I really like version 1. It's very clear and provide good discoverability for users coming on the page for the first time. There's room to breath. It focuses on what's important to new users: discovering the top rated plugins, those that are the most useful and the most likely to be useful for those new users.
In version 2, the carousel would make sense if its content were pictures, but in this case, I don't think there will be any. Also, the side bar on the left takes a lot of space, provide little value for new users, and won't be easy to transpose for the mobile version of the website.
In my day job working in games, I specialize in UX and onboarding new users, so don't hesitate to ask me directly if you need guidance on those topics!
I like this but be prepared that even the text may have to disappear.
Maybe some community member has a good idea of how the top shall look like to include anything
Hi guys,
I've built a demo with Astro and deployed it on my personal Github repo. https://retr0ve.github.io/website-plugin/
This demo is not completed yet, many features such as search and the detail page are not finished.
Please feel free to make suggestions on UI, especially on how the banner should look like. Thank you!
The search field isn't obvious. Maybe a magnifying glass or simply the text "Search" could help? This would make it look similar to the note search field that's already used in Joplin.
There's almost no indication on mouse hover over categories in the left sidebar. I think the text colour changes very slightly, but it's basically unnoticeable. How about making the hover effect more obvious? Especially since hovering over other elements, e.g. plugins is very clear with background colour changes, etc.
I haven't done anything to make it adapt to mobile screens. This demo is only tested on desktop now and there are still many bugs.
If we agree to this basic layout then I'll start writing code in the main repo and creating PRs. And I'll ensure this I'll take the small screens into account.
I capture a few full-sized screenshots for you. Even if after I optimized for mobile devices, the layout will look a bit different than the desktop version. I think we should take the desktop layout as a starting point since currently mobile Joplin don't have a plugin system now.
Yeah, I agree. That's why I said I'll make it adapted to smaller screens, I'm just suggesting that maybe we should use the desktop version as the starting point?
Thanks for your advice xaholo3700! I've gone through your post, the idea is attractive to me. However, I think things other than plugins are out of the scope of this project. Maybe after some discussion, this idea could be an improvement after this Plugin Website is done.
