User talk:Derek Harkness/Skin

Comments

Please make comments and requests below here using ===three equals=== for the header.

Snapshot

Could you post a snapshot showing how the skin should look like? This would ease comparison of the appearance for different browsers. -- Alexander Wiebel 12:54, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Headings

With the new skin, I find it significantly harder to distinguish between the different heading levels. This page is a very good example for this fact. -- Alexander Wiebel 12:59, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I have to agree with Alexander here. I like the old skin way of handling this, with a line across the page at a level 2 heading and no line at a level 3 heading. Slightly greater differentiation in font size would help as well. --Larry Sanger 13:07, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I also agree. It's not so much of a problem in article where headers are well spaced, but here on the talk page they look too alike. Aside form adding back he horizontal rule, we could use indentations, colour and tone differences, variation in weight (bold or fine text), italics and even add backgrounds. I'll have a play and see which works best without cluttering the pages. Derek Harkness 19:36, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I like the style of the main headings in Frederik's old skin (link here) -- dark gray with (dotted) underlined main headings. Nick Bagnall 02:31, 4 March 2008 (CST)

I've adjusted the sizes in version 2 (coming shortly) and also tweaked the colours slightly so that level 2 and level 3 are not the same shade of grey/black. I also tweaked levels 4, 5 and 6 to make them more apparent too (not that they are used much) Derek Harkness 05:21, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Formulas

Embedded TeX formulas look not so nice with the new background. I think it is hard to fix this with a gradient in the background. ... this is already my third comment, so I probably should mention that I like the new skin very much :-) -- Alexander Wiebel 13:05, 3 March 2008 (CST)

It's possible to make the background of the generated images transparent. At least, it's possible if dvipng is installed and used, which the people with access to the server should be able to tell. -- Jitse Niesen 15:09, 3 March 2008 (CST)

The instructions, for said people: Provided dvipng is installed, you need to change line 8 of math/render.ml in the MediaWiki tree. Add the argument "-bg transparent" to the dvipng command (as instructed in the comments in that file), recompile, and remove all the old .png files generated by texvc. That's it. -- Jitse Niesen 15:19, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I suggest following Jitse's idea in the first instance and see how that works. Derek Harkness 05:16, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Reversed link order

I find it just slightly weird that the top-of-page links (User page, Discussion, Edit, etc.) are in reverse order. I could learn to live with what's up there, but I think I'd prefer it the original way. What do others think here? --Larry Sanger 13:07, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Edit window size

Not sure if this is intended or not, but the edit window in the new skin seems to be half the width that it used to be. I imagine I could get used to it, but would prefer it to be bigger. (If this isn't intended, I use Firefox 2) --Todd Coles 22:27, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Fix coming in version 2 skin. Edit box now is the same width as the main content area. Derek Harkness 05:14, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Gray background too dark

I'm using "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12". Text that appears on the darker part of the background gradient is a bit annoying to read (black on gray). Can you make the gradient a little more subtle? Also, the gradient seems to go from gray to light gray. Shouldn't it go from light gray to white instead so the page uses the whole range of available colors? If I wanted to turn down the brightness of my monitor, I could do that with the knobs the monitor provides for that purpose. :) Warren Schudy 09:45, 4 March 2008 (CST)

I would also suggest making all text colors have at least one RGB component equal to 0. To make some text look different, mix in a tiny bit of color. Warren Schudy 09:57, 4 March 2008 (CST)

There are elements of the page that are pure white. There are also elements that are pure black. By toning down the some colors a very small amount (and it is a very small amount) allows some elements to be highlighted in white or emphasized in black. Setting one arm of the RGB colours to 0 does not equate to a higher of lower contrast between colours. Having said all that, I have darkened the main text more in the next version. Derek Harkness 10:42, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Bug reports

Bug reports can go below here using ===three equals=== for the header. When reporting a bug, please give me the name of your operating system, and version of web browser as well as the page you saw the bug on.

