User talk:Pretzels/Signpost

Seresin

Copied from Pretzels' talk page: I like it. My thoughts include removing the background color from the heading and footer (making it the default background), and making the heading a bit thinner; making the font a less-harsh serif, and a bit smaller; and making the headings (e.g. "News and Notes", "In the News", "Dispatches" etc.) align with respect to the vertical center of the page if that makes sense. seresin ( ¡? ) 00:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks seresin - I've removed the footer background, but I'm not sure how to go about adjusting the header. The text size has been reduced by about 10%. Also, I don't quite understand your last point, please could you elaborate? Pretzels^Talk! 02:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pretend there's a vertical line in the middle of the page. Space all the grey headers a few (pixels, picas, centimeters, whatever) away from that center line on either side. I'd also make the text a bit smaller still, and de-italicize the Editor story. seresin ( ¡? ) 05:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cryptic C62

I think this is a step in the right direction. The header (logo, volume/issue, etc) is definitely an improvement over the current design. My only issue with the header is that the space between "Issue 6" and "2009" is larger than the space between "08" and "Shortcut".

Thanks for the speedy feedback! I've made some changes to the code that should fix this spacing issue in Internet Explorer. Pretzels^Talk! 00:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also like the idea of separating the name of the feature from the name of the specific article. Perhaps a slightly darker shade of gray? Also, the current issue is nicely divided into features which all have established names: WikiProject Report, Arbitration Report, Dispatches, etc. What happens when we run a story that's not a regular feature, such as an interview with a Wikimedia Foundation board member or something like this?

I've darkened the grey ever so slightly. The grey small-caps header is determined by the name of the page it links to; I've added your example story to the page to show what would appear. Pretzels^Talk! 02:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The footer is, in my opinion, a step backwards. While the all-caps font looks cool for the names of the features, it doesn't really work here. Also, the links aren't as well-separated as the current design. The two combined make the bottom much harder to read.

Thanks for your advice Cryptic. I agree, in hindsight, the footer was poor. Hopefully you'll prefer its now updated layout. Pretzels^Talk! 02:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yum, the newer footer is much better. In terms of the actual wording, however, I'd !vote for "Archives" over "Back Issues." Yes, the latter sounds more journalism-y, but I'm so used to "Archives", both because that's what the current layout uses and because everything else on Wikipedia uses archives.

Also, consider changing "About the Signpost" to simply "About" to make it more consistent with the other links. In the current format, "About the Signpost" is way off on its own, so it makes sense for it to be a full phrase. However, now that it's part of the footer, it would make more sense for it to be just "About". --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it's relevant, I'm currently running Internet Explorer v7.0 with a resolution of 1440 x 900. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:21, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phoebe

agreed that the header is much better. I'd scale down the font of the story titles a bit, and add spaces between the bottom links per Cryptic. Also bear in mind that there are sometimes additional kinds of stories:

from the editor
special stories (usually 1 per issue, sometimes 2, rarely more).

thanks for working on this! -- phoebe / (talk to me) 00:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC) p.s. I do like this further better than the old one, I just think it needs spaces ... maybe left-float the first three links, and right-float the last three links? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 00:40, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks phoebe! I've taken note of your point re "From the editor" articles; these are now specially formatted at the top. Do you think this is this OK? I also reduced the headline size after seresin's comments, and I've added two special stories to demonstrate. Pretzels^Talk! 02:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like that the From the Editor stands out, but I don't think italics is the way to go since nothing else in the layout is italicized. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, I kind of like the italics :) phoebe / (talk to me) 04:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ragesoss

The current version is a little jarring, because the body is offset to the left from the header and footer (this may be a function of screen resolution; I'm at 1280x1024, but it should look good in all the common resolutions). I also think the #0 story should not look different from the others.--ragesoss (talk) 03:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean. I've made an adjustment that moves the balance over slighty. Does it look right now? Pretzels^Talk! 03:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that the made the issue I was talking about even worse. But now I notice that the previous version activates horizontal scrolling for me, obviously a big no-no.

What I mean was, the center of gravity for the middle section is well to the left of the center of gravity of the header and footer (if that makes sense), so it seems to lurch left and then back center as the eyes move down the page.--ragesoss (talk) 03:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Compare to the current version, where the body is compressed towards the center, while the header and footer extend toward the screen edges. This makes the alignment of the center seem better, at least to my eye. Maybe instead of aligning left, the two columns of the body could both be aligned center, and the midpoint between the columns could line up with the date and the middle of the graphic? Just a thought.--ragesoss (talk) 03:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On reflection I agree with ragesoss -- the problem is (for me on firefox on a widescreen) the bottom links aren't lined up with the left-to-right margins of the body of the text. Compare to the current, where the body is indented and centered with respect to the header and footer. Maybe a solution is reducing the fonts in the middle, increasing them in the footer slightly, and centering everything. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 04:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How about this?--ragesoss (talk) 04:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's better for me (Vista/IE7/1440x900), but still a bit left offset. I think it would look better with even spacing on both sides if that's possible. §hep • ^Talk 05:39, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that the right-side alignment varies based on how much text is there. I don't know enough to fix that, except by centering the text within each column, like this.--ragesoss (talk) 05:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's it ragesoss, it isn't really skewed but appears so because the text doesn't reach the right edge of the table. As a start I've made the right edges of the right column touch the right side of the table (right?!), and this is almost perfect - but now they do not line up with each other (on their left edges - notably Wikiproject Music). Pretzels^Talk! 10:50, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Linking

I figured I'd try to keep redesign ideas in one spot, if this needs moved elsewhere please kick it out. What do you guys think about utilizing the |link= option within the image syntax? For instance the header at my subpage. The same could then be done on the vertical images on the sides of different pages, linking back to the "Front page" of that issue. Example. Or is that a bad idea? §hep • ^Talk 22:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

what happened?

the current version is very broken for me -- the stories are out of horizontal alignment. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 02:24, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've been experimenting with different ways to neatly get the stories to balance evenly. Hopefully it should look good for you now! Pretzels^Talk! 04:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the 0 article should be formatted differently (except maybe on a single line with a dash, but then maybe not). I'm not sure about the alignment; it's definitely an improvement, but I'll have to let it sink in. What do you think about the way I formatted the bottom line of links here, to echo the header?--ragesoss (talk) 04:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's just down to personal preference now. I formatted "From the editor" differently, with less prominence, because it's kind of internal and shouldn't be presented as a regular news story - imo. With regards to the footer, I originally did have it full-width and a white background. However, I feel it leads the eye better and is more elegant to leave the footer more inconspicuous. If you feel really strongly about either of these issues, go ahead and change the design. Pretzels^Talk! 04:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hey -- the alignment looks good for me now! What do you think about putting the footer links in small caps? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 07:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'm glad it's getting there. The footer was originally in small caps, but Cryptic suggested changing it above and after doing so I think it's more readable now. Pretzels^Talk! 16:51, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

What do you guys think about no longer linking the date on the front page? Since we use a new templates, we could have them support issues at /MM DD, YYYY or /DD MM YYYY without breaking functionality of the older issues. This would help with readers who don't have prefs set (or IPs) who read the issue and see ISO dating instead of the words those of us with prefs set to see words see. §hep ^Talk 22:48, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would overcomplicate things to change the date format in the URL path, but it would be good to find a way to better format it on the front page. It has to be done dynamically, and I haven't been able to find code to do this. Pretzels^Talk! 02:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I'll be suer to keep an eye out for something that formats dates from ISO without needing prefs set. There has to be something. §hep ^Talk 02:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]