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A Sha
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Thursday 23 October 2003 3:03:23 am
Also related to this is that the "Author" field in the forum index uses 3 rows. If this were changed to only use 1 or 2 rows (maybe adjusting to the screen width) then many more index entries could be displayed at once. This would make the index page much better for looking through entries and finding what you want.
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A Sha
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Thursday 23 October 2003 4:51:34 am
I looked at the html and noticed that it has a fixed table width of 750 pixels. This is probably the cause of the width problems. Using a fixed constant like this really isn't appropriate for html that is going to be used in the context that these pages are used in, by such a wide audience.
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Gunnstein Lye
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Thursday 23 October 2003 8:06:12 am
Limiting the width of the page design is a design decision. We could of course have used the whole width of the screen, but that leads to other problems. It is hard to read very long lines of text. I think one should try to set the page width so that the lines of text are no longer than in a normal book. (I did not design ez.no, these are my personal opinions.)
Regards
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A Sha
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Thursday 23 October 2003 2:09:40 pm
I can understand some of the reasons why someone might choose to have a fixed pixel-width design. I think that doing so is a classic web page design mistake. I'll bet that the W3C guidelines even talk about this, or something very similar. The problem is that not everyone uses the same font size. Some people like to use large fonts, either because they have disabilities, because they have their DPI set to a higher-than-anticipated number, or because they just plain like larger letters. With large fonts and a fixed-width screen (750 pixels), there are not enough words in a row. In fact it is painful to read the documentation at ez.no in this situation, because there aren't very many words per row, e.g., 5. It looks terrible.
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Alex Jones
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Thursday 23 October 2003 3:00:28 pm
This is a topic that is repeatedly brought up on Web design and development lists, forums and sites in general. Neither side of the equation can definitively claim evidence that proves that either fixed width is better, or a fluid text area is better. While many of us have read up on previous print readability studies published over the last few centuries, many of the findings of those studies have been proven by newer studies to be questionable when applied to text on the screen. In turn, these newer studies have also been called in to question. It is a matter of opinion. Even more importantly, it is a matter of application. Some sites do well to use fixed designs, others benefit from fluid layouts. Believing that there is but a single option is far too limiting, and ultimately impacts the quality of the work produced. One note, the W3C does not care how we decide to design our sites. And they shouldn't. That isn't their purpose. The W3C creates technical guidelines, specifications and a few tools for the development community, but they do not define design guidelines. One possible solution would be to offer two style sheets, one with a fixed layout, the other that is fluid. But, that would require re-working the eZ publish site. It may not fit within the desires of the designer, and eZ systems as a whole. Now, after I say all of that... I personally would like to see the eZ site use a fluid design. I believe the site's content is well suited to a fluid design. I apologize, if this comes off as a harsh response, it is not meant to be. I promise. :) Alex P.S. It is good to see so many suggestions from you A. Sha. :)
Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]
<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
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A Sha
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Thursday 23 October 2003 4:02:39 pm
*Re: Use Full Screen Width - 24/10/2003 12:00 am, Alex Jones*
> It is a matter of opinion. Even more importantly, it is a matter of
> application. Some sites do well to use fixed designs, others benefit
> from fluid layouts. Believing that there is but a single option is far
> too limiting, and ultimately impacts the quality of the work produced. We may be getting onto a bit of a tangent here, but it seems that the sites that do well with fixed designs have a set of users that are all using the same parameters for their browser and monitor. The list of such sites would be pretty small, I think (except for sites that have very few users). I am not too knowledgeable about studies about the benefits of fixed-pixel web site designs. I understand the obvious benefit that it is easier in many cases for the designers to design the pages, and the obvious drawback of inflexibility. It sounds like you might know more theory about this.
