Hi,
A little addition: search button of the same style: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki2.shtml
Best regards,
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
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Moin Alexander,
On Sunday 15 January 2006 18:44, Alexander Bobrov wrote:
Hi,
A little addition: search button of the same style: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki2.shtml
Just a few remarks:
* I do not like the overly 3D design. The entire old skin design is more or less flat and the new buttons deviate too much from that. I think making them 3D (especially the search button!) is a solution in search of a problem :) * The new edit buttons are nice, but apart from the 3D problem, they also suffer from reduced contrast. That might be due to JPG compression, but IMHO the black "A" was much better readable than your new dark grey version, especially because the background is now also more grey/silver. * In additon, the blue buttons stand out more, the silver ones almost vanish on the white background (since they don't have a black border, either)
I think a flat button design that matches the "1px solid dark-grey" borders of the rest of the site might be a good idea - in fact, just like the current search button.
Best wishes,
Tels
- -- Signed on Sun Jan 15 18:50:10 2006 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America's Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named 'Bush', 'Dick', and 'Colon'. Need I say more?" -Chris Rock
Tels,
T> The entire old skin design is more or less flat
Negative. Old buttons are bordered and gradiented.
T> I think making them 3D (especially the search button!) is a solution in search of T> a problem :)
Even in overall flat design it is highly recommended to have one's control (interactive) elements highlighted. Usability. The volume is the best way to do it.
T> * The new edit buttons are nice, but apart from the 3D problem, they also T> suffer from reduced contrast. That might be due to JPG compression, but T> IMHO the black "A" was much better readable than your new dark grey T> version, especially because the background is now also more grey/silver.
Not JPEG compression. Intentionally - to compensate its large, relatively to other pictos, strokes. But perhaps you are right. Let's compare: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki3.shtml
T> * In additon, the blue buttons stand out more, the silver ones almost T> vanish on the white background (since they don't have a black border, T> either)
Another variant - to not to vanish. But it is more complex, less flat. http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5.shtml
T> I think a flat button design that matches the "1px solid dark-grey" T> borders of the rest of the site might be a good idea - in fact, just like T> the current search button.
I had this idea too. http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5d.shtml
And I don't like it. It looks like a work of a man who doesn't like his work.
Thank you, Tels.
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
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Moin Alexander,
(Maybe we should continue this offlist :)
On Sunday 15 January 2006 20:34, Alexander Bobrov wrote:
Tels,
T> The entire old skin design is more or less flat
Negative. Old buttons are bordered and gradiented.
I meant the rest of the skin (e.g. the "edit this article" docks, the menu box etc). They are all essential flat, so the buttons should "fit" in.
T> I think making them 3D (especially the search button!) is a solution in search of T> a problem :)
Even in overall flat design it is highly recommended to have one's control (interactive) elements highlighted. Usability. The volume is the best way to do it.
Yes, but I think that if the entire design is "flat", then the buttons should stand out by color, or by being darker, or by having a different border, and not by being more 3D. It just looks inconsistent to me.
(my opinion, of course :)
For instance, if you color buttons bright orange, they will stand out, even though they do not have a "shading" or 3D effect.
Nothing against 3D effects, but I think it doesn't fit the default skin.
T> * The new edit buttons are nice, but apart from the 3D problem, they also T> suffer from reduced contrast. That might be due to JPG compression, but T> IMHO the black "A" was much better readable than your new dark grey T> version, especially because the background is now also more grey/silver.
Not JPEG compression. Intentionally - to compensate its large, relatively to other pictos, strokes. But perhaps you are right. Let's compare: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki3.shtml
Definitely better.
T> * In additon, the blue buttons stand out more, the silver ones almost T> vanish on the white background (since they don't have a black border, T> either)
Another variant - to not to vanish. But it is more complex, less flat. http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5.shtml
Wrong URL? (the "all flat" url below is the same as this :)
T> I think a flat button design that matches the "1px solid dark-grey" T> borders of the rest of the site might be a good idea - in fact, just like T> the current search button.
