Page layout/format brainstorming

[Fredrik Johansson]

(Is there a better subforum for this?)

Mockup of some random ideas

* Removed most border lines, which I think mostly add clutter
* Moved "last modified" date to the top of the page
* Made the approved template much smaller. The wording doesn't need to be precisely this way, but I do think that the notice should be as brief as possible, with a single link to a page that explains the details.
* Changed link color to a softer shade that is easier on the eyes for link-intensive wiki articles

As you can see, I'm also toying with the idea of a three-column layout, with a right column that could be used for images, related topics, quotations, media files, etc. There are a few pros and cons with this. The basic reason I did this is that I'd like to make the body text narrower. A paragraph half as wide as a modern computer screen is about twice as readable as a full width paragraph. I also like the idea of a uniform text layout. Many authors like to place large decorational images all over the place, including on the left which causes ugly left-indentation of the text, as well as occasional strange layout bugs for users with different screen resolutions.

One problem is that there would be an artificial distinction between article content and "side content", which is not necessarily a good thing. Would you put diagrams that are referenced in the text in the sidebar? What about data tables? Maybe some figures and tables but not all of them (in that case, which ones?) Could you put "see also" links in the sidebar instead of at the end of the article to ease reader navigation by making related topics available from the top of the page?

Well, it might be the case that no one thinks any of this is a good idea. Just brainstorming :-)

[Derek Harkness]

One advantage of the wiki is that it can be skinned. While all the preinstalled skins are rather poor quality - or look like wikipedia copies - that is not to say we can't design more. We should create a range of skins for each user preference. For example, one skin for minimizing the links, another for altering the menus, another for eye candy, etc. However, we must maintain the core of the wiki software without modification. So you must limit yourself to those items that can be edited in wiki skin files and to css alterations. I don't think we could create a new table in the database for side content without a big alteration, but many other things can be tweaked.

[Fredrik Johansson]

Side content could be generated from the regular wiki text just like right-aligned images are now. In any case I don't see why we "must maintain the core of the wiki software without modification". Wikipedia surely didn't get everything right already. Radical changes should be considered while CZ is still relatively small.

By the way, a button to hide links entirely would be a good idea.

[MikeJohnson]

Fredrik,

Your mockup looks a lot cleaner than the current situation. Do you know, per Derek's comment, whether such an alteration could be done via wiki skin files and css alterations? If so, these sorts of alterations could be tried much sooner without having to wait in line with all the other planned mediawiki enhancements.

[Chris Day]

Fredrik, i love that mock up.  It has a fresh look and is far more user friendly and more to the point pleasing to the eye.  Skins regardless, I see no reason why this could not be the defualt look.

[Fredrik Johansson]

Thanks Mike and Chris.

I think most of this could be done by editing the CSS, but I'm not a CSS wiz myself and the Monobook (default skin) code is very complex. To create the mockup, I also needed to edit the HTML source, and then I modified the screenshot in a graphics editor.

But it'd be easy to change the colors and remove the borders as a start.

[Zachary Pruckowski]

You can test changes by modifying your monobook.css page, found at User:Your_User_Page/monobook.css  From there, submit proposed changes to me, and I'll test them to insure they work.  Then we'll get community approval, and if all goes well, I'll toss them into the main .css (only sysops have access).

The reason that the current .css files are messy is because I made Mike Johnson copy/paste the wikimedia originals in order to get some wikitables working that used custom CSS.  Ultimately they need to be cleaned up somewhat.

[Derek Harkness]

In any case I don't see why we "must maintain the core of the wiki software without modification".

If we make a core modification to accomidate one skin, then we will mess up all the other skins or have to redesign the other skins too. The core affects everyone, the skin files affect only the users of that skin. There is a long que of core modifications that the tech team is working on. If you keep away form modifying the core, then we can implement the changes without waiting in the que.

Have a look at the following web pages on skining wikimedia:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gallery_of_user_styles
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:User style
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Skin projects

[Fredrik Johansson]

The new skin at Wikia might provide some more inspiration.

[Derek Harkness]

I think we should move on with designing some new skins ASAP. We look too much like wikipedia to be take seriosly as an alternative.

Fredrik, I know you like doing the graphics, but are not so hot on CSS. Where as I can do CSS but not the graphics. I think with a little colaboration we could make a new CZ skin reletivly quickly. Do please email your ideas to me and I'll see what I can make out of them.

[Robert Winmill]

An idea -- Could their be a shadow background image that could be different but stylistically the same for each workgroup area.  For example a moon shadow image for astronomy, an archeology site for archeology, etc...

It would give a greater style depth to CZ and be a significant difference from WP.

[Fredrik Johansson]

I think we should move on with designing some new skins ASAP. We look too much like wikipedia to be take seriosly as an alternative.

This is what I think too.

Fredrik, I know you like doing the graphics, but are not so hot on CSS. Where as I can do CSS but not the graphics. I think with a little colaboration we could make a new CZ skin reletivly quickly. Do please email your ideas to me and I'll see what I can make out of them.

I can do CSS if I need to; the hard part is to get anywhere from the existing code. To do any kind of substantial redesign, the MediaWiki HTML output would have to be changed (Wikia is doing this). Which would require developer involvement.

By the way, is the Citizendium logo "final" or "beta"? It's not bad, but it could be better. Perhaps something to consider along with other interface and style changes.

(Again, is there a better subforum for this?)

[Pat_Palmer]

Fredrik,

It's great that you're experimenting.

On that particular 3-column layout, however, call me old fashioned, but I prefer my lines of readable text to go all across the screen whenever possible.  I know 3 columns is in great fashion on the world wide web at present, but I'm not real fond of it.  As I get older, too, I need larger fonts. 

But more and better skins is an intriguing idea.

[Derek Harkness]

Pat illustrates my point about needing more than one design. What works for her, might not work for me and vice versa. The html of the pages is actually quite flexible. I can produce some interesting new concepts quite quickly (takes longer to polish them to usable skins) by just editing the CSS of this site.

Are you familiar with www.csszengarden.com - this site demonstrates just how much you can vary the site design without touching a single line of html.

[Fredrik Johansson]

test 2

Besides stylistic changes, my main idea here is to separate links into three categories (instead of the current mess): project pages (left), content navigation (top), and page editing tools (right).