Talk:Main Page/Sandbox/Archive 1

Colors

Regarding this revision which I moved from Main Page: I strongly object these colors. After several years of web design practice, I would like to say, these high saturated background colors are ok for kids web sites, not for official web sites like Wikipedia. They make text unreadable, they make the web site look too fancy. I suggest using a light background. I will make an example myself in a minute. - Huji ^reply 17:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Huji, there are also many kids on Wikipedia, including me. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 17:45, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware that there are kids on this Wikipedia, but this doesn't mean this Wikipedia is aiming kids as its target population. We should remember that Wikipedia is an official encyclopedia, before anything else. - Huji ^reply 17:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I also think the blue on pink (Wikipedia in other languages) above is highly unreadable. When we choose the colors, we should look for a high contrast. In my opinion, background colors should be rather bleak, too. --Eptalon 21:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this revision is more colorized, yet is not fancy. For black text, we should use light backgrounds (those with low saturated colors). - Huji ^reply 17:56, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I added two lines as well, to make all the boxes have a similar layout. - Huji ^reply 17:59, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I like your colours. I also want to see if white courier over black bg with grey border, like on my userpage (with smaller font) would look nice, but I don't know how to that with all those span tags, divs, borders, cellpaddings, etc. tags on the Main Page. I put the "kiddy" colours on there for people who have sight trouble and can only see colourful, "solid" colours.j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 18:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

As I told you on my talk page, white text over black background is usually avoided on pages that are aimed to present text to people, because they are harder to read. Also, that doesn't go along with the rest of Wikipedia's pages design (which have a white background and black text).

In regard to people who have color trouble, I think they all can read black text on a light background, like what I presented above. - Huji ^reply 18:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Yours is good. I now see your point and fully agree. I will copy-paste. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 18:14, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Perfect! I appreciate that. In case you needed help with web design/page layout again, just ask me on my talk page. I'd be glad to help. - Huji ^reply 18:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I did the copy-paste. - Huji ^reply 18:19, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I am sorry. I thought you were talking about my revisions. Those WERE hideous. i agree 100 %. I did not do those. Well... I do NOT think it is FANCY ! that is a joke. Simple should be a tad fancy though. LIAM ! 17:11, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait.. PURPLE AGAINST BLUE ! who created that Main Page ... !!! LIAM !

So.. You think you like the current colors? - Huji ^reply 17:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

NO ! Mint is as bad as purple against blue. But Nice try. LIAM !

Confused! Which mint and which blue? - Huji ^reply 17:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I just did some color changing ([1]). My preference for the selected article section would be something light and kind of pastel so that it fits in with the color scheme for the rest of the page. I think the lilac works nicely because the star is mainly brown and lilac.

On an unrelated note, I think we should do a vote soon on the layout (horizontal vs. vertical). I'm not entirely opposed to the vertical, I kind of prefer the horizontal though. I think if we stick with the vertical, we should shorten the intro box. Have you seen the changes I made to the header area on the main page ([2])? I don't want to change it on your test page in case you don't like it. You don't have to keep the color changes I made either--it's your proposal, not mine. I think no matter which layout the community chooses, we should use your process of rotating the articles. I'm envious of people that can do that sort of stuff. · Tygartl1^·talk· 18:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Tygartl1, I'm happy that you've clearly noticed the color of the selected article box should follow the color of the star up there. As you have clearly noticed, it is mainly brown, with lilac shades. However, lilac shades are not really visible in the star in its current size. So I think your this revision is a nice one, but not the best possible. Maybe making the backgroun a little lighter (less saturated, more white in it) could help. What do you think?

Regarding the box layout, I prefer the vertical one. If we want to keep the text of the selected article box shorter than what it is currently (and seems there are people who support the shortening idea) then it wouldn't look that nice in horizontal view. Besides, we should consider there are people who use wider screens (I guess you are on a 1024*768 like me, and may be you are not fully considering the 26% of users who use a larger screen), because, the horizontal box (with shortened text) will look like a think strap on their browsers.

So all in all, I think we should keep it vertical, shorten it (and the introduction box) and change the backgroun color. What do you think? - Huji ^reply 13:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Selected article

Hi, anything I can do to help you on this new page? I noticed the Selected article box, what is that??
Gwib^-(talk)- 19:18, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think I'm done with it! I have promoted this on Wikipedia:Simple talk as well. I would be glad to have your comments about it! - Huji ^reply 20:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Hello Gwib, currently there are 4 very good articles. They are listed here. They are the result of a process of selecting, improving and voting on articles. please look at the simple talk page for an in-depth discussion. This page is one of the propositions on how to change the main page, once there are 10 very good articles. --Eptalon 20:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Eptalon! I think I have some good ideas for that...