I had this idea too. http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki5d.shtml
And I don't like it. It looks like a work of a man who doesn't like his work.
I really like it for being consistent. I would probably add a shade of color to the background, so that the buttons stand out more. Like so:
http://bloodgate.com/tmp/wiki_buttons_bright.png
This also adds a nice splash of color to the otherwise "silvery" page.
A related side-note: Why make the buttons images? At first I thought they are so small because you monitor has a different resolution, but it then occured to me they are *always* that small (silly me :), because they are images with a fixed size. On my 1600x1200 resolution the buttons are really really tiny.
It would be possible to replace them with some HTML code like so:
<span class="button bold" onmouseddown="dosomething">B</span> <span class="button headline" onmouseddown="dosomething">A</span> <span class="button link" onmouseddown="dosomething">Link</span> ...
That would allow the buttons to change with the texsize (height: 1em). It would also allow for the buttons to be colored differently in different skins. I think that would be worth it. [0]
Best wishes,
Tels
[0] While we are at it, move the button definitions to a config file. It is a pain in the lower regions to add custom buttons back after each software update...
- -- Signed on Sun Jan 15 21:39:16 2006 with key 0x93B84C15. Visit my photo gallery at http://bloodgate.com/photos/ PGP key on http://bloodgate.com/tels.asc or per email.
"helft den armen vögeln" -- gegen kleinschreibung
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
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Alexander Bobrov wrote:
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
Great work Alexander, I hope your changes will be included :)
Emilio Gonzalez [Porao]
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
I think, it's not good idea to use English word "Link" on button.
-- Alexander Sigachov
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
ÀÑ> I think, it's not good idea to use English word "Link" on button.
Why?
What do you suggest?
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
...................................................................... God is Real, unless declared as Integer; ......................................................................
EG> Great work Alexander, I hope your changes will be included :) EG> Emilio Gonzalez [Porao]
Thank you, Emilio.
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
...................................................................... Time flies like arrow; fruit flies like banana. ......................................................................
On 1/16/06, Alexander Bobrov director@indians.ru wrote:
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
ÀÑ> I think, it's not good idea to use English word "Link" on button.
Why?
What do you suggest?
Something that conveys the idea without requiring you to know English, like having an italic letter conveys the idea of italic text, bold letter the idea of bold text etc
B.t.w. these are quite nice, could you release them under the GPL-2 or later and provide the sourcefiles for them so they could potentially be included in MW?
"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" avarab@gmail.com wrote in message news:51dd1af80601160726v47403bf3wfccaa1f62dde959a@mail.gmail.com...
On 1/16/06, Alexander Bobrov director@indians.ru wrote:
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
ÀÑ> I think, it's not good idea to use English word "Link" on button. Why? What do you suggest?
Something that conveys the idea without requiring you to know English, like having an italic letter conveys the idea of italic text, bold letter the idea of bold text etc
Something like a tilde surrounded by double square brackets would probably be appropriate:
[[~]]
You could stretch the tilde, or something to make it clear it's a placeholder signifying that there should be at least one entire word in there.
Phil Boswell:
Something like a tilde surrounded by double square brackets would probably be appropriate:
[[~]]
Please, no cryptic symbols like that. The point of a toolbar is to make it intuitive to format wikitext. A newbie neither knows what double square brackets mean nor what "~" could stand for. The blue, underlined "Ab" works perfectly well. Sure, it's Latin characters, but they are internationally recognizable.
Best,
Erik
And, the last variants: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml
AN> I think, it's not good idea to use English word "Link" on button.
Why? What do you suggest?
vAB> Something that conveys the idea without requiring you to know English, vAB> like having an italic letter conveys the idea of italic text, bold vAB> letter the idea of bold text etc
Well, people really don't need to understand the meaning of the word "Link" because it is underlined and blue-colored, as a normal link could. The formatting speaks for itself, as in "B" and "i".
