Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

Most of the generated documentation isn't there, due to the need to 
write post-processing code to style it to match the rest of the site.

It's using Jinja templates to generate the static pages and storing 
release, mirrors, and news as JSON files so they only have to be updated 
in one place.  The plan is to write more code to manage these JSON files.

Because I wanted flexible templating and to use the html2text program to 
generate a markdown/text version of the releases.html file, the code is 
being written in python.  I believe just about anything you can manage 
to compile yodl on has python.

There's still a lot of work to do, but before I put in that effort, I'd 
like some feedback on the new organization and look.

https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Peter Stephenson]

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On 24 October 2024 05:28:09 BST, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:

https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/


Looks great to me - clear but with a distinctive format. I certainly don't claim
to be an expert in visual design, as you can see from my use of K9 mail.

pws


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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Jun. T]

> 2024/10/24 13:28, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wote:

> There's still a lot of work to do, but before I put in that effort, I'd like some feedback on the new organization and look.
> 
> https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/

It looks great both in light and dark modes (color schemes).

The Zshell icon at the top-left corner of the page is used as a link to
go back to the top page. Is this OK for everyone? (it's OK for me).

I personally prefer somewhat lager line spacing, but other people may have
different preference.

The following comments are all minor (maybe just because the pages are
under development):

The directory /FAQ/ has no index.html. I get the file listing if I follow
the "Frequently Asked Questions" link on the top page.

Except for the top page, the "Zsh Wizard" at the top-right corner of
the page is very small. Is this intentional? Maybe we need him
(the Wizard) only on the top page?

If I view the "Documentation" page on my iPhone (or use a narrow Safari
window or larger fonts on macOS) long h2-header like "THE ZSH MANUALS
AND GUIDS" is wrapped because it is limited to 30% of the page width.

On my iPhone, fonts in the "Development" page are smaller than other
pages. I don't know why. This doesn't happen on macOS.

In the dark mode, background of the entire line containing the Zshell
logo in the "News" section is white (maybe Safari only).

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/27/2024 10:34, Jun. T wrote:
>> 2024/10/24 13:28, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wote:
>> There's still a lot of work to do, but before I put in that effort, I'd like some feedback on the new organization and look.
>>
>> https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/
> It looks great both in light and dark modes (color schemes).
>
> The Zshell icon at the top-left corner of the page is used as a link to
> go back to the top page. Is this OK for everyone? (it's OK for me).
That seems to be a common web convention and I didn't really like the 
"navigation" buttons of the original site, especially since it didn't 
seem intuitive where they would go.   I have considered adding a "Home" 
label to the logo space, but I'm not convinced it's necessary.
>
> I personally prefer somewhat lager line spacing, but other people may have
> different preference.
>
> The following comments are all minor (maybe just because the pages are
> under development):
>
> The directory /FAQ/ has no index.html. I get the file listing if I follow
> the "Frequently Asked Questions" link on the top page.
Yeah, I still have most of the generated documentation to do.  I've been 
focusing on reorganizing the "static" pages.
>
> Except for the top page, the "Zsh Wizard" at the top-right corner of
> the page is very small. Is this intentional? Maybe we need him
> (the Wizard) only on the top page?
It looked weird to me without something to balance the logo in the 
header.  And the large version seemed appropriate only on the main page 
given how much vertical real-estate it takes up. Though when I get the 
small screen styles written, I will probably hide him on all pages.
>
> If I view the "Documentation" page on my iPhone (or use a narrow Safari
> window or larger fonts on macOS) long h2-header like "THE ZSH MANUALS
> AND GUIDS" is wrapped because it is limited to 30% of the page width.
Yeah, I'm planning to write a small screen style where the section 
headers will take up probably the full width of the screen.
>
> On my iPhone, fonts in the "Development" page are smaller than other
> pages. I don't know why. This doesn't happen on macOS.
Not sure on that.  I rarely changed font size.  We'll look at it more 
when I get to the small screen style. Font sizes will change more in 
those style.
>
> In the dark mode, background of the entire line containing the Zshell
> logo in the "News" section is white (maybe Safari only).

