NewSkin
Note: the project has been moved from here to NewSkinProject so that this page can be used to collect observations, errors, and ideas.
Contents
- 1 Hello Team!
- 2 On taking notes
- 3 Things to test in your browser
- 4 First Review
- 5 Simon's Notes
- 6 Joey's Notes
- 7 MB's Review
- 8 Ward's Observations
- 9 Bigger Tabs
- 10 Evenplayn's Review
- 11 Michael's Experience
- 12 MarkDilley's thoughts
- 13 Plain Links
- 14 Old Skin still reappearing
- 15 AboutUsBot not working
- 16 WikiTour Button
- 17 Permanent Link
- 18 Edit/Save button
- 19 Dif and the NewSkin
- 20 Edit Page
- 21 Useful links box
- 22 Text selection
- 23 Frames
Hello Team!
So this page will be the base for all your notes, concerns, comments, problems, gripes, screenshots, errors and other ramblings about the "beta" skin.
On taking notes
If and when you find an error or something that doesn't "seem right," please note the following information:
- What happened? Which page on AboutUs did you notice this on?
- What is your Operating System (e.g., Windows, Windows XP, Windows 98, Mac OSX, Linux, ...)?
- What browser are you using (e.g., Internet Explorer 6.0, Internet Explorer 7.0, FireFox, Safari, ...)?
- Are you logged in to AboutUs?
- Which area of the page did it happen in? Below is a screenshot from Firefox with some area names labeled to make this easier to report.
Things to test in your browser
- Search functionality (with Google search)
- Adult Category flagging
- Pages with Google maps (try User:John Stanton)
- Your talk page, user contributions, watchlist, and preferences
- Various other special pages
First Review
Ok so I have changed preferences to the new skin and these are some of the things I found:
- The graphics are incredible! I like the way the Edit button is easy to see as well as the color scheme!
- Every feature seemed to work properly and correctly,
- I especially like the "animated" graphics such as the closing eye with "watch"
- I didnt like how it reformatted the Portal Pages. this may be a problem if users are able to switch between them in the future.
- On my personal page It cuts off the right side a little making it difficult to see the menu.
I think it definately livens up the pages and seems more user friendly. Especially as mentioned before the "edit" feature. Thanks for allowing me to include my input and I will look forward to the development teams continuing progress.! Bryan Daugherty
Simon's Notes
I like everything, and haven't seen any problems yet. Two things I would like changed for my own personal preference.
- Move the edit links on pages back to where they were on the right side of the page.
- The grass, atleast part of it in the top left, if it could be clickable to go to the homepage. I'm so use to to clicking there.
- The usefull links is too hard to use, I liked it better when it was part of left nav (now right nav) --Simon | talk 18:40, 5 September 2007 (PDT)
Joey's Notes
- I agree with Simon about the useful links being hard to use. It's not so bad with a mouse, but I've hit the wrong link several times when using the touch pad on my laptop.
- The links in the footer are a little hard to see because they blend in with the background a bit. Could they be changed to a color that doesn't blend in so much? --Joey 19:24, 5 September 2007 (PDT)
MB's Review
I have played with it and tested it for flags and seems to be no problems. I am not fussy about the "useful Links". If I am not so new to the internet, I would not know where a lot of links I want like Home are. It is so small and seems so unimportant. I agree with Simon about these links. Better on the Right Nav--Master Baitor 18:39, 5 September 2007 (PDT)
Another annoying thing is where the useful links are. If you go to flag a site and you put the mouse a little to high as you move, the drop down happens. --Master Baitor 21:29, 5 September 2007 (PDT)
Ward's Observations
I like the new look a lot, and especially the colors. Here are some observations of things that can probably be improved.
- Image and skin overlap in unexpected way when viewing the image page for uploaded image. See thumb. Page in question is here.
- Can we fit the Ads into the skin's color scheme? They need to look like they belong. If their color scheme is shared between old and new, I'd rather see the new look good at the expense of the old.
Bigger Tabs
I like the colors and the placement of the user box on the right. (not sure what your calling it?) I find myself hunting for the tabs- article, history- granted I have a rather small screen. I am not use to useful links and in general would appreciate the font being a wee larger. Initial thoughts as I am not use to it, but these are the things that stand out. Seems to work well in Camino Kasey 14:19, 6 September 2007 (PDT)
Evenplayn's Review
So far, I love the look and feel. However, I have to things to mention
- Move the AboutUs logo and user info box to the left corner. I thought everyone knew that the upper left corner is where the eye naturally goes.
- I had to switch out of the new skin to leave this comment...couldn't figure out how to edit the page or discuss it. Am I missing something? If I can't figure it out, a new user wont be able to.
