use Perl

I've convinced the higher-ups that we could be doing more with our "what's new" data -- specifically offering RSS/Atom feeds and offering easier access in the form of some sort of web-based reader.

There's a challenge in that the "reader" should be viewable at low resolutions (640x480 lets say), and ideally dual as a mobile page.

Now, it seems like a 3-pane-style view is ideal here:

+---+-----------+
| a |     b     |
|   |           |
|   +-----------+
|   |     c     |
|   |           |
|   |           |
+---+-----------+

Where (a) is the feed list, (b) is the article summary (titles and dates), and (c) is the full view. Now, i don't imagine that these would be actual scrollable panes due to the that that it should be presentable on a mobile screen.

However, there's also the 3-pane horizontal style which has emerged recently:

+---+-----+-----+
| a |  b  |  c  |
|   |     |     |
|   |     |     |
|   |     |     |
|   |     |     |
|   |     |     |
+---+-----+-----+

Where (a), (b), and (c) represent the same things as above. The problem is, of course, the horizontal real-estate that it requires -- not exactly suitable for low resolutions.

Since i'm not going to be using real scrollable panes, i could probably consolidate the summary and the full view into one pane, less the summary:

+---+-----------+
| a |     c     |
|   |           |
|   |           |
|   |           |
|   |           |
|   |           |
+---+-----------+

Given a limited number of feeds (10, maybe) and articles per feed (12, maybe) displayed at one time, this layout might work best.

I could see the full layout as:

+---------------+
| header        |
|               |
+---------------+
| menu          |
+---+---------+-+
| a |    c    |d|
|   |         | |
|   |         | |
|   |         | |
|   |         | |
|   |         | |
+---+---------+-+
| footer        |
+---------------+

Where (d) is a gutter section for persistent/special news items.

Thoughts?