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Hi all,<br>
<br>
I thought it would be best to break this out into a separate thread
for ease of use.<br>
<br>
For anyone picking this up now, the discussion pertains to
specifically improving manual formatting and increasing consistency
when using formatting elements (headings, lists) across pages.
Issues are mentioend immediately below, suggestions are further
down.<br>
<br>
kesten previously mentioned a committee for working on the
formatting tests, given the responses on the board so far, I'll
suggest that this committee be: kesten, cal, jared, greylica and me.
Jared and I have already prepared some mockups (linked at the end of
this post). If everyone is ok with this I suggest the following
timetable/process:<br>
<br>
1. Decide on the skin (2 weeks from now)<br>
2. Mockups with new/edited/current skin (4 weeks from now).<br>
<br>
Would a weekly meeting in #blenderwiki work best for everyone? Or
mail to the board? If we prefer #blenderwiki can you let us know
what timezone you're in so we can work out a decent day/time (I'm in
Australia with UTC+10).<br>
<br>
----Current formatting issues----<br>
<br>
--1. Inconsistent style (headings, lists)--<br>
<br>
This includes but is not limited to: when and how often to use H2,
H3 etc. <br>
What determines whether a list should be bulleted or numbered?<br>
What format should definition lists take?<br>
<br>
--2. Suitability of Naid skin as the default.--<br>
<br>
Performance issues<br>
Do the right and left columns serve a useful purpose?<br>
Why are headers and footers no longer displayed?<br>
<br>
I regularly find that pages with the default Naid Skin load
noticeably slower. Without specific testing, this appears to be due
to the menus on the left hand side and on the main wiki page. After
changing to a skin that doesn't have the drop down/roll out effect,
page loading is much quicker. The left hand column is really only
useful if you know where you want to go and even then it is quicker
to jump back to the main page and go from there. I find the content
in the the right hand column useful (if only for being able to link
to specific sections from other pages), but agree that with the
overuse of headings, it can quickly become unwieldy. <br>
<br>
--3. Mobile devices--<br>
<br>
How to fix the extensive scrolling required to view pages due to
lack of word wrapping?<br>
<br>
--4. General aesthetics--<br>
<br>
Would useability be improved with redesigned info boxes?<br>
Do UI items need different weighting?<br>
Are links visible enough?<br>
Are the size of headings appropriate?<br>
<br>
<br>
----Suggestions----<br>
<br>
1. <br>
From Jared<br>
One =heading 1= per page, as recommended in the Mediawiki
documentation<br>
Describe UI items/options with a clear separation between the word
and the description<br>
Term on its own line, and the decsriptions on next line, indented -
*Not bulleted*. Visually interferes with the word itself, and is
consistent with most of the manual and other manuals - Bullets are
only for examples/lists of things<br>
Numbered lists for explanation of steps<br>
Omit unnecessary sub-headings, like ==Description==. (It should be
assumed that what is written is a description). <br>
<br>
2.<br>
<br>
Switch to a new default skin. My preference would be for either the
Blender or Vector skin.<br>
If we stick with Naid, remove the left hand menu. Move the right
menu to the left or the top (similar to a standard wikipedia page
with a contents box)<br>
<br>
3. <br>
<br>
No idea about this one, I don't know much about mobile devices :-)<br>
<br>
4.<br>
From Jared<br>
<font face="sans-serif">Literals: UI items should be *bold, *or
*bold+italic*). <br>
Bold stands out better than *italic *alone
<br>
Links: brighter blue to help them stand out
Indent text/headings under ==heading 2== to better separate
sections.
<br>
Increase size of ==heading 2== to make it more separate from
===heading 3===
<br>
Add a bar/background color to headings ?</font> <br>
<br>
----Current Mockups----<br>
<br>
From Jared: <a
href="http://www.artofjared.com/content/wikiFormatting.html">http://www.artofjared.com/content/wikiFormatting.html</a>
<br>
<br>
Mockups from me.<br>
<pre><a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test1">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test1</a>
<a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test2">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test2</a>
<a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test3">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test3</a>
<a href="http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test4">http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Fade/Doc:2.6/format_test4</a></pre>
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