[IAEP] Design ideas for a.sl.o and sugarlabs

[Eben Eliason]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 2:22 AM, ,Josh williams <joshcwilliams at gmail.com> wrote:
> Carol,
>
> Thanks for the kind words. That's a good idea for providing a screen
> shot, that's what they do at addons.mozilla.org . It might be somewhat

Yes, I think screenshots will be an important visual element on the
"detail" pages for each activity.

> difficult however to implement an enlargeable thumbnail because the
> developers would have to create two images, and I would probably have to

Not necessarily.  You could probably hook up a simple ImageMagick
script which took a full size screenshot in the submission form and
created a separate thumbnail from it.  There might even be code around
to make this happen; I know some CMSs (Expression Engine, for
instance) support this already.

> jump through a few hoops writing the javascript and editing the current
> a.sl.o code. I haven't looked at the code yet, so I don't know what the

It might actually be a remarkably easy addition, if it's desired.
Take a look at Shadowbox (http://mjijackson.com/shadowbox/index.html).
 In my opinion, this is the best solution out there, as it's 100%
standards compliant, supports all media types, is extremely easy to
skin/customize, works in all browsers, and basically works "out of the
box" with the addition of a small rel= to a link.

This technique can also be used to create a gallery, such that the
page itself can be kept simple (just one primary image), but link to a
series of screenshots in the shadowbox.

> developers are looking at when they're uploading an activity or what
> would be involved for me, but it's a good idea.

Good thoughts so far!  I'll have more comments later.

- Eben


> Cheers,
>
> Josh
>
>
> Carol Farlow Lerche wrote:
>> I think a simple design such as Josh's is ideal to use for all kid
>> facing pages.  The school server could benefit from a similar theme.
>> Personally, while I think someone talented (as Josh obviously is)
>> could make a related theme for adults and kids, it is much more
>> important to have a less text-intensive, more kid-friendly face for
>> the target audience, which is kids.  One comment on the design
>> itself...perhaps have a thumbnail screenshot of the activity visible
>> for enlargement if available?  We could encourage authors to supply
>> one when the activity is submitted.
>>
>>
>>
>>         Things are kind of confusing right now
>>     > with the different styles of wiki, trac, addons, schools,
>>     gitorious, api,
>>     > buildbot, etc.  planet is the lone exception, it seems to follow
>>     > wiki.sugarlabs.org <http://wiki.sugarlabs.org> nicely :)
>>     > It would be great if the Design Team could comment on this decision.
>>     > Here are a couple other web infrastructure ideas:
>>     > + Improve theming consistency among various SL.o sites.
>>     > + Single sign on cookie among all SL.o sites - perhaps OpenID based.
>>     > + Standard nav header atop all SL.o sites rather than the
>>     various nav
>>     > headers in different places, with different links.
>>
>>     The various gnome sites such as build.gnome.org
>>     <http://build.gnome.org> and www.gnome.org <http://www.gnome.org> are
>>     very nice examples of common theming tying sites together.  Some thing
>>     similar for SL would be great.
>>
>>     david
>>
>>     > + Better splash page for Gitorious, looking more like GitWeb - a
>>     page with a
>>     > small search box at the top and the rest being a list of
>>     projects, sorted by
>>     > recent activity, showing owner and last commit details
>>     > Best regards,
>>     > Wade
>>     > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:10 AM, ,Josh williams
>>     <joshcwilliams at gmail.com <mailto:joshcwilliams at gmail.com>>
>>     > wrote:
>>     >>
>>     >> Hi, I'm working on the design of sugar labs add-ons with Mick
>>     Weiss.
>>     >> I've created a mock up at
>>     http://sugarlabs.org/go/AddonsPortal/Design
>>     >> but I've haven't been able to contact anyone on the design team
>>     as of
>>     >> yet. I would also like to volunteer some of my time for other
>>     projects.
>>     >> I'm primarily a front-end designer with XHTML/CSS JavaScript
>>     skills, but
>>     >> I also know some PHP/MySQL and have a background in Linux. I
>>     also enjoy
>>     >> creating icons, so if there are any activities developers that need
>>     >> icons please contact me. My portfolio is over at
>>     http://tucsonlabs.com .
>>     >>
>>     >> If you're a member of the design team or have some use for my
>>     skills,
>>     >> please let me know.
>>     >>
>>     >> Thanks
>>     >>
>>     >> Josh
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>>     >
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>>
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