Dan The Man wrote: > Very interesting new changes. We'll as for major missing features or > important things: > * The Sidebar is entirely missing; 8 Links isn't going to cut it in > many wiki. The WGEP in itself has a entire box in the sidebar of it's > Wiki to aid in moving around the project. Those 8 links will > definitely not fit the links to the Main project wiki/lists, and the > common forums, IRC, and other chat. (n/m I just noticed the extended > part of your note about the sidebar) Hi... not limited to 4 links... those are just ones you can choose to have more prominent... additional links will show up automatically in a sidebar box all it's own. That's not shown in the mockup but I think I mentioned it below (but probably not clearly enough). Plenty of room for more links, in other words.
> * That altered logo better not be Image:Wiki.png anymore. Not everyone > will want to change their preferences to the newskins, so since there > are logo size alterations, we should be using a new image so that > uploading a different shaped logo won't mess up other skins like Monobook. No, it won't replace Wiki.png... it will be a different logo file name. > * I see that editors can have avatars. I was actually thinking of > putting something like that into the Forums. But where do the images > come from? There are some wiki which have rules against users > uploading personal images to the current wiki because of people coming > to create irrelevant profiles and then leaving never to come back > filling the User namespace with junk and the Image namespace to. But > at the same time, if this is a global thing in a special place some > users may wish to have a different avatar on certain wiki. (I also > hope that there is a filter to make a user disappear from that box > when they have a ban placed on them so that vandals don't stick there, > especially when they are the kind with a bad name. When we get the "social" features live, you can upload an avatar for your user page. People can have different avatars on different wikis... good point about vandal images... we heard you when you guys smacked us on the nose for image tagging in that regard, so we'll be taking note. Also the layout of that box will probably change to accommodate longer user names... the avatar images might be a bit smaller... we're trying out different things now. > > These aren't major missing features, but perhaps things which could be > considered to be added, or have consideration made for when a user > does it on their own: > * I see you have a nice Dropdown menu. It would be nice if this would > support the creation of similar menus in that area without needing to > come up with our own menu CSS. I use a TabMenus system in Monobook and > there are a number of things with that. Interesting. I like this idea. Let me get this 2nd rev out there and then see what we can do there. Just fyi... we are going to include a widget for "quick links" that you can populate and you can put on the sidebar (if you choose it from the widget toolbar which we're alpha testing right now). Interesting idea for another drop down up there. One reason we didn't put more up there is that the length of the wiki greeting and user name can vary greatly... in other languages it only exacerbates the problem... then bring in 800x600 and you start getting wrapping effects which drop the header a line... so we didn't want to do that. Interesting idea, though. > ** This means that the tabmenus should be generic so they can support > new ones simply with element creation. Another note, is it would be > helpful if they would support submenus inside those menus. The > tabmenus used in Monobook already do support that, and they are quite > essential to much of the functionality that is added by the tab systems. > * I have a SearchSwitch system which lets you switch the Search bar so > it can do other things like, using AllPages or PrefixIndex, searching > users, jumping to contribs, and editcounts. I'm looking for the best > place to put the switcher in that skin. And I see that Language > Switcher, my guess is that the language button there has a dropdown > which will let you select another language. It would be nice if that > to was generic enough to allow for a similar Switch to be inserted > beside it to switch the mode of the Searchbox. > * The "login as another user" in the old Slate/Smoke was interesting, > I thought, why not a dropdown from the top similar to a menu. Hmm... if people still want that one we can just add it to the list of items in the user links dropdown. I like the treatment you gave it below. > * I know you're thinking of Widgets which are basically boxes which > can be moved around the skin. But what about widgets which take their > place as menus in the upper bar, action bar, and even ones which may > switch the search area to do new things. Interesting ideas as well. Let's get the widgets out there and see what people like or don't like and then we can figure out if we need widgets that become drop-downs. For widgets, we're trying to surface a lot more live statistics about the wiki... I'm pretty excited about that one... if we don't run into any big blockers, I hope to get the new skin live on the site to replace the current smoke/slate while we're at Wikimania (early next week). I'm going to have a mini-hacking day with some of the polish guys while there on widgets... so I'm hoping not more than another 2 weeks on that. It's got some more testing to go through ... and then we have to bring that code up under load, etc. > > This is just an idea with one or two of the above things in: > * That Switch User idea, notice the login popdown. That's the idea I'm > thinking of, similarly that could show up when someone want's to > login. Basically the AJAX login, but not one which jumps out to the > center of the screen. Yes, I like that. I'll have the guys look into adding another line to the user links drop-down. We'll play with that after we get this one out there. :) > * The Search you see beside the Language selector is what I mentioned > about the SearchSwitch and how something similar to that selector > could be used with the Search Switch. > > ~Daniel Friesen(Dantman) of The Gaiapedia, Wikia Graphical Entertainment > Project, and Wiki-Tools.com > John Q wrote: >> Hi everyone, >> >> Wanted to give you an idea of what the latest designs look like... we >> spent *a lot* of time trying all sorts of variations to reduce the >> size of the header and take into account a lot of the other feedback >> we got. >> >> To be honest, doing this was pretty hard. There's the stuff you guys >> needed us to do and the stuff we needed to do for future features and >> growth... and trying to get all of that to fit in, look ok, and >> function pretty well took a while of rev and rev and rev. At this >> point, the feedback I'm looking for is if we've missed anything >> major. I'm pretty sure I got everything... the header size is >> reduced, the wiki logo is in a more prominent position again, the >> article comes back up the page, we're over to the right and in the >> footer. >> >> Probably the biggest change is to the dimensions of the wiki logo... >> I asked around among some admins whether whether dimensional changes >> there were even a viable option and everyone said they were open to >> it, so we went forward with that (more detail on this later). Below >> you'll find a summary of the various things... >> >> Header >> --------- >> >> Previously, the header size was constrained by two things... the >> Wikia logo and the 150px-high wiki logo itself. >> >> - Wikia logo now on the right. >> - Key wiki links moved into more prominent position. Four main links >> common to all wikis, four custom links, additional custom links can >> be in a sidebar box. >> - We still have top content links for visitors (click rates indicate >> they did find them useful)... but in a box that's dismissable for users. >> - Wiki logo reduced vertically but extended horizontally. The >> dimensional area is a bit larger than the typical 130x150 logo size. >> We'll start helping some wikis translate their logo into the new >> space but it's too much work for us to do everything, so I've also >> been in touch with a community member about spearheading a group to >> help with logos (either missing logos or translating them to this new >> dimension) and we're looking into programmatic solutions, too. I hope >> to be able to announce something there soon. >> >> Article, ad, and footer >> ---------------------- >> >> - The article controls come back around the article. There is no >> "This Article" box. >> - Recent changes, special pages, etc. are in the tools box. That box >> can be moved higher. >> - We have a 300x100 ad on there now for logged-in users and will >> still have the 300x250 for visitors. We still have some playing >> around to do to figure out if the 300x100's are viable. We might >> split it in two or it might go back to the 180x150... no answer yet >> until the testing is done. >> - Also, we spotted some really annoying ads on the site recently >> (audio or continuous distracting movement) and we shut off that ad >> provider until they fixed it. We do need ads to survive and grow (I >> can hear the collective sigh from here) but we're trying to be civil >> about it. >> - We have our footer and some link columns down at the bottom. We >> use these for a variety of purposes including link exchanges to get >> your wiki on other good sites to bring in traffic and users for you. >> We'll get a page in place so that you have links of your choosing in >> one of these columns. >> >> >> Coming soon >> ----------------- >> >> - There will be one skin name and people will be able to choose >> between a "custom" color scheme and 12 preset color schemes >> (including slate/smoke). Choosing "custom" will just pull the CSS >> from "skinname.css" like normal. Choosing a preset color scheme is >> for those who want some color but don't want to learn CSS just yet. >> Admins will be able to set the default new skin color schemes (one of >> the 12 or custom) for their visitors. We also envision a page on >> http://inside.wikia.com where we can have galleries of user submitted >> choices ...similar to what's found on wikimedia sites and then admins >> or users can just cut-n-paste that code when they choose "custom". >> >> As I said above, getting all the elements to fit comfortably wasn't >> easy... so at this point we're looking for major omissions in >> functionality from the previous version of this skin rather than >> small tweaks to fonts/colors/spacing/etc. >> >> Looking forward to hearing what you think. :) >> >> Thanks, >> John Q. >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikia-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Wikia-l mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l > _______________________________________________ Wikia-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wikia-l
