New Main Page full redesign project

[icactus]

also, for those who are not webdesign-inclined this is a great website with clean web design examples so you could find something you thought conveyed what you envision in your head and tell us which example it is:

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspirati ... b-designs/

[icactus]

slightly different design:
http://imslp.org/wiki/User:Icactus/sandbox2

Comments on major aspects of the layout?

[imslp]

Very nice! My only comment would be whether there is a way to balance the two columns a little more such that, even with the boxes expanded, the lengths are not too different.

I love the simple design! I assume that the fonts will be changed in the CSS when the design is finalized (right now it looks like Arial in FF)?

I think we are not far from replacing the old main page Perhaps this can be a celebration of getting 100,000 scores.

P.S. One other thing: is it possible to have a browse section similar to the old main page?

[icactus]

i have another variation i'm about to post that i think i might like better than the one i just made and we should have room on the design i'm about to post to incorporate some browse buttons without being too cluttered.

[icactus]

Here's another equally clean version that does the layout a different way:

http://imslp.org/wiki/User:Icactus/sandbox3

I think i'm partial to this one over the last but there are good reasons for liking either.

I also think it would be a great idea to have a redesign to celebrate the 100,000th score milestone. It's definitely a big deal

[icactus]

A browse section is a bad idea unless it is only two buttons: Browse Scores, and Browse Recordings. And then each page could take to you a nav page to break it down from there. Anything else is just duplicating the left side navigation and that is where users look for navigation anyway. Front page space is precious and it is a bad idea to waste that on redundant info that is already on the front page.

[steltz]

If I could vote for a variation of your first one (Sandbox2), because of the art work -- it ties directly into the publishing business, and it is "old" enough to be a symbol for what is now in the public domain. In fact, if there is any way to bracket the right side of the page, that would also balance the two columns a bit. (Sandbox3 is clean and very functional but doesn't say anything symbolically.)

One question - the search box used to have a 'search" and a "go" button, and I know there was a difference between the two, but I can't remember what it is. What are we losing by only having the search button?

And a couple of points:

Is there any way that the copyright notice at the bottom right can be in the same size font as the type inside the "Featured" box? At the moment it looks like the fine print in insurance policies that companies make small deliberately so you are less likely to read it!

As to IMSLP's request for browse buttons, generally I agree that having the same thing in two places clutters the page, but there were complaints previously that people weren't finding the browse section easily enough (though I think in some cases they didn't really take the time to get used to the page). It might help to make the headers in the left column the same size and font as "Featured", "New Scores", etc. In fact, right now the eye is drawn more to the search than to the browse, so maybe the search should go directly underneath browse on the left (before participate), since the two are very related.

Oh, and can we have the [more] button on the new scores and recordings? That's what I (and I think others) use to tag the latest pieces.

REALLY like Sandbox2.

[KGill]

One question - the search box used to have a 'search" and a "go" button, and I know there was a difference between the two, but I can't remember what it is. What are we losing by only having the search button?

The 'Search' button does a Google search of the site, while 'Go' tries the built-in MediaWiki search and tries to direct you right to a composer page if you enter his/her surname (I think). A lot of people trash the MW search, but it does have its advantages (searching the wikitext of a page, no delay from caching) and I for one would hate to see it disappear, as I use it frequently for all sorts of tasks that are near-impossible to perform without it. On a related note, the IMSLP# and PMLP# searches are very useful (again, principally for administrative tasks) and should remain somewhere other than the special pages listing (which is rather inconvenient to get to). Will the search features still appear in the sidebar, even if this design is adopted for the Main Page?

[icactus]

Sandbox 2 is really just a template at this point for the basic framework. It is not meant as any sort of final state - so there are a few important things that have been left out at the moment. Obviously the search box is very ugly and it can be dressed up any number of ways using CSS. And there is the entire area below the fold for all kinds of things that people would like to see on the page. I don't particularly like the font or the way the drop-down menus function which would be much nicer looking if they were handled in CSS with javascripts. I just couldn't do that within the wiki.

It would be nice if the "search" button would do the google search within a frame so that you don't have to leave IMSLP to see the results. I also think it would be best to just have the "google search" version on the front page as that will take care of 99% of the types of searches users will do. Then we can still leave the more advanced funtioning search box in the side nagivation for searching the wiki-text, etc.

As for the Featured, New Scores, and New Recordings, I want to make a design where it displays the first one or two and then has a "more" button to further expand. There's probably a way to have it hold the position you leave it in after navigating away so that people who want to see 10 scores don't have to click "more" every single time, and vis a versa.

[icactus]

questions for feldmahler or others with "The keys"...

Is there a way I could upload and modify a separate .css just for my sandbox pages so that I can play around with the javascript coding to work on the menus and other aspects? As of now I have to do all these clumsy work-arounds that don't look as good and aren't very customizable. It has been a bit like building a website with crayons...

[feldmahler]

You can add personal CSS and JS code in the /wiki/User:<xxx>/monobook.js and /wiki/User:<xxx>/monobook.css pages. They will be included in every page you view. There is no per-page CSS or JS available on Mediawiki.

[icactus]

i can't seem to figure out how changes to the http://imslp.org/wiki/User:Icactus/monobook.css file effect other pages. I haven't been able to get a working test...

[feldmahler]

I think I have an idea of what is wrong. I will give you an update of the situation in a few hours.

[icactus]

Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to customize the look of the search box. It looks like the site supports the <searchbox> tag but none of the parameters i found here (unless we use a different version: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension ... earchLabel)

I'd like to be able to change the design of the main page submit button and text box, like how this forum has customized buttons, but I can't find a way within the wiki to do it because it doesn't recognize the <inputbox> or <form> tags. I know it's easy with css using normal HTML but I don't know how to reference it in the wiki. Maybe there is some way to design it in .js and then reference it some how in the wiki? I have run out of ideas.

[feldmahler]

Icactus,

The search box is a completely custom extension that I wrote from scratch, so it bears no relationship to Extension:SearchBox. Please tell me if you want me to add a certain class or id parameter to the search box. The best way is for you to tell me the exact HTML changes that I should make, and I will implement this later this afternoon along with fixing the mediawiki.css/js issue.

Also a question: does mediawiki.js work for you, or is it like common.css?