FreshPorts

Why does it look like FreshPorts.org is stuck in 94' ?

Would be nice to see it have some kind of same layout as freebsd.org forum design.
Im aware that its proably so its easy to load from lots of browsers and so on, but its not very appealing.
Not sure if its the same people hosting the site or not.

Would be nice though =)
 
Freshports is not funded nor operated by the FreeBSD foundation. It's a private project of Dan Langille. Send your complaints about the layout of his site to him personally.
 
Functionality over design - every day. The young people today seems to have an obsession with shiny things.

Shiny things are great, except when people use things like node.js and make everything super slow.

At this point I would be really happy if Swift actually get a lot of traction in the web design métier, or at least something like Kitura for the lazy ones.
 
Functionality over design - every day. The young people today seems to have an obsession with shiny things.
There's a difference between a normal okay design and a 1990ish design with awful choice of color.
I get the functionality but it doesnt need to look like timetravel back to 94'

This forum has a nice layout with a good color combination, something like that colorscheme wouldn't be hard to add.
 
I like how I seem like a bad guy for pointing out that its an outdated design.
Youre mentioning shiny things, im not suggestions that it looks a a futuristic space-theme.
Would just look better with other colors and a more tidy layout.
Maybe a more modern logo would suit the site better.
I might do that.
 
Yes, you are a bad guy. Because you are wasting everyone's time talking about design. *BSD is about functionality, not about being pretty.

There is exactly one question one needs to discuss about web design: Whether to use emacs or vi to edit the plain HTML source code. Anything that is more complicated than plain HTML (preferably without frames, they are too complex, and don't render well on all browsers) in 7-bit US-ASCII is dangerous and pointless and a waste of good neurons that could have been doing something productive.

OK, the two paragraphs above are an exaggeration. But they are not pure sarcasm, just a very exaggerated message. Seriously, as long as the fresh ports web site is easy to use, fast to load, and contains up-to-date content, I'm happy. For example, the correct color choice is to leave the colors to the browser default, so users can adjust their preferences. This is particularly important for sight-impaired users.
 
Lars Skogstad

If you get in this work don't get suprised if you hear something a long lines with:

"Oh, great! That is something I was willing to do since I while, but be aware the new site should be written in C."
 
So why is this forum looking pretty? I mean its all about functionality.
Not sure if I am wasting your time if you have the time to answer in Off-topic section of the forum.

Not sure what you are talking about, Im thinking about plain HTML, not something super special. HTML+CSS.

Its a bit exaggeration indeed. Im just asking why it cant look good and be functional, nothing wrong in updating a design.
Wouldnt be any slower with what I have in mind, just tweaking CSS and making a bit more modern gif/jpg and a good color scheme.
Im figuring out something now and I will send a suggestion over to the them.
Currently working on it :)

And yes of course functionality and speed is the main objective of the site, im not arguing about that. It just looks outdated.
Even if FreeBSD is meant to be a stable server OS doesnt mean it have to look like its ancient.
 
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.
 
So why is this forum looking pretty? I mean its all about functionality.

HERE.

Im just asking why it cant look good and be functional, nothing wrong in updating a design.

Nobody is against it really, but Freshports do a near fundamental service to the community and the interwebs are full of garbage designed websites.

I mean, if that was drhowarddrfine telling us: "I will design a new Freshports website", nobody would ever think about criticize him because we all know him, and know he really know what and how it should be done.
 
Again, I dont see why it should reduce functionality.

I was purely thinking of a rebranding of logo, maybe tweak the CSS settings so it looks fresher. Update the .gif icons for.
Get rid of the blue coloured links and the "purple" text below.

I think this forum looks excellent, the colors here are exactly what it should look like to be honest.
Im thinking something like this, using the brand colors so. blue/red is awful to look at to be honest. black/red ,
black/grey/white is a much better combination.

Just tweak it to a certain newer standard, I dont want any new features or lots of heavy sized images or frames or frames within frames or weird table structure for the html.
 
My site on Building A FreeBSD Desktop From Scratch uses only valid XHTML and CSS, official FreeBSD colors, scales down to size properly with the screen and I know before you look you're not going to like it.
No dancing baloney.

Readable and colors are good so no problem there.

im trying out different stuff right now. just figuring out some colors.

Going to try and make a good site vitt valid XHTML, CSS, FreeBSD colors, good sizing and a newer look.

Not sure about font though, might be okay to stick with the default ones in there.

Montserrat and Roboto Sans would look very good, but not sure how it would be handled by all visitors that just want to search packages from lowres and so on..
 

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I had a friend (non technical) see my website and say, you need a designer. I said, nope, the idea is that it's easily readable with text based web clients so that, for example, if you've installed Linux or BSD and need to figure out how to do X, you can install w3m and see what you need, easily. It's done in plain html, no php, no nothing. And though it's now getting outdated in content because I have less time and energy, it works for me.

I doubt Dan's getting paid, and does the site do what it's supposed to, show the ports, and, probably more important to many FreeBSD users, especially on servers, make it easy to view and use without a GUI?
In that case, it serves its purpose.

The web is much slower now, much easier to hack sites, and there's no benefit gained, save to advertisers and others who put in unwanted content. All for looks.
 
Going to try and make a good site vitt valid XHTML
Unless you are retrieving the data as XML and need to display that XML in a web page, you have no need for XHTML and shouldn't use it. But you don't have control of the data so you don't get to choose.
Not sure about font though, might be okay to stick with the default ones in there.
Not a bad choice.
Montserrat and Roboto Sans would look very good, but not sure how it would be handled by all visitors that just want to search packages from lowres and so on..
Not to mention it would slow the download and, potentially, cause font display issues.

Freshports uses tables for layout, a definite faux pas today, and I question the elements he uses for the content, such as <blockquote>. FreeBSD.org has similar issues in that the structure of the HTML document is pretty awful.
 
Why does it look like FreshPorts.org is stuck in 94'
Well, it is stuck in the late 90s, I mean check the copyright notices. My guess is that separating site layout from php code (in order to be able to make any design changes) would be too much hassle for the owner.

And, yes, we don't decide here how that site should look, there is no point in that discussion.
 
The only thing I would like to see improved on FreshPorts is the location, layout and size of the search box, especially on mobile. But I can use it fine as it is. Typically, entry boxes on responsive designs are the most difficult to lay out.
 
Not sure about font though, might be okay to stick with the default ones in there.

Montserrat and Roboto Sans would look very good, but not sure how it would be handled by all visitors that just want to search packages from lowres and so on..

I went with this font selection because it's such a wall of text. It spaced out the letters a lttle more and makes it easier to read:
Code:
p {
font-family : sans-serif, serif, tahoma;
color : #000000;
}

Design isn't my strong suit. If I was using frames I could base a design on that and do more with it.
 
I went with this font selection because it's such a wall of text. It spaced out the letters a lttle more and makes it easier to read:
Code:
p {
font-family : sans-serif, serif, tahoma;
color : #000000;
}

Design isn't my strong suit. If I was using frames I could base a design on that and do more with it.


You could add more tables and distinguish them more from each other, but I think its okay for tutorials.
The colors are fine and its easy to understand, thats my opinion.
Like you have here so you have a Code Table with the coding inside so its easier to read. Would be nice :)
 
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