h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I really can't understand why people do it, then... just to be different?

(By the way, please let me know when all my questions start getting tedious. I kinda feel like one of those annoying kids that just won't shut up. )

Yes, just to be different I think. They think that they impress the profs by doing this. I don't know whether it works.



don't worry I just feared *you* would get bored

Hmm. So, in order to be different, you'd use a material that's heavier and harder to work with, and tends to break... if I were a professor, I don't think I'd be very impressed. More like worried for that person's skill as an architect.

That's true. I never understood why people want to do such things, cardboard is so much easier and looks better in most cases.

Last year there there was a guy in my project group who built a model and it even had tiny chairs and bookshelves.

That sounds so adorable!

Yes, everyone loved it.

I saw my prof yesterday. Fortunately I only have to correct little things.

I really need to set a meeting with my prof... I've been putting it off. Like I keep putting off working on my thesis.


(Also, the MotMV stuff has gotten pretty fun recently, but I can really feel the absence of most of the people that used to lead the crazy adventures, can't you? I'm running out of ideas...)

I know what you mean.

Yes, I also run out of ideas quite fast. It's more fun with more people.

Still procrastinating... tell me to get back to work!

And still stuck on ideas to continue the MotMV plot. Eh, it can wait. I guess we can re-start the (very old) movie quote game in Haikeeba's lounge, in the meantime.

Get back to work!

Yes, we can restart it any time.
I thought about a new design for hootoo today. Got some ideas but not sure whether it really fits.

Hey, awesome! Is it based on the current Barlesque dealie (I'm an Alabastard through and through, so haven't seen much of it, except in occasional links - holy hell, why are the letters so big?!) or on the old skin system? I understand the need to update, but I really like the skins.

All of them. I compared all skins and tried to find out what is good and what is bad. I'm not sure whether I succeeded but it's a try.

Well, if it's any help, what I like about alabaster - apart from the fact that it's light and clear and friendly-looking - is that the conversations appear at the top of my space (if I remember correctly, in Brunel they're at the bottom, below all the personal space stuff), so it's easy to see what's new as soon as I open the page, and that the navigation bar is both at the top and at the bottom of the page, which makes navigation easier.

Somebody mentioned that he'd like it if he could choose himself where he sees what on his own PS. I'll have to wait for somebody with more technical skills to see whether that's possible.

It was kind of decided that the navigation bar should stay 'fixed' which means it doesn't move relatively to your browser window while you scroll on a page, so you always have it in reach.

Hmmm. I see what you mean. Personally, I'm a person of habit, and I like alabaster because of how simple it is; I'm sure some things could be improved (I've seen some stuff about unicode compatibility, which is definitely important, and I guess in this day and age being able to share stuff in other social networks might be something that people want), but it would still be nice if there would be some degree of being able to choose the appearance. I just really like the way things look, and kinda feel that changes should be more like tweaks of the current look(s) rather than a complete overhaul. Not sure how much that is actually viable, of course.

Also, I understood that the new h2g2 doesn't have the 'online eyes' feature, which seems like something worth keeping - it's a simple (and cute!) way of showing who's online right now.

And this is not really related to the visual stuff you're working on, but I've been wondering about user names - I really like how the current system lets you change around your name (either just adding/changing a tagline or actually changing your display name, like in the 'Tony Curtis' period, or for me, like when I decided to change my display name from 'Yael', which was giving me some trouble with people who couldn't tell if it was a guy's or girl's name, to 'Lady Pennywhistle'). It's just a fairly simple change in the 'Preferences'. But I know that's not really an obvious thing, and many systems don't let you do this. So I was wondering if you knew how this works in the new system.

I wouldn't worry so much about the new system, when we are out of the BBC changes will certainly be made again. And I think 2legs will go amok if he can't change his name anymore.
And many complained about the eyes, too. I think they should be added again, I can't imagine that it's difficult.

Do you mean simple in the way of usability or in appearence?

That's what I'm working on:
http://public.fotki.com/Tavaron/h2g2-layout/
The buttons at the left should be customizable if it's technically easy to do.

Oh, I was going to ask if there was a picture available - didn't think of checking your Fotki page.

And I think alabaster is simple both in usability (but that is probably true for all skins) and in appearance. It's mostly just nice and simple black-on-white, with the teal-and-orange serving as highlights, and giving it what I feel is a 'cleaner', more friendly look than, say, Brunel.

Just checked out your layout - I'm assuming that it's just a basic layout, and not supposed to represent the actual look of the site, eh? I don't think many will like the grey-and-white look! - and in general, it looks really good. Like I said, I like the alabaster layout where it's not:

About
-----------------------
Conversations

But more like:

ConAbout
ver
sat
ions


(I apologise for the crude description of something you probably already know.)

I think it's a great way to have things, because usually that's the first thing you want to know when you go online, and this way you don't have to scroll all the way past the personal space writing thing (which can sometimes be very long, like on my space) to get there.
I know that in the new look they made the personal writing part shorter (with a jump-cut of sorts), but I don't know how much I like that... again, maybe just because I'm a creature of habit, but the alabaster way seems so simple and elegant, you know?

I kept it in gray so everyone would *know* that this is not the final look. If I would have used colors people would certainly come and start arguing about green is better than red or whatever.
I just want to know where people would like to have which buttons, at the moment.

I know what you mean, yes. I actually think the new way they did PS is not bad, with the expandable 'about' because you then also have the messages in reach.
I will have to bug the technologically educated people to find out what is easy to do in the way of customization and what isn't. *If* it's possible we could maybe have people choose between an rather alabaster layout and a rather brunel/goo layout (they are very much alike).

That sounds great!

Thanks for taking the time to explain this stuff to me - I'm sure there's a lot of explanations and discussions already in the relevant threads, but could not really get myself to read them very thoroughly.

I know, there are loads of threads.
It was also largely agreed that it would be nice if there would be different background colors/pictures for different sections of the guide, like factual entries, UG entries, the post...
The question about how easy that would be still has to be answered.

My thought is that once we have a general layout that everyone can work with it should be easy to add new designs, they just have to fit into the frame. That way we could have a few new looks ranging from simple like alabaster to loads of colors and shiny bits and whatever.