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LWN style sheetsLWN style sheetsPosted Jun 24, 2006 14:24 UTC (Sat) by ayeomans (subscriber, #1848)Parent article: Some LWN notes
Can I inject some controversy? One problem with LWN is that the stylistic design of the site looks rather tired and, dare I say it, boring? Compared with a glance at Slashdot, Newsforge, The Register, even LXer it doesn't *look* interesting.
Naturally I'm not referring to the content - it's the only site I value enough to pay a subscription. But to attract newbies we need to have enough fizz to make them take a second look and actually *read* the content.
Can I suggest you follow Slashdot's example and have a competition for a new layout style? (But please don't change the content!)
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LWN style sheets Posted Jun 24, 2006 16:06 UTC (Sat) by grouch (guest, #27289) [Link] I like the layout at LWN.
LWN style sheets Posted Jun 24, 2006 17:15 UTC (Sat) by dwkunkel (guest, #5999) [Link] I love the layout! Simple, clean, and readable.
LWN style sheets Posted Jun 25, 2006 8:36 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I think that ayeomans is not complaining about the design, but that it has not changed much recently. I agree that it could use some modern CSS layout; table-based layout is boring. Just do the following simple experiment: visit a LWN page of your choice with Firefox and select "View -> Page style -> No style". Some colors are gone, but it barely changes. Now do the same with Slashdot, The Register, LXer. The result is not pretty.A face lift keeping the old style is hard to do. The Register did it recently: they changed the layout so it was still The Register but nicer and more readable. I'm sure LWN can do it too!
LWN style sheets Posted Jun 26, 2006 21:06 UTC (Mon) by ayeomans (subscriber, #1848) [Link] Close - not that LWN has not changed, but other sites have. And shown what can be done with the new browsers. I bet LWN would work well in Mosaic still!
The fonts used are rather staid. (I'm not intending to start the font war troll, BTW, but some are nicer and easier to read than Times.) The spacing between paragraphs is quite large, leading to a sparse appearance and a need to scroll. The boxes around comments are rather picky. Colours are hardly used at all, when they could enhance navigation, at least for the well-sighted.
Not that I'd either advocate going as far as other sites. Microsoft.com is a great test for short-sightedness :-) Other blogs also test visual discrimination with grey on light grey typography - a triumph of style over function.
LWN style sheets Posted Jun 27, 2006 15:31 UTC (Tue) by rwmj (subscriber, #5474) [Link] I liked the old ("yellow columns") layout :-)
Rich.
LWN style sheets Posted Jun 30, 2006 8:34 UTC (Fri) by quintesse (subscriber, #14569) [Link] Definitely boring!
And anybody knows how to keep the same layout on the homepage after having logged in? Now I always log in for a comment and immediately log out again ;-)
Alternative front page Posted Jul 3, 2006 18:46 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] If you like the anonymous-reader version of the front page, you can always find it here. I should probably make that a preference someday.More generally, a visual overhaul of the LWN site is on my list of things to do. Said list remains long, though...
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