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There was some version confusion, which resulted in responses to the wrong version, but Draft 5 is back up and ready for critiquing. Please check the history of the draft to make sure you are commenting on the right version (in case someone else changes it - look for my namestamp). Thank you. Go for it! 22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The voting round is over. Here is what Wikipedians had to say about Draft 5:
round corners have just arrived! Thanks to -- Aude who found the code! - Go for it! 07:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Support despite the flaws. I like this, but I'll point out a few things (including minor knitpicks that I'd fix myself if there wasn't a message not to edit the page):
Most if not all of these are easy to fix, so I still support this. Go for it! (ha ha ha)-- HereToHelp ( talk) 05:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Colors. I think the current draft and it's colors (particularly the blue) are too bold, though the green color is more acceptable. I would prefer keeping the current main page colors, as that would make the new design less drastic a change from the present version.
Browse bar. I also like the original browse bar from
Tom-'s original draft, with "Welcome to Wikipedia..." not centered, but towards the left and the search box. More recent comments here suggested making the links to the community portal, help desk, etc. more prominent. I suggest eliminating some items in "Almanac · Categories · FAQs · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Site news · Index" and adding links to the help desk, community portal, as well as for donations (as is on the current main page). I also suggest this "browsebarmain" be separate (white bkgd) from the yellow box.
Icons. I like using the icons from the Italian Wikipedia, though think "Today's featured article" and the "Featured picture" need different/new icons.
Other languages. Another suggestion was adding the "other languages" to the left column (as on all other articles). I had some feedback on that (keep the "other languages") on the bottom, though inconclusive on whether to have other languages also on the left.
Community portal. I like that aspect of Draft#5, though I was just on the Spanish main page and liked what I saw in "Participa en Wikipedia".
Anyway, rather than just trying to describe my suggestions, after Draft #2, I copied it to my user space and worked with it, incorporating suggestions from this talk page, and other discussions over the past several months, as well as work from Tom- and Go for it!. My suggested redesign is less drastic a change from the current main page, which many people prefer, yet incorporates user suggestions.
Further suggestions for my redesign proposal are welcome, and I'm open to incorporating them. Please let me know what you think of my suggestion, any particular elements you like from it and would like to be incorporated into the new design. Or do you still prefer the current Main page? What about the current main page do you like? Or from other language Wikipedia main pages? If you dislike my proposal, that's fine with me. Or if you like certain elements, that you suggest Go for it! include, that's fine with me. Or whatever. —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
There was much demand in the last round of discussions for "linkage". So I've added a box to highlight the Wikipedia Community.
Some of you are much more familiar with where all the best hang-outs are, so if you'd like to improve the list of community pages, please do so. Here's the link: Template:Wikipedia community (main page). Go for it! 19:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't figure out how to get space between the 2 main columns without adding margins on the far sides (via the cell padding variable at the top of the column table). Can anyone fix this? (That is, remove the padding on the sides, while keeping the space between the 2 columns)? Thanks. 20:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we really need to step back here. It seems to me that each successive draft is getting worse. Much more discussion and many more varied proposals need developing first. violet/riga (t) 22:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
We should do a detailed study into the Main Pages of other languages. The Dutch one, I think, is far better than any design proposed here so far, and there are many others that do it better. We really need to think about what is important on the Main Page rather than just reorganising what we have right now. violet/riga (t) 22:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I was just going through the other languages, in order to add links to the left column (as w/ other articles) to my
draft. I don't care for all the icons on the Dutch main page, however I like the
Spanish main page. They have "Explore Wikipedia", "Categories", "Participate in Wikipedia" - I like that one, "Wikipedia in other languages" all in the left column; In the right column, they have "Today's featured article", "Did you know?", and "On this day" "In the news". They don't have "In the news""On this day" which I do like, nor do they have "featured picture". —--
Aude (
talk |
contribs)
22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Draft 5 was altered, causing a bunch of people to comment on an unintended version. I've restored Draft 5. Please take a look. Go for it! 22:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I still would like the "rounded corner" look on the title bars for the boxes/columns. And since we have so much white space in the left bar, how about moving something like "Sister projects" over there? I also PARTICULARLY like the "browse categories" list. Her Pegship 23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to Go for it! for figuring out how to shift stuff into the left bar. 04:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the colours being too striking - suggest 153,204,153 for the green title bar, etc., and 153,204,204 for the blue. Also, the icons need the same background as their title bar. (The newspaper and calendar actually look tilted because of an optical illusion.) The bullets for "On this day" are very close to the box edge, unlike those for "In the news". And finally, something on the page is too wide - not sure what - so I'm getting horizontal scroll bars like other people. Otherwise, this is maturing nicely - well done. Bazza 13:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey all. One thing that's been a source of on-again off-again controversy at Template talk:In the news has been the appropriate means to deal with obituaries. Many of us are in favour of a cut-and-dried set of rules so that we don't get bogged down into endless debates about whether death x has been notable enough to get onto the front page. Officially, we mirror the "no obits" rule in use on Current events, which I personally find a sensible standard, but some users have rightfully pointed out that this has been overlooked on the occasion of numerous deaths, particularly when they have been high-profile Americans (cf Peter Jennings, Rosa Parks).
One compromise solution that has been proposed is to stick in a small space for the latest one or two high-profile additions to Recent deaths onto the front page. I mocked this up for the current layout here, but the thought has struck me that it might be worth running by you lot, too, with it possibly getting implemented whenever you roll out a new version of the front page. Anyone with any cracking layout ideas? The Tom 23:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
This is what I see with Firefox, 800x600 settings on a 15" monitor -- Ancheta Wis 00:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Is awful - top search box overlaps welcome banner. -- hydnjo talk 00:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
What I've noticed over the past few drafts, is that for every person who wants it one way, there's another who wants it exactly the opposite way. Check the archives. Go for it! 04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
The div method of source coding is wreaking havoc with various users' browsers. We may have to use a more stable type of code, like table encoding. See Portal:Cricket and Portal:Philosophy for 2 very stable pages. The current Main Page seems to be pretty damn stable too. Go for it! 04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to -- Aude for locating the code for this. Unfortunately, it only works in Mozilla-based browsers (like Firefox), but fortunately the majority of users seem to be using Firefox these days. Go for it! 13:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Rounded corners are not used anywhere else on Wikipedia. This design is inconsistent, too cute, and unhelpful to older browsers. See also WikiProject Rectangular Corners. Ashibaka tock 02:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I just want to go on record as stating that I strongly dislike the rounded corners. Firstly, they're ugly. (Each one actually is a jagged series of straight lines.) But more importantly, I vehemently oppose the use of code that deliberately generates major visual differences depending upon which browser someone is using. We should be striving to create as uniform an appearance as possible, not throwing in gimmicky elements that—for the users that see them—distract from the encyclopedic content and contradict longstanding (and perfectly acceptable) style conventions. — David Levy 15:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps something like this: User:Porge/Main_Page porges 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that in an encyclopedia, the catagories, portals, A-Z, and other navigational link curretnly at the top should be way bigger. People don't go to an encyclopedia, for news, or triva, or pictures, or anything else, as much as they information. The links at the top are by far the most important thing on the page, and must be enlarged from their tiny state. Tobyk777 01:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is the latest look in Firefox 800x600. You have fixed the problem shown above, even when resizing the browser. Looks good. -- Ancheta Wis 03:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I know there are more important things to be worrying about, but the curvature on the green & blue sections looks horrendous.
Nononono. If you're going to use images to create rounded corners, use the method shown here. (If that no longer works, try this link.) In that example, images are used to create inverted curves (that is, white bg, transparent curve) which makes it look *much* cleaner... drumguy8800 - speak? 04:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Just REMOVE the curvature on the ones that aren't on the top. That would look nice.. And the colors seem too bright. -- Nick Catalano ( Talk) 11:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I very much like this section. hydnjo talk 01:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
If there is anything missing you'd like to add to this section, please feel free to do so. Go for it! 07:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the colours are much too bright in draft five. Please change them so they are subtle like they are on the current main page. This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. Choalbaton 02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think this draft has a number of problems at the moment, mainly in terms of colour. Not only are the colours too bold but they clash completely. The subtlty of the sidebar and background certain doesn't match the kindergarten green/blue shades, and the pastely yellow at the top looks completely out of place.
The asymmetry of the boxes (vertically and horizontally) makes it look odd - the existance of the sidebar doesn't help with this. The two lower boxes should start at the same point - this is particularly important if the boxes are going to have coloured title bars. I think it'd probably look better if the two were the same width.
The current main page is great because the colour scheme is consistant and quite understated/subtle. It matches the colour scheme that runs through the entire Wikipedia. Obviously some of the issues I've pointed out with the draft also apply to the main page.
Finally, I believe this project to be fundamentally flawed. What is most usable to one user is not suited to another. The optimal solution would be to give users a preference as to which page they land on when they type http://en.wikipedia.org/ into their browser. This may be the current main page, an alternative main page suited for the visually impaired, or even a portal. -- Oldak Quill 18:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the current colors are too bright. Something much more faded would be easier on the eye, yet still highlight the section. Her Pegship 18:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there really a need to have more than one search box on the main page?