Gwib^-(talk)- 20:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Could it be a long box above knowledge groups, rather than to the right of knowledge groups? LIAM ! 16:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And I think it should contain less of the article. It should stop at a point where the reader is curious about the article. LIAM ! 16:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

For the second, we need to make the box smaller first. As long as it is this long, we cannot leave it empty. For the first one, I'm confused. At the moment, it is above the knowledge groups, isn't it? So what is it that you need? - Huji ^reply 16:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

NO ! I meant above introduction. Sorry. I hope you understand. LIAM !

BTW, one solution to that problem, is to add a picture of the day section as well! - Huji ^reply 16:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you also add a simple picture to accompany the article, like English wiki? Images help, I think! Thanks. RaNdOm26 10:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I put a nice, new pastel on there, but I had to experiment and got that awful purple and the horribly ostentatious canary yellow. I think the top border on the "selected article" box is too big. How do I change that? j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 14:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree the imag emakes it look better. However, what if we have very good articles that do not have an image, or with images that won't fit in that box?

Regarding Ionas' edits (changing colors): Keep it going Ionas. When you fell you've found it, let me know. I think some minor fixations are requied. And something else: Try to make the border and the background of each box, have a related color (like dark grey and light grey) and not two colors which do not match (like light blue and light pink for example). - Huji ^reply 17:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Huji, I got the perfect "Selected/Featured article" colours. No offence to her/him, but I did not like the "lavender" colour that Tygartl1 used for FA. I hope you like it. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 04:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Mmm. I like the background color, but I'm going to change the border color to a darker color (more black in it) which is from the same color family as the background color you provided. - Huji ^reply 14:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It just is so much orange/yellow/light brown now (3 of the 6 boxes). The lilac is something different and fits in with the pastel scheme of the other boxes. I don't see the problem. · Tygartl1^·talk· 14:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Huji is a professional web designer, and I finally fixed the colors. The lavender is too dark; Huji does not recommend a "saturated/dark" or rich colours. Not good for main page. Pastels are better. Also, I don't see what the 3 boxes that use brown, orange, or yellow, and although they are related they don't look too plain together — they stand out. The new color is not at all similar to the "Introduction" box, it is much closer to the WP in other languages box, but it is darker. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 05:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talking about. On my computer at work, the pale purple background is lighter than both the pale blue and the pale green. And on my computer at home, all the background colors are so pale that they almost appear white. I can't see how that is possibly "too dark". Also, I'm the one suggesting pastels, while you guys are suggesting the same orange/yellow for half the boxes. Whatever... · Tygartl1^·talk· 14:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I see the point you made Tygartl1. Here is my suggestion: We can make the Introduction box green, and use its colors (or a different color group) for Knowledge Groups box. This way, we won't have two orange-based boxes next to each other (as we currently have). What do you think? - Huji ^reply 19:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that's an okay option. I just think we should have more of a variety. If you think about it, (if you simplify it down) we have pale versions of these colors to choose from: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and brown. I see no reason to shy away from the more "feminine" colors like pale red/pink or pale purple (which are currently missing and would add some variety) so that we can have three shades shades of peach. Seems silly to limit ourselves.

Also, I don't think the color of the dark bar on the Selected Article is quite right yet. It doesn't quite match its background--it's a little too yellowy, should maybe be a little more gold. · Tygartl1^·talk· 20:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't look into red/pink as feminine colors indeed! Nevertheless, a more saturated color wouldn't add up easily with the general theme of the page. And having too many colors is not a good idea as well. I'm thinking of a different idea though: We can reduce the number of boxes! A box on the left (with a light blue background for example) can serv both the Introduction and the What to do sections (see en:Main Page for an example of how a box serves two parts). Then, on the right, we can have a box for Selected articles. We can set its background to its current one, to match the star above it. Then we can use the green background (which is freed because we merged the What to do box with the Introduction box) for the Wikipedia in other languages box, to reduce the number of orange/yellow/brown family colored boxes. I'm going to give it a try right now. - Huji ^reply 20:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Boxes merged

As of this revision I've merged the Introduction and What to do boxes on the left. - Huji ^reply 20:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

What do you think about just one icon, moving the "i" up next to introduction and removing the world with a pen (which I'm not even sure how that relates to the section, anyway)? That might look nice. · Tygartl1^·talk· 21:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tygartl1. I will go ahead and do that, if anyone objects just revert the change. --Isis§^(talk) 21:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It is fine, Huji. j. rand|talk| ε contribs|email 05:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, I agree with all of you! One icon is good enough. - Huji ^reply 14:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I Changed

