38 replies to this topic

[amnesiac]

Excuse me, do you consider multi-language interface for the offical site?
Recently AutoHotkey is more and more popular in the world. Although there are German and Chinese site which are similar to the offical site, there may be convenient for visitors if they would be merged with the offical site. (In fact there is only four .html files up to now.)

If needed, I would be willing to do the Chinese translation.

[ABCza]

The maul idea of the RubyGems for AutoHotkey is awesome. I totally support this and i think it should be worked with the community through git.

[maul.esel]

The maul idea of the RubyGems for AutoHotkey is awesome. I totally support this and i think it should be worked with the community through git.

You're welcome to add to the github repo. The main part is still to be done.
I think fincs (or sinkfaze?) recently posted something which looked similar (but using JSON instead of XML as marmoreal does). Maybe efforts could be joined. However, there should probably be a few more devs on this.

[sumon]

Excuse me, do you consider multi-language interface for the offical site?
Recently AutoHotkey is more and more popular in the world. Although there are German and Chinese site which are similar to the offical site, there may be convenient for visitors if they would be merged with the offical site. (In fact there is only four .html files up to now.)

If needed, I would be willing to do the Chinese translation.

Multilanguage support is considered in one way or another. I imagine atleast having the basic pages covered in a few languages. Hopefully the overall multilingual support can thus be improved alot. However, I think main languages (judging by visitor count) will be prio'd: German, Chinese.

I was planning on waiting to show this until I have some more early sketches, but here's one suggestion (just a very fast mockup): Three column layout as suggested by someone.

"Three columns" (improved)
"Three columns" (old)

Just a very early teaser.

[sumon]

+1 design suggestion: "Cute and simple"

Based on a simple menu > submenu selector. The top categories can be modified, and a design concept is to have different color themes for each main menu. For example blue'ish for the forum (similar to the current forum style), and orange'ish for the "[+]" (which would take the role of holding much of the current "AutoHotkey.net" utilities).

Keep in mind I'm not really going to touch the content or put much work into designing images at this point in time, so the logo f.ex. is still the old one (with a modified color theme).

[maul.esel]

Wow, the "Cute and Simple" really looks awfully good!

[sumon]

I'll be posting a few more designs soon. Just consider them "digital sketches".

Wow, the "Cute and Simple" really looks awfully good!

Thanks. Yeah, I really like that one too, I think it could become pretty good with the correct execution.

I like the three columns of "Three columns" but the design is amateurish, the design of "cute" is a lot better.

Gotcha. Any specific details you consider amateurish, or just the general impression? Anyway, I think at this point it's all going to be rather "rough" sketches, so let's keep that in mind. Btw if anyone wants some .PSD files to work on, just say

Edit: Improved the "three columns" a bit, replacing the logo with one from MacroMan!s project, and adjusting the header to be more similar to current layout. See "Three columns" (improved)

[sumon]

Any specific details you consider amateurish, or just the general impression?

The weird (leaves?) background, the - excuse me for saying so - hideous logo, it's like a back to the 80s flash with the text on a curve :-)

Heh, no worries. I just slapped it there, the point was never to propose logo suggestions. We've had some very good suggestions in previous topics, so there's plenty to pick from.

Regarding the leaves those were also slapped on to get some texture and color. Does not mean AHK would get an autumn leaves theme... haha. I could of course just have done something like this to demo "only layout", but I prefer putting some mockup content too. I won't spend hours finding a unique texture or modding a new logo for sketches though, or would you disagree? This isn't even the refinement phase of the suggestions, it's the brainstorming phase, but I choose to have it public to get some more input.

The question is really if you should be spending anytime "designing" at all, there are so many useful (practical & purty) opensource designs out there that all you need to do would be to "slap on" the AHK logo and you're done.

Less is more in my book.

I disagree. Now there are times where reusing is desireable, but it's rare to even be *able* to just take a template and slap content in there. Even if it would be possible, sites designed this way are far from adapted to their purpose.

By the way, I suspect you're either putting too much into the sketches or just have worries of my webdesign skills. If so, don't worry so much and wait til you see the results. Won't disappoint you. Unless you're a "disappointed by anything" kind of guy.

Oh, and if you have some specific ("open source" or not) design suggestions already, do feel free to share. Goes for anyone.

[VxE]

Design, especially for the main page, is crucial IFF we actually want new visitors to download and try AHK. If visitors are confused by the site, they will ragequit regardless of whatever feats AHK can perform.

I like the 3-column approach to the layout. Personally, I would reserve the left column for a list of AHK's primary selling points. I would put "download / getting started" in the middle column and leave the right column for whatever else.

It seems like a good idea to reserve the top of the page for the logo, language selection, search box, and primary navigation.

[sumon]

Design, especially for the main page, is crucial IFF we actually want new visitors to download and try AHK. If visitors are confused by the site, they will ragequit regardless of whatever feats AHK can perform.

This is one of the main goals, yes. Download stats indicate that A) Far from every new visitor downloads AutoHotkey (although this is not unexpected), and Some visitors may hesitate which version to download.

My goal is to not only "improve the site", but improve it in a way that will turn numbers up - find what you need faster, less "bounces", more downloads, more (re)visits. Form & function, informative & clear. That's another question too, rewording and altering the content (for example making sure tutorials, etc., are up-to-date).

A third layout suggestion: "Claire future".
And of course, #4: "Original".

[VxE]

Design,...

I wasn't directing that at anyone in particular. You've already stated that you have formal instruction in man-machine interface design.

Let it be known that hundreds of companies have poured millions of dollars into dozens of studies of the behavioral patterns of the average internet user in order to determine the most effective way to push products.

The fruits of those studies are available all over the internet in the form of guides, do's-n'-dont's, and "Top 10 ___" lists. I would encourage anyone who wishes to meaningfully participate in this discussion to review several such resources.

I've looked at the main pages for python and haskell and they both look very nice. As I said, I like the 3-column layout. The content can (and should) be discussed separately from the layout.


Anyways, since we're still brainstorming, here's my layout brainfart: <!-- m -->http://i.imgur.com/c86zR.png<!-- m -->
Some explanation of my thoughts:
1. I have a bad sense of scale, so take the relative sizes with a grain of salt.
2. Whitespace horizontally separates regions cleanly and effectively. A graphical cue is probably a good idea to vertically separate regions ( hence the box around the center "column").
3. "Moar!" means I have no idea what should go there.