[milf]

I've been tasked to toss together a quick website for people interested in information on our systems. It wasn't meant to be anything fancy, but I hate putting out less than quality work, especially when my name is on it.

So, I have most everything done as far as the design, but I'm stumped on how I'd like to layout a few pages. First, a quick overview of the layout: main navigation buttons up top, page specific buttons on the left side, page content on the right.

The pages that I am having troubles laying out consist of 100-150 system objects ranging anywhere from 15 to 50 characters in length. I need to list all of these in the content section of a page, but I'm the layouts I've used so far I'm not entirely satisified with.

One Column:
The page would be a mile long if I used one column. Also, there'd be a ton of white space for those shorter names. Just doesn't look right. The pro to this is that all object names will fit w/out skewing the rest of the layout.

Two Column:
Less white space. Shorter page length. Not all of the system object names will fit in the two column layout w/out skewing the rest of the layout. Some of the names can be over 50 characters in length. Two of those side by side messes things up.

I am using Perl to grab and format these into a nice layout. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I've also messed w/ font size, etc.

[philzilla]

where are you pulling this information from, and is perl the only option available on the server?

[milf]

Perl is the only option. I'm not sure I see how that would make a difference using Perl or not makes.

I'm pulling the information from a product on our servers called Tivoli. The command returns a list of object names. Anywhere from 50-100 in count and 25-50 in character length.

[RedStar]

Would it be feasible to break it into chucks? Have the left side navigation display "A-f" or certain models grouped together. Then you could have the actual items as a sub navigation under the category.

That was the first thing that came to mind. I'll post back if I think of anything else.

[milf]

It took me a few seconds to get what you were suggesting. I'm up earlier than usual and my brain has yet to begin functioning.

You're saying to have seperate pages, broken down by categories, say A-F, F-K, etc.? This will help w/ the overall page lengths, but the too much white space still remains. I don't like the appearance of having just one column. That leaves a series of short words to fill about 560px across in white space. Plus, I'm sure others would prefer having everything listed out on one page. Unfortunate to say, but the broken out by category approach my confuse some of the people in the audience this site is being designed for.

Thanks for the input.

[milf]

I've been searching online to find other formatting ideas, but nothing seems to quite fit. Any other suggestions?

bump :-)