> Looks nice but requires that the contents is on every page. I have
> no problems doing this style of a site ,in fact i started with that
> type of layout in mind, but it is too difficult to maintain without
> php or another scripting language so i dropped the idea. If i knew
> that the hosting computer have PHP then sure no problem.
>
>
> Damian Dowling

Hi Damian,
I don't quite understand why this should be too difficoult to
maintain. If anything is "difficoult" then it's to do the pages, not
to maintain them. I can tell you I had them done very quickly. And
there isn't much more to the entire site, as I told in earlier
messages, this site will not have an awful lot of content. Of course
using server side includes or PHP include statement for the menu part
is a possibility, but that's a purely technical question, not
something I do care about at the moment.

Your version is in revision 3 and I still don't like it. You still
use 5 "colours" (dark yellow, bright yellow, blue, black, white),
whereas I use a single one (white). You still have that title at the
bottom which I don't like either, and I think the "dynamic" menu
small font in that menu and all such stuff isn't apropriate for a
simple, clean, professionally looking website.

I have done an alternative one (version 1) which is what I like, and
I think before we go any further, it's the moment to see what people
think and which "style" of site is desired.

If what I have done looks fine to most (which I hope), then we should
take it as point of depart to build on and it's not worth to continue
modifying yours, because you would have to start from scratch to
arrive anywhere close. We simply have different tastes but there will
be one site only. So this will be decided, somehow.

There's a second point to be discussed, more important this one,
concerns the maintenance of the site. To keep things simple, I think
the one who decides about the content of a section of the site, shall
also be the "webmaster" for that part. I therefore suggest to
distribute the task of site maintenance to more than one person.

The reason is, that in my opinion those parts of the website where
the position of Firebird on eventually sensible topics will be
expressed, should be maintained by the Firebird project leaders
directly, it's the easiest. In my site layout that would be the left
column on the entry page, especially "About Firebird", "FAQ"
and "News". Content of these rubrics should be decided by Firebird
leaders collectively so I would also let them direct control over
that part of the site. That part of the site won't change often so I
recommend to let them do this part of site maintenance themselves,
it's the easiest.

On the other hand for the documentation, articles and
tools/connectivity components area there would be an ordinary
webmaster. It depends a bit what we want those sections to contain.
On one hand an extensive collection of user documentation on Firebird
looks like making competition to IBPhoenix. But on the other hand
it's the natural role of Firebird to show interest in documentation
about its product. Actually more natural than for IBPhoenix, because
for the sake of coherence the community should unite behind the name
Firebird. So I suggest for Firebird to manage a collection of links
to interesting documentation as well. It shall not copy this from
IBPhoenix, but simply to collect the documents (or links to such)
which authors send to Firebird for this purpose. The same for
Articles and tools/components. So changes to this part of the site
will be more frequent, to update and augment the lists. Emails with
such submissions would directly go to the webmaster in charge for
that part of the site.

I really think this site actually replaces the current Firebird site,
so there's also the question where Pavel will want to participate, I
don't want to push him out of his position you see,...

So I suggest to take a little break with webdesign and look what
people think and how the site will best be managed later.

Hope you agree,
Best regards
Markus