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We'll have to overhaul a lot of CSS and JS if this goes through though. Rail stuff, especially sideicons, will have to be either moved in with Recent Wiki Activity or elsewhere. We'll have to either float infoboxes left or move them ''under'' Wiki Activity.}}
 
We'll have to overhaul a lot of CSS and JS if this goes through though. Rail stuff, especially sideicons, will have to be either moved in with Recent Wiki Activity or elsewhere. We'll have to either float infoboxes left or move them ''under'' Wiki Activity.}}
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==Problems with Content==
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*Background needs to be redone, far too big on smaller monitors and leaves too much blank space on the larger ones
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*Gray boxes(?) in thumbnailed pictures
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*Overlapped Happy Chocobo logos - though this may be a cache issue caused by JBed's update {{y}}
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*Galleries no longer open immediately
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*Too much blank space to the right of navboxes
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*Padding etc. formatting enemy infoboxes is ruined. [http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tiamat_(Final_Fantasy_XII)?useskin=venus clicky]
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*Infobox tabber is ruined. (see above) {{y}}
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*Weirdness with the new navigation, for example there is a "Forum:Index" link called More Forums, when (a) the plural of forum isn't actually forums and (b) far more importantly, we already linked to all the fora
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*Favicon doesn't show for some people
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*Slow to load in Firefox - in some cases appears to not load at all (Wikia will most likely fix)
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==Discussion==
 
We have a number of things in place that should make designing for new skins easier, sort of. The Recent Wiki Activity box seems like a good place to put Article Icons, though this brings up something awkward about the design:
 
We have a number of things in place that should make designing for new skins easier, sort of. The Recent Wiki Activity box seems like a good place to put Article Icons, though this brings up something awkward about the design:
   
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As such, I suggest an endorsement of Adblock Plus on the front page. :P}}
 
