FreshPorts

IMO freshports web site designed VERY WELL,
there is nothing redundant, it is very usable and handy,
moreover, it is possible to use it even with console web browsers,
freshports in www/w3m-img —
WOm0eEf.png

so IMO, no "shiny things" are required,
because freshports is not an entertainment web site,
and because these things doesn't make anything
more usable than it is without that things,
moreover, often such "shiny things"
are distracting and/or annoying.
 
I'm overall happy with it, especially the way it displays the results and what information is included. The initial search box use some improvement though, now it's just little textbox on the right side and doesn't really draw attention on the first glance.
 
ILUXA said:
Both websites are entertainment websites,
freshports.org is a technical one, so it makes sense.
Click to expand...

MobyGames is a game database, that's exactly the same type of UI functionality: search, faceted search, displaying entries, displaying updates.
 
In my opinion, it is very sad what's happening with web design these days,
almost all websites are trying to mimicate some kind of wordpress design,
with that moving headers, another elements and other creepy, mobile oriented stuff...
Many CMS-s and forum engines are mostly mobile oriented for now, like Xenforo, for example.
I don't know why this happened (probably because of these shitty sensor phones),
but it is really sucks, because all that shiny and annoying ugliness is not the only one
possible way of design for sure, moreover, it's not even nice or handy in most cases,
it is really possible to make website usable on mobile phones, with that "adaptive" design,
without losing anything on desktop machines, with that paranoid headers,
that follows you everywhere, сreepy moving design elements, etc.
 
There are lots of issues with freshports for readability and usability, not to mention it has 741 HTML errors and warnings. A lot of that comes from using obsolete HTML. The font size is bad. You can see large gaps of white space on large screens. It's unviewable on mobile...etc. But he's providing a free service on his own time and money so one can't complain.
Trihexagonal said:
I went with this font selection because it's such a wall of text.
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That CSS is saying, "If your browser has a sans-serif font, use that. Otherwise use a sans font if you have it. Otherwise use Tahoma." But all browsers have a serif and sans serif font so that property setting won't do anything but set it to sans-serif. My advice would be to just set it to sans serif or serif so the user will view it in their operating systems native font and leave it at that.
Rigoletto said:
@drhowarddrfine do you know if that is some pre-built product?
Click to expand...
I don't know what you are referring to.
 
ILUXA said:
almost all websites are trying to mimicate some kind of wordpress design
Click to expand...
Probably cause it is a wordpress page. It's relatively easy for some high school kid to create a site in wordpress and get fifty bucks from some unsuspecting small business or his Dad who needs a web site for a bigger company. Then they are so proud of their site which is now subject to 80% of all online attacks and entry.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
Probably cause it is a wordpress page. It's relatively easy for some high school kid to create a site in wordpress and get fifty bucks from some unsuspecting small business or his Dad who needs a web site for a bigger company. Then they are so proud of their site which is now subject to 80% of all online attacks and entry.
Click to expand...
IMO, it is disgusting, what guys from WordPress did, they've gave to "average" users chance to use something,
without learning nothing, so what we're seeing now, it is the result of those kids work: popular homemade
shiny shit, without considering any usability aspects. What they're selling now, is that, what is popular now. Popular CMS-s and its popular themes are like cheap pop music, it is ugly, disgusting, but most people are happy with it, it is regular consumer psychology. Like Windows, eg, it is full of shit, but about 90% of users are using it, while most of them even know that this OS sucks hard and have no doubt about this fact, but they just don't want to leave their comfort zone. It'll be very sad, if what happened with the OS market, will happen with the internet. There's only hope for conscious people, which IMO are not pop music fans mostly, or fanboys of any other popular advertised "fashion" things, which are dictated by mass user's purchasing power. Also IMO mobile web surfing should be only as emergency way to browse the internet, but not as main for sure, so it is idiocy to develop websites which are more usable on mobile phones, than on the desktop. I've even saw people who stopped using their laptops and started to use their phones for everything... :eek: No doubt that often new phone is more usable than a new windows machine, but this "trend" is a little bit scary and has many side effects.
 
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recluce said:
Freshports is very useful and works as it should. Design is really not important beyond that, considering the purpose of the site.

Lately, every new site design I see appears to reduce functionality or usability. Just like every new version of the Gnome desktop.
Click to expand...

They're trying to make everything work as expected for cell/smart phone apps. I think it's silly, and it seems much better to use smart phone apps on smart phones and info-intensive apps on the traditional hardware. Otherwise, I think I'd have just wasted money on this big monitor.
 
ronaldlees said:
..... I think it's silly.......
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1 example where it were NOT silly to offer a responsive web-frontend::
Im`standing in front of my FreeBSD-Server and looking for information on adminstrative tasks from my SmartPhone, which is in my hand .
In practice I take a smartphone-photo of the information from my desktop screen and go back to the other room where my server is :-)
Webdesign is overrated, you're right - but otherwise from the technical view there's no reason why not using a responsive webdesign.
It´s no problem to separate the business logic from the frontend
 
ronaldlees said:
They're trying to make everything work as expected for cell/smart phone apps. I think it's silly
Click to expand...
Google announced, a few months ago, that the number of searches using mobile has surpassed desktop usage. That does not mean people will continue on the phone, and other research shows people will bookmark or email a link for later use on their desktop. The only time I do serious reading on my phone is when I'm killing time or on a "need to know right now" basis. In both cases, I'm grateful for the ability to read on my phone.

