[Koha-devel] Vote NOW for the Koha Community Website Theme

[Jerry Van Baren]

Joshua Ferraro wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 3:28 AM, MJ Ray <mjr at phonecoop.coop> wrote:

[snip]

>>  Can we put the Plone site into the long grass until after 3.0 is out
>>  and we've a few deployments under our belt, please?  You say you've
>>  not got time to work on it or run a normal vote, we've not had time to
>>  convert the current design, I doubt many people have got time to learn
>>  how to edit Plone just now and kea isn't that much worse.
> To edit a plone site, you click on edit. It sounds like the skin2 site hasn't
> had the user profiles set up the way that koha.org will.
> 
> MJ, you're the only one to raise an objection to plone and suggest that we
> should delay the website update -- that's hardly concensus. The multi-lingual
> needs of our community alone are serious incentive to get this finished. As
> I've stated in the past, there are some folks who have been waiting to have
> a koha.org in their language for YEARS.
> 
> It sounds like you and paul prefer aspects of the current koha.org design,
> but I haven't heard any specifics yet. It's very possible we could include
> those aspects into the final plone skin. Either of you care to elaborate on
> what it is about the current design that you like?

What I heard Paul say was "colors" and "shapes".  To quote:

> Note also that I understand the interest of Plone. But I think at this 
> moment, that the design (colors, round squares, blue/white/green...) are 
> better than the 3 proposals. So I wonder if we could not keep the design 
> AND switch to plone.

(...and I have to apologize for going down the rabbit trail of CSS and 
layout - the poll explicitly states "Focus on the graphical aspects of 
the web design such as color, style, and fonts.").

Color:
------
I understand that color styles/preferences change over time, but skin #2 
is simply UGLY in my unenlightened view.

Skin #1 is based on a little darker shade of green than koha.org and 
little, if any, of the blue.  I see the green as the same basic color as 
koha.org.

Skin #3 is a "brighter" (lighter) shade than koha.org, and uses both the 
green and the blue.  Again, I see the same basic colors, different 
shade.  It also isn't using the gradient on the blocks of color.

Style:
------
Skin #1 has the rounded box look like koha.org, although the layout is 
quite different - koha.org's top "box" is a fully rounded stand-alone 
block where Skin #1 the top part is a full width black banner.  I like 
Skin #1's effect somewhat better, but cannot justify why.  (I've 
previously commented on Skin #1's (and koha.org's) limitations on 
reflowing text and rescaling the header as the window gets bigger or 
smaller - I believe this is driven by the round edge graphics approach 
used to make the rounded boxes.)

Skin #2 has a very spartan, square box look to me.  UGLY.

Skin #3 is angular, but not the "smack you in the face with square 
boxes" look of #2.  I actually prefer this of the three.  My bias is 
that I'm more of a Nokia N800 kinda guy than an iPhone kinda guy 
(utilitarian rather than stylin').

Fonts:
------
I cannot see any difference in fonts.

Other:
------
Plone can give registered users a choice of skins.  All four (and more) 
skins could theoretically be supported, but that obviously adds to 
initial and maintenance costs.

My personal take: Anything but #2.

Best regards,
gvb