no more tables, more accessibility, more compact layout

As you have probably noticed already, the PTS layout have changed, mostly as a consequence of some hacking of the last hours here at DebCamp.

The biggest change has fixed the long outstanding Debian bug #348971, by moving the PTS away from a table-based layout to a CSS-based layout. That means more accessibility (tables are for tabular data, full stop) and is going to stay.

Then, based on some comments from Raphael, I've generally reworked several layout bits to have a more compact layout. The PTS needs to show a lot of information in a tight page, getting rid of useless markup is quasi-mandatory.

There will surely be glitches, so I'm looking for feedback (please use one of: a comment here, a mail, or a proper bug report):

• If you find terribly ugly pages please point me at them. Screenshots might help, as glitches can be browser-dependent.

• If you were using the SOAP interface please check that everything still work. I've tried to be careful in not breaking the designed microformats, but something could have slipped through.

• As a sillypersonal itch I haven't been able to scratch, I was looking for an icon for the bug graph, but didn't find the one I really wanted. Namely, an old GNOME emblem icon (maybe 2 releases ago?) depicting a stock exchange histogram going up and up: that would have been perfect for bug graphs If you remember that emblem and know where to find it please let me know.

Where to?

I think that for DebConf my PTS hacking is now over. I've some work duties to complete in spite of being here, and the usual very interesting talk are arriving really soon now. Still, here are a couple of ideas I'll sooner or later consider for implementation:

• Reduce the text of messages (TODO and problem items) emitted by the PTS. Now they are paragraphs with full sentences, which quickly become useless. The way to go is have short texts (a-la lintian messages) paired with links which trigger explanatory pop-up. I already have a pure CSS prototype of that which looks nice, but deploying it means reviewing all current messages, which are quite a lot ...

• Play with binary package display. Currently the PTS has no description whatsoever about the package it is describing. That's normal, as we have no such thing as source package descriptions (even though djpig proposed such an extension a while ago, and I'd love to have it). I'd like to try out with a central block showing one binary-package per tab with package descriptions and per-binary bug counts (currently on the bottom left). I surely do not want to get in the way of package.d.o, but what is already there can be shown more prominently and exploited to better explain what a given source package is about.

Kudos

Thanks to Raphael Geissert for layout tips and to Enrico Tassi for CSS guidance (yes, you should also blame him for upcoming ugliness )

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************************************************************************
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