[thesite] d.e.o layout

[Simon Coggins]

> When we started migrating l.e.o and b.e.o to the new layout back in January
> we talked about leaving the blacktabnavbarthingie at the top of the page the
> same on all the domains, with the nav menu in it. Should we continue with
> that? In the case of d.e.o it would mean moving the search field, probably
> down into the side bar where it is on w.e.o. Does that seem reasonable?

Very reasonable. I agree it would be much more consistent to keep the pull
down menu. In the same place on all the sections of the site.

The reason I did it this way in the first place was because I had trouble
getting the search to fit in the sidebar nicely. Does anyone know an
effective way to get cross-browser and cross-platform consistency in the
width of text fields?

I know you can do <input size="X"> but that varies dramatically between IE
and NN. It's also possible with CSS using input { width: Xpx; } but does
that work in NN4, and what will happen in even older browsers? Finally,
does anyone know how the font size affects the size of the box?

I don't like the idea of the search box being too small, but if it gets
too big it will start invading the main body area.
 
> The other question is about the breadcrumbs and the sidebar. On the other
> domains, the sidebar is always in contact with the blacktabnavbarthingie,
> which I think I prefer to the gap that d.e.o's  breadcrumb trail currently
> creates.

Yes, I agree on this too. This one was just laziness on my part. Rather
than sorting out the mess of colspans and rowspans in the layout I just
created a new table and slotted it inbetween the black tab and the
content tables. I'm planning to do a bit of work on the HTML soon anyway
(to make the style of the headings the same as the result of evolt), so
I'll fix this at the same time.

As a sneak preview, here are a couple of other features that will hopefully 
be added soon:

 - "friendly" urls for the categories. e.g:

	dir.evolt.org/coding/client-side/css/

	rather than: 

	dir.evolt.org/index.php?viewCat=15

 - numbers specifying the number of links in a category. e.g:

	client-side (14)
	server-side (23)

This should help to further distinguish subcategories from links. 

Any other ideas for improvements are encouraged - although no promises can
be made on exactly when this will all get done!


Thanks,

Simon