Yeah, the original news item just had the transparent black logo, and 
the extra HTML to choose the dark mode logo seemed like too much HTML 
for a news item, so I did a white background image of the black logo 
since that seems to be the "canonical" form, but I could change it.


Also since you tried multiple browsers (some of which I don't have 
access to) did the alternate list markers show up on all browsers?  I 
was a little concerned some browsers would have trouble with the 
expanded "emoji" Unicode.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Wed, Oct 23, 2024 at 9:28 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> There's still a lot of work to do, but before I put in that effort, I'd
> like some feedback on the new organization and look.
>
> https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/

Looking at this in Firefox on a MacBook, for now ... my overall
impression is good, so thank you for the effort, and pardon that the
rest of this is mainly criticism.

I personally find the photorealistic wizard to look out of place,
perhaps in part because the background color doesn't match the page
background in "Light" mode, so you can see the rectangular edges.
It's better in dark mode where the background disappears, but it still
doesn't "feel" the same as the rest of the appearance, and the black
robes tend to fade into the background.  Something more like a pencil
sketch might work, although I'm not sure how to make that visible in
dark mode.

The serif font in the "Welcome to Z Shell" banner also looks off.  Are
you trying to stick to "web friendly" fonts?  If not, "Arial Rounded
MT Bold Regular"
(https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold) is the closest
match I found to the custom font used in the logo graphic.  Try using
that (maybe also increase size from 3rem to 4rem), assuming not
license restricted.

Overall the layout is clean and appealing.  Navigation is fine.  Nit:
The news items from 2021 about the DNS issue and chat move are already
on the "Older News" page and should be removed from the front page.

I do not see the excess white background Jun T. reported around the
zsh logo in dark mode.

You mentioned that you have not yet done small screen styling, but as
a note, on Android/Chrome, the front page and Documention page banners
are much larger (and wrapped) than the banner on the Development page.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/27/2024 12:45, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2024 at 9:28 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>> There's still a lot of work to do, but before I put in that effort, I'd
>> like some feedback on the new organization and look.
>>
>> https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/
> Looking at this in Firefox on a MacBook, for now ... my overall
> impression is good, so thank you for the effort, and pardon that the
> rest of this is mainly criticism.
>
> I personally find the photorealistic wizard to look out of place,
> perhaps in part because the background color doesn't match the page
> background in "Light" mode, so you can see the rectangular edges.
> It's better in dark mode where the background disappears, but it still
> doesn't "feel" the same as the rest of the appearance, and the black
> robes tend to fade into the background.  Something more like a pencil
> sketch might work, although I'm not sure how to make that visible in
> dark mode.
Yeah, I couldn't quite get the shadow to end inside the box.  The one 
from the current page is so low-resolution that it didn't scale well at 
all,even if I could convert it to a dark mode.  I can experiment a 
little.  I'm a little worried about licensing if I just grab something 
off the web.   Maybe a lighter robe, and feathered oval background, even 
possibly a close up
>
> The serif font in the "Welcome to Z Shell" banner also looks off.  Are
> you trying to stick to "web friendly" fonts?  If not, "Arial Rounded
> MT Bold Regular"
> (https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold) is the closest
> match I found to the custom font used in the logo graphic.  Try using
> that (maybe also increase size from 3rem to 4rem), assuming not
> license restricted.
I was using a web-friendly serif font for the main headers.  We could 
just go to the browser's default serif font, though in many browsers 
that looks kind of skinny.
>
> Overall the layout is clean and appealing.  Navigation is fine.  Nit:
> The news items from 2021 about the DNS issue and chat move are already
> on the "Older News" page and should be removed from the front page.
The news section just grabs the first 4 of the News "database" (JSON 
file) I've also moved the mirrors list and release information into JSON 
files.
>
> I do not see the excess white background Jun T. reported around the
> zsh logo in dark mode.
>
> You mentioned that you have not yet done small screen styling, but as
> a note, on Android/Chrome, the front page and Documention page banners
> are much larger (and wrapped) than the banner on the Development page.
I don't recall messing with the font size on the Development page, but 
I'll take a look.
>