While y'all are screwin' messin' around (no insult intended) with getting the Main Page exactly right, a couple of real good things have come out of this project. So, how about adding
almanac and
glossaries right now. Just add them to the {{Main Page intro}} template and then all can have one click accessibility to a couple of neat places in the meantime (so to speak). ;-)
hydnjo
talk
21:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I think what you should so is ensure that the boxes all line up like they do at the moment. Like i say, the text for news changes every day, so the boxes will go up and down like a visualiser on a music player. Simply put some padding at the bottom, or between the article top, then it'll line up, and stay the same all the time (consistency, again) The magical Spum-dandy 21:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
An important question to ask is who is the audience for the main page? I'm thinking it's more likely people that come to look for information on a topic, read articles, maybe edit some, and might be anons./IP. Though, I also think a lot of these people come in through google to an article page. People that come to the main page might not have a specific idea of what information they want, but more likely to browse? And as a contributor, I do look at the main page from time to time, to see what the featured article is and the featured picture on the weekend. I'm also interested in ITN and what articles are linked on the main page, that might need work. However, my main entry point to Wikipedia is my Watchlist or one of my vandalism watchlists.
I've been poking around Wikipedia to find out statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. How many people enter Wikipedia through the main page? Maybe break this down by anons/IPs, editors (maybe by # of edits, or when they registered, or something), and admins? I think this is an important consideration for how prominent the browse categories, the community portal/help pages, etc. should be. While I've found some interesting results at http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm, I haven't yet found anything on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. Maybe these stats are restricted to admins-only or I'm not sure? Does anyone know where/how to find this information? At least, maybe a straw poll here, on what's your main entry point to Wikipedia? —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I wonder how many users set Wikipedia's main page as their home page on their browser. Or have the main page on their tool bar for quick access. These might account for the majority of hits on the main page. Go for it! 15:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to take a step back, with the redesign process and get a better sense of who the users of the main page are, and how users enter Wikipedia. Ultimately, it would be useful to track down site statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia? e.g. watchlist, main page, article page via google search? I realize this poll isn't represntative, as it's just people who find this draft talk page. Maybe there's a better place for such a survey? —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 16:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the redesign is rather good. I prefer this redesign to the previous design because it adds more colour and attraction to wikipedia.
Draig goch20 14:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me for my poor English. I'm sorry for asking this question on this discussion but I want to design a portal with a white background coulor on the German Wikipedia site. Nobody knows how you have changed the background coulor to white at your drafts. Usually the background colour is defined by the software and can only be changed in personal sylesheets (user/monobook.css). Is there a way to override the default settings? I hope somebody can help us. Thanks -- De.Doit 21:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I just noticed a couple of flaws in the page's appearance when viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. The top banner doesn't quite reach as far to the left and right as the two columns below it, and the book image is cut off before it reaches the top. Here's a screen capture. — David Levy 00:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I notice that everything on this redesign is in a pastel box. Take a note from the current Main Page: not everything needs to be pastel-boxified. Ashibaka tock 03:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
This draft is no longer actively proposed. Please see the discussion below for my current attempt. — David Levy 23:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I assembled a revised draft of the page. Please let me know what you think. (If the book and magnifying glass images fail to appear, follow these instructions to clear your browser's cache.) — David Levy 10:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I've created another draft (based upon Ashibaka's). This time, my goal was to add some of our conventional styling into the mix. I also fixed the last remaining IE bug of which I'm aware (mentioned above).
Does anyone have an opinion on the swapped sections ("Did you know..." and "On this day...")? This seems more logical to me, and I'll explain why:
— David Levy 19:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The color scheme is far too bold in the latest draft. What happened to the softer, more appealing design? - ElAmericano | talk 17:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on Draft Six. I've licked the problem of misaligned headings and column-ends, though there aren't enough changes yet to justify posting the draft for feedback. I took a break to revamp the Help page, and let some feedback accumulate here. Okay, milder colors. But can I change the pink???? -- Go for it! 23:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, I think we need to take a step back and consider what the point is of redesign (as part of WikiProject Usability). If we could gather more statistics and information on how people use the main page, search and/or browse the site. How can we make it easier to find information? The other main goal is to encourage people to contribute. Is there anyway we can do that better? Much more than colors and icons, we need to consider the functionality and usability of the site. From looking at the other language pages, I think the Spanish main page has a nice balance of elements on the main page. And the way they do the headings is nice too. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 00:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I realize this has been requested before, but nobody seems to have taken it into real consideration. I believe that the main page should have a look a lot like the current Portal:Browse page does, just a bit simplified and with other content for the news, "Did you know?", etc. While many Wikipedia readers are Wiki-nuts, there are some people who come on here just to find information on a broad topic, and, while there is a search function, it's not always easy to guess the name of the article you're seeking. As of now, the only resemblance our Main Page has to this is a few small links at the top.
P.S.: One site that implements this idea quite well now is the Italian Main Page. appzter 17:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Rather than having one person hog all the page-layout fun, we're holding an open session of editing between voting rounds. (See notice at top of page). I know how some of you have been dying to get your hands dirty on this project! So, now's your chance.
And by the way, THANK YOU! to all those who helped me on the Help Page redesign blitz. I hope we have as much fun on this one. -- Go for it! 01:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the split into four boxes. In my opinion,, the page looks much better with two boxes, even though the headings don't line up. This is how the current main page is configured.
The four boxes make the page look very busy, and such a setup completely defeats the purpose of having one color for the left and another for the right. — David Levy 04:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to reiterate that I wholeheartedly support the removal of the icons. Aside from my personal opinion that the page looks much better without them, it's obvious from the above comments that many people strongly oppose their inclusion. — David Levy 06:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
With or without the icons, I think the headings look bad with colors still too bold and saturated, and the heading text proportionally too large. I suggest either the heading style (like the Spanish wikipedia) or stick to the style used on the current main page. When I get some time, I can work on improving the headings (if enough of you agree with me). -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 14:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Um... personally, I would prefer just plain text, or enlarged text from the logo. This reminds me of a children's movie or something. Ashibaka tock 18:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think thnat curretnly the Hebrew WP [2] has the best mainpage. It incorperates everything that our mainpage has and Portal:Browse into one, perfectly formatted page. It think that we should make our page look alot like this. What do you guys think? Tobyk777 18:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
We can try that. I have a basic knowledge of Hebrew so I'll cover what's on there (although it uses a lot of pictures that anyone could dicepher):On the left, going down, is TFA, DYK, TDIH, holidays (part of TDIH on our page), and then ITN. Instead of a Top 8 or Top 10, they have many top level categories arranged like Portal:Browse on our language, with the category below it (above is the article). I recomend we get images for our Top 10 Portals and do something like what I have below. Anyway, there's the sister projects are beneath it; I don't know what the thing with the @ is. As for the language links, they're on the side but don't add wierd whitespace, so it's obviously selected languages. We could put ours in in a box, or put langs with 10k articles or more on the side. below is my draft for one of the Top 10 (it would be centered):
Comments?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 21:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
For an example: look at the French Main Page.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Yea the french one does it perfectly too. But in the Hebrew one, the browse, and other features are next to each other. In the French one, the other features are below the catagories. They both both way better than ours, but I like Hebrew better. Tobyk777 23:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Assuming everyone likes it (that's the hard part), we can make the rest of the Top 10 links following the above example. then we allign the four classic templates to the left, each with it's own color, and then have room for the ten icons on the right (we can even reverse that if it gets us consensus). The rest goes under that, unchanged, unless we want to put the major language links on the side and kill the rest. I tried to make a model in my userspace but it didn't work (I'm no expert at HTML).-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
More of those Top 10 things:
Geography
Portal •
Category
Mathematics
Portal •
Category
Science
Portal •
Category
People
Portal •
Category
Society
Portal •
Category
Art
Portal •
Category
Philosophy
Portal •
Category
That is all of them except History, Philosophy and Culture because they have no distinct identifying Nuvola icon.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
History
Portal •
Category (
alternative image)
Health
Portal •
Category
Culture
Portal •
Category
Any takers?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 00:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
We wound up using different icons tat look more proffesional, but the idea in its purest form remains.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I just slapped a needs-fixing-if-not-swiftly-reverted box around "Community" adapting colors I swiped from the Spanish wikipedia for it. This could get out of hand, go for it! Metarhyme 18:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've added a hide/show function for the smaller language links. Thoughts? violet/riga (t) 19:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
It's only fair that I explain myself:
— David Levy 21:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I like the icons, too, buti if that's going to kill the consensus, get rid of them.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Aftter all, those icons play a role in other language Main Pages [3] [4] -- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello everyone. We've been discussing whether we should have that, and this, and that for a long time and I really admire the people's efforts on this. I was just going to comment on a recent change that is made, but then I realized that I had to take a step back and see what's our mission and where we got so far. I assume that we all are trying to modify the main page so that it is - both physically and effectively - more appealing than the current one. So what I did was, I opened the current main page and current draft at the same time. Of course the first thing that struck to me was the colors. I won't get into the "which color is nicer" thing again so I'm leaving that out. Another thing was the headline; the draft has it a little bit bolder but everything else is the same. Another thing is the fact that the places of the boxes are quite different. Then I scrolled down and saw the first thing that really changed something. It was really nice that this draft had a community box. This was all. There are some other minor things of course but that's not my main point so I won't list them all. My overall feeling was that almost all of the changes were physical and didn't modify the main page's effectiveness a lot. Then I asked myself the question: if everything about its effectiveness is going to be same why are we changing the main page? I couldn't answer it and thus I am writing it here to get my mind straight on this. Thank you for your time. -- Quinlan Vos 22:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your quick reviews but I guess I couldn't express myself in the right way. I didn't mean that we shouldn't have a change. I just tried to point out that where we are now (in the sixth draft, come on!) is not very different than the current main page. Things about the efectiveness are starting to be talked though. I really liked the discussion on the new format for example (Hebrew format) since it is really a change. I guess we started heading for the last draft with huge paces! -- Quinlan Vos 00:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I'm on the Main Page Redesign team. I'm looking into possibly turning off the title (H1 heading?) at the top of the page we are working on. We need to see what the Main Page Redesign Draft would look like without the page name showing up on the screen. What is the link to the the documentation on this? -- Go for it! 20:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of the code on monobook.js. Do you know precisely what code would need to be pasted in? If so, it would sure help our project along. I appreciate your help so far, it puts us one step closer... -- Go for it! 23:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to have worked, as the page title still shows up at the top of the page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft. Please take a look. -- Go for it! 04:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Ctrl-F5 did the trick (I use Firefox). Looks great! How do you clear the cache with Internet Explorer? -- Go for it! 14:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
What's that icon set called? -- Go for it! 04:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The draft as it currently stands is excellent. Let's mark it Draft 6. :) (or feel free to continue improving...) Ashibaka tock 05:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
Does anyone know how to use a graphic as a background image in Wikipedia? I'd like to try an experiment and place the puzzle globe behind the 4 lines of text of the header. Any help/guidance you can provide would be most appreciated. -- Go for it! 06:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
drumguy8800 - speak? 21:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
drumguy8800 - speak? 21:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, people with IE should be able to view this page properly (even though I HATE IE). If we can overcome that...I love it.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not thrilled with the browse icons, as I think they are confusing with three links under each. Since we've all been working on Wikipedia for a while, we understand the difference between Category, Portal, and the Article links. However, someone new to Wikipedia that's browsing for information, this seems very confusing. It's further confusing that when you click on the icon itself, it just links to the icon image and not "art", "culture", or anything. I suggest just one link for each icon, and clicking on the icon itself has to take you to the topic portal (or category). -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 06:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Geography -- Here the image links to the portal; its name links to the category.
