September 06, 2005

Ooooohhh... Very New, Very Nice UI for Mono-Project.com... Just One Teensy-Weensie Suggestion if I could...

Main Page - Mono

What is Mono?

Mono provides the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, Windows, and Unix. Sponsored by Novell, the Mono open source project has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

This is the lead in to the brand new, *EXTREMELY* well designed mono-project.com.

Take a look:

Of course I couldn't help myself from having a look around to see what other little UI treats might have been integrated into the design. While my hat goes off to whomever the site designer happens to be, I do have a teensy-weensie suggestion for the non-UI portion of the site; the code-behind, if you will, that drives the snazzy new interface...

One word: Dogfood.

It's tough to sell the web technology you've developed (a.k.a. ASP.NET; mod_mono; XSP) when you're not even using it to power your own site.

I don't mean to come across the wrong way; I use the Mono implementation of ASP.NET 1.1 and 2.0 quite often and its flat out fantastic. In many ways you've got the best of what makes Apache such a fantastic HTTP server (and beyond!) coupled with what many, including me, believe to be, flat-out, the absolute best web development platform that currently exists on this planet in ASP.NET; which of course is driven by, flat-out, the best development platform/framework that currently exists on this planet in the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), better known by its marketing name, the .NET Framework.

So I guess all I'm saying is that when you have such a fantastic web platform that you have painstakingly handcrafted, why not use it?

I realize that the actual code driving this site is MediaWiki[UPDATE: See Footnote One], which is built upon a PHP foundation. And I realize that with the roots of PHP in OSS by default its a much more prevalent and understood web technology within the ranks of those working on other OSS projects, such as Mono. So with this in mind it makes it a slightly different situation than if say, Microsoft were to have this same error exposed on the .NET Framework Development Home on MSDN; or any of the other .NET-related MS sites for that matter. So, again, its tough to make too much of a fuss about things...

Either way (PHP/MediaWiki or ASP.NET), keep up the great work! I absolutely love what this project has accomplished, and the premise in which it has been built upon. I can't wait to see where the Mono community takes us next... should be fun :)

Cheers :)

[1] : I should have added to this the fact that, as far as I know, the only real OSS Wiki engine built on top of ASP.NET is FlexWiki. And while I recognize the fact that there is a lot of power that is sitting behind the front-end of this Microsoft sponsored, SF.net hosted open source wiki project, the "out-of-the-box" U.I. is not exactly what you would call "User Friendly." Its seems to me that as the project began to develop those who focused on the UI portion were already quite comfortable with the idea of accessing the underlying content using the "Title Bar" for navigation (if you have used FlexWiki you will know what I mean. If you haven't, visit FlexWiki.com and sooner or later you'll start to realize what I mean by "Title Bar Navigation" as well as why I believe this chosen method was a mistake and a hinderance to the projects overall success thus far) and as such continued forward with a "minimalist" approach, believing others would simply "get it" and think it was the greatest thing in the world, worthy of some sort of usability award of some sort, but I'm not so sure Jakob Nielsen would feel the same the way.

Which reminds me, whats up with all the posed photos made available in ultra high resolution (http://useit.com/jakob/photos/)? I mean, I realize he's recognized as the leading web usability expert and that he is highly sought after for presentations, keynotes, etc... but DAMN!(make sure you click the magnifying glass in Fx or N/S/E/W arrow in IE, to get the full "DAMN!" effect.) If the man has any problems with self-confidence, it sure isn't made evident by his personal "Action-Jackson" Me-Myself-&I photo collection; made conveniently available in near life-size proportions for ANYBODY who might want to make a cardboard cutout or a poster to hang in their cubicle. Even better would be a "Would Jakob Approve?" desktop background to "keep you in line" while your'e designing the layout and functionality of a website. In fact I just so happen to have such an item; you know, to keep me in line when I'm developing Web UI's and stuff (Think thats enough "happy, happy, joy, joy" bullshit to keep his lawyers off my a$$? Ahh, fuck it, who cares... they're in the public domain with no licensing terms listed... that means they're free game :))

Click the image for a 1024x768 image, a convenient size for those who wish to use this as desktop wallpaper; again, click the magnifying glass or N/S/E/W arrow to view the resized image (that is if your browser is set to resize images automatically; by default, most are.) Or you can just right click this link and choose the selection that seems the closest to "Save target as..."

Enjoy your Jakob Nielsen Approved? Day!

[Further Update: I guess "Each of the following photographs is available in a high-resolution version for use in print publications or for import into graphics programs when creating new Web illustrations featuring Jakob Nielsen." is kind of sort of something that could be considered licensing terms, although I'm not so sure how legally binding they would be. Besides, the above image falls perfectly into the "for import into graphics programs when creating new Web illustrations featuring Jakob Nielsen." portion of that statement... Its a good thing too... I can't imagine life without my "Would Jakob Approve?" desktop wallpaper to "remind" me not to stray too far from the "ways of the Jakob Nielsen approved" web design method; whatever that means. (don't email me to tell me; I already know... and in 99% of the cases he's right; this isn't a post suggesting that his approach to web design is wrong... I'm just not so sure the need exists for such an array of personal photo's; but who am I to suggest otherwise... If you just so happen to need a JN photo, if not before, you most certainly are now fully aware of where you can find one; or fifty.]