Re: [PHP-DEV] New Site From: Ron Chmara (ron <email protected>)
Date: 11/26/00

Colin Viebrock wrote:
> [Sun, 26 Nov 2000] Simon Roberts said:
> > I agree, (plus get-user-notes could be abused by site users) but didn't want
> > to add a few hundred files to CVS without the blessing of whoever really
> > maintains the site. Plus, it needs the cron job, but that could be triggered
> > remotely for now.
> Before too many people do too much work on this, I think it might be wise
> to look at the website in general and the mirroring policy in particular
> for PHP.NET.

Yay! Redesign time.
My current issues:
Flags separate manual section header and section items (? Intentional ?)
Pop-up layers aren't working with NN6 (an NN 6 issue)
Search rankings? (Should function listings be at the top?)
View source not working in all languages. see:
http://www.php.net/source.php?page_url=/manual/hu/function.pdf-show-xy.php
No low-bandwidth version for non-manual pages.
Left bar gets in the way of content space on some pages:
http://www.php.net/manual/function.mcrypt-module-get-algo-supported-key-sizes.php

> It's been at least 2 years, I think, since designing the current version
> of the site, and (while I really like some aspects of it) there are things
> that could use some improvements. For example:
> - Load Time/Design: the current site is quite graphic-intensive. Not
> only does the site take quite a while to download for people on
> dial up, but it's probably quite the bandwidth hog for the popular mirror
> sites.

Perhaps it's not something required by the site, but merely the implementation
of it. I count roughly 17 needed Gif's on the home page, plus 6 for the popups.
I'm currently streamlining another set of international sites with over 47
images on the home page... if it's a major problem, merely knocking off the
rounded corners would clean up the downloads a bit (down to 10 or so images).

However, it _should_ be noted that I'm in the USA, where I have 512K
running into my little apartment, so I'm a bit biased. Looking at the
front page design you have, there's already 4 gifs, so... <shrug> it
happens like that. A new gif here, a rollover there... it starts adding
up real fast, once the content starts getting put into place. One
thing that I think we could do to strip down on manual pages is to
convert the language flags into a language popup. As it is, it's
more focused on nations that languages, which, well, aside from
the creepy crawlies of nationist movements, isn't really that helpful
for folks who don't recognize the flag.

Examples: Flag for spain? What about mexico? If I want english, I can't
find a "english" flag, I have to use the UK flag, and so on.

> Plus, I don't feel like keeping up on the latest DHTML
> implementations from Microsoft and Netscape, so I think (cool though they
> are), the pop-ups and mouseOvers should probably go.

Latest? Latest!

(This rant brough to you by somebody who's still maintaining PHP 2 code
:) , so take it with a grain of salt)
<rant>
There comes a time in your computing history where you either have
to update, or take the risk of supporting ancient code and sounding
like a kook because you refuse to use current technologies. DHTML
is *ancient* technology, it was rolling out around the same time, IIRC,
as PHP 3 was. If you can't be bothered to use current technology,
eventually, people will not be bothered to support you.
</rant>

Now, that being said, the manual section of the site has already
slain this problem. Low-bandwidth, old school, and high-bandwidth,
bells and whistles, versions of the site would be *extremely*
easy to build from the current site, or build into a new site.
This allows folks who are on 14.4 to get the nav buttons as text,
and get a mouseover-free, layer free, site.

To me, this is more important than an issue of whether or not the
bells and whistles are new, old, bleeding edge, whatever.

> - Mirrors: I'm not completely sure, but I think a good number of our
> mirror sites are either off-line, out-of-date, or not rsyncing enough.
> Also, contact info for the mirror site admins is probably out of date.

That's a bit disturbing. We should probably have some policy guidelines
for sync frequency. The updates are _much_ shorter when done
frequently. Of course, if they _don't_ have bandwidth to spare,
being a mirror is moot anyways.

> Also, I think it would be "nice" if all mirror sites followed the
> standard naming convention of <country_code>.php.net, with www.php.net
> simply being a portal site to redirect people to their closest mirror.

Something to consider:
If the php.net dns got hosed, they all fall down. This makes the
current setup much more failure tolerant, as a zone wide dns
outage/blackhole doesn't take the entire system into the dark.

> - Updateability: it's a pain in the ass to manually edit HTML to add
> news items, new links, projects, or sites. This should be databased, then
> generated into the PHP files that get rsynced.

The counterpoint is: "it's a pain in the ass to use a database interface
just to add news items, new links, projects, or sites, HTML would be easier".
A slashdot-like section of the site would be cool, though (daily news,
enabled by databases...)

> - Advertising: love it or hate it, the possibility exists for PHP to make
> some money off of it's popularity.

Hate it. I can also sell out the sides of my car for advertising, and surf
for "free" by getting an ad-based portal, or even get a "free computer"
if I subject myself to more advertising.

The possibility also exists to make much, much, more from Microsoft to
just destroy the project..... :-)

If folks are in open-source for the money, uhm, well... heh.

> There are probably other issues that need to be addressed. I've done a
> bit of quick work coming up with a new, leaner-cleaner looking framework
> for the site, which you can see at http://newsite.php.net. Only a mock up
> of the main page is there now (so don't bother clicking on the links).

Hard for me to read at first glance (lemme guess, you surf with IE
or in a text app? I'm in NN 4.75), and it really needs to have a
space, and area, for quick links... as I spend most of my time (and
I assume the same applies for most users) in the manual area, I'd *really*
like to see some mock manual pages as part of any speculative redesigns,
at it's the most conent-heavy are we have.

Perhaps 3 good pages to work out would be....
A complex manual section header:
http://www.php.net/manual/ref.session.php

A simple manual page section:
http://www.php.net/manual/function.pdf-get-image-width.php

And a complex manual page:
http://www.php.net/manual/function.ereg-replace.php

This might point out one of my main questions about download times,
which is that our notes are much more bandwidth intensive than the
GIF's are. The GIF's are all of one download, and then a pull
from cache. The notes are new for each page.

It might also help show why some of the current design decisions
work (the half wrapping bar to show more content, prev/next
buttons/links, an image showing what manual page you are on,
etc.)

And swapping blue for lavender is fine by me, but it does have
some cultural connotations in the states. :-)

> I don't have as much spare time to commit to a redesign (and I mean
> the programming) as I'd like, so I would like to propose forming a small
> sub-list of people who are willing to work on fixing up the site.

I can offer some crtique for building internationlized sites as I'm
currently in a 14 country redesign project, and play a good devil's
advocate, but I'm happy to defer (run away from?) the actual design. :-)

-Bop 

--
Brought to you from iBop the iMac, a MacOS, Win95, Win98, LinuxPPC machine,
which is currently in MacOS land.  Your bopping may vary.

-- 
PHP Development Mailing List <http://www.php.net/>
To unsubscribe, e-mail: php-dev-unsubscribe <email protected>
For additional commands, e-mail: php-dev-help <email protected>
To contact the list administrators, e-mail: php-list-admin <email protected>