Forum:Wiki-wide Revision of Tags Using Scrolls

Forums: Helping Hand > Wiki-wide Revision of Tags Using Scrolls

---

Use the following template for a nicely presented post:

{{Forum post|Write your message here!|~~~~}}

---

I am moving the discussion on new scroll graphics for our wiki's tags to a new topic. Some of these posts were originally found at Forgotten Realms Wiki talk:Good articles.

~ Lhynard (talk) 04:51, October 20, 2015 (UTC)

I hacked up the image of a scroll by Thomas and got an expandable banner working. It's just a proof-of-concept until we decide on how big we want it and Thomas can make some images that actually match up when tiled horizontally. See User:Moviesign/BannerTest

—Moviesign (talk) 22:13, October 14, 2015 (UTC)

That works great! Impressive work. Would there be a way to scale the images rather than resize them (to avoid stretching/squishing)? If not, should I upload banner ends at several heights (if so what heights)?

-Thomas Love [talk] 23:08, October 14, 2015 (UTC)

The one-size-fits-all approach should only be stretching the images vertically but keeping them the same horizontal width. The middle image is tiled as many times as it takes to fill up the box. I can also set the middle to stretch horizontally so one image does the whole job, but that doesn't look so good because you lose the texture of the scroll—tiling is better.

If we custom-make every scroll image, then we'll have to have different templates for each banner, or add complicated coding and additional arguments to the template so it chooses the correct images. If all we need is one "big" and one "small" banner (which might be the case if we use a big one for Featured Articles and a little one for the gold coin "good" articles), then we could go the custom route, but if we have more than two, or want to be flexible for the future, then I like the one-size-fits-all approach. If you want your scrolls to look their best, increase the resolution so that stretching them vertically doesn't make the browser interpolate between pixels (which is why they start to look blurry). So, if you are designing 72 dpi images (what's the metric equivalent of dpi?) then bump it up to 150 dpi, for example.

—Moviesign (talk) 23:58, October 14, 2015 (UTC)

Cool, I've updated the images and it looks much nicer. You've done a great job on that CSS. I've given more 'padding' on the image so the shadow isn't cropped. This means you can decrease the actual table's padding a little.

-Thomas Love [talk] 01:25, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

Those look awesome! Although I kinda liked the more ragged edge, it's a nightmare to get it to match up at different sizes. :-/ I have tweaked the design a bit more, font size, line size, color, shaved off a bit of padding, but not much, and upgraded the example. If anyone has suggestions, now is a good time to put them out here. Do we want a miniature version of this for the gold coin tag for "good" articles? We should come up with a different image for Featured Articles. Maybe an open spell book or something. Ideas?

—Moviesign (talk) 04:53, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

~ Lhynard (talk) 06:09, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

{{{2}}}

Let me work on it, but we might need a set of smaller images for a mini-box (alluded to in my previous posts)

—Moviesign (talk) 13:25, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

I managed to get a smaller version working, but the text alignment is tricky so it may need more tweaking if you change the text. As I said in the edit message, it's more complicated than I'd like it to be, but it works. If we use this scroll-banner in other places, we might want to consider making it two separate boxes so we can adjust one without breaking the other.

—Moviesign (talk) 19:24, October 15, 2015 (UTC)

That looks perfect.

~ Lhynard (talk) 02:14, October 16, 2015 (UTC)

Let me know what dimensions you need and I will get that done.

-Thomas Love [talk] 02:42, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

These are just lovely. :D I like the reduced height of Lhynard's scroll. I like smaller tags and my philosophy with the wen design is to get to the content faster. One concern is that the golden coin blends into the gold/light-brown paper. Perhaps a lighter paper, shadow, or border could distinguish it more clearly?

I had an idea we could extend these to other notices, with different coloured scrolls and symbols: a red scroll and the symbol of Mask for a plagiarised article, a blackish scroll and the skull symbol of Bhaal for one to be deleted, etc.

— BadCatMan (talk) 04:01, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

The height is determined by how much text you put in (and the font size you choose). It is currently set to have a minimum height of 80px with padding and margins ballooning that out to 110px overall. The width defaults to the width of the surrounding box, either the full width of a wiki article or a <div> set to a fixed width. The scroll images shrink/grow to fit whatever you choose. For different colors, I can alter the hue, saturation, contrast, etc., but it's probably better if Thomas makes more professional looking versions.

