Forum:SH Archive/A New Look for Wookieepedia

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This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. 1358 (Talk) 20:30, February 14, 2012 (UTC)

Here comes another "SH it" from the recent Mofference. While we're discussing about the Revamp of the Main Page, we should think of getting Skins updated to a new, common look.

Currently we are having close to default theming with the New Wikia Skin (as I call it), technically called as "Oasis". I propose that we come with some new design that can be shared with both the new skin and "good old" Monobook.

Feel free to change or add sections below.

List of changes that should or should not be done

  • A new background.
    • But should it be fixed, as in, the page contents scroll on top of it? –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)
  • A new color scheme/palette to be used around the site.
    • I'm against dark theme with light text, dark works for several other wikis, but I think we're aiming to a broader audience which leads to light theme (should I reference related studies here?). –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)
    • The current
       
      color that is used extensively is just too neutral. Stronger blue like
       
      or something different, like
       
      perhaps? –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)
  • Transparency in some extent?
    • The article text should be kept readable, so depending on the background image we decide to go, this can be tuned, or should not be translucent at all? –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)
      • For the record, I don't think we should make any special workaround for IE 6-8 (which are the only highly likely to be used browsers that DON'T support the CSS3 rgba stuff). They're not missing much and if they really want to see it then they should upgrade browsers. Just because Wikia have code in the global css to support IE 5 doesn't mean we need to. NAYAYEN 20:29, April 19, 2011 (UTC)
  • File:Wiki-wordmark.png and File:Wiki.png
    • Text atleast needs to be redone, black edges for white text makes it look old, not "cool looking old" but just old. It's not as bad with Monobook logo but in Wordmark... urrgh. Perhaps another font too? –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)
      • A new font would be good although the black edges is needed to make the text readable surely? And consistency between the two versions would also be nice (look at the colour of the STAR WARS to see what mean). NAYAYEN 20:33, April 19, 2011 (UTC)
  • RC and Watchlist links visible on Wikia skin below the Random page and Wiki Activity button links, like this: Rclinksforyou
    • Do we want them? Do we want them to look like the random and activity links above? And as they're not visible by default, we might end up maintaining some interesting hacks in the future, but I'd say that's then. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 16:14, April 25, 2011 (UTC)

Mockups and tests

I have done some rather simple changes to see how they affect to the look, here's an easy guide how to test these: add the mentioned code at the top of your monobook.css or wikia.css depending on which skin you're using, you can save or just try preview without saving.

  • New Wikia Skin
    • Without a background image change: 
      @import "http://starwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Tm_T/wikia-t1.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";
    • With a some background for testing: 
      @import "http://starwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Tm_T/wikia-t2.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";
  • Monobook
    • Without a background image change: 
      @import "http://starwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Tm_T/monobook-t1.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";
    • With a some background for testing: 
      @import "http://starwars.wikia.com/index.php?title=User:Tm_T/monobook-t2.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";

–Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

Comments

Just as with the Main Page revamp, I'm propably not the best person to make any designs, but I'm ready to do testing, related coding (which isn't much in this case) and usability bickery. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 11:24, April 8, 2011 (UTC)

  • Been using the background image Monobook version for a few days and I like it. It looks more interesting than the current version, which can only be a good thing. Might be worth increasing the opacity on the background image a little to make text easier to read (0.8 makes it a bit more subtle than 0.6) and there are a few tweaks it would need. There's a white border around right-aligned image thumbs which would need to be made transparent and infoboxes get a little lost against the background without a border.. Nothing that can't be fixed and I may well stick with it even if we don't change it for everyone. Green Tentacle (Talk) 20:06, April 19, 2011 (UTC)
  • It's got potential, but I don't really care for the pinkish-red-on-blue look it has at the moment. Maybe a more monochromatic light blue/dark blue? Unless we're purposely adding color to spice things up a bit :P It also seems to make Firefox scroll down the page a little slower and stuttering, at least on my current machine, instead of the smooth scrolling I have with the traditional monobook look. —Xwing328(Talk) 03:33, April 21, 2011 (UTC)
    • Pinkish tone is not intentional, I haven't tuned the colours yet to avoid that. And the not-so-smooth scrolling, transparency does make site more demanding in cpu-wise. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 05:46, April 21, 2011 (UTC)
      • Aand took the tuning away that caused the pink effect from those css, also made slight adjustment to the transparency level (alpha channel), let me know if it is any progress. Will do some more color and border adjustments later. –Tm_T (Talk) 18:26, April 25, 2011 (UTC)
        • It definitely causes some lag on my older laptop, like I mentioned before, but it does look pretty sweet now. —Xwing328(Talk) 22:51, April 27, 2011 (UTC)
          • I've been using the new look for a while now, and I must say it is far superior to the current one. I would be very happy if this was made default. Also, it's not causing any lag for me on Chrome. MasterFredCommerce Guild(Whatever) 02:26, April 28, 2011 (UTC)
            • I've been using Monobook t2 and will probably continue using it even if it wasn't made sitewide. 1358 (Talk) 13:02, April 28, 2011 (UTC)
  • I requested a new background image from Trak Nar for testing, will continue working with this matter when it is done. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 05:56, May 31, 2011 (UTC)