a suggestion that if you're not already involved and are looking to help out, it might be more helpful to 1) put more Ruby-related content on your own blog or 2) volunteer to help out with existing sites to help add or debug more features.

Indeed. There are several issues here, one of them being aesthetics and "identity", but another is the behavior and services of each site. It is easier (relatively) to offer new colors and layouts for a site than to completely rethink its reason for being.

I'm unhappy with the series of boxes (too, um, boxy), but they'll do while I sort out some other things. Adding neat curved box corners and other visual treats has been put aside while I nail down behavior. Once that is stable it will easier to apply the appropriate styling.

So James, are you planning on moving away from the current blog-style front page, with individual dated posts? Personally I think that's the thing people want to see when they come to a front page: Plenty of activity.

Yes, I'm moving the news blog off the main page; I just don't see that as main service of the site. I believe more people are getting such news and updates from RSS feeds. It's become too much work to manually track each new Ruby doc resource, and there is very little report concerning either the documentation project or documentation tools (which is pretty much the original purpose of the site).

I believe that people have two main issues with Ruby documentation: either it just doesn't exist, or they can't find it (or don't even know about it). Yet there is a boatload of information out there. Not just formal API docs, how-tos, or articles, but blogs and wikis and whathaveyou. Ruby-doc can best serve users by helping connect developers to docs; the news blog stuff is now pretty incidental.

I also don't see the site as being driven by novelty; it's a more of service or tool.

Each box shows resources culled from links posted to del.icio.us. Clicking the resource name just loads that page. Clicking the little 'i' next to a resource shows you what people have posted it and their extended comments. A modern browser is required. Haven't tested in older browsers (or even many current ones), so field reports are welcome so that it degrades nicely

This can be done outside of a given web page, using the Tasty bookmarklet:

Tasty Redux | Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm

Ah, quite nice. This presumes, though, that the data will always come from, or only come from, a given source. You also have to have a given browser and install an extension to use this.

Personally I'm not too hot about embedding these sorts of tools in the web page itself.

The goal is condense/filter resource metadata to help users make better choices. People are free to ignore it.

The browse page is a variation on what I haphazardly described in my RubyConf '04 talk. It organizes resources as tagged on del.icio.us; the tricky part is automagically metatagging the del.icio.us tags so that some higher-level grouping is feasible. In theory one should be able to navigate through known Ruby docs and resources by drilling down via facets, but it is not as clean as it should be.

Cool. You might find Topic Maps useful for this, or maybe that's too heavyweight. I'm quite sure your not the only person trying to harvest good taxonomies out of a folksonomy like del.icio.us.

Topic maps might be a bit to heavy-weight. I've been working with XFML (XTM-lite, so to speak), and there will likely be an XFML feed from ruby-doc. Among the goals is to offer data feeds that others can use to help drive their own Ruby applications.

On a more general note, I'm all for people trying to clean up sites, making suggestions, fixings links, getting things into better shape, but I'm dead against any sort of formalization of the process across multiple sites.

I really, really believe that things happen in the Ruby community as well as they do because people feel they can contribute something in a community spirit while doing so in a personal manner. Trying to enforce a uniform anything could be trouble; things tend best to arise out of a loose consensus and running code.

I very much agree. And I hope my comments above don't come across as suggestions, not really criticism: I use ruby-doc almost every day and am already pretty happy with it. Thanks, James!

You're welcome. I appreciate the comments.

And thanks to the increasing number of people writing about Ruby.

James

···

On Feb 17, 2005, at 12:17 AM, James Britt wrote:

23

Quoteing rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 05:34:49PM +0900:
> James Britt ha scritto:
>
>
>
> >Each box shows resources culled from links posted to del.icio.us.
> >Clicking the resource name just loads that page. Clicking the little
> >'i' next to a resource shows you what people have posted it and their
> >extended comments. A modern browser is required. Haven't tested in
> >older browsers (or even many current ones), so field reports are welcome
> >so that it degrades nicely
>
> (my two cents)
> the [i] button is interesting, but It is not that obvious to me what it
> does, I wonder if there is a way of making it more clear :confused:

I didn't know that it did anything, and when I pressed it, i don't know
what I'm looking at... My vote - nuke it.

The intent is to provide a way to give more information about any
particular resource to see if it is worth pursuing so that a user does
not have to load each remote page to see what it is about. Whether
or nor this particular implementation serves that goal is another
matter.