207.172.134.175
08:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Good point, Kmf. As with all newcomer issues, we simply have to accomodate them by explaining to newcomers what they're looking at. A little note right below the icon bar ought to do the trick. -- Go for it! 14:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I had tried changing the heading styles in the Main page draft, similar to how it's done on the Spanish Wikipedia. The headings use darker, much less saturated background-colors that are easier on the eye and less distracting from the main content. Also the size of the heading text is smaller with more padding between the text and the heading box. What I had done is now at:
I thought they help greatly in making the page look more professional, in the use of color, typeface, padding, and margins. If you like, feel free to use heading styles like these. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 17:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
drumguy8800 - : speak? 21:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
As for making sure the FAs get noticed, hwo about "Today's Featured Article: Butter" and have it rigged to update it?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, THANK YOU, VIOLET/RIGA! I spent the longest time trying to figure out how to move the text links closer to the icons, and all of my attempts failed miserably. Nice work!
Secondly, I agree that it's better to link only to the portals. Linking to both the portals and the categories is potentially confusing to inexperienced readers, and they're better off visiting the portals (which are far more welcoming and user-friendly). — David Levy 20:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft Gold and bluish-purple. To me, much more appealling than the green/blue of the current edit. Edited from User:Kmf164/Main page draft. drumguy8800 - speak? 22:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The colours are indeed nice. Better than those being used presently. The heading bars are much nicer also.-- cj | talk 03:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Inspired by the above and other languages, User:Violetriga/inprogress shows my preference. violet/riga (t) 23:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I implemented the background thing I made.. with the globe on the right.. on the new version of my page. Tricolor, tell me how you like: User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
This is true. However, we must have consensus and any big changes will not met consensus. I don't like that system, I think that the only way we'll make progress is through big changes, but the facts remain. I agree with what KMF164 is saying, people won't realize they have to scroll down, but if we have the links at the top AND the icons we can help mitigate the problem. I still agree with you, I'm just being a realist and I'm taking David Levy's solution.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 01:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
First, my apologies for hastily putting a problematic revision up front.
Now then.. At first I was attempting to incorporate the second logo as a floating layer so that it would ride on top of three colors.. which looked kind of cool, but it wouldnt even display correctly in internet explorer. I have revised a lot of things and it seems to work flawlessly in Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, and Internet Explorer.
Please note that previously there were layout differences in spacing, especially in IE and Firefox. By previously, I mean the green/blue page. I've resolved these differences by removing most/all of the padding & margin tags which are notoriously interpreted differently in different browsers. I added divs that spaced between the header and columns, and spacing between the two columns. Everthing appears to be flush.. except for the two columns, which have 1 px of white border around them (collectively) but I can't figure out where that came from.
Again.. removed the second logo, like noted. I think things look smoother now.. comments..?
drumguy8800 -
speak?
01:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I like how you provide links in the resurrected yellow bar to the stuff that's down low. I'm going to take out the Health Portal, though. Support the concept, deleting the cancerous nuance.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a major difference between Zocky (whcih I WAS commenting on, thanks for making that claer above, and I like that version the best) and the others (which have now been taken off with the edit summary "just kidding"). We should vote between Zocky and something along the lines of the other two before we split hairs on the little things.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm getting a javascript error in IE with the Script Debugger. Wasn't getting it about an hour ago Dandin1 23:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
One other concern I have is the quality of the portals. Though, it helps a lot that User:HereToHelp got rid of the health portal, which is really primative and only recently been edited by User:Go for it! and myself. On the other portals, we should make sure the categories are all presented in a uniform style and position on the page. And, ensure each portal is regularly maintained and updated (e.g. switching the featured articles). I'll do what I can, particularly with Portal:Geography.
One other issue is the name of the " Society" portal. Is this supposed to encompass social sciences? I'm not sure I'd think to look under "Society" for economics or law. And where would I find popular culture (e.g. television, video games, sports, food & drink, etc.)? I might think to look under culture, but don't see these apparant on the Culture portal. This is all an issue of sorting topics, which is another important usability aspect of a website. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I want to discuss A) whether we should have a yellow (or at least colored) verson of the header or a white one as David Levy has proposed. I think, however, most people agree the header, so long as it does not have a redundant search box, allows us to put stuff up top where people do not have to scroll down while doing it in a space efficent fashon. And B) should the boxes be the new form with the title in a separate colored area [5] or more like the current Main Page [6]? IMHO, I think the header looks better colored and keeping the boxes like they were, but separate with new colors, will help us get the consensus needed to "go live" with this revision. Anyone else want to add to that? -- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 03:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
These are all good drafts in their own ways. When we chose the Wikimedia logo, and the Wikipedia mascot, we took a straw poll on different people's ideas-- I think we could use the same process among these. Ashibaka tock 03:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Just want to point out that there are significant color variances, from monitor to monitor, for each draft. The color saturation/brightness that I mentioned previously (Re: User:David Levy/Main2 and the official draft from earlier today), is slightly less an issue on my laptop display but seemed much too bright on my LCD monitor. I did try adjusting the monitor settings, but colors still a bit too bright and bold. On my own draft, I just tried slightly darkening the colors to make them look better on my laptop. The colors on User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft do look different from my laptop to LCD monitor, but in both instances the colors look okay either way. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 04:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
It's evolved sufficiently since Draft 5. I'm happy with it. Her Pegship 18:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The Health Portal is NOT one of the Top 10 subjects. Waht justification does it have to be there? Put it as a subset of Science or even better Anatomy or the Medicine Portal. Unless it is recognized as an equaly important branch of Wikipedia, which it currently isn't, please DO NOT re add it. Those Portals are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked. health is a science; it falls under that category. It has no business being on the Main Page.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I would say that "because these are an official category, agreed on by consensus" but I already see the flaws in that argument. There was no consenus vote, and on a wiki, anything can be official. So I will present a new guideline: Put the Portals on the main page that are not subsets of other portals. this however, means Art goes under Culture, Tech goes under Science, Philosophy goes under either Science or Society, and maybe even Biography under Society or Culture and Geography under History. On the other hand, the Hebrew Main Page (although we've abandoned icons) has 20 topics! I'm not sure where I stand; perhaps we should judge by the quality of the Portals themselves.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I also copied the portal discussions to Portal_talk:Browse#Main_page_redesign. We need some central place for discussion of the browse topics and how they are categorized. I'm thinking of other shortcomings... I would think of " Portal:Business and Economics" as a main topic (e.g. most universities have their Business schools separate from Arts & Sciences, Humanities, Health/Medicine, Engineering, etc.). Another main topic *might* be "Law and Government", as I wouldn't think to look under society for them. And, I'm still unsure where to put topics like Sports, Games (e.g. video games), Television, ... On Portal:Browse, they're currently under "Arts" but that doesn't quite make sense to me. Maybe they could go under culture? -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Its a small thing but perhaps people should read this Nature article, which basically says that the first impression of a website is made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. If all they see are text and mute colors we may be seen as a page not worth looking at.
A long these lines, I like the way the header looks now with the book in the background. I think it would also look good if the magnifying glass was returned to the right side of the header box. And perhaps an understated object could go in the backgorund of the Featured article, etc boxes. I think this would add a look of profesionalism to the page. (Like someone was actually getting paid to stylize Wikipedia and grab the attention of new users).
I'd also like to see the Pic of the Day be a major part of the page but I think that's too much to ask for right now. - Trevor MacInnis ( Talk | Contribs) 23:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Trevor for promoting the idea that the POTD should be on the main page everyday and not just on weekends. And don't worry, it's not too much to ask for. It is within our capabilities to provide. There are three obstacles which we would have to overcome to provide this feature:
We might not work this out by this Saturday, but I have a feeling we're going to be working on this project a bit longer than that.