The "WP in other languages" box to a grey-ish colour — it was too much like the FA box. ionas ^talk _contribs 00:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Its background color didn't fit with its border color, and was a little darker than that expected for a light-background of a black-text box. I've changed it a little again, to a different color family. - Huji ^reply 08:18, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Very nice, Huji. ionas ^talk _contribs 23:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

this now looks funny, in a sort of repulsive way. ionas ^talk _contribs 00:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Spacing

Hello, looks quite good, at the moment. However in the version I looked at there seems to be quite a bit of space, both at the bottom of Selected article. What do you think about trying to fill that space, by moving the Other very good articles line down a bit? Or is it just me, that sees this space as annoying? - The other things (colors, boxing) look fine to me --Eptalon 13:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Many factors, including the size of the text in the briefing box, the font size each user uses, the browser even, etc can have an effect on the space. If the space is too much (like more than 10% of the box height) then it can be fixed by adding some more words to the briefing. Otherwise, I think it is better to forget about it. The article is automatically changed after 3 days, maximum, and we won't see the extra space for a month :) - Huji ^reply 13:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Heading

I changed the heading to match the current main page. For some reason the italics for those links has always bothered me, not to mention that I think the links I have placed there are more useful than the ones I replaced. In my humble opinion, I think this way looks much cleaner and will ultimately be more helpful than the previous heading. One thing that I do not know how to do (but think should be done) is to change the width of the grey box around the Welcome so that it matches the width of the other boxes on the page. Could someone do that? Thanks! · Tygartl1^·talk· 15:50, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I tried to help with your request, dear Tygart - please let me know if that works, and feel free to revert if it doesn't. Love, Phaedriel - 21:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems to have worked (at least on my computer). Thank you! · Tygartl1^·talk· 01:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Selected Very Good article transclusion: problems & suggestion

I've been reading the code for the Very Good Article transclusion, and I think it's flawed, and unnecessarily complex. Generally, Main Pages and Portals simply transclude a summary of rotating content from a previously created subpage, using the formula {{CURRENTMONTH}} {{CURRENTDAY}}, {{CURRENTYEAR}}. This is also similar to the work involved in maintaining Portals. I believe I've read that we plan to rotate our VG every week, right? I can arrange this format and the code, if you wish. My experience with Portals at EnWP may come handy ;) Love, Phaedriel - 15:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice comment! Actually there are two approaches:

1. The current approach: it works better for "cycling" pages; I mean, when we want a page to appear once in a month for three days. The disadvantage is the code is complex, and not every one can maintain it.
2. The year/month/day approach: it is much easier in terms of wikicode. It is easier to maintain, but needs some efforts of creating many subpages, and manually setting up the cycle of articles.

I started with the first one, however, as the number of VGAs is growing, I think we are not going to have "exactly the same cycle" to repeat, and it would be a good idea to shift to the second method.

If no one objects, either you or me can set up the required subpages. (Actually, I may be able to do it more easily, with my bot.) - Huji ^reply 19:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

please don't go through

I am yet to finish my Main Page test, and I strongly object to this version of the page ! LIAM !

Please give some reasons as to why you object, Liam. That way, measures can be taken to rectify these errors and everyone can be happy with the new main page.

Gwib^-(talk)- 16:42, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

And, Liam, I expect you have a reason other than the colors of boxes, or the size of their borders. - Huji ^reply 19:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

What is wrong with the page?--ionas ^talk _contribs 04:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedias in other languages

Because of the large size gap between 1000 articles and 100 000 articles, I rechecked each wiki in that grouping and split it up by adding the 10K+ category to denote medium sized wikis. The 100K, 1K, 100 groupings just seem a little off as they would define Large, Small, and tiny rather than Large, medium and small (and tiny). I also added a separator and centered the footer for that section. The separator helps it stand away from the list of wikis a little and the centering keeps it in the same style as the footer information in the other sections on the page (it was the only one that was aligned right). Revert either or both edits (I made them separated for easier undoing) as needed. -- Creol(talk) 06:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I was waiting for that to happen. ionas ^talk _contribs 13:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No need to revert Creol. You did it excellent. - Huji ^reply 20:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

VG article rotation

I switched to coding for VG article rotation to a once a week rotation. The coding uses CURRENTWEEK rather than CURRENTDAY to base it one a weekly value. It also takes advantage of the mod function (returns the remainder of a number: 32/10 = 3 remainder 2, mod = 2) rather than having to use IF statements to parse out an value for the page name. This shortens the coding and makes it much simplier to vary the number of articles in rotation. Finally it adds 1 to the value so we get a number between 1 and (currently) 10 rather than 0 to 9 so no changes to the Article pages needs to be made. -- Creol(talk) 16:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Due to the large number of pages currently used for the main page, categorization was required to consolidate the information. The problem being that the Main Page itself should not have a category. With 10 VG article pages and multiple subpages for the individual boxes on the main page and the test page, a category for all of these pages was needed. The category Main page is being used as the main source of all top level categories. This did not seem the place to include everything for the main page itself. A subcat in cat:wikipedia was probably the best place but of course I just thought of that idea as I was typing this sentence... As such, I placed the pages in the category:Project which is mainly unused as it is the root for all categories and articles combined. To prevent the categories from being transcluded into the main page with the rest of the information, the <noinclude> function was included for the category itself. The test page includes the category directly. As it is not commonly shown, the category is not an issue. Should the test page ever be copied over to the main page again, the category needs to be removed during the transfer to keep the main page nice and clean and category free. -- Creol(talk) 06:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Good job, Creol. And I think Category:Project is a better place than Category:Wikipedia, as well. - Huji ^reply 08:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Updated version

