Tarquin wrote:
Here's my rough version of a new layout. It's not too radical a departure from what we have, but I think it is much clearer, particularly for newcomers.
I like having "Wikipedia" right at the top. And I like the separation between article links and Wikipedia links.
For people whose eyes are scanning directly for content, it'd be really nice to have the <h1>Paddington station</h1> directly above the text, hence after the language links etc. Your horizontal rule would serve to separate those links which are specific to the article from those links which are general to Wikipedia. (Some more whitespace would be good too if that happens.)
Also, in Netscape 6 for Windows (at least), the vertical rule doesn't go down all the way; it just stops in the middle of the sidebar for no reason. One could try to fix that, but more generally, I think that the looser rule style of the classic skin is nicer; we don't need all of the rules to touch each other precisely.
I miss the dropdown box for special pages. A link to [[Special:Specialpages]] isn't the same! But you could move that box to the sidebar (and the bottom), and I wouldn't mind.
When you do write the bottom, remember that everything on the sidebar also has to appear on the bottom for people with no sidebar.
Is it possible someone could upload those two test page files somewhere on the server so people can easily see the test page & comment?
I would sugest that the current default skin be kept as an option, but that this become the new default skin.
"classic skin" (not quite as old as "nostalgia" ^_^)
-- Toby