Hello Amber Devs,
I think the look and functionality of the tutorials pages is converging
nicely. When students and scientists look for a molecular simulations
package, I want them to learn about what they're doing and I want them to
choose us: the new site is getting there. The basic format can be viewed
here:
http://casegroup.rutgers.edu/~cerutti/amber_web/tutorials/
When the tutorials get wrapped in the navigation framework I've designed
(essentially, by adding 3-5 lines of <?php ?> code and linking in the style
sheet), they will start to look more like the redesigned leap tutorial:
http://casegroup.rutgers.edu/~cerutti/amber_web/tutorials/pengfei/index.php
I did this one as an example, and I've contributed a couple of my own
tutorials which follow the proposed format, which also includes a means for
leaving a trail of breadcrumbs so that users can always find their way back
to the beginning of a particular tutorial, back to the section containing
similar tutorials, or anywhere else on the Amber site as they work through
their project. It can be seen in action here:
http://casegroup.rutgers.edu/~cerutti/amber_web/tutorials/
advanced/tutorial28/Part2.php
That page is the second of four stages in deriving IPolQ charges--as you
can see the peach bar underneath the navigation panel gets links back to
Force Field tutorials and the front of the current tutorial. In this
manner, the site is designed so that other contributors can easily tap into
the navigation for their own content and sub-pages. The page source is
human readable because it is completely human-written: I am not using a web
design studio to ensure that everyone will be able to edit the content with
vi / emacs / gedit.
I've gotten some praise for the design and requests to make the rest of the
Amber site consistent, perhaps by working with a student intern in one of
our groups. If anyone has an undergrad who is so inclined and has flare
for presentation, this could be a good project. Dan Roe made an excellent
suggestion that, as we change the website we also check to make sure that
all of the tutorials still work. We could have the undergraduate work
through the tutorials during the site redesign to ensure that all of them
stand in working order and are clearly written. He or she would learn
Linux, scripting, Amber itself, and some web coding.
Of course, it's hard to please everyone. As I've said, I am taking
suggestions from people who truly feel invested in this, in the sense that
I'm willing to make pizza for everyone but not inviting everyone to call
out toppings. With that, I'd like to propose an art contest. The color
scheme and masthead that I have chosen have been refined somewhat over the
past week to reflect our namesake and a palette that is lively but not
screaming. If, however, you want to see a different theme, send me a
detailed image for the masthead (900 x 96 pixels, containing an appropriate
logo with text as image), two more for the vertical bar (140 x 30 and 140 x
50+, to sit flush against the masthead and the second blending to the
vertical nav bar color), and three color codes to use in the navigation
(the current three are red #990000, peach #ff9966, and black #000000). The
background will remain white, in the interest of best melding with plots
and images throughout the rest of our content. It will take me 15-20
minutes to create a mock-up of the website in each new theme. We can then
have a vote on the design at some point in the future, perhaps at the Devs
meeting.
Cheers,
Dave
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Received on Sun Oct 09 2016 - 14:30:03 PDT