Check out the imbedded formatting (border and heading):
Since we have more real estate with the new header format, I suggest we use it to greatest advantage. And since the browsebar that's all over Wikipedia has "Portals" prominently set in its top line, perhaps we should keep "Portals" on our top line for the sake of familiarity and compatibility. That would give us one more open slot to fill in the block of portals (we've got 11 portals listed there at the moment).
What should the 12th portal be???
-- Go for it! 01:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The main page is the top of the Portal hierarchy, and the top of most of the hierarchies of Wikipedia. And since this is a feedback generating forum, it's the perfect place to find out if users prefer a dozen top portals to ten on the main page. And, if the feedback is negative, we can easily pull the extra portals. There's no sense in not finding out. Besides, so far efforts to place the expanded browsebar selection of portals onto the main page have failed. So the only truly appropriate course of action is to discuss it as a main page issue and a portal hierarchy issue. -- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Semantically, medicine is a subcategory of health. Medicine would therefore fall under both health and science in the hierarchy. Notice that the top of the hierarchy reads almost like the section titles of a newspaper. Health is a major section of most major newspapers, right up there with People and Lifestyle (Culture). -- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The health portal is now complete. -- Go for it! 01:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone mentioned Quote of the day from Wikiquote, in an earlier discussion. But would that fill enough room to balance the columns?
Do you have any other ideas?
-- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia news? Word AND quote of the day? Wikipedia tip of the day? Today's Featured Portal/List?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The Hebrew version separates the holidays from "On this day". the holidays appear at the top of OTD bolded.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, we intend to propose modifications to the main page's layout/interface, but I feel that we should leave the fundamental content alone for now.
In other words, issues such as whether we should make "Picture of the Day" and "Did you know..." seven-day features (along with an additional entry) should be decided independently. There might be consensus for one set of changes (but not the other), and we don't want people to oppose the entire redesign because they view it as a package deal.
The addition of the "Wikipedia community" section should be uncontroversial, but I don't think that we should go any further than that. — David Levy 04:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Seriously, we really need to be working within the main page's established parameters. I don't object to the idea of proposing major changes to the featured content, but attempting to create the layout for an as-yet unapproved (and barely discussed) setup is a textbook example of putting the cart before the horse.
And incidentally, it doesn't make sense to place the "community" links within one of the colored boxes, because they're supposed to contain featured (changing) content, not static (unchanging) information. — David Levy 04:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
"Help" is now listed in the banner, in addition to the left sidebar. "Introduction" is above the banner, where both "ask a question" (which goes to the same page) and Wikipedia are prominently displayed. "Current events" is listed twice: left sidebar and at the bottom of "In the news". Wikipedia:Browse "Categories" and Portal:Browse "All portals" are both right at the top, which without a thorough investigation look to be the same page. I understand why all this is there, but perhaps some brevity would be better than making people's eyes glaze over with all this thoroughness. What are your thoughts on this? -- 24.26.178.224 05:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Many users overlook the navigation bars. Repetition is good when it reinforces what you want to say ("If you need help, go here") and doesn't take up too much real estate, which it does not.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm currently getting a (fairly insignificant) horizontal scrollbar at 800x600. Is there anything can be done about this? Are we aiming to make it work for even smaller screens, too, or is everyone at least 800x600 these days?-- Cherry blossom tree 12:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
"926,960 free encyclopedia articles that anyone can edit"
or
"926,960 free articles that anyone can edit"?
The second one sounds much better. It fits on one line without wrapping on my 800x600 screen too. -- 24.26.178.224 21:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
We've got our own picture feed now.
The Template:POTD column is transcluded in the draft. It in turn calls a subpage by date. Here are the page names of the upcoming subpages, the first few of which I've already stocked (Instructions, if you need them are on Template talk:POTD column):
The pictures that need to be converted show up on the following pages (easy to find on all pages):
-- Go for it! 10:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S.: But now we have a slight problem...
"Did you know" only runs five days, and then gives way to Picture of the day (they share a feed). So we'll have duplicate pictures of the day if we don't create our own "Did you know" feed.
I'm working on it, but don't hesitate to jump in and help.
(You could also start looking for a 6th feature, as I assume Wikipedia Community is in the column only temporarily).
Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!
-- Go for it! 10:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not up to us to second guess the masses. They'll let us know starting Saturday what they think. A lot of people over the last few voting rounds have been clammering for Picture of the day. I kept telling them it wasn't possible because 1) The formatting (heading and border) were incompatible with our design, and 2) it was already coupled with Did you know. So there's no harm in leaving it in, because on Saturday we'll find out if users generally think there's too much material on the draft or not. And thanks to Trevor (who challenged me by sticking it in there), I spent too many hours trying to figure out how to make it and the other requested features work to let all that time go down the drain without getting a voting session's worth of feedback. We'll have plenty of time during the next editing session to adjust for users' desires. -- Go for it! 15:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses.
We don't have much time left, so whatever we do, we need to do pretty quick. So rather than engage in lengthy debates, let's just work together and let the result flow. I'll step back and tweak things here and there. I'll meet you on the draft page, and at the end of this one. -- Go for it! 01:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Unless somebody knows some trick for erasing text from a transcluded article, we can't just transclude Did You Know, because it contains an imbedded heading. Which will clash with our heading...
$%^&*(%^&*()
*LIGHT BULB*
We can overlap the incoming heading with a blank heading (with the background turned on). I hope transparency works.
I'm going to try it.
-- Go for it! 10:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to have worked. Sort of. It moves around a little when you change screen size.
Are em's proportional? I'll try that next... Yep, em's work. I've tested it on Firefox and IE.
We've got ourselves a continuously updated Did You Know feed, folks!
Trevor, you inspired me.
-- Go for it! 10:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I was able to blank out the heading and use negative margins (top and left) to line the template's heading up where the blanked out heading was, thus overlapping it with the blanked out heading's background.
However, there's a line of code in the template that says "div style="float:right; margin-left: 0.5em;" that seems to cause the background of the heading below it to expand up to the previous header.
I added 17 hard carriage returns (br), and it pushed it back down, though there's variable space there now, depending how big or small your text size is adjusted to.
Does anyone know what is going on with this, and how to fix it?
We need to replace the 17 carriage returns with a better solution.
I think it has something to do with "float". Can we lock the template down somehow inside another div container, using some kind of command to anchor it?
If we lick this problem, we'll have a fully operational "live" news feed, making the whole page fully operational!
-- Go for it! 12:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Introduction · Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Questions · Site news · Index · Mobile
Who here knows anything about mobile internet browsing?
Please describe how much and in what format such a user sees on his device at any given time.
-- Go for it! 20:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
FireFox did it! He found a simple solution to the heading bleed. And by the way, check out his user page...
Look familiar? -- Go for it! 22:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Gee, where have I seen that before?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've seen a lot of discussion over redesigns of the Main Page, and my question is what should the ultimate aim be? Should it be to have something as simple as possible that as many people as possible can use (call this the MAIN PAGE)? Then fix this in stone, but make clear that it is a simple template that most people should modify to create their own main page. Anyone who comes along with a bright idea or personal preference for layout, can then create their own version (probably in their user space) and use it as their personal "entry point". Kind of similar to using RSS feeds, or having a skin. This would avoid the countless edit wars I've seen over minor points of style and trying to fix a page to suit a few types of users, rather than leaving it flexible enough for all users to use it in their own way. Maybe I'm missing something and this wouldn't be workable, or is already possible, but I'd sure like to see a range of styles and "Main Page" designs available to pick and choose from. You would also be able to change things over time as you moved around different areas of Wikipedia, altering your personal "home page" to 'retire' the old interests and add the new ones. 62.31.128.13 22:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC) — copied here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability#Customizable_Main_Page.3F -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. However, the HTML work would be horrendous. Also, it's a hassle to keep your own page updated. The programing would be a mess. People can just customize their own userpages, like FireFox did. And to tell the computer how to do that...-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)DID I MENTION THE PROGRAMING???
There is another alternative to worrying so about what exactly is presented on the Main opening page— Which I agree should be a cross between something that showcases the capabilities of Wikipedia (which is an argument for the current layout including the "article of the day," etc.) and a guide to how to obtain the information (a non-contributing) user might be looking for.
My solution would be also to provide a repeat user with a "Toolset" page one can open upon (that one could bookmark), and that one can (1) modify in accordance with one's wishes, and (2) provide a rigorous "Starter toolset" into the heart of wikipedia.
One example is Wikipedia:Starter toolset, which I am in process of majorly upgrading. Suggestions are strongly solicited. ⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 23:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've decided to fork the page into two separate versions. Instead of a single "Draft 6," we'll have " Draft 6A" and " Draft 6B." We'll allow the respondents to decide which setup is preferable, and that can be moved back to Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft (with the longer revision history intact). — David Levy 01:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
In IE, the formatting is off. Can you see it? The margins and the padding is all screwed up. Compare browsers and get back to me. -- Go for it! 01:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
There was some version confusion, which resulted in responses to the wrong version, but Draft 5 is back up and ready for critiquing. Please check the history of the draft to make sure you are commenting on the right version (in case someone else changes it - look for my namestamp). Thank you. Go for it! 22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
The voting round is over. Here is what Wikipedians had to say about Draft 5:
round corners have just arrived! Thanks to -- Aude who found the code! - Go for it! 07:35, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Support despite the flaws. I like this, but I'll point out a few things (including minor knitpicks that I'd fix myself if there wasn't a message not to edit the page):
Most if not all of these are easy to fix, so I still support this. Go for it! (ha ha ha)-- HereToHelp ( talk) 05:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Colors. I think the current draft and it's colors (particularly the blue) are too bold, though the green color is more acceptable. I would prefer keeping the current main page colors, as that would make the new design less drastic a change from the present version.