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:15 AM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> On 10/27/2024 12:45, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> > The serif font in the "Welcome to Z Shell" banner also looks off.  Are
> > you trying to stick to "web friendly" fonts?  If not, "Arial Rounded
> > MT Bold Regular"
> I was using a web-friendly serif font for the main headers.  We could
> just go to the browser's default serif font

It's the serifs that bother me, everything else including the
"section" headers is sans.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Stephane Chazelas]

2024-10-23 23:28:09 -0500, Clinton Bunch:
[...]
> https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/

Looks good to me.

BTW, I read (same as https://zsh.sourceforge.io/):

>  Many of the useful features of bash, ksh, and tcsh were incorporated into zsh

Which got me wondering what "useful features of bash" zsh has
incorporated.

I'm sure there are many, but most of the ones I can think of at
the moment that are shared between bash and zsh come from either
ksh or (t)csh.

[[ string =~ regex ]] comes to mind though zsh had [[ string
-pcre-match regex ]] before IIRC.

It might be worth mentioning rc as well there as I suspect more
features were borrowed from there than from bash. With the next
version, we could add mksh with its function substitution
(${|fun...}).

-- 
Stephane

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:43 AM Stephane Chazelas
<stephane@chazelas.org> wrote:
>
> >  Many of the useful features of bash, ksh, and tcsh were incorporated into zsh
>
> Which got me wondering what "useful features of bash" zsh has
> incorporated.

IIRC at the time zsh was introduced, bash already had readline for
command editing, but ksh did not yet have an equivalent.  So the
reference to "features of bash" likely means ZLE.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

On 10/27/2024 13:28, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:15 AM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>> On 10/27/2024 12:45, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>>> The serif font in the "Welcome to Z Shell" banner also looks off.  Are
>>> you trying to stick to "web friendly" fonts?  If not, "Arial Rounded
>>> MT Bold Regular"
>> I was using a web-friendly serif font for the main headers.  We could
>> just go to the browser's default serif font
> It's the serifs that bother me, everything else including the
> "section" headers is sans.
>
I really like serif for headers, but find it harder to read for body 
text.  Sans always feels like it lacks "authority", serif always seems 
to grab the attention better. Would you feel better if the section 
headers were serif as well?

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Stephane Chazelas]

2024-10-27 11:46:22 -0700, Bart Schaefer:
> On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:43 AM Stephane Chazelas
> <stephane@chazelas.org> wrote:
> >
> > >  Many of the useful features of bash, ksh, and tcsh were incorporated into zsh
> >
> > Which got me wondering what "useful features of bash" zsh has
> > incorporated.
> 
> IIRC at the time zsh was introduced, bash already had readline for
> command editing, but ksh did not yet have an equivalent.  So the
> reference to "features of bash" likely means ZLE.

I remember looking into that: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/277789/why-cant-korn-shell-do-ctrl-r/277800#277800

ksh has had a vi and emacs line editor since 1983, long before
bash (though of course you could say the "features" themselves
come from vi and emacs), you can see that where tcsh and ksh
differ, readline's interface usually follows ksh so that's likely
where it got its inspiration.

It's true though (and as noted at the link above) that zsh 1.0
in 1990 was *using* readline with a note in the announcement
that it would change in 2.0 (which it did the next year). I
don't think we can say the line editor feature comes from bash.

Cheers,
Stephane

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Jun T]

> 2024/10/28 1:06, Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
> 
> Also since you tried multiple browsers (some of which I don't have access to) did the alternate list markers show up on all browsers?  I was a little concerned some browsers would have trouble with the expanded "emoji" Unicode.