As such, I suggest an endorsement of Adblock Plus on the front page. :P}}
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{{KelTalk|time=[[User:Keltainentoukokuu|Keltainentoukokuu]] ([[User talk:Keltainentoukokuu|talk]]) 15:01, December 20, 2014 (UTC)|text=The article space in the new skin reminds me of how American magazine/newspaper websites lay out their articles. Like The Atlantic or something but less classy because they use "newspaper" typefaces. Are all websites gonna look like his then. 56% of Wikia users supposedly visit the site via mobile devices so I can see why they want to standardise everything. I'm trying not to be too negative because that's not going to help anything but the infobox thing is a problem. I suppose all wikis are going to complain about that one so hopefully Wikia can offer some idea what to do.}}
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{{BlueHighwind
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|time=15:39, December 20, 2014 (UTC)
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|text=I've actually known this was coming for awhile, but I couldn't tell anybody until the release. Wikia actually has several other things coming down the pipe which I still cannot talk about. Most are minor, one I think is actually nifty if implemented correctly. Another change is one that I think is absolutely awful, but hopefully we can avoid that one (but it's a minor thing on the grand scheme of things). These new announcements should come in January.
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So far the other Wikia Stars are not terribly happy about it, reading the forums. They're not huge fans of the ads. I don't think Wikia is going to budge on that part. As for centered page widths, I'm actually supportive.
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Anyway, I'll try to keep you updated as I can.}}
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{{User:Technobliterator/Talk|15:43, December 20, 2014 (UTC)|All they need to do is stop the ads obscuring the infobox and we're fine. The other workaround is just get adblock, which most people do anyway.
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Don't worry about Sideicons. On the Jak and Daxter wiki, we have [[w:c:jakanddaxter:Template:Games|Template:Games]], which is right underneath the number of articles created, [[w:c:jakanddaxter:Jak|as you can see here]]. It's basically the same as Sideicons. We can do them like that.
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I fully support centering page widths, the ads thing is just stupid.
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}}
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I am aware of how other wikis do it, although we couldn't do it like that and look good without considerable changes. The icons are too damn high. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 15:52, December 20, 2014 (UTC)
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{{User:Catuse167/Templates/Bubble|time=18:54, December 20, 2014 (UTC)|text=Techno, the ads aren't the problem RE: infoboxes. The problem with infoboxes is that they're shoved under Recent Wiki Activity, which may or may not have ads under it. Infoboxes should be at the top of the page, front and center, otherwise there really isn't a point. This is something that's actually better about mobile than browser, because I doubt mobile will have Recent Wiki Activity and other metadata; it's read-only.
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And we're not leaving Wikia. As much as we'd all like to, the '''''only''''' wiki that has been successful with a fork is KHWiki, and that was under extreme circumstances: Oasis completely ruined their content in a near-unfixable manner, they were undergoing something along the lines of a between mainspace and userspace editors (i.e. trolls vs 12-year-olds) and so a fork actually made working on articles easier, and they didn't have nearly as good SEO as we do, so they could actually bring down the Keyhole's search results. None of this is the case on FFWiki.}}
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{{User:Technobliterator/Talk|21:21, December 20, 2014 (UTC)|KHWiki was successful? Really?
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And yes, the ads are the problem. I don't care if you shove Recent Wiki Activity above it, it's terrible but manageable. I '''do''' care if you shove a freaking World of Warcraft advertisement vid above it.}}
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{{KelTalk|time=[[User:Keltainentoukokuu|Keltainentoukokuu]] ([[User talk:Keltainentoukokuu|talk]]) 00:49, December 21, 2014 (UTC)|text=Advertisers want people to look at the ad first and then the article after that. It's hard for Wikia to please both clients, wikis and the advertisers. When Oasis was brought out they made a big deal how the ads are not in the content was one of the new great features for wikis, and now they're back. :p That's why they put the ad there where the infobox used to be...that's where people look first just out of habit. Hope Wikia can show the feedback gathered from the test wikis to the advertisers and come up with something else...}}
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You can now view any page in Venus with "useskin=venus". [http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/FFVII?useskin=venus]. I would imagine the edit form isn't the planned edit form. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 11:48, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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It's using Wikia.js (so I imagine Wikia.css) too. For JS not much of a problem, if skin=="venus" or "oasis". For CSS, a bit more of a problem. There is a class in the body that determines the skin, but the inclusion of that plays with the importance of the CSS rule.
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I imagine they'll fully abandon oasis, so that probably is for if we decide to work on venus before it's implemented. I'll actually probably make "MediaWiki:Venus.css" and import it via JS for now until it becomes the actual skin. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 11:54, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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{{User:Technobliterator/Talk|12:06, January 14, 2015 (UTC)|Most of the skin looks tolerable. But now infoboxes squash text. Recent Wiki Activity is an utterly useless thing, use the RecentChanges instead of shoving it on every page. It was useless on Oasis too.
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Do not adjust infoboxes. If Wikia break our content and force this down our throats, tell them to fuck right off and fix it themselves. The burden should be on them. If they can't find a solution, not our fault or problem.
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Stop accepting this garbage and stand up to them.}}
