new web site w. new logo and color scheme

[Bob Carpenter]

Has anyone other than me and Michael had a chance to
check out Michael's new web site design? It's in
the stan-web repo on the new_logo branch.

It features the new logo. I modified the style a wee
bit from where Michael had it to make the h2 headers
darker and to extend the width of the header.

What I'd really like to figure out is how to set it
up so the nav and logo were on the left. The advantage
of the right is that it doesn't disrupt reading the current
page --- the advantage of the left is that it doesn't float
off screen or get too far away.

There's also the issue of whether we release the new logo now
or wait for Stan 3.

Michael also set up a UK-based Stan store for swag, which
would be nice to link into the web site Shop page. Which
brings up the question of whether we should remove the original
logo t-shirts or leave them there for nostalgia sake? Maybe
if we pixelize or distress them to make them look even more retro
so people can wear them ironically?

- Bob

[Michael Betancourt]

> Has anyone other than me and Michael had a chance to
> check out Michael's new web site design? It's in
> the stan-web repo on the new_logo branch.
>
> It features the new logo. I modified the style a wee
> bit from where Michael had it to make the h2 headers
> darker and to extend the width of the header.
>
> What I'd really like to figure out is how to set it
> up so the nav and logo were on the left. The advantage
> of the right is that it doesn't disrupt reading the current
> page --- the advantage of the left is that it doesn't float
> off screen or get too far away.

I can move it to the left or pin it on the right with a fixed
width — I really dislike having the nav on the left as it
distracts from the content.

> There's also the issue of whether we release the new logo now
> or wait for Stan 3.

I think Stan 3 might be too far away.

> Michael also set up a UK-based Stan store for swag, which
> would be nice to link into the web site Shop page. Which
> brings up the question of whether we should remove the original
> logo t-shirts or leave them there for nostalgia sake? Maybe
> if we pixelize or distress them to make them look even more retro
> so people can wear them ironically?

No, no. We wait until everyone buys the new shirts and then
have a special limited time run of the retro shirts. This is
Marketing 101 here, Bob. :-p

[Alp Kucukelbir]

ooo pretty!

a quick comment: the logo does not align with the "menu" on chrome/firefox on my mac (yosemite). it seems to align on safari though.

at the risk of getting a "well you do it then" response, a followup comment: these sorts of alignment issues can be tricky. also, the design is not responsive. (i.e. tough on mobile and retina desktop) so would you perhaps consider switching to something like bootstrap?

[Bob Carpenter]

Thanks for checking multiple browsers.

I readjusted so that it works under Firefox.

What do you mean by "not responsive"? You mean you
don't get the background switch in color on the "buttons"
or underlining on the links?

We haven't tried bootstrap. I don't really know anything
about it. It says "mobile first", which isn't really our
target audience for desktop software, though it'd be nice if
it looked good on mobile devices.

But even bootstrap's home page is a mess of scrolling, which
we've tried to avoid. It also looks fairly complicated judging
from the gazillion things on their getting started page:

http://getbootstrap.com/getting-started/

Have you used it? Could you help us get started?
Does it require something server side or does it generate
static HTML?

- Bob

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[Daniel Lee]

I've used it before. It's pretty easy. It's css and a client side javascript library. The javascript can be disabled.

[Alp Kucukelbir]

my personal website is built on bootstrap.

try resizing the window on http://proditus.com to see why
it's nice, even on a desktop.

i like it because it makes layout clean and safe across browsers.

(agreed re: scrolling. no need for any of that.)

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[Bob Carpenter]

> On Apr 12, 2015, at 1:58 AM, Alp Kucukelbir <akucu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> my personal website is built on bootstrap.
>
> try resizing the window on http://proditus.com to see why
> it's nice, even on a desktop.
>
> i like it because it makes layout clean and safe across browsers.

Was the intent when I make it bigger that the image goes away?
And by bigger, I mean zoom (command-shift-+) bigger.

Or did you just mean resizing the window, not the content?
I like how resizing the window shifts from a horizontal to
a vertical layout.

Nobody seems to make safely zoomable pages any more --- they
all want to assume a really fat window on a desktop, whereas I
like to keep my web browser windows narrow. Even GitHub requires
a really wide browser window to see all the nav.

> (agreed re: scrolling. no need for any of that.)

Neither your page nor the Stan home page fit on a window without
scrolling on my Macbookp, even if the web browser extends unzoomed
from top to bottom of screen. We tried, but the content just kept
growing.

- Bob

[Bob Carpenter]

How time consuming would it be to redo all the web pages
using this bootstrap thing?

I don't mind, but unless someone wants to do it as a hobby,
it hardly seems like a good use of our time. Of course, I'm
the hypocrite who's going to obsess on the design even though
I'm terrible at it compared to a professional.

- Bob

[Daniel Lee]

It's not that time consuming as long as we stick to a simple layout. I can do some of it this week between trying to figure out admb or sundials.

[Alp Kucukelbir]

> Was the intent when I make it bigger that the image goes away?
> And by bigger, I mean zoom (command-shift-+) bigger.

i believe resizing the window and zooming in are equivalent
in bootstrap. i could be mistaken though... there might be
a way to specify different behaviors.

> Or did you just mean resizing the window, not the content?
> I like how resizing the window shifts from a horizontal to
> a vertical layout.

the idea is that on a phone, you get the super simple, vertical
layout. on a tablet you get the intermediate format. on a small
desktop you get appropriately scaled font sizes and on a big
desktop you get bigger fonts.

> Neither your page nor the Stan home page fit on a window without
> scrolling on my Macbookp, even if the web browser extends unzoomed
> from top to bottom of screen. We tried, but the content just kept
> growing.

i'm not against scrolling. i'm just not a huge fan of websites
like: http://www.zensorium.com/tinke/#buy unless the product
is extremely simple and everything can indeed fit in a single page.

cheers
alp