new web site

[Bob Carpenter]

I redesigned the web site for Stan over the weekend.

You can find it at:

https://github.com/stan-dev/webpages

The actual site is all linked from:

mc-stan.org/index.html

Of course, we have the ultimate "bike shed issue" now:

What color should the web site be?

I'm sort of partial to the pistachio I went with, but
am not wedded to it.

Any other style and content suggestions welcome.

One issue I have given that we list the development team
is where we should draw the line in terms of contribution.
I added Allen Riddell, who's making ongoing contributions
for PyStan. Should I add a section for people who've done
significant work on one piece of Stan, like Rob Goedman's
refactoring of the parser? I'm trying to take care of at
least thanking everyone in the manual.

- Bob

[Michael Betancourt]

Immediate reaction:

I'm not a huge fan of the pistachio, but I hate the pistachio and yellow combination. It's downright garish.

I also really dislike the "shadow" below the nav links. It's cleaner without it.

Then there's the text wrapping around the nav links -- I think it would look better confined to the left and
no wrap at all.

Perhaps a spectrum of blues to complement the grey logo? Grey and maroon is a classic combo,
although a perhaps a bit too MITish?

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[Bob Carpenter]

On 11/11/13, 7:47 PM, Michael Betancourt wrote:
> Immediate reaction:
>
> I'm not a huge fan of the pistachio, but I hate the pistachio and yellow combination. It's downright garish.

I tried it your way and agree --- it's now just a lighter
version of the same shade.

> I also really dislike the "shadow" below the nav links. It's cleaner without it.

I tried it your way and agree.

> Then there's the text wrapping around the nav links -- I think it would look better confined to the left and
> no wrap at all.

What you're suggesting is definitely more standard
and I would have done it that way if I could figure out
the CSS for it. The floated navbar doesn't want to run
top to bottom.

One alternative would be to make the text fixed width,
which is also popular. But I really hate that as a web
site user. For instance, GitHub's layout's a pain --- it
wants to suck up half my screen.

> Perhaps a spectrum of blues to complement the grey logo?

I was trying to avoid blue because it's so common.

I'd love to go with an orange, but couldn't figure out
how to do that in a way that wasn't too neon or too faded.

> Grey and maroon is a classic combo,
> although a perhaps a bit too MITish?

I didn't even know it was MIT-ish. But it's a bit too corporate
for me.

- Bob

[Michael Betancourt]

What you're suggesting is definitely more standard

and I would have done it that way if I could figure out
the CSS for it.  The floated navbar doesn't want to run
top to bottom.

One alternative would be to make the text fixed width,
which is also popular.  But I really hate that as a web
site user.  For instance, GitHub's layout's a pain --- it
wants to suck up half my screen.

For a text-heavy site like this I prefer fixed-width for readability,

but I'm not wedded to it (with a reasonable width, of course).

Alternatively I think you can just throw a dummy div behind the

navbar that extends down to the footer and that should prevent

the wrapping, no?

I was trying to avoid blue because it's so common.

I'd love to go with an orange, but couldn't figure out
how to do that in a way that wasn't too neon or too faded.

Black-orange-white -- good colors! http://www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu.s3.amazonaws.com/caltech_designer_specifications.pdf

I can't say I'm a huge fan of orange (doesn't seem very Stan-ny to me)

but the way to do it would be to use it as an accent and not the

header/footer background.

So, for example, have the navbar black with white white text turn

into orange with black text on rollover and separate the header/footer

with an orange line instead of explicit background.  Or perhaps even

black header/footer with an orange line highlighting the border

(think enough that it doesn't look like a shadow).

I didn't even know it was MIT-ish.  But it's a bit too corporate
for me.

I've been using a deep purple color scheme (with bright green for accents,

although I wouldn't use the green for a site like this) for my slides to which

I've grown accustomed.  

Maybe something like 6 or 10 here http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/07/11/website-color-palettes/?

 

[Bob Carpenter]

I revised everything again according to Michael's suggestions,
eliminating the 3D effect on nav and restricting the main body
text so it doesn't flow under the navbar (I liked that effect,
for what it's worth --- but then I'm more a text designer than
web designer).

More inline.

On 11/12/13, 5:32 AM, Michael Betancourt wrote:
> What you're suggesting is definitely more standard
> and I would have done it that way if I could figure out
> the CSS for it. The floated navbar doesn't want to run
> top to bottom.
>
> One alternative would be to make the text fixed width,
> which is also popular. But I really hate that as a web
> site user. For instance, GitHub's layout's a pain --- it
> wants to suck up half my screen.
>
>
> For a text-heavy site like this I prefer fixed-width for readability,
> but I'm not wedded to it (with a reasonable width, of course).
>
> Alternatively I think you can just throw a dummy div behind the
> navbar that extends down to the footer and that should prevent
> the wrapping, no?

I can't figure out how to size the div. There's
no "fill" command like in LaTeX. And the float pretty
much overruns everything.

What I did was instead restrict the main text to a
fraction of the total size, so it doesn't glow under the
nav bar.

> I was trying to avoid blue because it's so common.
>
> I'd love to go with an orange, but couldn't figure out
> how to do that in a way that wasn't too neon or too faded.
>
>
> Black-orange-white -- good colors!
> http://www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu.s3.amazonaws.com/caltech_designer_specifications.pdf

:-) Maybe for next Halloween.

...

Maybe a rainbow a la Google? But in a muted ggplot2 palette :-)

...

> I've been using a deep purple color scheme (with bright green for accents,
> although I wouldn't use the green for a site like this) for my slides to which
> I've grown accustomed.

You thought green with yellow popups was garish and you're going with
purple and bright green!

> Maybe something like 6 or 10 here http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/07/11/website-color-palettes/?