The practical advise given for web development is to simply start with a layout for a small phone and add on as the screen size gets bigger. It works out really well in most cases and knowing you can't fit everything in a 320px wide screen can be refreshing and daunting at the same time.
 
ILUXA said:
IMO freshports web site designed VERY WELL,
there is nothing redundant, it is very usable and handy,
moreover, it is possible to use it even with console web browsers,
freshports in www/w3m-img —
Click to expand...

That to me is more important than bling-bling. It means that I can quickly look up information when in front of a server that does not have a GUI / X11 installed.

Design Principle #1 is "form follows function", so freshports is as it should be.
 
Not sure why people compare wordpress and "shiny" in same sentences all over.
It doesnt need to be "bling bling", it can still remain its functional layout. HTML + CSS are quite advanced.
You have scripts that checks if you are on a mobile or a tablet or which OS, and if nothing fits it goes to "default".
Also I think its much more easy to read on other sites that looks a bit better with better seperation and fonts.
I also dont fancy the search bar on the right side of my browser, if we were talking functionality all menus should be integrated properly into a table.
But its okay im not hating on anyone, starting to regret why I posted this, but its off-topic so who cares.
 
Lars Skogstad said:
Not sure why people compare wordpress and "shiny" in same sentences all over.
It doesnt need to be "bling bling", it can still remain its functional layout. HTML + CSS are quite advanced.
You have scripts that checks if you are on a mobile or a tablet or which OS, and if nothing fits it goes to "default".
Also I think its much more easy to read on other sites that looks a bit better with better seperation and fonts.
I also dont fancy the search bar on the right side of my browser, if we were talking functionality all menus should be integrated properly into a table.
But its okay im not hating on anyone, starting to regret why I posted this, but its off-topic so who cares.
Click to expand...

This has nothing to do with hate, unless you bring it yourself.

Current design works in any web browser, even console based. Which means a clear advantage to an admin in front of a GUI-less server, needing some info about a port. That meets the "form follows function" design directive.

If a new design breaks that functionality, it is indeed "bling bling".
 
Why would it break functionality? Where does this come from? Why would it? Thats my question.

Oh and the gentoo packages looked better on my phone than freshports, while we're mentioning it.


Edit:
Oh, and im not trying to hate on anything. I just think its about time it should get a newer look.
Not sure why other sites stay ahead with proper design with a newer look (not shiny, no) and still keep their functionality,
 
Lars Skogstad said:
Not sure why people compare wordpress and "shiny" in same sentences all over.
It doesnt need to be "bling bling", it can still remain its functional layout. HTML + CSS are quite advanced.
...
starting to regret why I posted this, but its off-topic so who cares.
Click to expand...
It's as if discussions often spin off about non-essential details or matters.
 
Lars Skogstad said:
Why would it break functionality? Where does this come from? Why would it? Thats my question.

Oh and the gentoo packages looked better on my phone than freshports, while we're mentioning it.


Edit:
Oh, and im not trying to hate on anything. I just think its about time it should get a newer look.
Not sure why other sites stay ahead with proper design with a newer look (not shiny, no) and still keep their functionality,
Click to expand...

Your new design would work on a purely text-based browser that has no graphics available to it? That would be a huge surprise, as basically no newly designed website does. I am not talking about phones or tablets.
 
gentoo.png

gentoo2.png

Im not complaining, think this looks readable? Or how text'ish do you want it to be.
As I said earlier, there are ways of making websites so it differences between browsers you are using.

Thats why I dont understand why it needs to look old.
Not to compare to much but seems like linux websites looks a bit more well designed. I know its an independent website from FreeBSD but most people use Freshports so you kind of associate it with being a "Part of FreeBSD"

If you are new to FreeBSD and you visit Freshports you are probably thinking "what is this old crap, are they stuck in time" or "wow, these people are focusing so much on good content so they dont have time updating their site" ;)
 
Lars Skogstad said:
View attachment 5409

Im not complaining, think this looks readable? Or how text'ish do you want it to be.
As I said earlier, there are ways of making websites so it differences between browsers you are using.

Thats why I dont understand why it needs to look old.
Not to compare to much but seems like linux websites looks a bit more well designed. I know its an independent website from FreeBSD but most people use Freshports so you kind of associate it with being a "Part of FreeBSD"

If you are new to FreeBSD and you visit Freshports you are probably thinking "what is this old crap, are they stuck in time" or "wow, these people are focusing so much on good content so they dont have time updating their site" ;)
Click to expand...
Everything looks like that on a console browser, as far as I'm concerned. I realize you're saying, it could be better in terms of the console layout too.
 
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