Browse bar. I also like the original browse bar from
Tom-'s original draft, with "Welcome to Wikipedia..." not centered, but towards the left and the search box. More recent comments here suggested making the links to the community portal, help desk, etc. more prominent. I suggest eliminating some items in "Almanac · Categories · FAQs · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Site news · Index" and adding links to the help desk, community portal, as well as for donations (as is on the current main page). I also suggest this "browsebarmain" be separate (white bkgd) from the yellow box.
Icons. I like using the icons from the Italian Wikipedia, though think "Today's featured article" and the "Featured picture" need different/new icons.
Other languages. Another suggestion was adding the "other languages" to the left column (as on all other articles). I had some feedback on that (keep the "other languages") on the bottom, though inconclusive on whether to have other languages also on the left.
Community portal. I like that aspect of Draft#5, though I was just on the Spanish main page and liked what I saw in "Participa en Wikipedia".
Anyway, rather than just trying to describe my suggestions, after Draft #2, I copied it to my user space and worked with it, incorporating suggestions from this talk page, and other discussions over the past several months, as well as work from Tom- and Go for it!. My suggested redesign is less drastic a change from the current main page, which many people prefer, yet incorporates user suggestions.
Further suggestions for my redesign proposal are welcome, and I'm open to incorporating them. Please let me know what you think of my suggestion, any particular elements you like from it and would like to be incorporated into the new design. Or do you still prefer the current Main page? What about the current main page do you like? Or from other language Wikipedia main pages? If you dislike my proposal, that's fine with me. Or if you like certain elements, that you suggest Go for it! include, that's fine with me. Or whatever. —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
There was much demand in the last round of discussions for "linkage". So I've added a box to highlight the Wikipedia Community.
Some of you are much more familiar with where all the best hang-outs are, so if you'd like to improve the list of community pages, please do so. Here's the link: Template:Wikipedia community (main page). Go for it! 19:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I couldn't figure out how to get space between the 2 main columns without adding margins on the far sides (via the cell padding variable at the top of the column table). Can anyone fix this? (That is, remove the padding on the sides, while keeping the space between the 2 columns)? Thanks. 20:00, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we really need to step back here. It seems to me that each successive draft is getting worse. Much more discussion and many more varied proposals need developing first. violet/riga (t) 22:01, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
We should do a detailed study into the Main Pages of other languages. The Dutch one, I think, is far better than any design proposed here so far, and there are many others that do it better. We really need to think about what is important on the Main Page rather than just reorganising what we have right now. violet/riga (t) 22:20, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I was just going through the other languages, in order to add links to the left column (as w/ other articles) to my
draft. I don't care for all the icons on the Dutch main page, however I like the
Spanish main page. They have "Explore Wikipedia", "Categories", "Participate in Wikipedia" - I like that one, "Wikipedia in other languages" all in the left column; In the right column, they have "Today's featured article", "Did you know?", and "On this day" "In the news". They don't have "In the news""On this day" which I do like, nor do they have "featured picture". —--
Aude (
talk |
contribs)
22:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Draft 5 was altered, causing a bunch of people to comment on an unintended version. I've restored Draft 5. Please take a look. Go for it! 22:50, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I still would like the "rounded corner" look on the title bars for the boxes/columns. And since we have so much white space in the left bar, how about moving something like "Sister projects" over there? I also PARTICULARLY like the "browse categories" list. Her Pegship 23:11, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to Go for it! for figuring out how to shift stuff into the left bar. 04:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the colours being too striking - suggest 153,204,153 for the green title bar, etc., and 153,204,204 for the blue. Also, the icons need the same background as their title bar. (The newspaper and calendar actually look tilted because of an optical illusion.) The bullets for "On this day" are very close to the box edge, unlike those for "In the news". And finally, something on the page is too wide - not sure what - so I'm getting horizontal scroll bars like other people. Otherwise, this is maturing nicely - well done. Bazza 13:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Hey all. One thing that's been a source of on-again off-again controversy at Template talk:In the news has been the appropriate means to deal with obituaries. Many of us are in favour of a cut-and-dried set of rules so that we don't get bogged down into endless debates about whether death x has been notable enough to get onto the front page. Officially, we mirror the "no obits" rule in use on Current events, which I personally find a sensible standard, but some users have rightfully pointed out that this has been overlooked on the occasion of numerous deaths, particularly when they have been high-profile Americans (cf Peter Jennings, Rosa Parks).
One compromise solution that has been proposed is to stick in a small space for the latest one or two high-profile additions to Recent deaths onto the front page. I mocked this up for the current layout here, but the thought has struck me that it might be worth running by you lot, too, with it possibly getting implemented whenever you roll out a new version of the front page. Anyone with any cracking layout ideas? The Tom 23:36, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
This is what I see with Firefox, 800x600 settings on a 15" monitor -- Ancheta Wis 00:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Is awful - top search box overlaps welcome banner. -- hydnjo talk 00:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
What I've noticed over the past few drafts, is that for every person who wants it one way, there's another who wants it exactly the opposite way. Check the archives. Go for it! 04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
The div method of source coding is wreaking havoc with various users' browsers. We may have to use a more stable type of code, like table encoding. See Portal:Cricket and Portal:Philosophy for 2 very stable pages. The current Main Page seems to be pretty damn stable too. Go for it! 04:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks to -- Aude for locating the code for this. Unfortunately, it only works in Mozilla-based browsers (like Firefox), but fortunately the majority of users seem to be using Firefox these days. Go for it! 13:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Rounded corners are not used anywhere else on Wikipedia. This design is inconsistent, too cute, and unhelpful to older browsers. See also WikiProject Rectangular Corners. Ashibaka tock 02:45, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I just want to go on record as stating that I strongly dislike the rounded corners. Firstly, they're ugly. (Each one actually is a jagged series of straight lines.) But more importantly, I vehemently oppose the use of code that deliberately generates major visual differences depending upon which browser someone is using. We should be striving to create as uniform an appearance as possible, not throwing in gimmicky elements that—for the users that see them—distract from the encyclopedic content and contradict longstanding (and perfectly acceptable) style conventions. — David Levy 15:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps something like this: User:Porge/Main_Page porges 22:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that in an encyclopedia, the catagories, portals, A-Z, and other navigational link curretnly at the top should be way bigger. People don't go to an encyclopedia, for news, or triva, or pictures, or anything else, as much as they information. The links at the top are by far the most important thing on the page, and must be enlarged from their tiny state. Tobyk777 01:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Here is the latest look in Firefox 800x600. You have fixed the problem shown above, even when resizing the browser. Looks good. -- Ancheta Wis 03:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I know there are more important things to be worrying about, but the curvature on the green & blue sections looks horrendous.
Nononono. If you're going to use images to create rounded corners, use the method shown here. (If that no longer works, try this link.) In that example, images are used to create inverted curves (that is, white bg, transparent curve) which makes it look *much* cleaner... drumguy8800 - speak? 04:48, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Just REMOVE the curvature on the ones that aren't on the top. That would look nice.. And the colors seem too bright. -- Nick Catalano ( Talk) 11:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I very much like this section. hydnjo talk 01:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
If there is anything missing you'd like to add to this section, please feel free to do so. Go for it! 07:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the colours are much too bright in draft five. Please change them so they are subtle like they are on the current main page. This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. Choalbaton 02:23, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I think this draft has a number of problems at the moment, mainly in terms of colour. Not only are the colours too bold but they clash completely. The subtlty of the sidebar and background certain doesn't match the kindergarten green/blue shades, and the pastely yellow at the top looks completely out of place.
The asymmetry of the boxes (vertically and horizontally) makes it look odd - the existance of the sidebar doesn't help with this. The two lower boxes should start at the same point - this is particularly important if the boxes are going to have coloured title bars. I think it'd probably look better if the two were the same width.
The current main page is great because the colour scheme is consistant and quite understated/subtle. It matches the colour scheme that runs through the entire Wikipedia. Obviously some of the issues I've pointed out with the draft also apply to the main page.
Finally, I believe this project to be fundamentally flawed. What is most usable to one user is not suited to another. The optimal solution would be to give users a preference as to which page they land on when they type http://en.wikipedia.org/ into their browser. This may be the current main page, an alternative main page suited for the visually impaired, or even a portal. -- Oldak Quill 18:04, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree that the current colors are too bright. Something much more faded would be easier on the eye, yet still highlight the section. Her Pegship 18:12, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Is there really a need to have more than one search box on the main page?
While y'all are screwin' messin' around (no insult intended) with getting the Main Page exactly right, a couple of real good things have come out of this project. So, how about adding
almanac and
glossaries right now. Just add them to the {{Main Page intro}} template and then all can have one click accessibility to a couple of neat places in the meantime (so to speak). ;-)
hydnjo
talk
21:02, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I think what you should so is ensure that the boxes all line up like they do at the moment. Like i say, the text for news changes every day, so the boxes will go up and down like a visualiser on a music player. Simply put some padding at the bottom, or between the article top, then it'll line up, and stay the same all the time (consistency, again) The magical Spum-dandy 21:45, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
An important question to ask is who is the audience for the main page? I'm thinking it's more likely people that come to look for information on a topic, read articles, maybe edit some, and might be anons./IP. Though, I also think a lot of these people come in through google to an article page. People that come to the main page might not have a specific idea of what information they want, but more likely to browse? And as a contributor, I do look at the main page from time to time, to see what the featured article is and the featured picture on the weekend. I'm also interested in ITN and what articles are linked on the main page, that might need work. However, my main entry point to Wikipedia is my Watchlist or one of my vandalism watchlists.