I like the overall layout a lot more. The stuff I want is more
prominent, suggestions:

RAA and rubyforge should be on top bar

I don't see how they are immediately relevant to Ruby documentation or the RDP.

nuke the ads, why do we need ads on ruby-lang.org?

Money.

at bottom of page, add the "news" section that is now the core
of ruby-lang.org's page

There is so little news that it isn't worth featuring on the main page
anymore. People interested in news from the site would do far better
to get it from an RSS feed.

all the more... buttons end in an internal error, intended?

See my previous posting where I say that most links do not work
(unless you're talking about JavaScript or WEBrick errors). Most of
those will behave as they do on the current ruby-doc site.

···

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:37:14 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@uniserve.com> wrote:

Cheers,
Sam

24

Hi,

Ruby's online presence is much more about functionality. For example,
when I look at ruby-lang.org my first thought is not that the site has
the wrong colors or fonts, but that the last post to the front page was
in December ... which would make a newcomer think that Ruby is sleepy
little language, and nothing of interest has happened to it in the last
two months.

maybe we could reuse the Ruby Weekly News as news items on ruby-lang.org

I have just found that currently David Alan Black was the only English
speaking staff in the www-editors. James Britt and Chad Fowler were
members, but I think their accounts were vanished at the "site crash"
last year.

David, Chad, and James, can you organize recruiting a few more
submitter?

              matz.

···

In message "Re: Ruby Visual Identity Team" on Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:49:57 +0900, benny <listen@marcrenearns.de> writes:

25

That'd be a start. My gut feeling, though, is that something that big and clumpy isn't the usable or linkable as web content. Far better to model a new blog after, say, RedHanded. (Of course, we can't all write like Why, but it's good to dream.)

Francis Hwang

···

On Feb 17, 2005, at 9:49 AM, benny wrote:

Francis Hwang wrote:

The problem with
Ruby's online presence is much more about functionality. For example,
when I look at ruby-lang.org my first thought is not that the site has
the wrong colors or fonts, but that the last post to the front page was
in December ... which would make a newcomer think that Ruby is sleepy
little language, and nothing of interest has happened to it in the last
two months.

maybe we could reuse the Ruby Weekly News as news items on ruby-lang.org

26

John W. Long wrote:

Curt Hibbs wrote:
> Thanks for the volunteer summary, I will be sure to add those
to the project
> as soon as its been created.

What is the project name? Let us know so we can join it when it has been
created.

Its "vit" (for Visual Identity Team), and I've already added you. Most of
the other people who expressed interest have not registered for a RubyForge
account. It doesn't matter, though, since most interaction will be through
the mailing list, and you don't need to register with RubyForge to subscribe
to the mailing list.

If you don't mind (at least for now), I'll make you an administrator on this
RubyForge project. I feel more comfortable when there is more than one
person who can go in do needed administrative stuff (which doesn't really
happen too often, anyway).

I've initiated the creation of the mailing list "vit-discuss", but it takes
6-24 hours to actually get created, so its not yet ready.

I've got some thoughts on how to proceed (at least organizationally), but
I'll save that for my initial post to the ML. I'll let you know when its
ready.

Curt

27

I'm moving the news blog off the main page; I just don't see that as main service of the site. I believe more people are getting such news and updates from RSS feeds. It's become too much work to manually track each new Ruby doc resource, and there is very little report concerning either the documentation project or documentation tools (which is pretty much the original purpose of the site).

I believe that people have two main issues with Ruby documentation: either it just doesn't exist, or they can't find it (or don't even know about it). Yet there is a boatload of information out there. Not just formal API docs, how-tos, or articles, but blogs and wikis and whathaveyou. Ruby-doc can best serve users by helping connect developers to docs; the news blog stuff is now pretty incidental.

I also don't see the site as being driven by novelty; it's a more of service or tool.

Makes sense. I guess if you want a Ruby-wide news feed you can subscribe to the Artima Ruby Buzz feed, or the del.icio.us ruby tag or whatever.

Each box shows resources culled from links posted to del.icio.us. Clicking the resource name just loads that page. Clicking the little 'i' next to a resource shows you what people have posted it and their extended comments. A modern browser is required. Haven't tested in older browsers (or even many current ones), so field reports are welcome so that it degrades nicely

This can be done outside of a given web page, using the Tasty bookmarklet:
Tasty Redux | Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm

Ah, quite nice. This presumes, though, that the data will always come from, or only come from, a given source. You also have to have a given browser and install an extension to use this.

