meeting minutes from last night

[Asgeir Frimannsson]

On Wednesday 20 August 2008 12:36:23 Máirín Duffy wrote:
> Asgeir Frimannsson wrote:
> > I was more thinking of this from a development point-of-view. The tabs do
> > eat space that could be better used for the main functionality of the
> > application. I'm thinking of this in terms of the L10N infrastructure
> > specifically, where we do need as much horizontal space as possible for
> > the main application (e.g. translation statistics, transifex submission,
> > online translation)... I would limit the overall 'theme' to a smaller and
> > less intrusive 'frame' of the application, e.g. how Google separates its'
> > services (horizontal <20px bar on top). I do really like the overall
> > theme of the page though :)
>
> Seriously? Out of a 1024 pixel wide screen, that sidebar takes up less
> than 200 px. That gives the main content area 80% of the horizontal
> width of the screen which seems a quite reasonable ratio to me. You do
> need SOME whitespace on the screen. Cramming information into every last
> bit of space is not as efficient as it might seem at first glance,
> especially in a complicated application interface where you risk
> overwhelming the user with data.

Overwhelming the user is my main concern, yes. Using the extra 200 px for an 
application-based menu/toolbox/help-view, rather than cramming it in the 
remaining 80%, would be much more favorable than 'wasting' it on a sub-optimal 
global navigation.

> You wouldn't worry more about having 8 tabs horizontally across the top,
> their German translations making the last two or three tabs scroll
> horizotnally or jump down the next row? I don't think i18n is really a
> good justification for your stance here.

That depends on how dominant this menu is on the page. To me, a global 
navigation on a site like fpo should be clearly visible, but also easily 
'ignorable' when working within a specific application. For example, google.com 
has 12 Items in its' global menu (7 navigation, 5 other) when logged in, and 
is localised in many languages, including German (which naturally takes more 
space). 

If the target is a site where the global navigation is a dominant element of 
the page, then yes, I see your point, and having these tabs horizontally 
wouldn't be feasible. But if the target is a Fedora themed 'frame' for 
applications to inherit, with a non-intrusive global navigation, then I think 
the proposal is a bit off target, and a smaller horizontal global navigation 
would be a better option. That's my 2 cents.

cheers,
asgeir