Forum:New front page design

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I've been working on a new Main page design, just because I think we need a new one. See the new page User:Tjoneslo/Main Page.

The new page is considerably less wordy than the current main page. It incorporates a few cool features that I'd like to keep. It also lacks any images. I also don't have a great sense of color, so the color choices may be a little wonky.

So, looking for feedback. Tjoneslo 20:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been following the project (through the recent changes), and have been meaning to say today that I think it's really coming together. The current version is looking very nice.

I'd say the red border around the blue box isn't working out. Either go with the dark blue of the title bars or experiment with orange (the complementary color-don't think it'll work) or with green or purple.

The main problem I had when I found the site was getting an idea of where to go. Admittedly this wiki is meant more for searching, but to get people coming here (and eventually contributing) it helps to have some good jumping off points for general exploration/browsing of the content. A space for a 'featured article' might be an answer. (We would then need to polish up a couple articles to rotate in the slot until we could get more.) At the least, I think cleaning up some of the overview articles we currently link to would help (so why don't I do something already...). --Rindis 21:16, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't even notice the border until Rindis pointed it out. It looks pink... How about a nice thick red line between the top and bottom sections? with a traveller image under floated on the right?

I like the idea of a featured article, perhaps this could be put on the same line as the sci-fi portal (which could take half the horizontal space). Community portal and current events don't need to be whole paragraphs, but should be somewhere... Lastly can the statistics line have a link to the more statistics? Dcorrin 22:21, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Made a few changes:

• Added links to community portal and current events.
• I'd love to add more links under the Ships Library heading, but I think we need to nominate a set of "portal" pages. I added Imperial Nobility, but a few more might be nice.
• Changed the box color to blue. Tried green and purple but I couldn't make them look nice at all.
• A added a red line between the two sections, but I'll need to build the "Traveller" image to float there. The red line doesn't look as good on the white background as the black background.
• The word "Statistics" is a link to the Wikia statistics page, do you want another to the Special: Statistic page?
• The Wikia SF portal is a template provided by Wikia and I don't have much control over it.

Tjoneslo 23:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The portal image now points to "Entertainment" and does not include traveller... Dcorrin 14:05, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I complained Tjoneslo 19:38, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

And they changed it back again. Tjoneslo 15:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

New updates

• I added a "featured Article" and a template to change this easily. I also added a new releases section. This will make the front page easier to keep active.
• I replaced the solid headers with a CSS generated header graphic. It looks a whole lot better, but if you look at the page currently you may not see it with the Monobook skin. I fixed our monobook to include this, you may need to do a shift-reload or wait until tomorrow (or both) to see the neat blue header bars in the table.
• I updated the text of the Far Future Enterprises block.

Unless there is a great hue and cry, I'll probably continue to tweak the design at random until the beginning of December (which is when I would normally update the Special Projects text) and replace the entire thing front page then. Tjoneslo 17:35, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

The upper right-hand corner of the new title blocks are having a small problem. I don't understand what's going on enough to be able to do anything about it, but you're getting a hairline outline of the true corner in the body color instead of the background color.

Also note that the color of those blocks is tied to the quartz skin you're using. That is, if a user defaults their skin to something other than Monobook or Sapphire, they get the tan or orange 'header color' their particular quartz skin uses (I was tooling around seeing what the site looks like in other skins - and admiring the new logo). This might be fixable with defining it as part of a "Custom wiki" thing, however that works.

At any rate, thanks for all the effort you're putting into this, it's looking very nice! --Rindis 18:03, 20 November 2007 (UTC)