New Spring site design, I need your feedback.

[Tim Blokdijk]

I have been toying with the Spring logo today what do you guy's think of it now?
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/spring-site12/
Look at bla.bla..site11 for the old logo.

I also really dig it that someone translated the header in Polish and that the German header is redone (I suck at German). Still understand that I like to get feedback on the translation system itself at this point.

A lesser nice thing is that management (at work) decided I should not spend to much time on educational projects like this as we need a planning tool at work. I promised to have a simple planning something done in two months..
So I have to get the Spring site done soon, I expect that I will be cutting corners to get there.

[hunterw]

u should remake from scratch

[smoth]

The table borders and heading bullets look amateurish. I think the design can do without them.

The title bar does not span on large resolutions.

the tabs with links to wiki etc look equally amateurish. Probably some solid cells or a solid looking bar, not dissimilar from the current site.

I hate to use the word amateurish but that is the best one I could devise.

[cong06]

I have been toying with the Spring logo today what do you guy's think of it now?

I like it better.
Nice work.

[Neddie]

Tim, I'll have a full write-up of my feedback when I have the time. I'm running the test site through a very small focus group to get an impression of what needs to be done, but it doesn't sound good, thus far.

[very_bad_soldier]

Sorry Tim, but in my opinion that logo looks awful...

EDIT:
Just had some spare time and tried a logo for myself. I know its not great but what about something like this:
http://dronezone.de/ta_logo.png

[zwzsg]

I'm pretty sure there is an Y in physics.

Maybe on forum posts it's ok to be more lax, but it's very important to take care of spelling on eye-catching keyword on the main front page. Oh and in the introduction, http://spring.unknown-files.com should be clickable. Well, any link should be clickable as a matter of fact.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Oh, unexpected feedback

@very_bad_soldier:
It's a nice stab at it yes, I don't think it's better but I would like to see you try some more, I might try to give my logo a more orange, blank, white look (when I have time for it again). Also changing the shape is something I never experimented with.

@zwzsg:
You are absolutely right!
Go to http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/spring ... lation.php
From top to bottom select: index, English - English, Development
Press "Continue"
Then you would be interested in the introduction_text: and feature5: sections.
Fill in your messageboard username at the bottom and press "process translation".
(The password field is not required at this time.)

What I try to imply with this is that the actual text that will be shown on the site (for any language) is not going to be the webmasters (my) responsibility, we will need site language maintainers for that.

---

Let me update you people on the things that are happening atm with the site as progress is not that visible now. Fnordia has set up a development environment (a test site) on the spring server, I'm still working on a few configuration things with content-negotiation before this site is fully functional, Fnordia had to upgrade from php4 to php5 for this and we ran into some miscommunication about the connection details.. bla bla.
Me and AF have been mailing about cooperation for the past weeks and I have been hard at work to produce some good documentation to make teamwork on the site more easy. See https://taspring.clan-sy.com/svn/spring ... tation.pdf for some of the procedural documentation work that I did. It still lacks much stuff like the way site translations maintainers would work. I consider this procedural infrastructure the most important aspect of the "new site" as it would allow continued development, so if people would for example have a idea about the logo or a remark about the spelling there would also be some (simple as possible) procedure to follow to have it improved/fixed. Preferably by the person himself as that attracts new contributors.

[DemO]

Tim, nice work so far I'm impressed with your progress on the site, you've made a considerable contribution here and I'm sure we all appreciate the work you have done and the progress you have made on this site to date.

Keep up the good work.

One thing though. I feel its worth commenting on the graphical aspects of the site you've made so far. Personally, from what you've given us to check out so far, I think that you are not the best candidate to work on the graphical content of this site. The main area that your attempt is lacking in is graphically IMO. I don't think you are adept enough with photo editing software and knowledge of how to make a site LOOK visually appealing. I may be wrong, perhaps you haven't given it much effort, but if you think that your logo and the general visual quality of this site is good, I have to disagree. To appeal to first time viewers, I feel it is important to have a site that is strong graphically. This means an overall consistent, clean, sharp and aesthetically pleasing site.

Perhaps you could search for someone to make a nice looking template which you could use for your site?

[zwzsg]

Indeed pretty easy to modify. Let's really hope that Spring frontpage won't be defaced by russian spambot every 2 mins.

[ralphie]

I agree with Demo. You obviously know your stuff on the backend, but the front end needs a designer not a developer

[Tim Blokdijk]

@DemO & @ralphie:
I could give the graphics more effort and you be surprised how much effort already went into it but I would *love* it if someone with graphics skills would pick up on it. The site is in svn, including all source (gimp & blender) files so you can involve yourself if you want to do so. Problem is that as far as I know the only real alternative candidate for the graphics so far is AF.
I mean very_bad_soldier had some spare time to toy with a new logo (and I absolutely like him to do that some more) but to really make a difference you would have to dedicate some real time to it. I mean, read the documentation, work with svn, make plans, discus them. etc. I'm hard at work to get some procedures in place to make the site development process more transparent so involving yourself in it would be relatively easy for (non-)developers but it will still require people to step up to do it.

@zwzsg
Yes, lets throw in the Russian spam bots.. your just avoiding the point now. Better polish up those writing skills..

[AF]

You already have a photoshop file and a png version of a new logo sitting in your mailbox for quite a while now taken from the newer banners from my old joomla based proposal styled on the one in the current banner but better.