I've been poking around Wikipedia to find out statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. How many people enter Wikipedia through the main page? Maybe break this down by anons/IPs, editors (maybe by # of edits, or when they registered, or something), and admins? I think this is an important consideration for how prominent the browse categories, the community portal/help pages, etc. should be. While I've found some interesting results at http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm, I haven't yet found anything on "entry pages" to Wikipedia. Maybe these stats are restricted to admins-only or I'm not sure? Does anyone know where/how to find this information? At least, maybe a straw poll here, on what's your main entry point to Wikipedia? —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:42, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
I wonder how many users set Wikipedia's main page as their home page on their browser. Or have the main page on their tool bar for quick access. These might account for the majority of hits on the main page. Go for it! 15:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think we need to take a step back, with the redesign process and get a better sense of who the users of the main page are, and how users enter Wikipedia. Ultimately, it would be useful to track down site statistics on "entry pages" to Wikipedia? e.g. watchlist, main page, article page via google search? I realize this poll isn't represntative, as it's just people who find this draft talk page. Maybe there's a better place for such a survey? —-- Aude ( talk | contribs) 16:37, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the redesign is rather good. I prefer this redesign to the previous design because it adds more colour and attraction to wikipedia.
Draig goch20 14:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me for my poor English. I'm sorry for asking this question on this discussion but I want to design a portal with a white background coulor on the German Wikipedia site. Nobody knows how you have changed the background coulor to white at your drafts. Usually the background colour is defined by the software and can only be changed in personal sylesheets (user/monobook.css). Is there a way to override the default settings? I hope somebody can help us. Thanks -- De.Doit 21:43, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
I just noticed a couple of flaws in the page's appearance when viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. The top banner doesn't quite reach as far to the left and right as the two columns below it, and the book image is cut off before it reaches the top. Here's a screen capture. — David Levy 00:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I notice that everything on this redesign is in a pastel box. Take a note from the current Main Page: not everything needs to be pastel-boxified. Ashibaka tock 03:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
This draft is no longer actively proposed. Please see the discussion below for my current attempt. — David Levy 23:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I assembled a revised draft of the page. Please let me know what you think. (If the book and magnifying glass images fail to appear, follow these instructions to clear your browser's cache.) — David Levy 10:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I've created another draft (based upon Ashibaka's). This time, my goal was to add some of our conventional styling into the mix. I also fixed the last remaining IE bug of which I'm aware (mentioned above).
Does anyone have an opinion on the swapped sections ("Did you know..." and "On this day...")? This seems more logical to me, and I'll explain why:
— David Levy 19:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
The color scheme is far too bold in the latest draft. What happened to the softer, more appealing design? - ElAmericano | talk 17:00, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm working on Draft Six. I've licked the problem of misaligned headings and column-ends, though there aren't enough changes yet to justify posting the draft for feedback. I took a break to revamp the Help page, and let some feedback accumulate here. Okay, milder colors. But can I change the pink???? -- Go for it! 23:34, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, I think we need to take a step back and consider what the point is of redesign (as part of WikiProject Usability). If we could gather more statistics and information on how people use the main page, search and/or browse the site. How can we make it easier to find information? The other main goal is to encourage people to contribute. Is there anyway we can do that better? Much more than colors and icons, we need to consider the functionality and usability of the site. From looking at the other language pages, I think the Spanish main page has a nice balance of elements on the main page. And the way they do the headings is nice too. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 00:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I realize this has been requested before, but nobody seems to have taken it into real consideration. I believe that the main page should have a look a lot like the current Portal:Browse page does, just a bit simplified and with other content for the news, "Did you know?", etc. While many Wikipedia readers are Wiki-nuts, there are some people who come on here just to find information on a broad topic, and, while there is a search function, it's not always easy to guess the name of the article you're seeking. As of now, the only resemblance our Main Page has to this is a few small links at the top.
P.S.: One site that implements this idea quite well now is the Italian Main Page. appzter 17:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
Rather than having one person hog all the page-layout fun, we're holding an open session of editing between voting rounds. (See notice at top of page). I know how some of you have been dying to get your hands dirty on this project! So, now's your chance.
And by the way, THANK YOU! to all those who helped me on the Help Page redesign blitz. I hope we have as much fun on this one. -- Go for it! 01:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I strongly oppose the split into four boxes. In my opinion,, the page looks much better with two boxes, even though the headings don't line up. This is how the current main page is configured.
The four boxes make the page look very busy, and such a setup completely defeats the purpose of having one color for the left and another for the right. — David Levy 04:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd just like to reiterate that I wholeheartedly support the removal of the icons. Aside from my personal opinion that the page looks much better without them, it's obvious from the above comments that many people strongly oppose their inclusion. — David Levy 06:21, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
With or without the icons, I think the headings look bad with colors still too bold and saturated, and the heading text proportionally too large. I suggest either the heading style (like the Spanish wikipedia) or stick to the style used on the current main page. When I get some time, I can work on improving the headings (if enough of you agree with me). -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 14:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Um... personally, I would prefer just plain text, or enlarged text from the logo. This reminds me of a children's movie or something. Ashibaka tock 18:03, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I think thnat curretnly the Hebrew WP [2] has the best mainpage. It incorperates everything that our mainpage has and Portal:Browse into one, perfectly formatted page. It think that we should make our page look alot like this. What do you guys think? Tobyk777 18:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
We can try that. I have a basic knowledge of Hebrew so I'll cover what's on there (although it uses a lot of pictures that anyone could dicepher):On the left, going down, is TFA, DYK, TDIH, holidays (part of TDIH on our page), and then ITN. Instead of a Top 8 or Top 10, they have many top level categories arranged like Portal:Browse on our language, with the category below it (above is the article). I recomend we get images for our Top 10 Portals and do something like what I have below. Anyway, there's the sister projects are beneath it; I don't know what the thing with the @ is. As for the language links, they're on the side but don't add wierd whitespace, so it's obviously selected languages. We could put ours in in a box, or put langs with 10k articles or more on the side. below is my draft for one of the Top 10 (it would be centered):
Comments?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 21:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
For an example: look at the French Main Page.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Yea the french one does it perfectly too. But in the Hebrew one, the browse, and other features are next to each other. In the French one, the other features are below the catagories. They both both way better than ours, but I like Hebrew better. Tobyk777 23:17, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Assuming everyone likes it (that's the hard part), we can make the rest of the Top 10 links following the above example. then we allign the four classic templates to the left, each with it's own color, and then have room for the ten icons on the right (we can even reverse that if it gets us consensus). The rest goes under that, unchanged, unless we want to put the major language links on the side and kill the rest. I tried to make a model in my userspace but it didn't work (I'm no expert at HTML).-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
More of those Top 10 things:
Geography
Portal •
Category
Mathematics
Portal •
Category
Science
Portal •
Category
People
Portal •
Category
Society
Portal •
Category
Art
Portal •
Category
Philosophy
Portal •
Category
That is all of them except History, Philosophy and Culture because they have no distinct identifying Nuvola icon.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 00:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
History
Portal •
Category (
alternative image)
Health
Portal •
Category
Culture
Portal •
Category
Any takers?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 00:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
We wound up using different icons tat look more proffesional, but the idea in its purest form remains.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I just slapped a needs-fixing-if-not-swiftly-reverted box around "Community" adapting colors I swiped from the Spanish wikipedia for it. This could get out of hand, go for it! Metarhyme 18:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I've added a hide/show function for the smaller language links. Thoughts? violet/riga (t) 19:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
It's only fair that I explain myself:
— David Levy 21:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
I like the icons, too, buti if that's going to kill the consensus, get rid of them.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Aftter all, those icons play a role in other language Main Pages [3] [4] -- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Hello everyone. We've been discussing whether we should have that, and this, and that for a long time and I really admire the people's efforts on this. I was just going to comment on a recent change that is made, but then I realized that I had to take a step back and see what's our mission and where we got so far. I assume that we all are trying to modify the main page so that it is - both physically and effectively - more appealing than the current one. So what I did was, I opened the current main page and current draft at the same time. Of course the first thing that struck to me was the colors. I won't get into the "which color is nicer" thing again so I'm leaving that out. Another thing was the headline; the draft has it a little bit bolder but everything else is the same. Another thing is the fact that the places of the boxes are quite different. Then I scrolled down and saw the first thing that really changed something. It was really nice that this draft had a community box. This was all. There are some other minor things of course but that's not my main point so I won't list them all. My overall feeling was that almost all of the changes were physical and didn't modify the main page's effectiveness a lot. Then I asked myself the question: if everything about its effectiveness is going to be same why are we changing the main page? I couldn't answer it and thus I am writing it here to get my mind straight on this. Thank you for your time. -- Quinlan Vos 22:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your quick reviews but I guess I couldn't express myself in the right way. I didn't mean that we shouldn't have a change. I just tried to point out that where we are now (in the sixth draft, come on!) is not very different than the current main page. Things about the efectiveness are starting to be talked though. I really liked the discussion on the new format for example (Hebrew format) since it is really a change. I guess we started heading for the last draft with huge paces! -- Quinlan Vos 00:44, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi. I'm on the Main Page Redesign team. I'm looking into possibly turning off the title (H1 heading?) at the top of the page we are working on. We need to see what the Main Page Redesign Draft would look like without the page name showing up on the screen. What is the link to the the documentation on this? -- Go for it! 20:25, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer. Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of the code on monobook.js. Do you know precisely what code would need to be pasted in? If so, it would sure help our project along. I appreciate your help so far, it puts us one step closer... -- Go for it! 23:55, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to have worked, as the page title still shows up at the top of the page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft. Please take a look. -- Go for it! 04:12, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Ctrl-F5 did the trick (I use Firefox). Looks great! How do you clear the cache with Internet Explorer? -- Go for it! 14:22, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
What's that icon set called? -- Go for it! 04:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The draft as it currently stands is excellent. Let's mark it Draft 6. :) (or feel free to continue improving...) Ashibaka tock 05:21, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
Does anyone know how to use a graphic as a background image in Wikipedia? I'd like to try an experiment and place the puzzle globe behind the 4 lines of text of the header. Any help/guidance you can provide would be most appreciated. -- Go for it! 06:04, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
drumguy8800 - speak? 21:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
In this English version, started in 2001, we are currently working on 6,842,728 articles.
Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology
Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Search · Questions · Site news · Index
drumguy8800 - speak? 21:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, people with IE should be able to view this page properly (even though I HATE IE). If we can overcome that...I love it.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not thrilled with the browse icons, as I think they are confusing with three links under each. Since we've all been working on Wikipedia for a while, we understand the difference between Category, Portal, and the Article links. However, someone new to Wikipedia that's browsing for information, this seems very confusing. It's further confusing that when you click on the icon itself, it just links to the icon image and not "art", "culture", or anything. I suggest just one link for each icon, and clicking on the icon itself has to take you to the topic portal (or category). -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 06:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Geography -- Here the image links to the portal; its name links to the category.
207.172.134.175
08:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Good point, Kmf. As with all newcomer issues, we simply have to accomodate them by explaining to newcomers what they're looking at. A little note right below the icon bar ought to do the trick. -- Go for it! 14:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I had tried changing the heading styles in the Main page draft, similar to how it's done on the Spanish Wikipedia. The headings use darker, much less saturated background-colors that are easier on the eye and less distracting from the main content. Also the size of the heading text is smaller with more padding between the text and the heading box. What I had done is now at:
I thought they help greatly in making the page look more professional, in the use of color, typeface, padding, and margins. If you like, feel free to use heading styles like these. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 17:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
drumguy8800 - : speak? 21:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
As for making sure the FAs get noticed, hwo about "Today's Featured Article: Butter" and have it rigged to update it?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 23:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Firstly, THANK YOU, VIOLET/RIGA! I spent the longest time trying to figure out how to move the text links closer to the icons, and all of my attempts failed miserably. Nice work!
Secondly, I agree that it's better to link only to the portals. Linking to both the portals and the categories is potentially confusing to inexperienced readers, and they're better off visiting the portals (which are far more welcoming and user-friendly). — David Levy 20:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft Gold and bluish-purple. To me, much more appealling than the green/blue of the current edit. Edited from User:Kmf164/Main page draft. drumguy8800 - speak? 22:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
The colours are indeed nice. Better than those being used presently. The heading bars are much nicer also.-- cj | talk 03:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Inspired by the above and other languages, User:Violetriga/inprogress shows my preference. violet/riga (t) 23:36, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I implemented the background thing I made.. with the globe on the right.. on the new version of my page. Tricolor, tell me how you like: User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
This is true. However, we must have consensus and any big changes will not met consensus. I don't like that system, I think that the only way we'll make progress is through big changes, but the facts remain. I agree with what KMF164 is saying, people won't realize they have to scroll down, but if we have the links at the top AND the icons we can help mitigate the problem. I still agree with you, I'm just being a realist and I'm taking David Levy's solution.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 01:39, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft
First, my apologies for hastily putting a problematic revision up front.
Now then.. At first I was attempting to incorporate the second logo as a floating layer so that it would ride on top of three colors.. which looked kind of cool, but it wouldnt even display correctly in internet explorer. I have revised a lot of things and it seems to work flawlessly in Opera, Mozilla, Netscape, and Internet Explorer.
Please note that previously there were layout differences in spacing, especially in IE and Firefox. By previously, I mean the green/blue page. I've resolved these differences by removing most/all of the padding & margin tags which are notoriously interpreted differently in different browsers. I added divs that spaced between the header and columns, and spacing between the two columns. Everthing appears to be flush.. except for the two columns, which have 1 px of white border around them (collectively) but I can't figure out where that came from.
Again.. removed the second logo, like noted. I think things look smoother now.. comments..?
drumguy8800 -
speak?
01:36, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I like how you provide links in the resurrected yellow bar to the stuff that's down low. I'm going to take out the Health Portal, though. Support the concept, deleting the cancerous nuance.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
There's a major difference between Zocky (whcih I WAS commenting on, thanks for making that claer above, and I like that version the best) and the others (which have now been taken off with the edit summary "just kidding"). We should vote between Zocky and something along the lines of the other two before we split hairs on the little things.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:21, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm getting a javascript error in IE with the Script Debugger. Wasn't getting it about an hour ago Dandin1 23:46, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
One other concern I have is the quality of the portals. Though, it helps a lot that User:HereToHelp got rid of the health portal, which is really primative and only recently been edited by User:Go for it! and myself. On the other portals, we should make sure the categories are all presented in a uniform style and position on the page. And, ensure each portal is regularly maintained and updated (e.g. switching the featured articles). I'll do what I can, particularly with Portal:Geography.
One other issue is the name of the " Society" portal. Is this supposed to encompass social sciences? I'm not sure I'd think to look under "Society" for economics or law. And where would I find popular culture (e.g. television, video games, sports, food & drink, etc.)? I might think to look under culture, but don't see these apparant on the Culture portal. This is all an issue of sorting topics, which is another important usability aspect of a website. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 01:19, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I want to discuss A) whether we should have a yellow (or at least colored) verson of the header or a white one as David Levy has proposed. I think, however, most people agree the header, so long as it does not have a redundant search box, allows us to put stuff up top where people do not have to scroll down while doing it in a space efficent fashon. And B) should the boxes be the new form with the title in a separate colored area [5] or more like the current Main Page [6]? IMHO, I think the header looks better colored and keeping the boxes like they were, but separate with new colors, will help us get the consensus needed to "go live" with this revision. Anyone else want to add to that? -- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 03:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
These are all good drafts in their own ways. When we chose the Wikimedia logo, and the Wikipedia mascot, we took a straw poll on different people's ideas-- I think we could use the same process among these. Ashibaka tock 03:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Just want to point out that there are significant color variances, from monitor to monitor, for each draft. The color saturation/brightness that I mentioned previously (Re: User:David Levy/Main2 and the official draft from earlier today), is slightly less an issue on my laptop display but seemed much too bright on my LCD monitor. I did try adjusting the monitor settings, but colors still a bit too bright and bold. On my own draft, I just tried slightly darkening the colors to make them look better on my laptop. The colors on User:Drumguy8800/Main page draft do look different from my laptop to LCD monitor, but in both instances the colors look okay either way. -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 04:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
It's evolved sufficiently since Draft 5. I'm happy with it. Her Pegship 18:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
The Health Portal is NOT one of the Top 10 subjects. Waht justification does it have to be there? Put it as a subset of Science or even better Anatomy or the Medicine Portal. Unless it is recognized as an equaly important branch of Wikipedia, which it currently isn't, please DO NOT re add it. Those Portals are not chosen arbitrarily, but rather they were hand picked. health is a science; it falls under that category. It has no business being on the Main Page.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 21:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I would say that "because these are an official category, agreed on by consensus" but I already see the flaws in that argument. There was no consenus vote, and on a wiki, anything can be official. So I will present a new guideline: Put the Portals on the main page that are not subsets of other portals. this however, means Art goes under Culture, Tech goes under Science, Philosophy goes under either Science or Society, and maybe even Biography under Society or Culture and Geography under History. On the other hand, the Hebrew Main Page (although we've abandoned icons) has 20 topics! I'm not sure where I stand; perhaps we should judge by the quality of the Portals themselves.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I also copied the portal discussions to Portal_talk:Browse#Main_page_redesign. We need some central place for discussion of the browse topics and how they are categorized. I'm thinking of other shortcomings... I would think of " Portal:Business and Economics" as a main topic (e.g. most universities have their Business schools separate from Arts & Sciences, Humanities, Health/Medicine, Engineering, etc.). Another main topic *might* be "Law and Government", as I wouldn't think to look under society for them. And, I'm still unsure where to put topics like Sports, Games (e.g. video games), Television, ... On Portal:Browse, they're currently under "Arts" but that doesn't quite make sense to me. Maybe they could go under culture? -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Its a small thing but perhaps people should read this Nature article, which basically says that the first impression of a website is made in the first 50 milliseconds of viewing. If all they see are text and mute colors we may be seen as a page not worth looking at.
A long these lines, I like the way the header looks now with the book in the background. I think it would also look good if the magnifying glass was returned to the right side of the header box. And perhaps an understated object could go in the backgorund of the Featured article, etc boxes. I think this would add a look of profesionalism to the page. (Like someone was actually getting paid to stylize Wikipedia and grab the attention of new users).
I'd also like to see the Pic of the Day be a major part of the page but I think that's too much to ask for right now. - Trevor MacInnis ( Talk | Contribs) 23:32, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
Thank you Trevor for promoting the idea that the POTD should be on the main page everyday and not just on weekends. And don't worry, it's not too much to ask for. It is within our capabilities to provide. There are three obstacles which we would have to overcome to provide this feature:
We might not work this out by this Saturday, but I have a feeling we're going to be working on this project a bit longer than that.