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{{User:Kaimi/Talk
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|time=12:20, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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|Lumina=I just checked FFVII article in this Venus skin and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Special:WikiActivity looks horribly out of place IMO since it clashes with quite a number of certain articles, mainly those using infoboxes but that was said here numerous time. The four circular buttons that slide along the page is a really neat feature IMO, especially the ability to jump between sections at will. I'm happy about the article width since it's not so thin (it may be due to my use of AdBlock Plus, but honestly I have no idea what is the format for ads for that skin so I might be wrong). I'm startled by the "Films you gotta see" thing that appears kind of outta nowhere. There are too large gaps between lines in the same paragraph, not to speak about how large the gaps are between paragraphs themselves which is really worrisome. And the indent when there are ** or ## or more is way to large. If those things could be fixed it would certainly be better to be used than that Oasis abomination. They could burn Oasis for all I care.
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}}
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Oh, here's [http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Cloud%20Strife?useskin=venus another page]. You'll see the infobox being shoved here. Because of clear:right that .infobox grants and rel infobox isn't on it. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 12:27, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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Hmm interesting to see it. Headers as links looks terrible because they are so large. Also References sections look pretty gross with the gaps. I guess it'll be easier now to read on a tablet.[[User:Keltainentoukokuu|Keltainentoukokuu]] ([[User talk:Keltainentoukokuu|talk]]) 15:25, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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Okay, changelog:
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*16:47, January 14, 2015 (UTC) Made the logo bigger, other logo changes to make liek other skins to facilitate changing logo for special skins/events. If it appears weird, the CSS isn't updating properly.
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*23:47, January 15, 2015 (UTC) Gave the MWV module a darkened background to visually separated it from content.
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Now, to people talking about spaces between paragraphs: This issue isn't poor design on their part. The font-size is meant to be 16px, but we actually set it to 14px for consistency across skins because that's what Oasis uses.
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So do we keep 14px and I reduce that gap, or do we go with what they want us to use?
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*[http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tifa?useskin=venus&tester=false 14px]
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*[http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Tifa?useskin=venus&tester=true 16px]
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? We can still lower the gap more if people still think it's too big. I personally like 16px. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 16:47, January 14, 2015 (UTC)
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{{User:Catuse167/Templates/Bubble|time=23:15, January 14, 2015 (UTC)|text=Well this could have gone a lot worse. [[Forum:Oasis skin - problems and solutions|Remember this]]? Well, [[#Problems with Content|now this]] — which is much more reasonable, since Venus has yet to be released and we're allowed to muck around with it. Please report any bugs/other weirdness so we can get on fixing that.
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@JBed: 16px is easier on the eyes, but it's annoying to do so much scrolling.}}
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Personally I think 16px looks a little too big. Cat, I'm not sure what's supposed to be wrong with tabber, that example page you linked appears to work perfectly. Infobox formatting looks pretty dire though, we may need to work on a redesign.
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Also the favicon is gone in Venus. Why the hell are you reducing our happy chocobo density, Wikia? -- {{User:Some Color Mage/sig}} 00:51, January 15, 2015 (UTC)
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:It was probably a cache error, or JS being stupid, but the second tab would disappear when you clicked "Show all".
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:Favicon works for me, so I'm guessing that was a server-side hiccup. {{User:Catuse167/Templates/sig}} 01:37, January 15, 2015 (UTC)
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{{User:Technobliterator/Talk|22:40, January 15, 2015 (UTC)|I'm still of the opinion that we should be stubborn and stand our ground and tell Wikia to provide solutions for us. Honestly, I am strongly philosophically opposed to Wikia and in fact to for-profit wikifarms in general and I'm surprised so many people are so okay with this...inexcusably ''awful'' design. However, I am fighting for a lost cause, so instead I'm going to be as helpful as I can.
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I've given a few looks at 3 pages (Tifa Lockhart, Kaiser Dragon, LoFFXIIWeapons) testing it on 3 devices (my desktop PC, my tablet computer, and my phone) in 3 different skins (monobook, oasis, venus). So that's 9 different tests. Note that the tablet was using the desktop version of the site by default, and the phone was using the desktop version of monobook and oasis. I think the phone version of venus is the same as the desktop but I'm not 100%. I tested them all logged out (so I saw ads). I find that:
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*In the '''desktop version''', the best is undeniably monobook. It fills my huge monitor completely. The worst is by far venus. It cramps a lot of information into a '''very''' short space (the thing I hate the most of it), and there are several inches of white space on the side (maybe my wide monitor is why I have a bigger problem with this skin than most people here...?). Oasis is somewhere in the middle. It's wide enough that it doesn't have ludicrous white space after the blue crystals on the side but workable.
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*In the '''tablet version''', Venus wins hands down, due to the lack of a Rail (0.0). I will definitely be display:none-ing that Recent Wiki Activity, but beyond that, it will be easy to adapt to. Oasis takes up more space with the side rail. Monobook I'd say is...probably in the middle of them both. I have never had issues with using Oasis on my tablet, but Venus is a sweet experience.
