[Python-ideas] Coloured documentation

[Leonardo Santagada]

On May 6, 2009, at 10:32 PM, Greg Ewing wrote:

> Leonardo Santagada wrote:
>
>> No color formulas based on  versions please (this would just end up  
>> in ugly colors and no one  knowing how to decode the version from  
>> the color anyway).
>
> Instead of just one colour, parts of the page
> could be coloured according to different parts of
> the version number, e.g. header from the major
> version and sidebar from the minor version, with
> maybe a stripe somewhere for the revision.
>
> The digits could be encoded using the standard
> resistor colour code:
>
>   0 - black
>   1 - brown
>   2 - red
>   3 - orange
>   4 - yellow
>   5 - green
>   6 - blue
>   7 - purple
>   8 - grey
>   9 - white
>
> Then there would be no problem recovering the
> version number from the colour scheme.


Without an emoticon I can't know for certain if this is a joke (but  
I'm pretty sure it is). (maybe an even funnier one would be to put a  
sidebar with the version written all over it vertically, forming a  
texture).

The thing is that having a border (maybe just on the right side) on  
the online version of the docs help to give people guidance, if they  
are used to the python 2.6 docs they will know when something is  
changed when looking at the 3.1 docs.

But maybe one color for each version is too much, maybe just one color  
for the 2.x series and another for the 3.x series, maybe people who  
had this problem more than I did can say if they got confused around  
different 2.x versions or only 3 to 2 diffs.

--
Leonardo Santagada
santagada at gmail.com