Didn't like those, but liked 2 and 5 and sort of liked 1 until
they told me it was appropriate for an "upscale mobile cupcake
bakery". We're more of an Easy-Bake Oven :-)

I don't want to go with big graphic things because I'm not
that good of a designer. I think just a single color is OK.
I went with a medium and muted version of pistachio. We can
choose a different color, but I don't want to get into a more
complicated design unless someone else wants to take over the CSS
duties.

- Bob

[Daniel Lee]

For content:

- index.html: I would like to see the current version numbers on the first page.

- issues.html: should we have links to all the bug trackers? I guess we can leave a note that says if the user doesn't know where it belongs, throw it on Stan and we'll figure it out.

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[Bob Carpenter]

Good calls. Thanks for looking at the content.

I was trying to avoid having to update in multiple places,
but I think it makes sense to indicate the most recent version
if people are coming back. So we'll just have to suck it up and
edit the index on each release of RStan, PyStan or CmdStan.

Yes, I'll include links to each issue tracker.

- Bob

> http://www-prod-storage.cloud.__caltech.edu.s3.amazonaws.com/__caltech_designer___specifications.pdf

> <http://www-prod-storage.cloud.caltech.edu.s3.amazonaws.com/caltech_designer_specifications.pdf>
>
>
> :-) Maybe for next Halloween.
>
> ...
>
> Maybe a rainbow a la Google? But in a muted ggplot2 palette :-)
>
> ...
>
>
> I've been using a deep purple color scheme (with bright green for accents,
> although I wouldn't use the green for a site like this) for my slides to which
> I've grown accustomed.
>
>
> You thought green with yellow popups was garish and you're going with
> purple and bright green!
>
>

> Maybe something like 6 or 10 here http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/__07/11/website-color-palettes/
> <http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/07/11/website-color-palettes/>?

>
>
> Didn't like those, but liked 2 and 5 and sort of liked 1 until
> they told me it was appropriate for an "upscale mobile cupcake
> bakery". We're more of an Easy-Bake Oven :-)
>
> I don't want to go with big graphic things because I'm not
> that good of a designer. I think just a single color is OK.
> I went with a medium and muted version of pistachio. We can
> choose a different color, but I don't want to get into a more
> complicated design unless someone else wants to take over the CSS
> duties.
>
> - Bob
>
>
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[Michael Betancourt]

> You thought green with yellow popups was garish and you're going with
> purple and bright green!

See my papers -- it looks better than you would first expect!

>
>> Maybe something like 6 or 10 here http://blog.crazyegg.com/2012/07/11/website-color-palettes/?
>
> Didn't like those, but liked 2 and 5 and sort of liked 1 until
> they told me it was appropriate for an "upscale mobile cupcake
> bakery". We're more of an Easy-Bake Oven :-)

You just liked 1 because of the Pittsburg colors.

> I don't want to go with big graphic things because I'm not
> that good of a designer. I think just a single color is OK.
> I went with a medium and muted version of pistachio. We can
> choose a different color, but I don't want to get into a more
> complicated design unless someone else wants to take over the CSS
> duties.

I can take over the CSS -- maybe I'll have time to play with it
next week instead of learning the autodiff code. :-p I kid, but
I'll see what I can do to clean up the design a bit.

And maybe make a new logo. No one outside of New York
gets the subway allusion.

[Bob Carpenter]

On 11/12/13, 6:01 PM, Michael Betancourt wrote:
>> You thought green with yellow popups was garish and you're going with
>> purple and bright green!
>
> See my papers -- it looks better than you would first expect!

Let's just say we have different tastes in color schemes.

...

> I can take over the CSS -- maybe I'll have time to play with it
> next week instead of learning the autodiff code. :-p I kid, but
> I'll see what I can do to clean up the design a bit.

I'd rather save you for more important work. I can deal with CSS.

But if you find it fun and diverting like I do, go for it.
But could you run it by me before going too crazy?

I don't want anything too fancy, at least not yet. And I want
something I can understand and maintain if you don't have time.

Specifically, I don't want it to rely on any graphics we need
to generate in Photoshop or Illustrator.

> And maybe make a new logo. No one outside of New York
> gets the subway allusion.

OK by me. I don't like the all caps in the logo. I actually
don't like that it's derivative, so people missing the reference
is better in my opinion.

And that you can do in Illustrator.

- Bob

[Michael Betancourt]

> I'd rather save you for more important work. I can deal with CSS.
>
> But if you find it fun and diverting like I do, go for it.
> But could you run it by me before going too crazy?
>
> I don't want anything too fancy, at least not yet. And I want
> something I can understand and maintain if you don't have time.
>
> Specifically, I don't want it to rely on any graphics we need
> to generate in Photoshop or Illustrator.

Oh, yeah, I was referring to simple CSS. I don't even
have Photoshop or Illustrator, just GIMP and Inkscape.

>> And maybe make a new logo. No one outside of New York
>> gets the subway allusion.
>
> OK by me. I don't like the all caps in the logo. I actually
> don't like that it's derivative, so people missing the reference
> is better in my opinion.
>
> And that you can do in Illustrator.

Just need to figure out the best visual/math pun...

[Michael Betancourt]

I made some changes in the branch betan_tweaks. I cleaned up some of the CSS to ensure no
wrapping as well as the main block always covering all of the nav bar. Other than that there were
just some small design tweaks and a change of color palette that I thought was a decent compromise
(although can easily be changed).

Incidentally, did you mean to link to a non-existent css no media we don't support?

<link href="web/css/stan.css"
title="lp-site"
type="text/css"
rel="stylesheet"
media="print,handheld,tty,aural,braille,embossed"/>

[Bob Carpenter]

No, I meant to write a simple stylesheet for
other media but never got around to it. Better
to just remove at this point.

- Bob