Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[klu9]

I think the front page of the wiki could be better at presenting essential info to first-time visitors; so I've experimented with a redesign. What do you think?

Existing front page:


A redesign I did:

Edit: the above link will take you to the latest version of the page; th e original redesign can be accessed here.

It's bland but, IMHO, has several advantages over the existing one:

• doesn't overload visitor with names and links for lots of programs that are not in Puppy.
  
• has a larger number of helpful Puppy links yet without getting too confusing; they are broken into clear, logical categories.
  
• no html, just wiki code so easier to edit, hopefully

comments? suggestions?

[darrelljon]

I think languages should be along the top. And installing Flash should feature prominently as it seems to be the main thing people want to do.

[cb88]

personally I like how all the topics are equal..... and the languages section is easy to fine anyway

[craftybytes]

I like the new layout - gives proportion & viewability & better useability..

Could use a bit of colour though - maybe pale yellow/cream every alternate topic..!!

Just my 2 c's worth..

crafty.
.

[Lobster]

two other alternatives that you can edit

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LoFSandBox

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/SandBox

[klu9]

[klu9]

I know I'm the one who introduced floating boxes into the design, but the more I use them, the more they annoy me.

If I do any editing or tweaking, I never know where the boxes will be positioned. Sometimes 5 on the left, 5 on the right; sometimes 4 on the left & 6 on the right. Depends on page width & god knows what else. It's a lottery.

wikkawakkwiki tables are no good either. no linking or formatting allowed inside them.

html tables need even more coding than wikkawakkawikiwhatevathafakka, or an external html coding program (both of which defeat the point of a wiki).

So I dumped all that and went with a single "column". Guaranteed to be even blander now , but a hell of a lot easier to edit and to get an expected result.

DOWNSIDES: bland, lot of space wasted
UPSIDES: easy-peasy to edit, gets the basics in there, no surprises depending on window width/height

I wish the puppy wiki had easier, functional tables, like pbwiki.

|Here's|three|columns|
|and|three|rows|
|in|pbwiki|code|

anyways here they are:

• heading>newline>heading>newline format
  
• Bullet point format
  
• Left & right floating text boxes format which looks nice... until you try to tweak it and the boxes start popping up all over the bloody place.

[headfound]

if you want to change the color of the tables or anything, you need to link to a new .css file.
I've had a look and the code for the color of the boxes is here

[Lobster]

Raffy is the person to contact to upload css

another index type page you can edit
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/about

formatting wiki
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/FormattingRules

[raffy]

If you can send css file to me at or attach it here, that file will be in there in no time.

I've been thinking of getting easy html into the wiki pages, so your suggestions will be welcome.

[headfound]

Thanks Lobster and Raffy. I really like the layout of the 'about' page you linked to, its very clean and uncluttered!

I can easily add custom color boxes to css, I would just need to know what colors people are likely to use often (adding too much code will obviously slow page loading!).

[klu9]

wow that other About page is great; that's like a whole new wiki!
changed my main page to link to that instead of AboutPuppy.

CSS
that deals with the colours, but what about layout? is there a way to format the page into columns that won't require people to know html when they edit the content?

PS I notice that other about page and its subsequent pages are all html. When I tried to update some links using wiki code, it didn't work. Which defeats this quote from that page:

[headfound]

Css is supposed to be used to control all page formatting (but rarely is).
The html page is supposed to be plain text with calls to the css file, which contains layout and color data. Of course you can still use html code as well, but then its not compliant.
When viewing the wikki in Firefox, go to view/page style and click 'no style'. This shows the plain data without formatting.

As I said above, I can put together a css with multiple options for color and formatting if needed but it will take longer for the pages to load. Perhaps a better option would be 2 or 3 different css files with different layouts but all color options?

[Wosh]

The new appraoch is much less confusing than the current. Me I like the design of http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LoFSandBox.

But what I am really missing is a simple tree structure for the information provided. Some items can found within CategoryCategory some are found within PuppyHardware and all these topics branch from PuppyLinux.

So my suggestion is:
1. The main page should be the starting point to a table of content of the wikka with a clear structure. The Forum index is a rather good example how it could look like.

Other items of main page should be:
2. A help item how to use the wikka.
3. A link to the Forum .
4. A link to the Puppy Home Page.

But there should not be to much points diverting the user from the wikka.

The current design involves the following risks:
1. Information is not found.
2. Information is entered twice at two different points.
3. The user is distractated by topics that have not much to do with the wikka itself.

Wosh

[raffy]

LoF has been experimenting on the wiki front page, and I saw that he is having problems with RSS . The wiki's codes are still 1.1.6.0, so am not confident if the RSS will work now. I can probably upgrade to the new codes, but it will take 1-2 weeks of cautious work. And I have not used RSS yet, sorry.