Member Avatar for diafol

ANybody had a look at the new php.net beta site yet? Whaddya think?

The old site was horrible - design-wise. Why do techies leave design as an afterthought? With all the wonderful ideas out there, they stick with that 1980's feel.

Anyway, enough of that, how about the new one? Any improvement? I'd like to say 'Yay!!' But check out that ridiculous flickr strip in the footer. Did one of the devs get his 9 year old kid to spruce it up?

That aside, things seem to be a lot more organised, with a cleaner layout. Still a bit 80's though :)

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Member Avatar for |-|x

I mostly like the new design, nice and clean. It seems to be a bit easier to find stuff by navigating compared to the original as well.

I actually hadn't scrolled all the way to the bottom of a page until you mentioned the photostrip - had to check it out. Does seem somewhat out of place with the rest of the site... meh, it's not likely that I'll scroll that far very often anyway.

Must say though, I'm a little dissapointed in the heavy reliance on javascript, particularly for navigation.

Member Avatar for cereal

It's a nice restyle, but I would really like a bit more contrast on text.

Member Avatar for broj1

The old site realy was a dinosaur but I got so used to it that now am getting a bit lost :-) (since it was always my prime source of information). Anyway, facelift is welcome but this is one of the sites where contents is king.

And BTW the php logo is still very eightysh, they should redesign that :-))

Edited by broj1
Member Avatar for diafol

I agree with the contrast thing - it's very stark. Although I can't criticize, plenty of my own projects have had that 'erk' look :(

@hearth

I'm in favour of anything that makes the site swisher as long as it's easier to use. It's an interesting nav feature, but I'm not sure if I like it or not. Jury's still out.

The code snippets seem a lot livelier with the prettified look. However, clicking the 'add note' button, you're taken to a full page text of poorly formatted big size sans-serif. That's a killer. They could have at least used different fonts for the headings / body text. I don't know whether it's line spacing or not, but I find it difficult to read.

Member Avatar for |-|x

@broj too true... a part of me will certainly miss the relic that has been my accomplice on many a project over the last decade or so.

@Al That is a hefty block of text, I agree, though it bothered me little (I didn't read most of it, but it didn't bother me). On the other hand I've noticed several occurences of their syntax highlighting being incorrect, which I feel is vital for the type of site it is.

No doubt much of this will be improved before it goes "live" anyway.

Member Avatar for pixelsoul

I like it for the most part. I agree with the contrast comment though, it is pretty blinding to stare at for too long. It looks like I will have to make a new greasemonkey script for a "midnight" themed version of the site.

I can see that photo strip being on the front page of the site, but not on every single page of the site.

Member Avatar for diafol

They should take a look how frameworks make it

I have to admit I've never been keen on that pull-down tab menu. Personal thing maybe. With such a wealth of excellent design (and absolutely awful design) out there, I'm amazed that an important site such as php.net didn't rope in a few of their front-end and design buddies to give them a hand. It just looks like a site that a developer would produce - no offence to all devs reading this. :)

Member Avatar for Zagga

From a usability point of view the menu is horrible. Try increasing the text size of the page until one of the menu items overflows onto a new line, then try to select that menu item.

It did need a facelift though, and there are bound to be issues with a beta version.

Member Avatar for diafol

I just tried it on my HTC smartphone. Urgh. Looks like the main site. Not responsive - massive horizontal scrolling - not good :(

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