[Clipart] PR for 0.16

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

Christopher Ellison <chris_ellison at hotmail.com> writes:

> Has there been a discussion on design? 

Some, but most of it was months ago, and the issue could stand to be
revisited, perhaps this fall.

> For instance, the "Incoming Clip Art" panel is nice...but it isn't
> something that I would consider essential (as in front page
> material) for a website aiming towards the general user---actually,
> I found it somewhat distracting/confusing.  Overall, I am wondering:
> Where is the white space? It seems kinda busy.

I tend to agree, for the most part, with this assessment.  We have a
sidebar on the left with two sections, the incoming sidebar on the
right, a banner and navbar across the top that includes one search
feature, and a multiline footer box at the bottom; these things occur
around just about every page, with a content area squeezed into the
middle.  

Then in addition to all of that, the front page has in its content
area a basic blurb, a screenshot, a submit form, *another* search
feature, and a bunch of news items.

It's all very crowded.

In terms of simplifying, here are some of my thoughts...

 * Unify the sidebars, creating one sidebar with several sections.
   (The one on the left already has two sections; adding a third
   section for incoming would not be a major change, and we could then
   do away with the right sidebar.)  I don't care which side the
   sidebar goes on, but it should be on *one* side, not both.  The
   number of "recent images" should perhaps be reduced from 15 to
   eight or ten, to make that section of sidebar similar in size to
   the others, and to keep the sidebar from running too long.
 
 * Roll the contents of the navbar across the top into the sidebar and
  eliminate the navbar, leaving only the banner at the top.
 
 * Move both search features into the sidebar, with a more clear
   explanation of the difference, or else dump whichever one is less
   useful and have just one search feature.  This makes the search
   available from every page and simplifies the layout of the main
   page considerably.
 
 * Remove the submit form from the main page; it's redundant, as
   there's already a link in the sidebar, on every page, that points
   to the main submit form.
   
 * Submit Clip Art and Submit Screenshot should not have something
   else in between them, so Join Discussion should be either before or
   after both of them.
 
 * Simplify the footer.  Currently there are at least three lines, and
   the middle one frequently runs over into two, depending on your
   resolution and font sizes and things.  The first line has the
   little icon-button things, but the other lines have text.  There
   are two different links to the Creative Commons.  First off, the
   links should either all have the icon-buttons (all the same size
   and shape), or else they should all be text, styled the same way.
   Second, they should all be in one block-level element.  Third,
   there are entirely too many of them, given that this is a footer
   that goes on just about every page on the site.  Most of those are
   affiliate projects, and they should be listed on one page, probably
   an Affiliate Projects or Links page existing especially for that
   purpose, with *one* link on every page pointing there.  As an added
   bonus, this would allow for a little blurb about each one,
   explaining what it is and why we're affliated.  Finally, the footer
   contains validator.w3.org icons, but have we checked that the pages
   that include the footer all validate?
   
For the new and rearranged sidebar, I'm thinking something like
the following...

  Available Clipart:
   * Statistics: over
     4300 clips by over
     400 contributors.
   * Browse Online
   * Download Releases
   * Search by Keyword:
     _____________ [Find]
  Contribute:
   * Submit Clip Art
   * Submit Screenshot
   * Join in Discussion
   * Report a Problem
   * Request Clipart
  Information:
   * News
   * Branding & Logo
   * Questions & Answers
   * Contact & Feedback
   * View Screenshots
   * Planet (weblog)
  Developer:
   * Roadmap
   * Tools
   * Wiki
  Incoming:
   * There are 101 files
     incoming, of which
     97 are svg.
   * View Submissions
 
-- 
Open Clip Art Library:  Drawing Together
http://www.openclipart.org/