wiki guides: style and art

spiralofhope

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Sep 5, 2010, 3:00:57 PM9/5/10

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A nice big post for any bored artists. The wiki isn't pretty, and
it doesn't need to me. But when the wiki isn't pretty then guides
aren't pretty. Guides need to be pretty or they're hard to use.

We're already slowly working on the readability and usability from the
structure and language side of things.

But we need readability and usability from an artistic standpoint. We
need your help!

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Let's assume the default style is used.

The website presently looks like this:

http://docs.unity-linux.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&useskin=rilpoint

An example guide is:

http://docs.unity-linux.org/index.php?title=LiveCD_Guide&useskin=rilpoint

I haven't seen one (not that I've looked hard), but I'd like to have a
conversation about the style of the wiki and the style of the guides.

If you look at the previous link, there are several immutable
elements. Colours can probably be changed, but not position,
replacement with images, etc. I may be wrong on this, but let's keep
it simple for now.

- At the very top-right is a row of links

- The top-left has a logo. It can be changed as you can see.

- Next to the logo (top-left) it says "Docs". Only the text can be
changed.

- On the left is a vertical bar with various links. The order of the
navigation, search and toolbox can be changed. The entries within
the navigation can be changed. I'm not certain about other changes
like using images.

For the guide, we have a few elements that I can see:

- The "you are looking at a guide" top bar. For our example it is a
gray bar with our logo on the left and 'branches' on the right. I
rather dislike it entirely, but I can see why it's there.

- The use of a sub-title underneath that top gray bar. In our example
it says "What is a branch?" I somewhat dislike it because of
duplication. The page name forms a header at the top. In our case it
says "Branching Guide" but it is _above_ the top gray bar which I
don't really like.

- We have the table of contents. In the guides it's been set up to be
on the right. Heavy style customization just for the guides table of
contents probably isn't possible but I'm not certain. I'm actually
leaning towards removing the table of contents entirely. It's
pointless if we keep each page small and on-topic.

- At the bottom of the text area is a horizontal rule with a link on
the left and the right. I actually dislike having such navigation at
the bottom because it seems to "bounce around" when navigating. I'd
suggest it go at the top instead but it may not belong there.
Thoughts? Also, graphical arrows are possible if it would help
artistically.

- The bottom light gray bar with our logo on the left and the right it
has 'return to unity homepage'. I don't like that this "you are
looking at a guide" bar at all. I'd rather integrate the navigation
bar and the "you are looking at a guide" bar, wherever that bar goes.

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The second concern is with the overall styling of the wiki itself.
Share any thoughts that come up (like "omg that blue is terrible!").
Unless things have changed, the CSS and such for Mediawiki is horrid
and making a custom style is hard without some expertise. But still,
I'd like opinions and suggestions.