http://sourceworld.sourceforge.net

Hello,

Sourceworld is like many Wikis though there are a few differences. Overall, I wanted to have an intuitive interface that feels almost like you are browsing through your My Documents folder (hopefully yours is organized). Overlayed on top of this I wanted to have the feeling of a forum-style question, answer, comments format while still preserving a sort of magazine-style article feeling. I wanted to sort of hide the wiki nature from regular users so that they could concentrate on finding and browsing through information that they wanted. However, I wanted to preserve the ease of modifying content for contributors. I suppose a WYSIWYG editor would be nice but besides this, I wanted a general critique of the site design, layout, ease, and functionality.

Ravi

I like the idea, and the implementation's not bad. It seems a little cluttered at points, which might distract from the pure information the site is meant to contain - the most critical example of this that I can see is the date/time/rating at the bottom of each post. I'd recommend (although feel free to disagree) that you take out the rating system - after all, ratings were really just invented for people to state the quality of something, and the whole point of a wiki is to not just say that something's bad, but to make it better! I'd make the post time/date a smaller font (perhaps sans-serif as well) and not use such a large date format - "Posted @ hh:mm mm/dd/yy" would state the same info in a way that wouldn't seem as cluttered, and place more emphasis on the information itself. Perhaps make it grey text for the date/time as well.

As for layout, there's the "grey space" to the right of the content area... is there any way you could take it out and just let the content area scale dynamically? It seems such a waste to restrict the viewing area in such a way.

Finally, you might consider (when browsing catagories) making the 2-column layout into a 3-column layout, with the main nav on the left, a bar of similar size as the main nav for subcatagories in the center, and then the content pane itself on the right. This would be much easier to use, especially if the number of subcatagories in a particular area expands past 10 or so.

nice and clean design,

but i have to comment on the mark-up

i don't really see the need for tables on this page,
tables should not be used for layout,
your layout could easily been made with css.

also use the right tag for the right job,
<div class="title"> doesn't have any semantical meaning rather use an appropriate hn-tag.
http://www.webaim.org/techniques/structure/

you also seems to be a bit fond of the br-tag, to create space use margin in css

i aslo noted that you use xhtml1.1 as doctype yet you are using the wrong mimetype, xhtml1.1 should be sent with application/xhtml+ xml not text/html
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/

there are several methods one can use to deliver the right mime-type

a php-example,
http://keystonewebsites.com/articles/mime_type.php

an example with .htaccess
http://www.greytower.net/en/archive...tmlcontent.html

Thanks for the input. I guess I'll say a few things about what's been said.

Akh... regarding the tables usage... I know I could have done it using css and some divs and I have tried it that way. However, column formats using css and not tables always seem to break one way or other. The most reliable way I have found to do columns is using tables so I am going to stick with that. Point taken about the <div class="title"> and the <br /> tags... i'll try my best to work around those to make the markup cleaner. The mime type I do know about but I have heard (I bellieve I have tried it) that IE does not like it or maybe that is when using just application/xml... i'll check up on that.

deltacoder... I have myself been dissatisfied with the way the "ending" (as i call them in the code, the Posted by, etc info) formats. I have tried smaller font sizes and different colors and even more concise date formats. However, they all didnt seem to be visually pleasing to me. Anyhow, I will mess around with it further. As for the grey space, I realize it seems a bit wasteful but it was for aesthetic purposes. I had the choice of making it either a fixed-width or a more liquidy layout. I know I've read somewhere and agree that people tend to find it easier to read something when the lines seem shorter. It is definitely in the mind but I believe it to be true and so I decided to go with a fixed with for the content layer. The gray bar just seemed to be a nice touch. As for your ideas on navigation, I will see how they work.

Again, thanks for the responses. It'll probably take me a while to get changes done since Uni started again. However, I will look forward to further feedback in the meantime and implement changes as I get the time.

i disagree, a css layout doesn't break if it is done correctly.
anyway what you gain with a css layout is worth a lot more than a table layout,
you will have more flexible design, allowing you to do
changes much more easily, and you also gain accessiblitly ( if you also have a improved use of semantics in the markup and correct structur).




both examples i linked, give the correct mimetype to the useragents that accepts it.
the php example is by far the most flexible, since it allows you to use different doctypes and mimetypes to the browsers that accepts application/xhtml+xml and the ones that doesn't.

in the example with htaccess, you ought to use xhtml1.0 strict as doctype, since you can't use selective doctypes in this example,
and since xhtml1.0 can be deliever as text/html or application/xhtml+xml, though the latter is what should ideally be used.

looks very clean and clear, very easy to navigate. I like this kinds of sites.

Hello,

I've been trying to get people to contribute to the site (Sourceworld, http://sourceworld.sourceforge.net) but it seems that for the most part, it has not worked.

Besides the generic reason of apathy, I would like to hear some feedback on why this might be. For example, comments on the ease of use, the effectiveness of the organization of information and a general critique of the concept would be helpful.

Overall, I'm looking for things I can change to get more people to join the site and contribute. I am looking for stuff besides the advertising bit.

I'd appreciate any input,

Thanks,
Ravi