[Wikipedia-l] A mock-up revised Cologne Blue layout: request for comments

[Neil Harris]

This is a hacked version of Marian's Cologne Blue layout. I've tried to 
address some of the criticisms of Cologne Blue as a default skin, whilst 
preserving as much of the niceness as I can.

It is intended to
* use the browser's native font settings for text and menu link items
* show my proposed "ergonomic" layout of side menu items based on 
analysis of the stats from the new server
* otherwise preserve the "clean" feel of Cologne Blue.

The principles for the menu item ordering are:

* Menu item groups are organised by the scope of what they refer to 
(global, this user, this page, etc.)
* Menu groups are organised from top to bottom by frequency of overall use.

*Where there are significant differences in frequency within a group, 
entries within that group are listed in order of frequency of use.
*otherwise, entries within groups are ordered alphabetically.

Notes/disclaimers:
*This is a visual mock-up only.
*The links don't work, and are generally wrong or nonsense.
*This was hacked together in Mozilla's Composer module, which is a poor 
tool for editing complex HTML.
*It still uses tables for layout.
*The HTML is tag soup, and probably won't validate.
*I've only looked at this layout in Mozilla 1.1beta and Internet 
Explorer  5.5.

If anone likes this, I can extract the design, and write some valid HTML 
+ CSS that can be used as a template for a new server skin.

Please let me know if you like the layout.

Does it:
* preserve what you like about Cologne Blue's looks?
* have the menu items in roughly logical and familiar positions?
* work on your browser?

Please feel free to suggest changes: this is a work in progress.

Regards,

Neil

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