I only have Safari (iOS, macOS), Firefox (Linux, macOS), and
Edge (Windows). These all show (almost) the same maker.

In dark mode, the red "wand" marker (in Support section)
is a little bit hard to see.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 12:09 PM Stephane Chazelas
<stephane@chazelas.org> wrote:
>
> ksh has had a vi and emacs line editor since 1983, long before
> bash

Ah.  Well, remember that at that time ksh was not freely available ...
most of the features that PF originally adopted from it came via
interpreting the manual page, which is how we got "coproc" as a
precommand and the strange bracket-prefix syntax for number bases in
arithmetic, among other things.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

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On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:58 AM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:

>
> I really like serif for headers, but find it harder to read for body
> text.  Sans always feels like it lacks "authority", serif always seems
> to grab the attention better.


Hm.
[image: Screen Shot 2024-10-27 at 8.01.26 PM.png]
That's really not grabby/authoritative enough?

Incidentally I just noticed that Safari on MacOS Catalina will not display
"webp" images.


> Would you feel better if the section
> headers were serif as well?


Not really.  It's not so much the serifs themselves as that it's so
"pointy" -- all the corners are much sharper than anything else on the page.

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/27/2024 22:06, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:58 AM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> 
> wrote:
>
>
>     I really like serif for headers, but find it harder to read for body
>     text.  Sans always feels like it lacks "authority", serif always seems
>     to grab the attention better.
>
>
> Hm.
> Screen Shot 2024-10-27 at 8.01.26 PM.png
> That's really not grabby/authoritative enough?
Not really.  To me, a title should stand out, not blend in.
>
> Incidentally I just noticed that Safari on MacOS Catalina will not 
> display "webp" images.
Okay.  Well, that's good to know.
>
>     Would you feel better if the section
>     headers were serif as well?
>
>
> Not really.  It's not so much the serifs themselves as that it's so 
> "pointy" -- all the corners are much sharper than anything else on the 
> page.


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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Lawrence Velázquez]

On Sun, Oct 27, 2024, at 11:43 PM, Clinton Bunch wrote:
> On 10/27/2024 22:06, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> On Sun, Oct 27, 2024 at 11:58 AM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I really like serif for headers, but find it harder to read for body
>>> text.  Sans always feels like it lacks "authority", serif always seems
>>> to grab the attention better. 
>> 
>> Hm.
>> Screen Shot 2024-10-27 at 8.01.26 PM.png
>> That's really not grabby/authoritative enough?
> Not really.  To me, a title should stand out, not blend in.

I agree with Bart on this.  To me, the current title doesn't "stand
out" as much as it sticks out like a sore thumb.  It makes the
design feel incoherent, disjointed, and amateurish.

-- 
vq

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

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On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 12:42 AM Lawrence Velázquez <larryv@zsh.org> wrote:

> I agree with Bart on this.  To me, the current title doesn't "stand
> out" as much as it sticks out like a sore thumb.  It makes the
> design feel incoherent, disjointed, and amateurish.
>

That's a bit too harsh.  However, the titles here aren't really conveying
much information ... not like, say, a title on a book spine that has to
pull your eye as you scan past.  The titles here are just telling you where
you are, they shouldn't be distracting from the content.

There are serif web-friendly fonts that I think would look less out of
place, e.g., vesper libre (https://online-fonts.com/fonts/vesper-libre) or
merriweather (https://online-fonts.com/fonts/merriweather).

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/28/2024 11:07, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 12:42 AM Lawrence Velázquez <larryv@zsh.org> 
> wrote:
>
>     I agree with Bart on this.  To me, the current title doesn't "stand
>     out" as much as it sticks out like a sore thumb.  It makes the
>     design feel incoherent, disjointed, and amateurish.
>
>
> That's a bit too harsh.  However, the titles here aren't really 
> conveying much information ... not like, say, a title on a book spine 
> that has to pull your eye as you scan past.  The titles here are just 
> telling you where you are, they shouldn't be distracting from the content.
>
> There are serif web-friendly fonts that I think would look less out of 
> place, e.g., vesper libre 
> (https://online-fonts.com/fonts/vesper-libre) or merriweather 
> (https://online-fonts.com/fonts/merriweather).

