David Abrahams wrote:
http://redshift-software.com/~grafik/boost/index.htm
(for reference).
This is fantastic. All in all a vast improvement, and the web typography problem is solved! And now, being -- as my wife likes to say -- a fussy virgo, I have a little more input.
When you back up and look at the overall balance of the page layout, it doesn't quite seem to work yet. For one thing, we have the Google search box floating all by itself over on the right,
Which wasn't a problem on the original because the search was in the content flow.
and directly across from it on the left there is a blank space where the search box could nearly fit. Why not just put it there? Also, I'm not positive about this, but I think it *might* work better if the index column on the left were lightly shaded, or a thin line was used to divide it from the text to the right. This might prove to be no improvement at all once the search box is moved, I don't know. Finally, the page seems to demand some sort of more prominent title at the beginning of the text. It's just a feeling I have, but think of how any of the major newspapers are titled:
T H E C H I C A G O T R I B U N E ------------------------------------- left column middle column middle left column column middle column left column middle column middle left column column middle column
...
Maybe something similar would work for us.
Yes, I'll answer all that with.. My preferred layout when I do web pages is this (using your example): T H E C H I C A G O T R I B U N E ------------------------------------- content content content right column content content content right column content content content right column content content content right column It has a variety of advantages.. * It puts the content vs. navigation in the natural, for most people, left-to-right reading order. * It allows the use of any left side marks on the right column to act as an additional separator instead of adding artificial ones as you suggest. * It allows more flexibility with the heading without breaking the overall structure. Note, I did not originally go this way because I know how much of "traditional" group Boost is ;-) So I tried not to stray too far from the current layout.
Another issue I have with many web pages is that when browser windows are maximized, the lines of text are simply too long to read. I lose track of what line I was on when scanning back at the end of each one. The only way to handle this properly would be to have a right margin whose position is proportional to the font size used for display; I don't think there's a way to do that with HTML, but then again I don't know much.
The margins are already font proportional. I think you meant inversely proportional? Which is not possible.
Last of all, the "revised date" and copyright don't seem to add anything but distraction when placed on the left. I think they belong at the bottom along with the other things most people don't care about ;-)
I'll push it to the bottom. -- -- Grafik - Don't Assume Anything -- Redshift Software, Inc. - http://redshift-software.com -- rrivera/acm.org - grafik/redshift-software.com - 102708583/icq