I don't think it's browser-specific; I use Safari and just dragged the link into my bookmarks bar. (Along with bookmarklets pointing to Ping-o-matic, Technorati, del.icio.us itself, etc.) But you do have to be aware of it and how bookmarklets work, which I'll readily concede is pretty obscure stuff.

Oh, one other thing: Personally, I think iframes look pretty awful, unless you can guarantee that they'll never scroll. Trying to do what you're doing, going without will take more work -- you'd probably end up parsing del.icio.us's info directly in Javascript, I think -- so maybe it's not really worth it to make it pretty.

Thanks again for offering ruby-doc,

Francis Hwang

···

On Feb 17, 2005, at 8:32 PM, James Britt wrote:

28

James Britt ha scritto:

gabriele renzi wrote:

James Britt ha scritto:

Each box shows resources culled from links posted to del.icio.us. Clicking the resource name just loads that page. Clicking the little 'i' next to a resource shows you what people have posted it and their extended comments. A modern browser is required. Haven't tested in older browsers (or even many current ones), so field reports are welcome so that it degrades nicely

(my two cents)
the [i] button is interesting, but It is not that obvious to me what it does, I wonder if there is a way of making it more clear :confused:

Good question. The intent was to provide a way to render some metadata about each link; link title themselves are not always properly descriptive, yet people should not have to go click a link and load another page just to see that it isn't what they thought.

The tricky part is providing enough information to a new user as to what that little icon is for without that same information just getting in the way once a user is no longer new. Maybe mouse-over pop-up help. Something, anyway.

I'd just add a tiny box on the right with "link info" on top and initially filled with "click on the [i] for more info on each link".
IMO this is
- self explanatory on usage
- does not steal space, since it uses the same of the actual approach,but..
- ..it is clear that you can get more informations, since you know there is an info box
- it is not something that will slow successive visits

Actually, I think mouse-overing is better than icon clicking, but since you're using xmlhttprequest it would probably be too much overhead.

<snip>

But the matter of clutter is certainly something to watch for; part of me thinks that simple links to predefined facet browsing might be better. (With sufficient JavaScript the boxes could be collapsible as well, I suppose, by default showing only topic titles linking to a full browsing page.)

this would be wonderful and would bump up the coolness-factor :slight_smile:

29

I agree that it's not obvious, but I like the feature. Perhaps a
different icon would be more obvious. Either way, might pay to put
the icon above the boxes with a one line description of what it does.

Also, a minor stylesheet bug when viewed with Mozilla 1.7.2 -- the top
navigation bar is covering the words "programming language" in the
page title.

Overall, I like the direction you're heading in.

···

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:49:03 +0900, James G. Britt <ruby.talk.list@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:37:14 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@uniserve.com> wrote:
> Quoteing rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 05:34:49PM +0900:
> > James Britt ha scritto:
> >
> > (my two cents)
> > the [i] button is interesting, but It is not that obvious to me what it
> > does, I wonder if there is a way of making it more clear :confused:
>
> I didn't know that it did anything, and when I pressed it, i don't know
> what I'm looking at... My vote - nuke it.

The intent is to provide a way to give more information about any
particular resource to see if it is worth pursuing so that a user does
not have to load each remote page to see what it is about. Whether
or nor this particular implementation serves that goal is another
matter.

--
Bill Guindon (aka aGorilla)

30

Hi,

I have just found that currently David Alan Black was the only English
speaking staff in the www-editors. James Britt and Chad Fowler were
members, but I think their accounts were vanished at the "site crash"
last year.

David, Chad, and James, can you organize recruiting a few more
submitter?

Sure. By the way, who should I contact to get my access issues
staightened out?

Thanks,

James

···

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:07:30 +0900, Yukihiro Matsumoto <matz@ruby-lang.org> wrote:

                                                       matz.

31

Wrote "James G. Britt " <ruby.talk.list@gmail.com>, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 11:49:03PM +0900:

> Quoteing rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 05:34:49PM +0900:
> > James Britt ha scritto:
> > (my two cents)
> > the [i] button is interesting, but It is not that obvious to me what it
> > does, I wonder if there is a way of making it more clear :confused:
>
> I didn't know that it did anything, and when I pressed it, i don't know
> what I'm looking at... My vote - nuke it.