> One note, the W3C does not care how we decide to design our sites. And
> they shouldn't. That isn't their purpose. The W3C creates technical
> guidelines, specifications and a few tools for the development community,
> but they do not define design guidelines. There is a goal/guideline that html be used more for expressing content and less for the presentation of the content. This is an essential part of what html is supposed to be. Following this guideline would avoid situations like the one at the eZPublish site where only half of the screen is used. It would also avoid the very common situation like the one at phpnuke.org, where the web site does not respect the browser's text size. (Happily, eZPublish does seem to respect the browser's text size.) When a page's width is expressed in html as a fixed number of pixels, that is an expression of presentation information, not content information. That is, the designer is using html in a way for which html wasn't designed.
> I apologize, if this comes off as a harsh response, it is not meant to be.
> I promise. :) I do not mind at all -- in fact I am happy to have a constructive discussion. > P.S. It is good to see so many suggestions from you A. Sha. :) Thanks!
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Alex Jones
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Friday 24 October 2003 6:59:25 am
Indeed we are off on a tangent, but as I am enjoying the discussion I will continue down the line until I am told to stop. ;)
[quote]
There is a goal/guideline that html be used more for expressing content and less for the presentation of the content. This is an essential part of what html is supposed to be. Following this guideline would avoid situations like the one at the eZPublish site where only half of the screen is used. It would also avoid the very common situation like the one at phpnuke.org, where the web site does not respect the browser's text size. (Happily, eZPublish does seem to respect the browser's text size.)
When a page's width is expressed in html as a fixed number of pixels, that is an expression of presentation information, not content information. That is, the designer is using html in a way for which html wasn't designed.
[/quote] Actually HTML was created quite specifically to provide presentational recommendations. If it wasn't we would not have tags such as the headers, bold/strong, italic/emphasis and the like. Now, the use of tables for layout is indeed an improper use of HTML, but until recently it has been the only option. As long as we are using HTML, or for that matter, XHTML we will be using HTML for presentational purposes. We cannot truly separate content from presentation with these two technologies. We can get pretty close though, especially with the introduction of style sheets. Once it is safe to shift to the use of pure XML and XSL we will be able to separate content from presentation, but to the user they will still be fused as one as they are presented in a browser, or other device (PDA, phone etc.). Again, I do not see how the HTML specs relate to the width of the screen or the content area on screen. The points you bring up are a matter of usability and readability, not of technical specifications or guidelines. One other note, different browsers treat text sizes differently. While IE will not allow you to resize fonts set with pixel values, Mozilla based browsers and Opera will shift these same fonts to whatever size you wish.
[tip type=web development tools]
I highly recommend you give Mozilla a try. In addition to the font sizing capabilities there are an amazing amount of plug-ins available for the browser providing Web development tools. Some recommendations:
- Mozilla or Firebird Browsers > http://www.mozilla.org
- PNH Tool Bar > http://placenamehere.com/pnhtoolbar/
- Firebird Extensions > http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/
[/tip]
[quote]
I do not mind at all -- in fact I am happy to have a constructive discussion.
[/quote] As am I, and as I do not work with other Web colleagues these days, it is nice to have a discussion of this type! Alex
Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]
<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
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A Sha
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Friday 24 October 2003 9:35:53 am
> Actually HTML was created quite specifically to provide presentational
>recommendations. If it wasn't we would not have tags such as the headers, bold/strong,
> italic/emphasis and the like. I do not think this is true. I think that bold/italic were created as temporary workarounds and may now be viewed as a obsolescent, or even as a mistake to have introduced into the language. The "strong/emphasis" tags are the content-oriented way of expressing these characteristics (I think). Style sheets are in wide enough use now that it might be safe to use them in a widely-used product.
> Again, I do not see how the HTML specs relate to the width of the screen or the content
> area on screen. The points you bring up are a matter of usability and readability, not of
> technical specifications or guidelines. If the html specs say, "use html for content, not presentation", and html is being used here to indicate presentation, then the html spec is relevant. What I am claiming is that the source of the problem is the use of html to represent presentation information (750 pixels, perhaps). Using a different browser might or might not solve the full-screen problem for me, but switching is likely to introduce other problems. For example I used to use Netscape and it crashed several times per day. Only reluctantly did I switch to IE several years ago. I am not going to switch browsers every time my browser doesn't handle a particular situation the way I want. All browsers have their quirks. It is not practical to switch every time a quirk is encountered. And regardless of what I do, thousands of other users are going to continue using IE to access the eZPublish site.
