[Nottingham] NLUG new website: Comments #02

[Mat Booth]

On 12 October 2010 18:06, Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> After a few days to play and muse, my thoughts are:
>
>>> http://nlug.c25.eu/
>
> I very much like the idea of a new custom Wordpress theme for our group
> and for it to be something that all other LUGs could also use should
> they wish to (with different colours for their groups!). All good for
> Open Source! The rounded sections are a good idea and look much better
> than the themes that are more square. Add options to go "Robin Hood"
> curvy? Or would that look childish?
>
> The visual contrast is too *stark* and hurts my eyes even on a big TFT.
> Add a dark green or pale green (textured?) to the background? Still need
> some intensity contrast for those suffering red-green colour blindness
> who may see it almost as a black'n'white display...
>
> Good design for keeping simple and clear.
>
> Are there colours that aid power saving on LED monitors or laptops?
>
>
> What is the minimum feature set that we want?
>
> I think the must haves are:
>
> Front page introduction;
> Further details about the group;
> Maillist sign-up;
> Events listing;
> Past events listing;
> Other pages for hints 'n' tips and geekie bits.
>
> I think I've seen too many sites where you have the past 10 years of
> events trailing down to infinity from the front page! I think the
> discrete "next event" widget looks much neater...
>
> Must include RSS and atom feeds? Others?
>
>
>
>>> http://nottlug.blogspot.com/
>
> Looks like the sort of standard panels available from a number of
> Worpress themes. All ok and fine but nothing out of the ordinary. Sorry,
> don't like that particular boarder background. General scheme fits the
> RobinTux green nicely.
>
> Include a Nottingham specific or forest background?? Or graded green?
>
> At the moment, that is the NUMBER ONE site from LinuxFormat! So we need
> to keep a presence there for a while!!
>
>
>
>>> http://nlug.wp.ml1.co.uk/
>
> This was just a first try "quick look-see" that worked far better than I
> was expecting. Good clean theme but...
>
> I think the text font is far too slender and must look impossible on
> mobile devices.
>
> I've come to like the non-graphical banner and boarders and the "email
> comments-like" style to the widgets area on the right.
>
> I'll have a further look around the available themes, or I'll hack the
> existing theme to include more green and a more readable font.
>
> The blogging and events features look ok.
>
>
>
> In summary, that's an OK for all of 'em. However, I'd like to also see
> something distinctive and/or newly good... ;-)
>
> Thrash it out now or make an evening of it over at the next Nav session?
>
> Comments, ideas?
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>


I'm afraid I like the high-contrast, green-on-black one the least. The
other two don't really offend me at all ;-)

Tangentially: About bloggy-type features of the CMS...

Are you thinking that the NLUG site would be a blog in and of itself
where members of the LUG can post LUG/Linux/OSS related items?

Is it possible to aggregate externally hosted LUG members' blogs so
that they appear in the same feed as the main NLUG blog? [1]


[1] Like what PlanetPlanet does: http://www.planetplanet.org/

-- 
Mat Booth
http://fedoraproject.org/get-fedora