I updated the main page with a couple of web fonts.  I currently have it 
loading the variable font file.

https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Crimson+Pro
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Open+Sans

The title font is still serif but softer than the default or Georgia.

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Oliver Kiddle]

On 23 Oct, Clinton Bunch wrote:
> It's using Jinja templates to generate the static pages and storing 
> release, mirrors, and news as JSON files so they only have to be updated 
> in one place.  The plan is to write more code to manage these JSON files.

Given that we include release information in the source distribution,
that would still need to be updated in two places. For the source
distribution, we need something rather more amenable to being viewed in
a terminal with less or even cat - so plain text or perhaps markdown. Is
your intention that we treat the JSON files as the primary and generate
either plain text or markdown from the JSON?

As I mentioned before but never got around to writing a patch for, I
think we should restructure the release notes in the source distribution
in a manner similar to that used by the git project: individual files
named by version number in a RelNotes directory and the top-level NEWS
file being a symlink to the file for the latest release (except where
it is still an unnumbered work-in-progress release). The current split
between NEWS and README is not ideal.

The approach of using Jinja sounds fine to me. Apart from the JSON files
you mention, are you using Jinja directly within HTML?

The site looks great to me. With regard to the fonts, I wonder whether
it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
although that was somewhat custom. Including font files does increase
the size somewhat. The wizard can be shrunk by about 10% with zopflipng.

Finally, thanks for working on this.

Oliver

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> On 23 Oct, Clinton Bunch wrote:
>> It's using Jinja templates to generate the static pages and storing
>> release, mirrors, and news as JSON files so they only have to be updated
>> in one place.  The plan is to write more code to manage these JSON files.
> Given that we include release information in the source distribution,
> that would still need to be updated in two places. For the source
> distribution, we need something rather more amenable to being viewed in
> a terminal with less or even cat - so plain text or perhaps markdown. Is
> your intention that we treat the JSON files as the primary and generate
> either plain text or markdown from the JSON?

For the Release Notes, my plan was to keep the format of record the 
releases.html and use the python tool html2text to render it as markdown 
for the source distribution.

The News tidbits (more announcements) are what I converted to JSON.

The JSON release file, just holds information like the src and doc 
tarball names, sourceforge URLs, version number, file sizes, release 
date, etc.  There is also going to be support for a pre-release if one 
is generated.

>
> As I mentioned before but never got around to writing a patch for, I
> think we should restructure the release notes in the source distribution
> in a manner similar to that used by the git project: individual files
> named by version number in a RelNotes directory and the top-level NEWS
> file being a symlink to the file for the latest release (except where
> it is still an unnumbered work-in-progress release). The current split
> between NEWS and README is not ideal.
>
> The approach of using Jinja sounds fine to me. Apart from the JSON files
> you mention, are you using Jinja directly within HTML?

To generate information from the JSON files and to get a consistent 
header and footer, and include all the link tags for stylesheets, icons, 
and preload fonts.

I've attached the Jinja template for the main page.

>
> The site looks great to me. With regard to the fonts, I wonder whether
> it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
> although that was somewhat custom.
If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font. 
Though usually when trying to pair fonts, the net wisdom seems to be 
your best bet is to pair a serif with sans-serif.
> Including font files does increase
> the size somewhat.
Yeah, that may be a problem for mobile users.
> The wizard can be shrunk by about 10% with zopflipng.
We may also be able to scale it down some.
>
> Finally, thanks for working on this.
>
> Oliver
>

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 7:15 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> > it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
> > although that was somewhat custom.
> If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font.

