Redstate

By Erick Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

I'll try to do a few of these. Below is a screen shot of what a front page post will look like on RedState if we can count on your help. My goal with this redesign was simple: make it not be cluttered.

All the time I speak at places about RedState. Inevitably, someone around the age of fifty will come up to me and say some variation of, "I like RedState, but it sure is hard to read and navigate." So I asked our designers and developers to make it easier. Here's just one example:

Read on . . .

You'll note that the title and some of the metadata is in serif while the text of the post and major user centered information is in sans-serif. We went with Helvetica/Arial for the font (if we detect a Mac, you'll have Helvetica, otherwise Arial). I know the growing norm is Verdana, but I find Helvetica to be a much cleaner, crisper font on my Mac and Arial on Windows.

For those who have editing powers, such as yourself on your own posts, you'll see an easily accessible edit box at the top right. Click it and it will take you straight into editing mode -- no more clicking through to the post, then clicking the "edit" tab.

You'll also notice that the post is in a self contained box. No longer will it appear that our posts run together. There'll be a bit of background showing between posts.

Below the title, you will be able to easily see all the information you want to see, and unlike the present site, all of that information will carry over when you go into a post. Oh, and you will be able to see both total comment and new comments since your last visit.

At the bottom right, you will be able to share the post via email or through Facebook, Del.icio.us, etc. Likewise, we'll have a Sphere widget. Categories will be easily noticeable on the bottom left.

Assuming you guys can help us out with the money, we'll also include a print template so posts can be rendered in a way that makes them easily printable without all the comment threads.

Lastly, instead of making you worry about HTML or even attempting HTML and risking a break, we'll provide you with WYSIWYG formatting and buttons for drafting posts. We want to discourage HTML coding to prevent HTML breaks and the problems related thereto.

Just remember though, we won't be able to do this, without a financial gift from you.