Official PHP site will have a new design

Official PHP site will have a new design(prototype.php.net)

79 points by Tomek_ 14 years ago | 45 comments

TamDenholm 14 years ago |

Looks good. This was really needed IMO. The current site, while perfectly functional, is just ugly and keeping it fresh might help a little with PHP's recent reputation with being quite uncool, because, lets face it, sometimes looks are important.

leftnode 14 years ago |

The biggest thing php.net needs is moderation on the comments. There are some 10+ year old comments that are just wrong now. Cleaning that up and moderating a comment before it is posted would be great.

pavel_lishin 14 years ago | |

I find them very useful in a "Don't Do What Donny Don't Does" way.

brador 14 years ago |

NOT SURE.

I visit PHP.net around 20 times a day according to my stats. It's the single most efficient website I know for getting what I need, fast. I do not need more white space on that site. It would not improve my user experience.

robryan 14 years ago | |

I'd agree the current layout for the docs are fine. I think though the front end advertising php and providing news/ downloads could use a new look.

Pheter 14 years ago | |

I'm a big fan of the refresh. I also visit the site several times a day (documentation, not the rest of the site) and this updated design makes it much easier for me to scan.

badclient 14 years ago | |

Really hope they don't touch the docs.

maxer 14 years ago | | |

I think some of the docs should be better structured in terms of seo as some of the deprecated functions index higher in google than the currently supported classes/methods

that's my only gripe

elisee 14 years ago |

Looks a lot less dated than the other one so good job on that front.

Not sure if anyone working on the design / copy is reading this, but I'm wondering why they felt compelled to add "popular" to "PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language [...]".

Should people use or be interested in PHP because it's popular? How is this a differentiating feature worth mentioning in the first sentence introducing PHP? (Genuine question, I'm not saying it's wrong for them to call it so)

Also, titling a section "PECL + PEAR" is useless if you don't already know what they are. Why not call it "Extensions & Libraries" or something similarly descriptive and let the acronyms be introduced in the description?

pestaa 14 years ago | |

If you think about it, PHP's biggest strenght is its ecosystem right now, which comes from popularity.

Mikushi 14 years ago | |

I really agree on the "Extensions & Libraries" bit. PEAR should not be linked there, it is outdated, filled with really bad pieces of code, and generally not useful at all.

They should really focus on a central library repository, they are alternative out there, but having PHP.net pushing for one (i don't really trust them for creating one) would do a lot of good to the language.

wazoox 14 years ago | |

My company does some developments in PHP precisely because it's popular, and nothing else. For everything we don't expect our customers to want to modify by themselves, we use various languages but certainly not PHP.

kingofspain 14 years ago |

I quite like it. I don't think it's too bad as a standalone site but compared the previous one, it's amazing.

I do like the documentation menu. Similar to the way Codeigniter does it.

romaniv 14 years ago | |

The menu completely fails to work without JavaScript. Is it really that difficult to design things properly and provide a graceful fallback?

kingofspain 14 years ago | | |

I hadn't noticed that. Not sure why they can't have the href point to the docs page and use JS to show the fancy menu if enabled.

Then again, this is still a prototype. Hopefully someone will fix this before switching over.

cletus 14 years ago |

I think it looks great.

My only comment is: put the class synopses (?) in a fixed width font (like they are. In the detail section). It looks odd this way.

+1 for being completely usable on my iPad and not breaking the back button while all still being quite snappy.

FWIW I have no issue with the green. Good work, guys.

ck2 14 years ago |

Make all the green parts blue and I can accept it.

Green is terrible.

Plus my elePHPant would seem strange in green.

wazoox 14 years ago | |

Yes, the green really doesn't fit with the violet and purple highlights.

EToS 14 years ago | |

Yeh green be the least compatible colour in existence

hieronymusN 14 years ago | | |

And yet, most of the world is green.

hm2k 14 years ago |

This new design has been around for quite a while...

Have you seen PEAR2? http://pear2.php.net/

ThePinion 14 years ago |

I recall using this design a year or so ago.. and I was really hoping they'd change some things about it (mainly the ugly green everywhere..) Unfortunately that's not the case.. Functionally the site is better than the current design though!.. Right?

agumonkey 14 years ago |

Wrong redesign IMHO. It's kinda like the new Google thing, better aesthetic proportions , whitespace and shit.. but loss in density and habits. I'd vote for something less bold and more derivative and small step and :loop:

simondlr 14 years ago |

About time! Still needs some changes here and there, but it is on the right track.

jmilkbal 14 years ago |

The Wayback machine shows me that the current design is nearly 11 years old.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010401091809/http://php.net/

netlemurde 14 years ago |

I don't like it. IMO the colors are really off.

fsniper 14 years ago |

Looking good. Seems like the underlying code is the same. Only an aesthetic change. But the search may be a bit changed..

Wab 14 years ago |

It's been around for ages already - for those who stumble on to the settings part of the site. It takes some time to get use to, but overall I like that they have gone from 90's to 20's era.

LeafStorm 14 years ago |

I am not a very big fan of the gigantic fold-out navigation bar.

ten7 14 years ago |

Should've hired an actual UX and/or Interactive Designer to do the redesign and not leave it in the hands of us developers (again). Hope there are further improvements!

alttag 14 years ago |

My thoughts:

* The animation (click 'Documentation') is too slow. As likely the most visited link, this needs to be instantaneous.

* The top bar takes too much vertical space.

romaniv 14 years ago |

It does look better than the current site, but does it really need that bar of images at the top of the page?

gee_totes 14 years ago |

But the current website fits PHP code so well! Both are really ugly to look at!

dguaraglia 14 years ago |

Now, if only they improved the language next...

factorialboy 14 years ago |

7 years overdue. Better than the old design.

bilban 14 years ago |

More repulsive than what's already there.

g3orge 14 years ago |

yes. I think it was the time.

daGrevis 14 years ago |

Just don't!

malux85 14 years ago |

OH GOD MY EYES

Horrible, too cluttered.

EToS 14 years ago |

I really like the new design, but as a PHP developer now using Python... the boat has sailed on making the language better, and more appealing with better designed sites.

<?=exit(1);?>

mnazim 14 years ago | |

I am a Python developer who started with PHP.

PHP has it's place and will have for the foreseeable future. Very low entry bar, huge available workforce, Wordpress and other CMS(and an astronomical number of available plugins and themes) being the main reasons.

Most of the web sites will work fine with a combination Wordpres, some plugins and a readily available themes. Wordpress may not be elegant internally, but it just works and that's what 90% of people need.

My only gripe with PHP is that it's very easy to make a mess out of it(compared to other languages) but then no programming language, no matter how elegant, can save the developer from himself.

Refringe 14 years ago | |

This from the PHP developer that tries to print an exit function.

<?php exit; ?>