I did that a few messages back:
https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold

It's not exact because the logo font was custom-designed, it's sort of
a horizontally-condensed look compared to Arial Rounded.

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:24 PM Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 7:15 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
> >
> > On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
> > > it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
> > > although that was somewhat custom.
> > If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font.
>
> I did that a few messages back:
> https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold
>
> It's not exact because the logo font was custom-designed, it's sort of
> a horizontally-condensed look compared to Arial Rounded.

If it needs to be from the Google catalog ...

Bold variant of one of these:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Kosugi+Maru?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Barlow+Condensed?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded

Or perhaps this:
https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dangrek?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded

Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/29/2024 22:37, Bart Schaefer wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:24 PM Bart Schaefer<schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 7:15 PM Clinton Bunch<cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>>> On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
>>>> it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
>>>> although that was somewhat custom.
>>> If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font.
>> I did that a few messages back:
>> https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold
>>
>> It's not exact because the logo font was custom-designed, it's sort of
>> a horizontally-condensed look compared to Arial Rounded.

It doesn't look like any version of Arial is a free font.  I think in 
order to use it as a webfont we'd have to purchase a license.

 From Microsoft Windows Font FAQ:

Web fonts are fonts that are hosted on a web server. You do not have 
rights to:

  * copy fonts from a Windows installation to a web server, a process
    known as web font “self-hosting”.
  * convert the font to the formats typically associated with web fonts,
    such as the WOFF or WOFF2 format.


We could specify it as part of the font "stack", but it would only show 
on systems that had the font installed locally.

> If it needs to be from the Google catalog ...
Not so much specifically the Google Catalog, but they are all an open 
license.
>
> Bold variant of one of these:
> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Kosugi+Maru?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
This one doesn't appear to have a bold variant and for some reason looks 
like something that would come out of a typewriter to me (though I think 
they all use a serif font, so I'm not sure why I get that feeling)
> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Barlow+Condensed?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
I can try it on one of the pages and see how it looks.
>
> Or perhaps this:
> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dangrek?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
This doesn't have a bold weight, but the regular weight font is pretty 
bold as is. We'll try it.
>

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/29/2024 23:33, Clinton Bunch wrote:
> On 10/29/2024 22:37, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:24 PM Bart Schaefer<schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 7:15 PM Clinton Bunch<cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>>>> On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
>>>>> it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
>>>>> although that was somewhat custom.
>>>> If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font.
>>> I did that a few messages back:
>>> https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold
>>>
>>> It's not exact because the logo font was custom-designed, it's sort of
>>> a horizontally-condensed look compared to Arial Rounded.
>
> It doesn't look like any version of Arial is a free font.  I think in 
> order to use it as a webfont we'd have to purchase a license.
>
> From Microsoft Windows Font FAQ:
>
> Web fonts are fonts that are hosted on a web server. You do not have 
> rights to:
>
>   * copy fonts from a Windows installation to a web server, a process
>     known as web font “self-hosting”.
>   * convert the font to the formats typically associated with web
>     fonts, such as the WOFF or WOFF2 format.
>
>
> We could specify it as part of the font "stack", but it would only 
> show on systems that had the font installed locally.
>
>> If it needs to be from the Google catalog ...
> Not so much specifically the Google Catalog, but they are all an open 
> license.
>> Bold variant of one of these:
>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Kosugi+Maru?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
> This one doesn't appear to have a bold variant and for some reason 
> looks like something that would come out of a typewriter to me (though 
> I think they all use a serif font, so I'm not sure why I get that feeling)
>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Barlow+Condensed?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
> I can try it on one of the pages and see how it looks.
I put this at the top of the mailing list page.  Not crazy about it, but 
it's not awful.
>> Or perhaps this:
>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dangrek?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
> This doesn't have a bold weight, but the regular weight font is pretty 
> bold as is. We'll try it.
This is on the Useful Links page.  I think it looks too playful. Not 
Comic Sans playful, but still.


