User talk:Aichon/Sandbox/Demo13

Rationale

First off, I realized that without putting the links at the top and stretching them out horizontally, there really was no way to make them all visible to a person visiting the page. So, instead of trying to force the issue of making them visible, I focused on our original goal, which was to make players aware of them. Towards that end, I put them in a single-file column that is immediately visible when the page loads. As a result, while not all of the links are immediately visible, a visitor to the page would easily understand that there are additional helpful links below the ones they can already see.

Second, I felt like we were missing an opportunity to group some other content. Game news, wiki news, and UD History are all about events that are happening or have happened, so it makes sense to group them together, that way people can tell at a glance what all is going on. Unfortunately, all three of those have content of variable sizes, which means that we need to group them vertically, rather than horizontally. As a result, the only place to put them is opposite the column of links, so I placed them on the right and the links on the left since it's both closer to what we have now and just generally felt better visually.

Third, I still needed to address low res screens, and with columns on both sides, that gets a bit tricky. To try and handle that, what I did was set up the Community Projects and Featured Article sections to automatically try and rearrange themselves so as to best make use of the space available, thus minimizing the amount of awkward whitespace. At low resolutions, they either rearrange themselves into a single column or else move down the page to places where there is more space available.

It's definitely not perfect, however. For instance, to try and make that rearranging stuff work as nicely as possible, I used a few paragraphs of fluff wording that is essentially just wasting space. I'd love to replace it with something that's actually useful. Also, the code for it is atrocious right now, since I wasn't cleaning up old stuff as I made changes and scrapped failed ideas. It needs to be cleaned up and templated out at a minimum, and that's assuming it's an acceptable design in the first place, of which even I am not convinced. Nonetheless though, I feel that it warrants a quick discussion. —Aichon— 05:05, 15 October 2012 (BST)

Quick note: the switch to having FA and CP above/below each other means that the fluff text is no longer necessary. Yay. Now, for bed! —Aichon— 08:33, 15 October 2012 (BST)

I like this. --Ross Less Ness ^{Enter Stranger...} 11:32, 15 October 2012 (BST)

A lot of the center text needs to go and this actually looks pretty gnarly on small screens because of the left hand menu column. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Karek (talk • contribs) 02:44, 18 October 2012 (BST).

Is that rad/bodacious gnarly or tangled/difficult-to-use gnarly? As for the center text, feel free to edit and remove text (that goes for anyone reading this). Assuming I remember to, I'll remove most of it tomorrow and replace it with just a few lines of text probably. —Aichon— 04:29, 18 October 2012 (BST)

Its the tangled/difficult to read variety. FA is squished into a little box between the two groups of tables and CP is pushed down below everything and is 100% of the width of the page. Honestly, I'm resigned to the fact that Main Page is gonna look stupid on mobile screens no matter what is done.

One suggestion for the replacement text: Since it seems aimed at newbie wiki users, why no link to {{Welcomenewbie}} with text to the timbre of "If this is your first time using UDWiki, see see here for some helpful tips for getting started". Currently, you're being explicit with some information but in a very verbose way and some helpful tips for newbies is left out. ~ _{15:25, 18 October 2012 (UTC)}

Regarding FA and CP, most of what you described was intentionally designed that way. When the window is wide enough, FA and CP will both be in the middle. As the window gets smaller, first CP will be bumped down, then FA will be bumped down. If you feel that they are getting too squished before they get bumped down, however, that's something I can tweak (if you think they look squished here, you should see what they look like on the current main page :P). Right now, I have them set to get bumped down when they are squished to under 310px. I picked that number as a compromise between letting them get too narrow and bumping them down too early, but if you think a different number would be better, feel free to edit the page accordingly. Same thing for the welcomenewbie text you're suggesting. —Aichon— 16:58, 18 October 2012 (BST)

It's fine. Despite my initial misgivings about how the page looks at low screen res, I don't think we should spend a lot of effort trying to make a mobile friendly main page. If anything, perhaps a separate page like Main Page/Mobile that's more mobile friendly. I may have time to edit the text later if you don't get to it first. ~ _{18:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC)}

See if it's any better. I removed a lot of text and tweaked the way that FA and CP operate slightly, that way they drop down together, rather than orphaning one. It leaves whitespace on the page at certain resolutions, but it might be more consistent. —Aichon— 20:57, 19 October 2012 (BST)

I'm a fan. Only question: why is the Wiki a "secondary resource" as opposed to a "primary resource" (it's the biggest resource around) or just a "resource"? Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 21:01, 19 October 2012 (BST)

More or less, I was borrowing from an idea that already existed on the main page regarding the official FAQ being the primary resource and this wiki being something in addition to that, but I think you're right. Rephrased. —Aichon— 21:19, 19 October 2012 (BST)

Just a thought: nav links could go in the top UD header space. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 01:18, 20 October 2012 (BST)

If we had Javascript, sure(think drop downs). Or just an absurdly cut down number of links. Normally you don't really want to go much beyond 6 for something like that. --Karek^{maps 2.0?!} 04:01, 20 October 2012 (BST)