New www.FreeBSD.org front page graphics layout FreeBSD
Status: Closed Time to complete: 120 hrs Mentors: Wojciech A. Koszek, Glen Barber, Jakub Klama Tags: homepage, HTML, design, FreeBSD, web

Description of a task

Current page of The FreeBSD Project doesn't meet our expectations. We think new page layout must be created. New page must meet all new design goals and usability metrics. New page must be beautiful.

Page should conform all Web 2.0 style standards. It must be minimalistic, yet very practical. It must contain one drop-down menu with most popular options. Additionally, it must contain columns of the most crucial information for users (like the current one, but better).

Screen space consumption must be exploited. In the perfect case page would take 100% width of the available space or be created with 12-column 960px template.

For inspiration, take a look at:

http://www.oracle.com
http://www.opera.com

Our page COULD look similar.  These are just examples of sites considered to be

relatively decent (they hold lots of content, yet are easy to browse throught)

Ideal candidate would study Jacob Nielsen web page on web usability:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

You should read all articles in bold font.

Uploaded Work
File name/URL File size Date submitted
freebsd.zip 158.3 KB November 22 2011 19:08 UTC
nfw20111123.zip 152.6 KB November 23 2011 14:12 UTC
Comments
Task Claimed by Roger November 21 2011 17:20 UTC

I would like to work on this task.

Task Assigned by Wojciech Koszek November 21 2011 17:43 UTC

This task has been assigned to Roger. You have 120 hours to complete this task, good luck!

Deadline extended by Wojciech Koszek November 21 2011 17:44 UTC

The deadline of the task has been extended with 5 days and 0 hours.

Contact information by Wojciech Koszek November 21 2011 19:06 UTC

Let me or Glen or Jakub know how can we contact you.

We're 'wkoszek' and 'jceel' and 'gjb' on #freebsd-soc IRC channel.

Same nicks in @freebsd.org domain for e-mails.

IRC is where you can get helpful comments in real-time.

Thanks,
Wojciech

Contact Information by Roger November 22 2011 06:59 UTC

My email is rogi23696@hotmail.com and I haven't got into the IRC channel yet, but my nick will be rogi23696 too.
This week is exams week for me but I think I'm gonna finish the work on time. I'll keep in touch with you.

Screen space by Roger November 22 2011 07:06 UTC

The graphics I'm making are not exploiting all the screen space in 1366-768px resolution but they are in 1024-768px resolution. Hope you'll like it.

Thanks for the contact, deadline can be extended by Wojciech Koszek November 22 2011 08:42 UTC

Roger,

Don't work on the task instead of your exams, please!

We can easily extend the deadline for this task if required; you can take exams first,
and work on this task later. There's no rush on our side.

1024x768 should be just fine. If you want, feel free to send us work-in-progress
sketches.

Wojciech

No problem by Roger November 22 2011 12:39 UTC

There's no problem, I think I'll have it done on Friday or before. I haven't got a lot of exams, only 2 important this week, and I have enough time to finish it on time. But thanks for the proposal! I'm writing from my high school, so I can't show you what I have done, but when I get home, I'll give you what I've done.

Current work by Roger November 22 2011 19:16 UTC

I've uploaded what I've done right now. I think it's OK for what you were asking for, but take a look at it and if you see any mistakes or anything left, I'll fix it.
I've seen one little bug, when you are looking the webpage on 1024x768px resolution mode, the menu moves a little to the right and makes the page less beautiful than on 1366-768px resolution. I haven't got any solution yet.
I've tested the webpage on Firefox 4+ and Chrome 7+.

My comments 1 by Wojciech Koszek November 22 2011 22:49 UTC

Roger,

It's a really nice start!

Very, very promising.

Drop-down - very cool and works in Opera! Language choice on the right - really nice.

The site is too dark. Can you make it lighter?

As much as I like old beastie logo I must say it's not 2011 graphics. Can you remove beastie at all? 'New to FreeBSD' balloon could get removed too. It would be fun to see your site without these elements :-)

This site will be accepted by me. Don't remove your ZIP archive. In other words: you have just completed your task.

If you want to keep working on it and polish it a bit more, please send such a signal.

Suggestion: while uploading next tasks, name your files: nfwYYYYMMDD, which stands for 'New FreeBSD Webpage YEARMONTHDAY'.

Wojciech

Thanks by Roger November 23 2011 06:38 UTC

I'm here for learning, so I'll apply these changes and then mark the task as complete. But, in my opinion, I really like beastie, it makes the site more sympathetic for newbies. But if you want to get it off, it's your choice.
Thank you anyways, I'll make the changes when I get back of school.

Update by Roger November 23 2011 14:18 UTC

I've updated the changes. They are on file "nfw20111123.zip". Now the background is lighter (using #be0000 instead of #8e0000) and I've put a gradient in the top of the webpage for more modern-looking. I've removed all the FreeBSDs balloons and made the logo with styled text. I haven't removed beastie because I think it atracts a lot new users. I'm gonna mark the task as complete, but you can ask me to do more changes, if you want.

Ready for review by Roger November 23 2011 14:19 UTC

The work on this task is ready to be reviewed.

Looks really nice! by Wojciech Koszek November 23 2011 14:44 UTC

Ok Roger.

I do agree this task is indeed completed.
You're more than fine to continue improving your website! Let's continue conversation
over e-mail.

This GCIN task is accepted! (This is my first accepted task too!)

Regards,

Wojciech

Task Closed by Wojciech Koszek November 23 2011 14:49 UTC

Congratulations, this task has been completed successfully.