Also talking about how exactly the users are going to be organised into maintaining translation after the site is finished may not be needed to be sorted out in full as ther sites not finished and I fear that we have enough bureaucratic red tape already. Its a website for a small open source community not the European agricultural policy, lots of documentation drives numerous people away when it comes to things like this.

In the mean time development can expect to be stalled for a month while fnordia is away.

[Tim Blokdijk]

I know about the logo you send me, the problem we ran into was that I can't work with Photoshop files (and you won't work with GIMP) so I'm still trying to find a practical way around that problem. I will get around to improving the logo at some time maybe we could even have a design competition for it like sws did for the Imperial Headquarters? It might get some more people interested in the graphics side of the site.

And organizing the way to work is absolutely needed as we have "zero" bureaucratic red tape at this point, everybody is just doing something and nobody is responsible for anything. This works aright to some degree but you can't scale that effectively.
If someone's going to dedicate a week of late after work evenings to translate the site in their local language he/she would like to be sure the end result is actually going to be used. Nothing guarantees this now, people just don't trust that enough to spend that amount of time on something.
Just like you like to have your logo properly evaluated, at this moment right now it's all up to me and my spare time, there is nothing in place to work around me, you need those processes to keep things running in parallel and to prevent me from becoming a bottleneck in site development.

And that comparison with an European agricultural policy is just bullshit, try to make a real argument.

The advantage of good documentation is that you can point people to a specific sub-section without having to explain everything to each person over and over.

Development won't stall for a month.. and Tobi is going on vacation. I did not pick up on Fnordia taking one. Still if so, site development is not dependent on him. If I would take a vacation right now then development would stall.

Try to take on a positive attitude towards this.

[AF]

my logo looks better on the darker background rathe than this lighter oen so see next post

[AF]

Try not to percieve it as 'bullshit' but rather as 'light humour', as I so often say, always imagine a 'lololol' after each of my posts.

However the current system you propose doesnt make clear the approval process, so I assume all parties must have no objection to the change. If one party is absent temporarily then no progress can continue.

There is also the matter of trust in ones abilities and at what level it applies. I dont want to have to start a thread, outline a plan and wait for everyones approval, submit an action plan, write patch and wait for commit, if I want to tweak the blend effects on a logo or correct a spelling mistake.

With regards to the logo comeptition I believe it would be foolish. SWS competition for the imperial base building required modelling knowledge or decent design ideas, however any tom dick and harry can make a logo. Look at the logo page in the gallery from the last logo competition. People lack any thought or idea on how a logo should work and instead work towards creating a prety image. You wont get a logo out fo a competition, just a set of pretty images made using old versions of photoshop and paintshop pro from people wanting to put their mark on the spring banner.

We have a logo already. My thoughts are that it isnt being expressed correctly and its bad usage degrades it. Work with what is on offer and move past that. The png I sent you has all the alpha layers to work as a layer in any image editing package, and the psd I sent you should work, the blend effects arent complex they should be easy to recreate.

However at the moment its the best we've got and I suggest we make do with our current resources, especially when changes can be made so easily should a superior logo arrive at a later date. Indeed some would argue mine is better than yours even without the blend effects creating the faint white aura, and the png I sent you can easily be dropped into place over the existing image with little effort.



My only improvement would be that I increase the size of the word spring as has been done in the logo in the current site banner.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Well, 'light humour' is all fine and all but I have been working hard on this and for a large part to make it possible for you to work in a productive manner. And on -equal- terms with me and other developers. Having it compared by you with European bureaucracy is not that funny then.
But no harm done lets move on.

There is no real "approval" process you just need "sufficient support" for your plan from the people 'involved'.
(Look at the "Development Process") If you run into problems with the people involved in the Check part and in Act you have to go back to Plan then you probably did something wrong beforehand and you should try to do this different next time.
e.g. If Fnordia would be on vacation and you have a plan you like to have feedback on you have a few ways to resolve this.
- You try to understand Fnodia's general view on things beforehand so you can make a fair assumption he would support your plan.
- You make sure to involve and get support from enough other people.
- Make a good plan that covers things from Fnodia's perspective. (bandwidth and other hardware limitations would be an example but site maintenance is another one)
- Make people more aware then normal of your plan.
- Discuss things with more people and more "in depth".
- You submit you plan before or after his vacation.
All this would help to prevent problems when he returns from vacation. (This is an example I don't know anything about Fnordia's vacation plans.)

Also once things would work this way we would have a site roadmap with broad targets so we would have a general idea about where we like to go with the site. The plans you make should already fit inside the roadmap but they flesh out the implementation details.

And the "Development Process" is for the larger implementations, you don't need plans for "a security issue, regression or minor bugs" as then we would use the "Maintenance Process" although at this point the process assumes you have write access to the production env.

I sure hope that this is just going to work at some point as I don't like the idea of having to discuss this so intensively with everybody involved.
I mean I already spend more then a day mailing with you about the use of a read-only forum now I know Tobi likes the idea of a more structured dev. processes but just like Fnordia he still needs to comment on the "general spring site documentation" document. If I need to discuss things for days with everybody this "process" stuff will take me quite a while to finish. I mean I like to improve this stuff to make it as easy to work with as possible so feel free to give some quality feedback on it but do try to work with me, don't fight it please.

[Raghna]

Really hadn't the time to read all the responses, but if you need translation into Dutch or French, I'm quite good in languages and I'd do it with pleasure. So just pm me.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Als je de Nederlandse vertaling op je kan nemen dan scheelt mij dat weer een hoop werk.
Ik kom er nog op terug!

[Drawer]

Super ugly - dont like anything about it - also the html is broken