—Moviesign (talk) 14:29, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

Oh, that would be awesome to have the black and red scrolls you describe. :)

~ Lhynard (talk) 21:45, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

Here's the idea I had for colours. If you guys like this, I can upload parts with any other colours you need. I may also weaken the shadow a little.

-Thomas Love [talk] 22:43, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

Can that red be extended to cover the whole of the middle of the scroll, i.e., a thick band of red from edge to edge or margin to margin? I figure that would distinguish it more from other scrolls.

— BadCatMan (talk) 02:50, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

Is this more what you had in mind? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding.

Personally, i prefer the simple red lines. It doesn't need to scream "red" at the user. A simple strip of colour is all that's needed, like {{cleanup}} or {{nocrunch}}.

-Thomas Love [talk] 02:46, October 19, 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly it. I thinking "screaming red" is worth it to grab attention and indicate a serious problem. Cleanup and Nocrunch are old, rather plain tags I feel get easily overlooked; {{Deletion}} and {{Plagiarism}} are more noticeable.

Perhaps the red could be somewhat paler, so not as jarring but still noticeable, and so the text will stand out better.

— BadCatMan (talk) 07:23, October 19, 2015 (UTC)

Not to be difficult, but I think I would prefer a scroll that was entirely a red color over either of these. If choosing between the two here, I prefer the one with the simple stripes that Thomas originally posted.

~ Lhynard (talk) 04:53, October 20, 2015 (UTC)

Roll of Years

I have some examples of a new Roll of Years banner heading for you to view and comment upon. See User:Moviesign/Template:Roll. For the really long name example I had to add non-breaking spaces, otherwise it stacked all the "Really"s in a tower and looked pretty bad. I set the maximum width to 800px because frankly it looks too wide in monobook. All styles are negotiable, so please comment or suggest changes. Let's spruce up our Years pages soon please :)

—Moviesign (talk) 02:59, October 26, 2015 (UTC)

I like the concept.

I wonder what it would look like for the year name to be at the top, running the whole length of the scroll instead of two the left. Can we try that?

~ Lhynard (talk) 03:08, October 26, 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Give me a couple minutes. It may increase the overall height of the banner, but it would spread the dates out in the Oasis skin. EDIT: Okay, done. Checkout User:Moviesign/Template:RollTop for comparison.

—Moviesign (talk) 03:26, October 26, 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I like that much better.

~ Lhynard (talk) 04:14, October 26, 2015 (UTC)

That's a very impressive heading. I also like the second variety. It gives more emphasis to the traditional year name, over the various ways of numbering them. Do you plan to do anything with {{Yearbox}}?

— BadCatMan (talk) 12:55, October 29, 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'll put it into production then. If you have suggestions for improving {{Yearbox}}, please share. Putting it on a scroll background might look a little redundant under the big header, but that's one idea. You want little scrolls? Unrolling to the right and to the left?

—Moviesign (talk) 14:10, October 29, 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone care if I get rid of the hyphens in Tethyr-reckoning and North-reckoning and just make them look like the others? (i.e., two words, both capitalized)

—Moviesign (talk) 14:31, October 29, 2015 (UTC)

I changed the way that the new scroll banner was being styled so it was 1) simpler to understand and 2) easier to customize for different tasks. It turned out that, even with the year name across the top of the scroll, some of the Roll of Years pages were still running out of horizontal room in the Oasis skin. You can now adjust this width a bit (say 50px or so) on one scroll banner without affecting the other places it is used. I updated the Main Page, the Forum, and the {{GA}} and {{Roll of years}} templates. Did I miss any?

—Moviesign (talk) 21:42, October 29, 2015 (UTC)

Uh oh. The scroll has vanished on the Years pages in the Monobook skin. But only some Years pages, it seems. 1250 DR, for example, the last one I worked on. Actually, it might only be 1250 DR. The calendar names are also confined to one line, rather than stacked as on others. I've purged and refreshed. It still works in Oasis, and on the Main Page.

The Yearbox is now looking rather lonely and poky compared to the banner. Maybe it could be merged with the scroll banner? That mgiht require some separation from the {{Yearbox/in-politics}}, etc. templates.