Check out the imbedded formatting (border and heading):
Since we have more real estate with the new header format, I suggest we use it to greatest advantage. And since the browsebar that's all over Wikipedia has "Portals" prominently set in its top line, perhaps we should keep "Portals" on our top line for the sake of familiarity and compatibility. That would give us one more open slot to fill in the block of portals (we've got 11 portals listed there at the moment).
What should the 12th portal be???
-- Go for it! 01:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The main page is the top of the Portal hierarchy, and the top of most of the hierarchies of Wikipedia. And since this is a feedback generating forum, it's the perfect place to find out if users prefer a dozen top portals to ten on the main page. And, if the feedback is negative, we can easily pull the extra portals. There's no sense in not finding out. Besides, so far efforts to place the expanded browsebar selection of portals onto the main page have failed. So the only truly appropriate course of action is to discuss it as a main page issue and a portal hierarchy issue. -- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Semantically, medicine is a subcategory of health. Medicine would therefore fall under both health and science in the hierarchy. Notice that the top of the hierarchy reads almost like the section titles of a newspaper. Health is a major section of most major newspapers, right up there with People and Lifestyle (Culture). -- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The health portal is now complete. -- Go for it! 01:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Someone mentioned Quote of the day from Wikiquote, in an earlier discussion. But would that fill enough room to balance the columns?
Do you have any other ideas?
-- Go for it! 02:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia news? Word AND quote of the day? Wikipedia tip of the day? Today's Featured Portal/List?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:27, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
The Hebrew version separates the holidays from "On this day". the holidays appear at the top of OTD bolded.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 02:49, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously, we intend to propose modifications to the main page's layout/interface, but I feel that we should leave the fundamental content alone for now.
In other words, issues such as whether we should make "Picture of the Day" and "Did you know..." seven-day features (along with an additional entry) should be decided independently. There might be consensus for one set of changes (but not the other), and we don't want people to oppose the entire redesign because they view it as a package deal.
The addition of the "Wikipedia community" section should be uncontroversial, but I don't think that we should go any further than that. — David Levy 04:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Seriously, we really need to be working within the main page's established parameters. I don't object to the idea of proposing major changes to the featured content, but attempting to create the layout for an as-yet unapproved (and barely discussed) setup is a textbook example of putting the cart before the horse.
And incidentally, it doesn't make sense to place the "community" links within one of the colored boxes, because they're supposed to contain featured (changing) content, not static (unchanging) information. — David Levy 04:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
"Help" is now listed in the banner, in addition to the left sidebar. "Introduction" is above the banner, where both "ask a question" (which goes to the same page) and Wikipedia are prominently displayed. "Current events" is listed twice: left sidebar and at the bottom of "In the news". Wikipedia:Browse "Categories" and Portal:Browse "All portals" are both right at the top, which without a thorough investigation look to be the same page. I understand why all this is there, but perhaps some brevity would be better than making people's eyes glaze over with all this thoroughness. What are your thoughts on this? -- 24.26.178.224 05:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
Many users overlook the navigation bars. Repetition is good when it reinforces what you want to say ("If you need help, go here") and doesn't take up too much real estate, which it does not.-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 12:04, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm currently getting a (fairly insignificant) horizontal scrollbar at 800x600. Is there anything can be done about this? Are we aiming to make it work for even smaller screens, too, or is everyone at least 800x600 these days?-- Cherry blossom tree 12:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
"926,960 free encyclopedia articles that anyone can edit"
or
"926,960 free articles that anyone can edit"?
The second one sounds much better. It fits on one line without wrapping on my 800x600 screen too. -- 24.26.178.224 21:16, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
We've got our own picture feed now.
The Template:POTD column is transcluded in the draft. It in turn calls a subpage by date. Here are the page names of the upcoming subpages, the first few of which I've already stocked (Instructions, if you need them are on Template talk:POTD column):
The pictures that need to be converted show up on the following pages (easy to find on all pages):
-- Go for it! 10:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
P.S.: But now we have a slight problem...
"Did you know" only runs five days, and then gives way to Picture of the day (they share a feed). So we'll have duplicate pictures of the day if we don't create our own "Did you know" feed.
I'm working on it, but don't hesitate to jump in and help.
(You could also start looking for a 6th feature, as I assume Wikipedia Community is in the column only temporarily).
Yeeeeeeeeeehaw!
-- Go for it! 10:09, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not up to us to second guess the masses. They'll let us know starting Saturday what they think. A lot of people over the last few voting rounds have been clammering for Picture of the day. I kept telling them it wasn't possible because 1) The formatting (heading and border) were incompatible with our design, and 2) it was already coupled with Did you know. So there's no harm in leaving it in, because on Saturday we'll find out if users generally think there's too much material on the draft or not. And thanks to Trevor (who challenged me by sticking it in there), I spent too many hours trying to figure out how to make it and the other requested features work to let all that time go down the drain without getting a voting session's worth of feedback. We'll have plenty of time during the next editing session to adjust for users' desires. -- Go for it! 15:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses.
We don't have much time left, so whatever we do, we need to do pretty quick. So rather than engage in lengthy debates, let's just work together and let the result flow. I'll step back and tweak things here and there. I'll meet you on the draft page, and at the end of this one. -- Go for it! 01:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Unless somebody knows some trick for erasing text from a transcluded article, we can't just transclude Did You Know, because it contains an imbedded heading. Which will clash with our heading...
$%^&*(%^&*()
*LIGHT BULB*
We can overlap the incoming heading with a blank heading (with the background turned on). I hope transparency works.
I'm going to try it.
-- Go for it! 10:30, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It seems to have worked. Sort of. It moves around a little when you change screen size.
Are em's proportional? I'll try that next... Yep, em's work. I've tested it on Firefox and IE.
We've got ourselves a continuously updated Did You Know feed, folks!
Trevor, you inspired me.
-- Go for it! 10:54, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I was able to blank out the heading and use negative margins (top and left) to line the template's heading up where the blanked out heading was, thus overlapping it with the blanked out heading's background.
However, there's a line of code in the template that says "div style="float:right; margin-left: 0.5em;" that seems to cause the background of the heading below it to expand up to the previous header.
I added 17 hard carriage returns (br), and it pushed it back down, though there's variable space there now, depending how big or small your text size is adjusted to.
Does anyone know what is going on with this, and how to fix it?
We need to replace the 17 carriage returns with a better solution.
I think it has something to do with "float". Can we lock the template down somehow inside another div container, using some kind of command to anchor it?
If we lick this problem, we'll have a fully operational "live" news feed, making the whole page fully operational!
-- Go for it! 12:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Introduction · Almanac · Categories · Glossaries · Lists · Overviews · Portals · Questions · Site news · Index · Mobile
Who here knows anything about mobile internet browsing?
Please describe how much and in what format such a user sees on his device at any given time.
-- Go for it! 20:01, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
FireFox did it! He found a simple solution to the heading bleed. And by the way, check out his user page...
Look familiar? -- Go for it! 22:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Gee, where have I seen that before?-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've seen a lot of discussion over redesigns of the Main Page, and my question is what should the ultimate aim be? Should it be to have something as simple as possible that as many people as possible can use (call this the MAIN PAGE)? Then fix this in stone, but make clear that it is a simple template that most people should modify to create their own main page. Anyone who comes along with a bright idea or personal preference for layout, can then create their own version (probably in their user space) and use it as their personal "entry point". Kind of similar to using RSS feeds, or having a skin. This would avoid the countless edit wars I've seen over minor points of style and trying to fix a page to suit a few types of users, rather than leaving it flexible enough for all users to use it in their own way. Maybe I'm missing something and this wouldn't be workable, or is already possible, but I'd sure like to see a range of styles and "Main Page" designs available to pick and choose from. You would also be able to change things over time as you moved around different areas of Wikipedia, altering your personal "home page" to 'retire' the old interests and add the new ones. 62.31.128.13 22:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC) — copied here from Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Usability#Customizable_Main_Page.3F -- Aude ( talk | contribs) 22:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea. However, the HTML work would be horrendous. Also, it's a hassle to keep your own page updated. The programing would be a mess. People can just customize their own userpages, like FireFox did. And to tell the computer how to do that...-- HereToHelp ( talk • contribs) 22:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)DID I MENTION THE PROGRAMING???
There is another alternative to worrying so about what exactly is presented on the Main opening page— Which I agree should be a cross between something that showcases the capabilities of Wikipedia (which is an argument for the current layout including the "article of the day," etc.) and a guide to how to obtain the information (a non-contributing) user might be looking for.
My solution would be also to provide a repeat user with a "Toolset" page one can open upon (that one could bookmark), and that one can (1) modify in accordance with one's wishes, and (2) provide a rigorous "Starter toolset" into the heart of wikipedia.
One example is Wikipedia:Starter toolset, which I am in process of majorly upgrading. Suggestions are strongly solicited. ⇒ normxxx| talk ⇒ email 23:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
I've decided to fork the page into two separate versions. Instead of a single "Draft 6," we'll have " Draft 6A" and " Draft 6B." We'll allow the respondents to decide which setup is preferable, and that can be moved back to Wikipedia:WikiProject Usability/Main Page/Draft (with the longer revision history intact). — David Levy 01:28, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
In IE, the formatting is off. Can you see it? The margins and the padding is all screwed up. Compare browsers and get back to me. -- Go for it! 01:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)