So I made a revised layout for the mainpage that I think looks a lot better without being a radical change that will make people complain. I encorporated the new logo and made some graphical changes since we were having three different "logo" looks between the text title, the new logo, and the giant "A" that doesn't have a functional purpose.
The new layout also expands the new scores and recordings by default which I think looks nice but also serves the function of the main page as a display point for those things.
I am hoping there wasn't a separate secret project involving a major redesign for the 10th anniversary. I was thinking about just changing it and then seeing what people thought afterward but then thought that might go over poorly. I kid, I kid. Too soon?
Can I give two suggestions for the new page (does look very nice BTW!)? Could you put the "News" section at the bottom on top of the "Features" and the "About Us" below the recordings? Keep the width of these two section the same as the Featured/New Scores/New Recordings then. This way it frees up the left side then of the page then!
I kind of liked that too (putting News at the top right) and only ended up not liking it because the news section doesn't seem important enough to demand top page billing. I also thought putting news and about us at the bottom balanced the two columns out more. With NEWS at the top right, it ends up pushing the "new scores" tab below the fold so you have to scroll down to see it. Though that may also not be such an important thing for 99.99999% of visitors.
We could also drop the box formatting around NEWS and ABOUT US to help it make more visual sense being in the main column if that bothers people.
OR if we put NEWS and ABOUT US on the right we should agree on starting out a few of those boxes collapsed for some sort of balance.
I'm fine with any configurating of boxes if enough people feel strongly one way or the other.
What if we put some of the boxes on the left side and have the title and background (with the languages and the search bar) more in the center of the webpage? Just for balance as you say. Isn't Edward going to be working on a Mobile version for the site eventually?
The left sidebar already serves as a "left side" so I don't think it makes sense to move anything else to the left. Pretty soon you end up with too many squished columns.
Thanks for taking the time to try out new things - I think the new layout certainly is a step in the right direction. Some suggestions though:
Could we leave the "How to Contribute Works" below the search box - (right now it looks like a heading for the search box)?
Do we need that much space between "Sharing the world’s public domain music" and "How to Contribute Works"?
Could we have a little more space (ideally an equal amount of space on all sides, horizontally and vertically) between the boxes?
Ideally, the bottom of the lowermost boxes should be aligned?
The language links now take up a lot of prominent space (considering that each user will probably only find one or two of them interesting). Could we move them to a less prominent position somehow? Maybe at the bottom of the left side bar (like Wikipedia)?
Thanks for the good suggestions, Noqu. Made some adjustments and did some cleanup. I removed the About us section since it is already linked at the bottom and the logo comment doesn't really make sense now that the "A" has been reworked into an obscured background image. Moved News to the top right since there is enough space.
I'm not super crazy about the look of the old accordion tabs but the code for those is not part of the mediawiki css file so I can't play around with the style. With the other changes I think they look clean enough and help break up the white space a little.
Even though the language links aren't all that functional, they do reflect the international-iness of the site and it has managed to get a few people to think about contributing when they see their native language missing from the list.
Is there a way to notify all the admins about the redesign? I know people don't always check the forums regularly but might want to chime in if they knew this was going on.
You could just let Edward know about the change and he can make a banner at the top of the workpage, similar to how we had the 10th anniversary message there just recently. This way everyone will know.
Actually I was going to suggest this also, but I don't know if they will get an email notification for the forums. I always get one for the Talk pages on the main site but not here. Maybe I check a box to enable notifications? Not sure...
Also I just took a look at the small changes once again you just made. Looks better now with the News on the top right side! Although now below the languages is that white blank space (above the 'IMSLP stands for the International Music Score Library Project") and I feel we should have something here to fill the space, maybe something important new list that we haven't had before? Just thinking creatively is all...
Actually here is an idea but I don't know what you might think of this, what if we use the space for to link to the page for signing up for subscriptions?
I don't really see any space between the language links and the copyright line. But I am viewing with the default News and Features expanded and the New Scores and New Recordings collapsed. It also depends on your screen width how things get displayed. I don't really think pushing the subscription on the main page is worthwhile since users who download anything are confronted with the information anyway.
Also, I tried resizing the new wordmark and it doesn't seem to look better any larger. I suppose it could be slightly larger, but then you get the visual issue of having two logos on the screen of different sizes which is weird.
In any case it seems the rapture has already happened and we are the only two left so we can pretty much do whatever we want with the main page. I propose filling the page with click-bait headlines like "Lose pounds listening to this one weird Beethoven Sonata" or "The NSA doesn't want you to hear this Chopin etude."
Ah your right. I had all the scroll boxes opened and when they are all closed, the white space got smaller. I thought that the white space would just stay static and the scroll boxes would shrink on its own, not making the page also smaller! Maybe make the white space static and add in something still when all are open. But I guess we could keep it simple. I mean with 10 years gone by, we could have some new something in that space .
What about a listing of popular composers to put in this space? Or maybe a new listing to list minor composers. Like similar to the feature list but have like two list to have like a composer of the week and one for one of his most famous pieces for that week? Maybe in the scrollbox to also have the composer's portrait in this space? With like a small description about the piece in the space and a small description about the composer? Or use two scrollboxes? Just throwing out ideas...
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