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*In the '''phone version''', monobook is definitely the worst, wasting more space than venus. I should point out that the '''desktop view of Oasis on a phone''' is better than Venus, '''but the desktop view of Venus''' is better than the '''mobile whatever the hell Oasis has'''. Desktop Oasis on a phone literally fills the entire screen, the only difference is that Venus technically does aside from those <del>stupid</del> buttons on the side.
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It's clear they're doing this for monetisation (which I loathe...), as more users shift to viewing on mobile, they want to earn money from mobile. However, it does enhance the mobile experience quite significantly. I also discovered that they already shove ads above infoboxes in oasis. I hate this too, but now I've shifted my biggest problem to the utterly, utterly useless and obnoxious Recent Wiki Activity that serves no purpose to anyone. Any logged in user should know how the RecentChanges works.
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And now, I'm going to list some things I noticed:
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*The mbox templates get shoved underneath the Recent Wiki Activity on the List of FFXII Weapons page. This could be a problem.
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*A lot of infoboxes have a "See more..." and a collapsible to click down. My initial reaction was "why can't they use that but put ads underneath the infoboxes then?", while my second was, wouldn't this be a good time to introduce collapsible infoboxes of our own? We can make collapsible headers for the Enemy infoboxes easily. Might make things easier.
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*Tables are...surprisingly...not poorly affected. Interesting.
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*Recent Wiki Activity only appears for logged in users. This means that the majority of the readers of our wiki will not notice what is, in my opinion, the most obnoxious and retarded flaw. Ads? They can install adblock or just press "x" on most of the ads anyway. I think that by wikia's Terms of Service they will not allow us to remove it, but I do think that if we display:none it in our personal css, then we won't be ''too'' unhelpful to our logged out users.
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RE: the problems listed here:
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*I would not argue the Navbox one is an actual problem, or anything we can do anything about. That one is fine.
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*We can add spaces to the infobox cells similar to the ones on Navbox. That said, spaces working the same way as they do on the Navbox metatemplate is probably harder to apply to non-metatemplated Infoboxes. I do not find this to be that much of a problem though, personally. It's still the Recent Wiki Activity for me.
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*Some stuff sounds like a result of the WIP skin.
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I hope they adjust widths for desktop, I hope they move the edit buttons to the top instead of scrolling down, but honestly? I can adapt to this. I'm less opposed to the skin than I am philosophically to the reasons behind creating the skin. I still wish Wikia wouldn't shove stuff down our throats and break stuff then expect '''us''' to fix it for them...but you've all heard me say this over and over. I will be willing to help out in any way I can from now on.
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}}
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The problem with the spacing on navboxes is obviously from interfering CSS. There's no reason to be changing the code of templates. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 23:18, January 15, 2015 (UTC)
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{{User:Technobliterator/Talk|23:50, January 15, 2015 (UTC)|In most cases, yep, and definitely in the cases of Navboxes. However, some infoboxes, ie the ones on game articles, cramp content because they don't contain an "infobox" class. So we probably need to update all our infoboxes to contain it. That might be more stuff to do on our Infobox metatemplating module. This means we need to update character infoboxes to the new metatemplate.
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If we want to go with the spacing solution used on Navboxes for our Infoboxes, that adds tds which contain nothing but 2px spaces, then we want to metatemplate them too to add it more easily. There are probably other fixes, but it seems like Wikia place some restrictions on infobox CSS classes (as you see that a lot of the things are strikethroughed when viewing in dev console). However, I think we need to vote on that, I don't have a problem with them and I don't consider the lack of spacing objective flaw. My bigger problem is it doesn't vertically centre th's, which is...dumb. Do Wikia document what restrictions they place on Infobox classes? Are these permanent or is it the skin being WIP?
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We need to decide what we want to do for Enemy templates on that btw, I've heard conflicting propositions from the other two designers (I basically gave up my original idea because of our different FFWiki's Infoboxes are) and I think we need to work out whose we are going for, as it may influence what becomes of our infoboxes in the new skin. That said, it also relies on Wikia...}}
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:"''but it seems like Wikia place some restrictions on infobox CSS classes''"
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That's now how CSS works. Anything they can do we can do too, including reversing everything they do. [[User:JBed|JBed]] ([[User talk:JBed|talk]]) 00:10, January 16, 2015 (UTC)
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{{Quote|I've heard conflicting propositions from the other two designers}}
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I don't have any ideas, unless mindless rambling on IRC counts. JBed suggested blocks a la Caves of Narshe, this will probably work in every medium and is more in line with non-wikis do things. {{User:Catuse167/Templates/sig}} 02:04, January 16, 2015 (UTC)
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It's of minor problem for the Wiki I presume, but {{tl|sideicon}}s does not appear in Venus.—[[User:Kaimi|Kaimi]] <span style="font-size:0.75em">([[Special:Contributions/Kaimi|999,999 CP]]/[[User talk:Kaimi|5 TP]])</span> ∙ 22:06, January 16, 2015 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 02:52, 10 January 2020