I like that our Roll of Years is now a literal roll of years. :D

Not to be a stick in the mud, but I believe we should go by the standard renderings of the calendar names, as listed in The Grand History of the Realms. So, Dalereckoning, Cormyr Reckoning, Northreckoning, and the others as normal. I don't know about Tethyr's. Then again, that could unbalance the headings there, so if there is an alternate rendition for two words instead of one, I'd accept that.

How extensible is the scroll? Would it break anything to add a new calender, like the Timesong Calendar of Serôs? Monobook offers a lot more space, of course, but the scrolls looks full up in Oasis. We could always remove the little-used ones like Present Reckoning.

Could the headings be made into links, to Marking the Years for example?

— BadCatMan (talk) 01:55, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

It's likely you were looking at it while I was still futzing with it. I just purged -1250 DR and it looks fine to me in both skins. I have increased the "presence" of the Yearbox, see how you like it. It rankles my sense of symmetry to have some hyphenated and some be two words, especially since the abbreviations (NR for example) put a capital R on it anyway. If you really want to be a stickler, how to you hyphenate Tethyreckoning? We've added another "r" just to make it readable, so why not go all the way?

We don't really have any more room on Oasis for another calendar unless you want to make the font very small. Substitutions are fine, as far as I'm concerned. The scroll is very extensible. So much so that I put a max-width on it just so monobook users didn't get agoraphobia. Headings can be made into links. PS: is the Shou Year abbreviation really NY like Netheril Year?

—Moviesign (talk) 03:12, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

That's -1250 DR, I meant 1250 DR. Anyway, it's working now. I like the improved Yearbox.

I'll do some research on the different calendars.

No, the Shou Year abbreviation was an error. My fault, I copy-pasted the Netheril Year, but neglected to remove that. But Shou Year has no formal abbreviation, in Grand History and in the original campaign setting.

— BadCatMan (talk) 03:55, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, "Tethyreckoning" is one word, with one R, as Movie noted.

Like BatCatMan, I'd prefer the published titles. However, "Dalereckoning" is also one word in some sources, so maybe it doesn't matter. We are also missing several. I know of the Calendar of Serôs and the one used in the Great Glacier, which are both missing. Is there a way we can make two rows so we can add the others?

~ Lhynard (talk) 13:44, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

I have examples of the Roll of Years with 10 calendars instead of 8, in three different styles. First, in the Malachite Shadows, I just split it into two rows, nothing fancy. Second, in the King's Repentance, I added borders to separate the rows. Third, in Resurrections Rampant, the calendar names are allowed to be spelled out correctly on one line, but cannot go to 6 columns without word wrapping or hyphenation. If you want to show more than 10, then you'll have to pick one of the first two styles. Other style ideas are welcome.

—Moviesign (talk) 17:36, October 30, 2015 (UTC)

I like the third the best. Good work!

~ Lhynard (talk) 23:10, October 31, 2015 (UTC)

This got a thumbs up from Lhynard, but never reached a consensus. Do you folks want to change the Roll of Years banner to include more calendars or not? Please review my previous post just above and comment if you wish.

—Moviesign (talk) 16:22, April 16, 2016 (UTC)

I'll give it my other thumb too, if that helps.

~ Lhynard (talk) 17:23, April 16, 2016 (UTC)

Canon Boxes

User:Ir'revrykal has suggested we spruce up our Canon templates and has proposed {{Canon}} which is currently demonstrated on his profile page (link above). I countered with more of the scroll-themed banners (shown here and higher up). Please discuss.

—Moviesign (talk) 16:22, April 16, 2016 (UTC)

I prefer scrolls to replace most of our top-of-article tags, but for indicating section canonicity for video games, I think it is less discreet.

One idea I had about video game sections was to have the entire section go in a collapsible box, like some wikis use for spoilers. It would be expanded by default, but would have a very, very subtle background or border to set it off. just an idea

~ Lhynard (talk) 17:23, April 16, 2016 (UTC)

Finding an elegant solution to the "video game" problem is tough. I used to contribute to Wookieepedia, many years ago, and we experimented with subtly different background color for information of dubious canonicity... briefly. We couldn't make it work, but a more subtle approach might succeed. For the record, I'm fine with holding off on any rework until the scroll theme is finalized.

--Ir'revrykal (talk) 19:14, April 16, 2016 (UTC)