WikEd tool is disabled

This might be an easy fix as CZ:Enhancing_your_editing_with_javascript_extensions#How_to_install these instruction on installing WikEd on the user's browser by editing the user's monobook.js file might also work for whatever js file powers the new skin. I am using FireFox 2.0.0.12. - Robert Badgett 09:31, 3 March 2008 (CST)

The following hasn't been tested as I live in China and so can't use the WikEd or Popups scripts as they still run off of wikipedia's server, but it should be a very easy fix. The javascript extensions are enabled by making a file called Special:Mypage/monobook.js. That file is particular to the monobook skin. When you move to a different skin you need to move your .js page to the new skin's name, e.g. Special:Mypage/pinkwich5.js Derek Harkness 09:46, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Links suggestion

This is not a bug, but a layout suggestion. Under toolbox, consider adding links to:

1. CZ:Enhancing_your_editing_with_javascript_extensions
2. CZ:MediaWiki_Citation_Tools

I think the general public will find MediaWiki hard to use well. These are links to try to make the experience easier pending development of a more wysiwyg interface by mediawiki or other group. - Robert Badgett 09:31, 3 March 2008 (CST)

space around photos

Could you add a little space to the right of photos that are positioned on the left of the page? As it is, the text runs right up to the edge of left-positioned photos and looks sort of cluttered. Photos on the right of the page look fine. Great job overall! --Joe Quick 12:58, 3 March 2008 (CST)

I second this recommendation. I'm using the latest version of Firefox, and there's no space between the text and images on the left side of the page. Overall though this is a superb design. Kudos. Nick Bagnall 02:33, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Coming in version 2. Added some space top and bottom too. Derek Harkness 05:27, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Image: pages

On a number of image pages, the image runs off the right of the darkened box that holds text on regular pages. See Image:Palau_Diver_with_shark.jpg, for example. --Joe Quick 13:09, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Several things

I'll just duplicate what I created accidently

My initial stuff (I'm the backward compatibility guy with IE 6)

IE:

• tabs wrap incorrectly in preferences
• main page title text "Main Page" is displayed under CSS elements (needs to be moved up, same with article headers)
• page width does not scale correctly to browser width
• navigation boxes at top of "recent changes" displays horribly.
• word wrapping on semi-continuous lines of text do not wrap correctly (see example in recent changes)

Firefox 2:

• Nothing so far

Style:

• gradient in articlespace text body does not scale well on short pages ( I would remove bottom gradient)
• would recommend horizontal lines for subheading text
• would put "Categories" section in a box to seperate it from the body text.
• Might change the font too; it seems like there's not enough space between lines now--maybe something with serifs, or less "round".

--Robert W King 21:39, 3 March 2008 (CST)

Bug:

• Diff text is not in a fixed-font, e.g. Courier, System

Two things

Not bugs, rather recommendations for the style.

• would move the "watch" and "move" tabs to the right, would put "edit" first on the left (to make the most prominent action; "edit" in the middle is hardly visible). Also, the constabulary-related "protect" and "delete" tabs might be moved to the right of the line.
• would link the top-left CZ logo to the main page; I know it's redundant to the link in the toolbox below the logo (and it's always been), but such a link appears to be a well-established standard in the web. If I had to choose I'd suppress the explicit link from the toolbox.

Otherwise, good work! Aleksander Stos 03:05, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Subtle changes to the order within the menu cannot be controlled by the skin, if they could I'd move the 'history', 'talk' and 'article' links down into the subpages (where 'talk' and 'article' are duplicated already) and just leave 'edit, move, watch and protect' that top menu. However, that would cause another complication as not every page has subpages (e.g. userpages, templates, CZ namespace and workgroup pages).

Version 2 will have the logo linked. Derek Harkness 05:37, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Logo link

Minor usability issue: The logo should be a link -- clicking on the logo should take the reader to the main page. This is a fairly standard practice with websites, and most people expect the header/logo to be a link to the main page. Utkarshraj Atmaram 23:06, 3 March 2008 (CST)

A fix for this is in Version 2 and will have the logo linked. Derek Harkness 05:38, 4 March 2008 (CST)

Search window text

The big, bold text in the search window (which in my Mac Safari appears to be about 16 pt. bold Arial) is initially both a too-striking contrast to the important menu items above it. It is also initially off-putting and not clearly a search box. (O.K. Yes, I want to ask a question now where and how do I do it? was my initlal reaction). Since most people know what searches are for, the question may be unnecessary and a blank search box might be better. The text also appears to be bold face, which is unlike any other search box I've ever encountered. Bold is usually reserved to headers and other purposes.) If it isn't bold, a different font might be the answer.

Apart from that, I find the new skin a dramatic improvement over both the old CZ skin and Wikipedia. Nice piece of work!

Roger Lohmann 07:12, 4 March 2008 (CST)

The menus above and below the search box are not important. In fact I'd argue that they are the least important. Most users of this site are not authors or editors (I hope). For them, the menus linking to, "Yourself, My talk, My preferences, My watchlist, My contributions, Log out." do not exist. It's just "Log in / create account".

As for the bold and text size. I was actually copying another popular web site though I'm not going to say which one. Derek Harkness 09:47, 4 March 2008 (CST)