FFWiki forum logo
Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > New skin incoming


FFVII Cait Sith Battle

Problems with Content[]

  • Background needs to be redone, far too big on smaller monitors and leaves too much blank space on the larger ones
  • Gray boxes(?) in thumbnailed pictures
  • Overlapped Happy Chocobo logos - though this may be a cache issue caused by JBed's update Y
  • Galleries no longer open immediately
  • Too much blank space to the right of navboxes
  • Padding etc. formatting enemy infoboxes is ruined. clicky
  • Infobox tabber is ruined. (see above) Y
  • Weirdness with the new navigation, for example there is a "Forum:Index" link called More Forums, when (a) the plural of forum isn't actually forums and (b) far more importantly, we already linked to all the fora
  • Favicon doesn't show for some people
  • Slow to load in Firefox - in some cases appears to not load at all (Wikia will most likely fix)

Discussion[]

We have a number of things in place that should make designing for new skins easier, sort of. The Recent Wiki Activity box seems like a good place to put Article Icons, though this brings up something awkward about the design:

You see, the thing about Oasis is after the rail stops, it just looks like there is a massive gap where content looks like it should be able to flow into. This design doesn't do that, but it basically puts rails contents as part of the page. So infoboxes will go below it. That will be our biggest issue.

Fuck that right? I don't think Wikia want right-floated infoboxes used on wikis. If mobile skin is anything to go by anyway. Maybe we should just go for a full-width design; infoboxes bring a lot of trouble anyway. Though honestly I'm not much a fan of full-width infoboxes because they require considerably more complex design. I imagine what this was would give you an idea of how that looks.

Alternatively, icons could be moved to the left and our custom rail items could just be pop-outs. Like how the TOC is. Like how the TOC is? Aww, fuck that man. JBed (talk) 05:36, December 20, 2014 (UTC)

Technobliterator
RedWizard-ff1-psp
Some Color Mage / Talk Contribs / / 12:04, December 20, 2014 (UTC)
Thankfully this new skin is basically pre-alpha, and reaction to it has been so negative (they had to remove it from one of the test wikis due to overwhelming hatred) that it will likely go though some revisions. But we still need to prepare for this in case the stupidest parts remain.

As such, I suggest an endorsement of Adblock Plus on the front page. :P

PFF PuPu
BlueHighwind TA
Technobliterator

I am aware of how other wikis do it, although we couldn't do it like that and look good without considerable changes. The icons are too damn high. JBed (talk) 15:52, December 20, 2014 (UTC)

FFVII Cait Sith Battle
Technobliterator
PFF PuPu

You can now view any page in Venus with "useskin=venus". [1]. I would imagine the edit form isn't the planned edit form. JBed (talk) 11:48, January 14, 2015 (UTC)

It's using Wikia.js (so I imagine Wikia.css) too. For JS not much of a problem, if skin=="venus" or "oasis". For CSS, a bit more of a problem. There is a class in the body that determines the skin, but the inclusion of that plays with the importance of the CSS rule.

I imagine they'll fully abandon oasis, so that probably is for if we decide to work on venus before it's implemented. I'll actually probably make "MediaWiki:Venus.css" and import it via JS for now until it becomes the actual skin. JBed (talk) 11:54, January 14, 2015 (UTC)

Technobliterator
LRFFXIII Lumina Render

Oh, here's another page. You'll see the infobox being shoved here. Because of clear:right that .infobox grants and rel infobox isn't on it. JBed (talk) 12:27, January 14, 2015 (UTC)

Hmm interesting to see it. Headers as links looks terrible because they are so large. Also References sections look pretty gross with the gaps. I guess it'll be easier now to read on a tablet.Keltainentoukokuu (talk) 15:25, January 14, 2015 (UTC)


Okay, changelog:

  • 16:47, January 14, 2015 (UTC) Made the logo bigger, other logo changes to make liek other skins to facilitate changing logo for special skins/events. If it appears weird, the CSS isn't updating properly.
  • 23:47, January 15, 2015 (UTC) Gave the MWV module a darkened background to visually separated it from content.

Now, to people talking about spaces between paragraphs: This issue isn't poor design on their part. The font-size is meant to be 16px, but we actually set it to 14px for consistency across skins because that's what Oasis uses.

So do we keep 14px and I reduce that gap, or do we go with what they want us to use?

? We can still lower the gap more if people still think it's too big. I personally like 16px. JBed (talk) 16:47, January 14, 2015 (UTC)

FFVII Cait Sith Battle

Personally I think 16px looks a little too big. Cat, I'm not sure what's supposed to be wrong with tabber, that example page you linked appears to work perfectly. Infobox formatting looks pretty dire though, we may need to work on a redesign.

Also the favicon is gone in Venus. Why the hell are you reducing our happy chocobo density, Wikia? -- Some Color Mage ~ (Talk) 00:51, January 15, 2015 (UTC)

It was probably a cache error, or JS being stupid, but the second tab would disappear when you clicked "Show all".
Favicon works for me, so I'm guessing that was a server-side hiccup. C A T U S E 01:37, January 15, 2015 (UTC)
Technobliterator

The problem with the spacing on navboxes is obviously from interfering CSS. There's no reason to be changing the code of templates. JBed (talk) 23:18, January 15, 2015 (UTC)

Technobliterator
"but it seems like Wikia place some restrictions on infobox CSS classes"

That's now how CSS works. Anything they can do we can do too, including reversing everything they do. JBed (talk) 00:10, January 16, 2015 (UTC)

I've heard conflicting propositions from the other two designers

I don't have any ideas, unless mindless rambling on IRC counts. JBed suggested blocks a la Caves of Narshe, this will probably work in every medium and is more in line with non-wikis do things. C A T U S E 02:04, January 16, 2015 (UTC)

It's of minor problem for the Wiki I presume, but {{sideicon}}s does not appear in Venus.—Kaimi (999,999 CP/5 TP) ∙ 22:06, January 16, 2015 (UTC)