<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
So, we've bounced this idea around a little - the idea of replacing
the WPLUG.ORG home page with a simplified "launch page" that
provides a simple and clean view of some of the most referenced
items people would want when coming to our site. The idea I have is
to basically do this as a single-page HTML5 app. That, yeah, looks
like a lot of other sites (including many Wordpress sites...) - but
hey, like I said, it's simple and clean, there's a reason this is a
common design.... ;-)<br>
<br>
What I have in mind would look like:<br>
<br>
Top of page: WPLUG masthead, background image maybe with some
typically Pittsburgh (but Linux-related) artwork - like, maybe a
picture of Tux sitting on the Roberto Clemente Bridge or or
something.... (Disclaimer: I am not an artist, I would not
possibly be able to produce such a thing - would be dependent on
what artwork we could obtain, that we had appropriate rights to
use.)<br>
<br>
Below that: A menu bar, containing the various topics people can
get to from the launch page. For example:<br>
<ul>
<li>"About" - general info about the organization</li>
<li>"Wiki" - the front page of the current wiki</li>
<li>"Calendar" - schedule of events</li>
<li>"Board" - names and contact info for board members</li>
<li>"Join" - information about joining WPLUG</li>
<li>"Contact Us" - because pretty much every web site has this...
;-)<br>
</li>
</ul>
Those are just examples off the top of my head. There could be as
many as desired, just remember they all have to fit across the top
of the page as a navigation bar. We don't want the menu bar (or the
page) to be a mile wide. I think we also don't want to try to make
a nav bar menu that has submenus, as I've seen on a number of sites,
as this isn't really particularly mobile-friendly - it can be hard
to select from the submenus from a touch screen interface. I would
imagine that most of this content (except maybe the calendar) would
be mostly static, or just pointers to other things.<br>
<br>
Below the menu bar, a series of HTML <div> elements, each one
corresponding to one of the navigation bar menu choices - each
initially hidden except for the "About" div.<br>
<br>
Each menu choice in the navigation bar would be tied to an "onclick"
action, which unhides the corresponding div, and hides all the
others.<br>
<br>
And maybe somewhere in here, another div inside of a
"<noscript>" block, that tells the user sorry, but you really
need to enable JavaScript to view this site...<br>
<br>
No matter what the user clicks, they never actually leave the page
and go to a new page (unless they hit a link that we might put in
one of the div's), everything happens within that one web page.<br>
<br>
This could all be implemented in one single HTML file, and one
single CSS file - actually, if you really wanted to, you could put
the CSS inline within the HTML file, but that is not considered to
be good practice...<br>
<br>
Advantages: It's clean and functional, and exists basically within
one page, with no complicated CMS to install, maintain, and learn.<br>
<br>
Disadvantages: Since no CMS or design tool is used, changing it
requires editing the raw HTML, which can seem kind of daunting.
Someone would need to be willing to take that on.<br>
<br>
I'll try to mock something up so you can see what I'm talking
about. Just fair warning, it'll look pretty bad - I'm a coder, not
a designer... But hey, that's why you break the CSS out into a
separate file, most of the "look and feel" would be in the
stylesheet.<br>
<br>
--Pat.<br>
</body>
</html>