[haiku-web] Re: [new feature] New way of maintaining developer documentation

Hi Meanwhile,

. Meanwhile . said on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:28:17 +0800
> > I don't think there is a general rule that menu blocks have to be 
> > on
> > one side or the other of the body text; it is more a matter of how 
> > the
> > website has been designed (ie., the Gnome user guide has the 
> > navigation
> > menu to the right).
> > 
> > Shijin was designed to have navigation blocks on the right side; 
> > putting
> > blocks on the opposite side only on some pages is not only weird, 
> > but
> > it may also break the page layout rendering, as the left column is 
> > not
> > taken into account in the theme (even when the left region exists,
> > that's just a remnant from the spreadfirefox theme that shijin was
> > based on).
> 
> There is however such a thing as a universal F-shaped reading 
> pattern,
> which more or less asks for navigation blocks to be on the left.
> See: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

I have seen many (and read a few) of this sort of studies over the 
years, but in most cases they are geared towards understanding how the 
reader skims through complex layouts with multiple types of information 
that compete with each other, which is not the case here.

The content on technical documentation is very focused and the 
navigation quite simple, so the impact of not following such reading 
patterns is negligible. Switching navigation the position of the 
nagivation relative to the content from one side to the other as the 
user goes from one part of the website to another has a more 
detrimental effect.

Drupal Book's feature is nice for something like the user guide, where 
you have a structure and the book navigation block becomes your "table 
of contents". On the other hand, I am not sure how Nielx plans to group 
or organize the existing loosely categorized documents on the website, 
and what sort of navigation he is planning to provide.

BTW, I am not trying to be critical just for the sake of it. I think 
what Niels is doing is great, and I am just trying to give my advise 
where I feel it can be helpful. Feel free to ignore me if you prefer. 
:)

Cheers,

Jorge

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