A front page layout update

[Antvasima]

Okay. That is good.

 

[CinnabarManx421]

Yeah it's definetly the ads. I saw the page right before an ad popped in and it was normal.

 

[Ryukama]

I think it's a lot neater and more organized now

 

[Gemmysaur]

Good lord. How long has it been since I've seen anything but the Recent Activity page.

 

[The_Archdemon]

We could have a Christmas layout

 

[Mand21]

Indeed, the ads make the VBW logo appear where it shouldn't here too. Maybe you could send FANDOM a message to put them further down, where the "Information" and "Partner Wikis" sections are.

 

[Andytrenom]

I'd personally prefer if the tabber didn't contain the whole page but overall the change is nice.

 

[AKM sama]

Looks good.

 

[Antvasima]

The Fandom staff were not able to help me with the tabbers, but directed me to the following page, where I left a request:

https://community.wikia.com/wiki/Community_Central_talk:Community_Development_Team/Requests#VS_Battles_wiki

 

[Antvasima]

We could have a Christmas layout

I think that we used a Christmas version of the logo image previously. I will check if I can find it.

 

[Antvasima]

I have updated the page to Ryukama's Christmas logo image:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/index.php?title=VS_Battles_Wiki&diff=3648837&oldid=3648477

 

[Crimson_Azoth]

I love the Christmas logo. And now I want candy canes.

 

[Andytrenom]

The Christmas logo was more adorable than I expected...

 

[Antvasima]

Ryukama designed it last year.

 

[Ryukama]

I appreciate the kind words you guys

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

It looks magnificent.

 

[Magi_Hussie]

Cool and good.

 

[The_Archdemon]

Now, that's good

 

[Antvasima]

After talking with the Fandom support, and trying different things to adjust the front page layout, the only workable solution that they eventually came up with was to make the media section images smaller, so they would line up in rows of 5 no matter the size of the screen, and despite the advertisement to the right pushing down our VS Battles logo image.

The problem is that small icons do not look quite as good, and I had to go from 190px to 118px scaling in order to make this work, so I would appreciate community input.

 

[AKM sama]

Small icons with even smaller fonts don't look quite as good as before, but at least they are aligned correctly now. I am neutral, both versions have their advantages and disadvantages and it's not that big a deal anyway.

 

[Ryukama]

It looks really bad for desktop tbh. I think we should just stay with the current way we have it. May not fit all the way for mobile but it's not as bad as what this looks for desktop IMO

 

[Antvasima]

Okay, so should I revert to 190px?

 

[Ryukama]

IMO yes

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. It is probably best to wait a bit for more input first though.

 

[Antvasima]

I have received another reply from Fandom:

"Hey again,

I'm sorry, but as I said before, the advertisement is a standard, unchangeable part of every wiki's main page design.

I don't know that I agree that what you have now looks worse than what was there before.

But I can see areas for possible improvement. It looks like you have the captions as a part of the design. That means that when you shrink the size of the icon, you're also shrinking the text. Were it my wiki, I'd certainly divorce the caption from the icon itself, create a gallery, and place actual captions underneath the images. That way, the images could be a bit bigger, and the captions would be legible. By using < gallery > code, you can also choose to position="center" the entire thing, which would make the gallery fit better on the page.

https://community.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Galleries,_Slideshows,_and_Sliders/wikitext

Almost every wiki updated in the last few years has a gallery on the front page, so take a look around Fandom for inspiration!"

Is this something that might be a good idea, and if so, would other staff members be willing to help out with modifying the icons?

 

[Antvasima]

I have now changed the images to a gallery format:

https://vsbattles.fandom.com/index.php?title=VS_Battles_Wiki&diff=3654447&oldid=3653872

This is what is looks like without ads on a tablet, depending on the direction of the screen, respectively what it looks like with ads enabled.

I think that it seems less bad than previously at least.

 

[Antvasima]

What do the rest of you think?

 

[Antvasima]

A fandom member modified the front page again:

https://vsbattles.com/vsbattles/2431287#4

Which version do you prefer?

 

[AKM sama]

Works for me.

 

[Antvasima]

Here is what it currently looks like:

 

[Antvasima]

It is important for me to get input here, as I need to know if the new layout will be helpful or a detriment to the wiki's popularity.

 

[Phoenix821]

I think it loos good.

 

[AKM sama]

The only problem I'm seeing on my laptop is that the text below the icons look small. The size of icons is fine tho and everything else looks good. Is there a way to make the text bigger?

 

[Antvasima]

Well, the easiest way to do so with the current formatting is to remove the text boxes from the full size images, make sure that the blue circles around them are complete, and then edit the gallery coding so there is regular text below the images instead.

Alternately somebody could edit the images so the text boxes below them turns a bit larger, comparatively speaking. That would likely work better. However, I use a tablet, am not skilled with Photoshop, and am already very busy.

 

[Antvasima]

So is anybody willing to help out with editing the image text boxes in Photoshop so they turn a bit larger vertically?

 

[Skalt711]

So is anybody willing to help out with editing the image text boxes in Photoshop so they turn a bit larger vertically?

I can. Just tell me the font used in text boxes.

 

[Antvasima]

Ryukama is the one who originally created them. You would have to ask him for information.

 

[Ryukama]

Arial Bold

 

[Antvasima]

Thanks.

 

[Skalt711]

I made an improved version because the previous one had a bit too much water blur.

version 2