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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Clinton Bunch]

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On 10/29/2024 23:47, Clinton Bunch wrote:
> On 10/29/2024 23:33, Clinton Bunch wrote:
>> On 10/29/2024 22:37, Bart Schaefer wrote:
>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:24 PM Bart Schaefer<schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 7:15 PM Clinton Bunch<cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>>>>> On 10/29/2024 20:39, Oliver Kiddle wrote:
>>>>>> it would be more consistent if we matched the font used in the Zsh logo
>>>>>> although that was somewhat custom.
>>>>> If someone can point me toward it, I'll try it as the header font.
>>>> I did that a few messages back:
>>>> https://online-fonts.com/fonts/arial-rounded-mt-bold
>>>>
>>>> It's not exact because the logo font was custom-designed, it's sort of
>>>> a horizontally-condensed look compared to Arial Rounded.
>>
>> It doesn't look like any version of Arial is a free font.  I think in 
>> order to use it as a webfont we'd have to purchase a license.
>>
>> From Microsoft Windows Font FAQ:
>>
>> Web fonts are fonts that are hosted on a web server. You do not have 
>> rights to:
>>
>>   * copy fonts from a Windows installation to a web server, a process
>>     known as web font “self-hosting”.
>>   * convert the font to the formats typically associated with web
>>     fonts, such as the WOFF or WOFF2 format.
>>
>>
>> We could specify it as part of the font "stack", but it would only 
>> show on systems that had the font installed locally.
>>
>>> If it needs to be from the Google catalog ...
>> Not so much specifically the Google Catalog, but they are all an open 
>> license.
>>> Bold variant of one of these:
>>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Kosugi+Maru?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
>> This one doesn't appear to have a bold variant and for some reason 
>> looks like something that would come out of a typewriter to me 
>> (though I think they all use a serif font, so I'm not sure why I get 
>> that feeling)
>>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Barlow+Condensed?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
>> I can try it on one of the pages and see how it looks.
> I put this at the top of the mailing list page.  Not crazy about it, 
> but it's not awful.
>>> Or perhaps this:
>>> https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dangrek?preview.text=ZSHELL%20Welcome%20To%20Z%20Shell&preview.size=41&script=Latn&categoryFilters=Sans+Serif:%2FSans%2FRounded
>> This doesn't have a bold weight, but the regular weight font is 
>> pretty bold as is. We'll try it.
> This is on the Useful Links page.  I think it looks too playful. Not 
> Comic Sans playful, but still.
>
>
Here's the webfonts we've tried so far:

Crimson Pro (still my favorite) - https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/index.html

Barlow Condensed - https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/mlist.html

Dangrek - https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/links.html

Open Sans (same as body font, my favorite of the Sans Serif headers 
we've tried) - https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/Doc/index.html


It doesn't look to me like we're going to find a match (at least with an 
open license) to the Logo, and unless it's very close, I don't think the 
attempt will look good.  If someone has other suggestions, we can try them.

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Re: Feedback on prototype reorganized Zsh website

[Bart Schaefer]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2024 at 4:57 PM Clinton Bunch <cdb_zsh@zentaur.org> wrote:
>
> Here's the webfonts we've tried so far:

The criteria I've been applying:
 * Uniform stroke weight
 * Closed capital S
 * Rounded corners, including start/end of strokes if sans
 * Horizontally condensed

Barlow has the stroke weight and closed S but not the rounded corners.
Dangrek has the S and the rounded corners/ends but I agree it looks
"blobby" because it doesn't have uniform stroke. I haven't found
anything condensed.

I doubt there's any serif font with uniform stroke and/or closed S, so
the ones I've suggested so far have as close as I could find to
rounded corners.

> Crimson Pro (still my favorite) - https://zsh.clintonbunch.name/index.html

This would be OK, we're reaching a point of diminishing returns with
this discussion.