User talk:Derek Harkness/Skin

Comments

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

Snapshot

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

Headings

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

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

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

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

Formulas

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

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

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

Reversed link order

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

Edit window size

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

Bug reports

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

WikEd tool is disabled

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

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

Links suggestion

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

1. CZ:Enhancing_your_editing_with_javascript_extensions
2. CZ:MediaWiki_Citation_Tools

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

space around photos

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

Image: pages

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

Several things

I'll just duplicate what I created accidently

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

IE:

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

Firefox 2:

• Nothing so far

Style:

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

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

Logo link

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