[Scummvm-devel] Fancy pantsy javascript for the downloads page

Max Horn max at quendi.de
Sun Jun 28 18:03:07 CEST 2009


Hi,

some remarks on the current download page on <http://fredrik_w.users.sourceforge.net/downloads/ 
 > (and some of them apply to the old one, too -- but since I hope  
we'll move to the new one soon, I am basing my suggestions on that ;).  
And despite my criticism below, I really like the new page a lot, and  
it's getting better each time I look at it :).


* Somebody wrote earlier that people are now used to (un)folding  
things on websites. I disagree. *Geeks* are used to that, I know  
plenty of people who certainly are not. Ideally, we'd have access to  
test users who could test the site for us and gave us feedback on  
useabillity; since we don't have that, I think we should at least try  
to make it as simple as possible to recognize that something can be  
clicked to uncover extra data. That means adding visual clues, like  
the "Click to expand/collapse" links.

One idea for extra an extra visual cue that many people are familiar  
with is adding a disclosure triangle to the left of the collapsable  
sections (see here for an image of what I mean: <http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Disclosure_triangle 
 >).
That way, it is immediately clear whether there is something to expand  
or not

Because for the subsections (Like "0.13.0 tools", my personal feeling  
is that I would *not* immediately get that I can further expand this  
section. In fact my first reaction upon expanding "Freeware games"  
was, "huh, are all the entries missing?". It took me a moment to  
realize that these visually totally different subcategories are in  
fact also expandable thingies, like the main categories.

Thus, i think they need a unifying visual hint that makes it  
immediately apparent that there is more information. yes, there is a  
text "click to expand", but it is in grey and on the far right, quite  
a distance on my screen to the actual category. I think this is not a  
good way to display all this. Hm.


* I dislike the current mouseover effect -- at least for the  
subsections (like "0.13.0 tools" etc.). Because it removes the line in  
the section. I find this extremely irritating when mousing over a list  
of collapsed sections.


* Rename "Subversion Builds" to e.g. "Daily builds", "Nightly builds",  
"development builds", anything that average joe has at least a remote  
chance to understand.

* The "warning" listed there should maybe be bigger and more intrusive.

* In the same section, "Subversion Instructions" should not be in the  
list of downloads. Instead, it should be a paragraph at the very end,  
after "Additional daily builds...". I.e. after that, add a new  
paragraph like:
   "If you wish to retrieve the latest code to compile it yourself,  
follow the <a...>subversion instructions here </a>."

* Under "Libraries", please show both subcategories expanded - in  
fact, just remove the ability to compact them. They are both very  
short lists, no need to further hid them.


Cheers,
Max




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