The intent is to provide a way to give more information about any
particular resource to see if it is worth pursuing so that a user does
not have to load each remote page to see what it is about. Whether
or nor this particular implementation serves that goal is another
matter.

Just trying to give useful feedback... and I don't understand what the
info is. It looks kindof like a snippet of cvs log, but I can't
decipher.

> I like the overall layout a lot more. The stuff I want is more
> prominent, suggestions:
>
> RAA and rubyforge should be on top bar

I don't see how they are immediately relevant to Ruby documentation or the RDP.

I misunderstood your post. from the context I thought you were proposing
this as possible ruby-lang.org front page.

I think it is a lot nicer than current ruby-lang front-page, but missing
a few useful links, those above.

> nuke the ads, why do we need ads on ruby-lang.org?

Money.

Again, just my opinion, but going to ruby-lang.org and seeing a slew of
perl & python ads down the side yesterday (mustve been triggered by
association of ruby with "scripting language", today there is only one
other scripting language, and three asian translation links,) was weird.

Of course, I'm not paying for the sites, and I'd rather have the site
with ads than no site at all, so if the money is needed, there you go.

See comment below on relative size of google ad and ruby-lang.org's
content bar, though. Your beta page has more content than google, unlike
ruby-lang.

> at bottom of page, add the "news" section that is now the core
> of ruby-lang.org's page

There is so little news that it isn't worth featuring on the main page
anymore. People interested in news from the site would do far better
to get it from an RSS feed.

My comment was assuming that this page was offered as replacement for
ruby-lang.org.

The fact that most of the ruby-lang.org is take up by a blog that would
be better read by RSS, and that the google ad is about the same size as
the content listing on the left, and that I have to search through the
small type for anything I've ever wanted, is something I don't like
about the ruby-lang.org site.

So, if any are going to work an a redesign, and are interested in user
comments, the above are mine.

> all the more... buttons end in an internal error, intended?

See my previous posting where I say that most links do not work
(unless you're talking about JavaScript or WEBrick errors). Most of
those will behave as they do on the current ruby-doc site.

"most" doesn't say which should or should not work. If those links are
not intended to be working yet, thats cool, if they are thought to work
by you, just letting you know they don't work for me.

Cheers,
Sam

···

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:37:14 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@uniserve.com> wrote:

--
Sam Roberts <sroberts@certicom.com>

32

There is general agreement that Ruby web site is in need of improvement.
After encouragement from Matz, we created a RubyForge project and mailing
list to collaborate on making this a reality.

If you want to participate, please subscribe to the mailing list:

  http://rubyforge.org/mail/?group_id=556

Also, we just found out that there is a group in Japan who also started a
project to work on this last month. We hope to collaborate with them so
that, between us, we can put the best possible face on Ruby.

After a day of getting the subscriptions in place we can talk about how to
proceed.

Curt

33

Francis Hwang wrote:
...

Oh, one other thing: Personally, I think iframes look pretty awful, unless you can guarantee that they'll never scroll. Trying to do what you're doing, going without will take more work -- you'd probably end up parsing del.icio.us's info directly in Javascript, I think -- so maybe it's not really worth it to make it pretty.

There are no frames. This is CSS + XHTML + JavaScript.

The data comes from a MySQL instance on the ruby-doc server; I fetch RSS from del.icio.us every few hours or so. The page uses XmlHttpRequest to make calls back to the server

Having the data local gives far more flexibility. Plus it avoids burdening the del.icio.us site.

Thanks again for offering ruby-doc,

My pleasure!

James

34

gabriele renzi wrote:

James Britt ha scritto:

...

The tricky part is providing enough information to a new user as to what that little icon is for without that same information just getting in the way once a user is no longer new. Maybe mouse-over pop-up help. Something, anyway.

I'd just add a tiny box on the right with "link info" on top and initially filled with "click on the [i] for more info on each link".

Good thought.

IMO this is
- self explanatory on usage
- does not steal space, since it uses the same of the actual approach,but..
- ..it is clear that you can get more informations, since you know there is an info box
- it is not something that will slow successive visits

Actually, I think mouse-overing is better than icon clicking, but since you're using xmlhttprequest it would probably be too much overhead.

