[MIT-Scheme-devel] Project Web Page Design

[Matt Birkholz]

> From: Rich Loveland <address@hidden>
> Date: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 22:42:02 -0400
> 
> Is the project web page an area that is open to contributions?

"Open" is in our name.

> I'm asking because I've taken a crack at restyling a copy of the
> project webpage to be (I think) more attractive, while not changing
> the content much.

First (visual) impressions:

    "max-width: 35em;"?  What's "more attractive" about a noodle?

    In my Firefox, the floating shield makes an orphan of the last
    item in the "features" list.  (Wrap it with a TABLE?  That would
    also suck the bullets in, a bonus?)

Content:

    "production-quality"?  You're going to say that aloud, with Java
    standing right over there?!

    "comparable to Common Lisp"?  (Eeek.  I hope not!)

    What else have you snuck in there?  Everything was re-formatted,
    making diffs useless.

Source:

    So... you propose to hack index.xml to produce something that
    looks like this, but using Savannah's server-side includes and
    everything?

> The design of the web page may seem like a triviality, but I really
> like this Scheme implementation (and Edwin!), and I'd like to help get
> more people using it.  A nicer webpage won't accomplish that by
> itself, but it's a start.

I'm with you.  I even use Ubuntu (argh!!) to that end.  But I think
the "app" (the REPL window in Edwin) is where the rubber meets the
road.  For this reason (and for visual gratification), I bang the
Chaos out of Gtk integration.

> There's more work to do -- for example the tables are a little off --
> but I didn't want to spend more time if it wasn't of interest to
> people.
> 
> What do you guys think of this?

I HAD to make some changes a couple years ago; it looked terrible in
Ubuntu Firefox.  I eventually found

    http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/mit-scheme/?root=mit-scheme

and learned to hack index.xml and run regenerate.scm.

The code that generates the tables might give you a nosebleed... take
it slow.