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Alex Jones
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Friday 24 October 2003 10:52:27 am
Bold and italic are indeed deprecated, in favor of the strong and emphasis tags in general. My point on that matter though, was the fact that the use of any of these tags inherently affects presentation unless a style sheet is used to remove those presentational aspects. Until a full shift to XML is in place, where we can create our own tags and choose to style them how we wish, we will not separate content from presentation. I personally would love to see eZ publish shift to a pure CSS layout, both on their corporate site and in the product. As Paul F. can attest I am a major proponent of CSS and I have built sites with it for a number of years now. But, a switch to CSS wouldn't affect the initial point concerning the width of the content area. Whether CSS or tables are used, the content area could easily be set to 750px wide if the designer so chooses. And the user would not be able to resize it, just as they cannot resize a data cell set to 750 pixels wide. I started writing a long passage concerning HTML specs and the like before I realized that I am getting pretty pedantic about the variants of (X)HTML and the like. :) So, instead I will acknowledge that we both have the same overall goals: separation of content from presentation. I think we just have different views as to where that separation takes place. Regarding browsers, I fully understand your desire to stick with IE. Lord knows I've done the browser switch far too many times. In this case I don't think a switch would make any difference in regards to the ez.no site. But if you have a few minutes to kill sometime, you may want to play around with Mozilla. It is a good browser and very helpful on the development side of things. Plus it is nice to test some of the options available in the later CSS and (X)HTML specs that are not supported by IE. Alex
Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]
<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
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A Sha
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Friday 24 October 2003 2:43:15 pm
My point is that this is a problem that can be fixed at the eZPublish web site by changing the html in a way that uses html more for content than for presentation, which is how html was intended to be used. The fact that html contains elements that can be used for presentation purposes does not mean that html is intended to be used that way. I think it would be great if eZPublish used CSS too. But for now I would be happy if they fixed the fixed-width issue at their home page. And, hey, it's their product -- if they want their web site about web software to render strangely on lots of displays that is their decision. If and when I get my web site up and running I will certainly test it with different browsers.
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Alex Jones
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Monday 27 October 2003 6:43:51 am
Well, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I don't see it as a "problem" I see it as a design decision. While you do not like it, others, including the designer do. ;) Frankly, the site doesn't render strangely at different browser resolutions, it renders exactly the same, exactly as intended. I would be willing to bet that they have tested it on different browsers as well. At this point I'm not going to dive back into the purpose of HTML discussion. :) All in all this has been an enjoyable conversation, but I think it has reached an impasse. Alex
Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]
<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
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A Sha
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Monday 27 October 2003 12:12:15 pm
I guess I have two things to add. Have you actually seen the rendering so that you understand how annoying it is? There is no question in my mind that this is a use of html for presentation and not content. This is unchanged by whether this was done as a design decision or an implementation decision. And you guys already take pains to avoid using fixed-pixel widths by automatically resizing your buttons (something that I think is great)! I am at a bit of a loss to understand why one use of fixed-pixel-width sizes is ok whereas another is not.
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Jakob Vad Nielsen
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Tuesday 18 November 2003 12:31:40 pm
I will not go into this heavy discussion about standards and so on, but the people argumenting about a fluid design have some very good points. I think the main problem here is that eZ tryes to put everything into the same design, which is _not_ a good idea. Some content just doesn't fit into the design chosen. Examples of this is the forum-, and documentation pages. My personal opinion is that eZ has to redesign the forum area, and the documentation area. It's very hard to navigate, and I just keep scrolling and scrolling. Separate the market pages from the developer pages, and give us a stream lined, easy to navigate, fullwidth design. Remember some of us are scrolling through these pages several times every day.
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