I've considered mouse-overing, but I don't think the response time is fast enough, and if you're gliding over several items you'll end up making a fair number of requests that are just discarded after the data is returned.

<snip>

But the matter of clutter is certainly something to watch for; part of me thinks that simple links to predefined facet browsing might be better. (With sufficient JavaScript the boxes could be collapsible as well, I suppose, by default showing only topic titles linking to a full browsing page.)

this would be wonderful and would bump up the coolness-factor :slight_smile:

I'm seriously considering it. It would leave more room and reduce the clutter. Easier on the eye, and easier to direct attention to the important features.

(I've also given thought to how one could create a customized page, with just those categories of resources one prefers. Sort of like how /. lets you select among a thousand different sidebar boxes. )

James

35

I hereby recruit Chad and James, meaning they should get their
accounts reactivated :slight_smile:

David

···

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005, Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:

Hi,

In message "Re: Ruby Visual Identity Team" > on Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:49:57 +0900, benny <listen@marcrenearns.de> writes:

>> Ruby's online presence is much more about functionality. For example,
>> when I look at ruby-lang.org my first thought is not that the site has
>> the wrong colors or fonts, but that the last post to the front page was
>> in December ... which would make a newcomer think that Ruby is sleepy
>> little language, and nothing of interest has happened to it in the last
>> two months.
>maybe we could reuse the Ruby Weekly News as news items on ruby-lang.org

I have just found that currently David Alan Black was the only English
speaking staff in the www-editors. James Britt and Chad Fowler were
members, but I think their accounts were vanished at the "site crash"
last year.

David, Chad, and James, can you organize recruiting a few more
submitter?

--
David A. Black
dblack@wobblini.net

36

Hi,

···

In message "Re: Ruby Visual Identity Team" on Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:16:43 +0900, "James G. Britt " <ruby.talk.list@gmail.com> writes:

Sure. By the way, who should I contact to get my access issues
staightened out?

Contact www-admin _at_ ruby-lang.org with your crypted htpasswd.

              matz.

37

Sorry; I read the post too fast. The ads I'm accountable for are on
ruby-doc, not ruby-lang. They help cover some costs. Got $100 for
2004; Thanks, Google!

This is the first I've heard of ads on ruby-lang (shows how often I
vist the site, eh?)

Yes, ads on a Ruby site for P* stuff is odd, but no big deal. Sort of amusing.

James

···

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:08:08 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@certicom.com> wrote:

Wrote "James G. Britt " <ruby.talk.list@gmail.com>, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 11:49:03PM +0900:
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 22:37:14 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > Quoteing rff_rff@remove-yahoo.it, on Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 05:34:49PM +0900:
I misunderstood your post. from the context I thought you were proposing
this as possible ruby-lang.org front page.

I think it is a lot nicer than current ruby-lang front-page, but missing
a few useful links, those above.

> > nuke the ads, why do we need ads on ruby-lang.org?
>
> Money.

38

> > nuke the ads, why do we need ads on ruby-lang.org?
>
> Money.

Again, just my opinion, but going to ruby-lang.org and seeing a slew of
perl & python ads down the side yesterday (mustve been triggered by
association of ruby with "scripting language", today there is only one
other scripting language, and three asian translation links,) was weird.

??

Where are the ads on ruby-lang? I don't see any!

Douglas

39

Thanks, and I agree that I wasn't all that specifc about what does or
does not work.

Everything takes longer than expected, even taking into account
Hofstadter's Law. But given the nature of the discussion I wanted to
at least show something.

James

···

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:08:08 +0900, Sam Roberts <sroberts@certicom.com> wrote:

"most" doesn't say which should or should not work. If those links are
not intended to be working yet, thats cool, if they are thought to work
by you, just letting you know they don't work for me.

40

James G. Britt wrote:

···

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:07:30 +0900, Yukihiro Matsumoto > <matz@ruby-lang.org> wrote:

Hi,

I have just found that currently David Alan Black was the only English
speaking staff in the www-editors. James Britt and Chad Fowler were
members, but I think their accounts were vanished at the "site crash"
last year.

David, Chad, and James, can you organize recruiting a few more
submitter?

I'd be willing to volunteer to assist wherever I could for this David, Chad and James. If you are interested in my volunteering efforts just contact me off list.

Zach