So, one who against blue underlined "Link" must be against bold "B" and italicized "i" because these letters are for the English words "bold" and "italic".
Now let us compare "Link" vs "Ab". What means "Link" for Wikipedia users? At first - who they are, and what language they understand? Let's refer to articles amount: English 920 000 Deutsch 341 000 Francais 224 000 Polski 176 000 Nihongo 173 000 Italiano 132 000 Svenska 128 000 Nederlands 122 000 Portugues 95 000 Espanol 86 000 + 26 languages with 10 000 = + ~40 with 1000 English 920K vs non-English ~1800K
A double superiority [except for, e.g. I am Russian and it is me who proposes English word ;) ]. We have one part of comprehensible "Links" against two parts of obscure. 1 to 2, 33%. But with "Ab" we have 100% of nonsense, for both English-speakers and everybody else. What is it: an abbreviation for "abdominal"? =)
I have another idea though. The link we discuss is _the inner Wiki link_ so why don't we use neutral (multilingual in our case) word Wiki, which gives people another useful hint? =)
vAB> B.t.w. these are quite nice, could you release them under the GPL-2 or vAB> later and provide the sourcefiles for them so they could potentially vAB> be included in MW?
Of course, I will. I made these buttons specially for Wikipedia. But to my shame I never used GPL before. How can I do it? Please be my guide.
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
...................................................................... Elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices. ......................................................................
On 16/01/06, Alexander Bobrov director@indians.ru wrote:
Of course, I will. I made these buttons specially for Wikipedia. But to my shame I never used GPL before. How can I do it? Please be my guide.
See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
But for present purposes, just posting a link to the source files (i.e. the most editable form of your images) to this list, with a comment like "these are hereby under the GPL" is fine, since the idea is to incorporate them into MediaWiki, at which point the general licensing info will cover them anyway.
-- Rowan Collins BSc [IMSoP]
On Monday 16 January 2006 17:28, Erik Moeller wrote:
Please, no cryptic symbols like that. The point of a toolbar is to make it intuitive to format wikitext. A newbie neither knows what double square brackets mean nor what "~" could stand for. The blue, underlined "Ab" works perfectly well. Sure, it's Latin characters, but they are internationally recognizable.
i found the underlined Ab misleading - for me, it looks like "underline my text".
daniel
Of course, I will. I made these buttons specially for Wikipedia. But to my shame I never used GPL before. How can I do it? Please be my guide.
RC> See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
RC> But for present purposes, just posting a link to the source files RC> (i.e. the most editable form of your images) to this list, with a RC> comment like "these are hereby under the GPL" is fine, since the idea RC> is to incorporate them into MediaWiki, at which point the general RC> licensing info will cover them anyway.
These are hereby under the GPL: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki_buttons.zip
[2 PSD files in 1MB ZIP archive]
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
...................................................................... This product was cruelly tested on small, furry animals. ......................................................................
Hi,
This January I posted improved design for wiki buttons: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml and so on.
But there are still no changes in Wikipedia interface.
Who can include them in the current build and when we can see them?
P.S. To help you, I cut the new artwork down into 11 image files [23x24 png].
http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki7.shtml
If you need the extended design implementation (not just buttons, but along with background, as in http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml) - send me original PHP/HTML for &action=edit and I'll rewrite it.
Alex Bobrov____________________________________________ Indian Summer Studio http://indians.ru/
...................................................................... Minds are like parachutes, they only work when open. ......................................................................
_______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Alexander Bobrov wrote:
This January I posted improved design for wiki buttons: http://tactics.indians.ru/tmp/wiki/wiki6.shtml and so on.
But there are still no changes in Wikipedia interface.
As you'll recall, several people expressed a dislike for them and there was no consensus in favor.
They don't seem to fit in to the MonoBook style any better than the current ones; if anything they're more "3-d" and fit in worse, so I wouldn't recommend including them.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
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