Otherwise it is great! --Evenplayn 21:08, 6 September 2007 (PDT)
Michael's Experience
I love the new look. When I clicked Preferences -> Skin, I only saw the "default" aboutus skin as an option. To get the new skin I had to manipulate the page DOM and change the radio button value to "design". I'm using Mac OS X with Firefox 2.0.0.6. --Michael 12:03, 8 September 2007 (PDT)
- Same with Safari - no "design" option for skin. --Michael 12:05, 8 September 2007 (PDT)
MarkDilley's thoughts
Personal area
My name is not correct in this new skin, also My talk is prominent, even though I am on my preferences. I think it would be better if we indented under my name, like so:
MarkDilley
- talk
- preferences
- watchlist
- contributions
log out
I like the little logos, but would like them to be consistent. person, talk cloud, watch eye, something for preferences and contributions...
~~ MarkDilley
RecentChanges
I am quite concerned that RecentChanges are buried in the useful links section. I would like that to be in the main skin. ~~ MarkDilley
edit / save
I love the edit stake on the upper left. During the edit process, I think having it as a save button would make more sense. Possibly also having the edit summary up there as well and move don't atomatically protect email addresses on the same line as minor edit and watch this page. ~~ MarkDilley
The Logo from the Consensus Poll
I like the logo that we all worked so hard on from the consensus poll over at AboutUsLogo. I would like it to be represented on the site. If I am mistaken and the consensus poll was about logo elements, please let me know. ~~ MarkDilley
Visited links
My visited links are no longer a different color. Making it difficult to navigate through RecentChanges and my watchlist. Does this have to do with the new skin? MarkDilley
Locked Pages issue
I think there is a NewSkin problem with locked pages. Maybe on locked pages the green tab says locked? Here is an example from our front page:
The big empty green space - I don't think that makes sense to a new person. Also, the view source link on the main page is confusing. I believe it was their before, but not as prominent. ~~ MarkDilley
Plain Links
Doing a <span class="plainlinks"> doesn't make the links look like internal links (like it used to). The "plainlinks" class is something we've used a lot to point to things without the links looking like external links (under the new skin, they're dotted links). Generally it's used when we need to have an external link that still goes to the wiki for special actions. Ie. leave a note (this is in Firefox on a Mac) -- TakKendrick
Old Skin still reappearing
Hey guys,
Love the new skin, but after logging in I am redirected to the old skin, and it's stuck now :(
Just thought you guys might like to know.
Miccas 00:04, 12 September 2007 (PDT) UPDATE: Found that I can change it back in my preferences, but it might be better to get rid of the old one.
AboutUsBot not working
I'm not sure if this is because of the new skin but thought it might be good to bring to your knowledge that the AboutusBot is not creating new pages: ErrorLog#AboutUsBot_not_working. Best, Obed Suhail
WikiTour Button
Can we move the WikiTour button above the ads. This screenshot is from Safari on Mac:
- I agree. Right now the WikiTour button actually looks like it's part of the ad stack, which in addition to making it hard for users to find something they really need, it could be misunderstood as being that we're showing a graphical ad in our text ad stack. -- TakKendrick
Permanent Link
Edit/Save button
I love the "Edit" button. Nice and big. When you're already in an edit window, this seems a little silly though. Is there any way to make it into a giant "save" button when you're editing an article? It seems like someone else was making this suggestion the other day, but I'm not sure it was ever noted. -- TakKendrick
- On the other side of this, I would hate to lose the edit button when I'm editing. I quite often am editing a version that's not the current version, and either change my mind or realize my mistake. The easiest thing to do is click "edit" again. I do agree that a huge SAVE button would be awesome. Maybe if we do this, we could also add a smaller edit button to the right of move? TedErnst | talk 15:54, 12 September 2007 (PDT)
- Ted, what are you talking about? I don't think I have ever done that, I go to the front page via the article link. Please explain :-) ~~ MarkDilley
Dif and the NewSkin
Apparently,
- It's also doing this on category listings as well... -- Tak
Edit Page
Edit font very hard to read, lacks contrast, size at least 1pt too small. John 11:08, 18 September 2007 (PDT)(the old guy)
Useful links box
The plus sign should change to a minus sign when the box is expanded. I would like to see the box expanded as a default because this is the only window into the site now, you might consider this as a preference setting.
Text selection
I'm having trouble selecting text on many webpages. When I try to select a segment of text, it will select the whole content. This only affects the NewSkin. I'm not sure if it's a browser incompatibility, but I was using IE 6.
--Vartan 09:08, 24 September 2007 (PDT)
Frames
This seems to be happening every time I try to do a "frame" command in an image. The image wants to float to the right and stack on each other, instead of being on the left and next to each other. So that [[Image:TakCaricatureSm.jpg|50px|frame]][[Image:TakCaricatureSm.jpg|50px|frame]] gets:
Adding a "left" command forces it back to the left, but still stacks the image. [[Image:TakCaricatureSm.jpg|50px|left|frame]][[Image:TakCaricatureSm.jpg|50px|left|frame]]:
If you'd like to see a page where this is really bad, take a look at ElectroClass.com.tr. I've added an image of what this page looked like under the old skin: Image:ElectroClassSm.jpg.
Because the domain owner for ElectroClass.com.tr was the one who pointed out the frames problem in the first place, I'd appreciate it if once this is resolved you let me know so I can contact him. Thanks, TakKendrick