Off topic: IE7 was Re: [sdiy] Digital noise source project (replacing MN5837 in Prophet 5and Monopoly)

[Tom Wiltshire]

Thanks for all the comments. The browsershots.org site is indeed a  
marvel.

What it shows me is that there are problems with various versions of  
IE (although IE8 finally gets things right) but that the site is fine  
on Firefox, Opera, Safari, Konqueror and others.

Andre's comments about usability and keyboard navigation are mostly  
fair - although I'd have to say your taste in websites might be a  
little "old school", Andre! Most people expect to be able to navigate  
to any major page in a site from any other major page, without  
constant use of the back button to get them to the top level again.

I'll look into moving the menu below the content to make keyboard  
navigation easier and to avoid shoving the content a long way down on  
small screens. I might also adopt Seb's approach and offer a  
different "print friendly" stylesheet.

Finally, sorry for using up the bandwidth with totally non-synth  
stuff. There are much better forums for discussion of web design  
issues. Wasn't my intention, but you know the way things go...

Regards,
Tom


On 22 May 2008, at 09:07, Andre Majorel wrote:

> On 2008-05-21 17:27 -0700, Ben Lincoln wrote:
>
>> http://browsershots.org/
>
> What a wonderful site ! I'd like to add in typical grumpy manner
> that Tom would save himself and his readers trouble by losing that
> annoying ever present navigation bar that makes his pages :
>
> 1. Harder to navigate by keyboard because you have to skip over a
>    bunch of irrelevant links to get to the few links relevant to
>    the page you are reading.
>
> 2. Harder to view and navigate on displays with less than about
>    120 characters per line. Yes such displays still exist : I have
>    a 21" monitor running at 1152 x 864 where the font choice means
>    80 characters per line so that I can read it from two metres
>    away. Also applies to browsers running on portable devices.
>
>    Seeing the page through a smaller window also compounds the
>    annoyance of having to tab through the navigation bar. The NB
>    renders twice as tall as the screen. If it scrolls to show you
>    the currently selected link, the page jumps about. If it
>    doesn't, you fly blind. Either way you lose.
>
> 3. Harder to print without wasting paper and/or ink. Let alone in
>    two columns.
>
> The magic of HTML is that *all* those issues would be
> instantaneously solved at no cost by pulling the text out of its
> td and moving the navigation links to a menu on the root page.
>
> Sorry for the public lambasting, Tom. Nothing personal. It could
> have been about anyone else's site. Like Seb's, for instance. <g>
>
> -- 
> André Majorel <URL:http://www.teaser.fr/~amajorel/>
> Do not use this account for regular correspondence.
> See the URL above for contact information.
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