With the main page itself being modified to accept information from subpages rather than including all the information on the main page (decreasing the actual size of the page from 16K down to 2K), the current version of the test page was not in sync with the main. To prevent issues with new tweaks here causing problems when transferred to the main page, I updated the test page to the current version of the main page so that any changes here will be easier to copy over should they be needed. -- Creol(talk) 06:58, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Welcome box

My thoughts: the first box (the welcome box) is quite a bit wider than the rest of the page. All boxes should line up the same, not stick out an inch further than the rest. I'd like to see that fixed. I also think it's way too much violet. Too dark. The aqua outline with the violet filler just does not look very good. And why is the "knowledge groups" section filled in white with a thick violet band around it? I'd like to see some tooling with the colors a bit. I like the search bar, though. Okay, so those are my initial thoughts. · Tygrrr... 18:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

What browser(s) and screen size are you viewing it in? I ask because, for me (IE7, FFox2, and Safari all at 1024x768), the box is the same width before and after your recent change.. It did center the text slightly, but actually, the box itself is a little bit narrower than the rest of the page - not bigger. (Just checked it at 800x600 and yeps, I see what you mean.) -- Creol(talk) 18:06, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

At work (where I do most of my editing) I've got IE5 or 6, 800x600. Ghetto, I know. It drives me nuts but there's nothing I can do about it... I also noticed that the first 2 boxes are slightly narrower than the others. I'm not sure what exactly is causing that though. · Tygrrr... 20:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The width issue had to due with a negative border spacing on the bottom tables. Tricky little bugger as I was looking for what was making the top smaller, not what was making the bottom bigger. There are also a lot of instances of redundant coding - tables inside tables with the same settings.. Tables inside tables makes the boxes narrower. Some times it is needed, but much of this is overkill and affects the finished product. -- Creol(talk) 04:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Borders

I think that the colour of the borders ( this colour ) is a tad striking and should be dulled down to something darker. Any opinions? --Gwib ^-(talk)- 21:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

So says the guy with the yellow name.. but yes. They were even brighter originally, so much so that I could not normally see them on my screen. I darkened them some, but more would probably be a good idea as would lowering their saturation. -- Creol(talk) 04:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The borders on this version could be better, as are less distracting. But they could even still be darkened more. Borders shouldn't draw attention from their content and these borders actually left marks in my retinas (also signature on random, Mr. subtle purple-coloured sig!). --Gwib ^-(talk)- 16:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Alternative

I have created an alternative. Two, actually. One in gray, one in blue. LaraLove|Talk 06:49, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the overall look of the blue, but there are three issues that I see (one big, two tiny).

1. (big) The extra whitespace created by using the forced height (650px): On my screen (1024x768, IE with font set at smallest) the extra whitespace is as large as the entire text. It appears the forced height was used to deal with a problem of the borders on the section tables (intro and vga) not matching. This could probably be fixed better with a nested table setup and putting the borders on the cells holding the section tables instead of the the section tables.
2. (small) Add a space between the two sections in the sister projects/other wikis block much like the one in the other other block between the top sections and the knowledge groups.
3. (small) There is a width difference between the knowledge groups and the two sections above it. They are fine in IE, but in Firefox and Safari, the knowledge groups is slightly narrower.

-- Creol(talk) 07:16, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, what the hell? In IE7 and Opera 9.27, the text in the boxes is center-aligned, but in Firefox 3 they are left-aligned. Cassandra 07:41, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, to address points, and sorry for the delay.

1. The code is not optimized. I will attempt to find someone that can make it look tighter. If you know the code to make it work right, by all means, I have no problems with anyone tweaking the code.
2. Done.
3. I can't see why this is happening, so with #1, I will attempt to find someone to optimize the code and fix that issue as well.

As for Cassandra's notes, I can't figure that out either. *facepalm* I just take other's code and play with it. So it takes me a while to figure out how to fix things. See #1 and #3 above. :p I'll see what I can figure out. :) ~Jennavecia ^(Talk) 19:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)