Consistency of visual style

Hi,

I thought of the appearance of the various elements and special pages in tinWiki, that are now starting to have styles from what can perhaps be called different periods or such in the development of tinWiki.

Maybe it would be a good thing to list all the different elements and pages that use any kind of visual design or such, and then try and think up a common style to try and use throughout tinWiki.

That's just something that came across my mind today.

Optimist

If we can, at some point, get control of the skins, I would think we would like to extend the look of the Main page to the rest of the site. Is this what you have in mind, or are you thinking of something else, like an archive?

William One Sac,

You're right, that is what I'm thinking of, that, at least when we're starting to settle on the final 'touches' and details of the Main Page style, the Main Page style should 'permeate' all of tinWiki, so that there's one type of style, instead of like several types of styles. So, you're right, I'm not so much thinking of an archive, as of keeping the same type of style thoughout the various pages and elements.

A bit specifically, I'm thinking of pages like the Category list, the Help menu, also the Current events page, and some others. The gray boxes like that at the top of the Category list page are seen a number of places, for example. That's a kind of element that seems to have a style from an earlier period in the development of tinWiki, and that I'm thinking should be updated to a new look that is consistent with a 'total' design style of the website. There are also other elements that seem to have some kind of visual style, but one that is different from the current one.

When you mention an archive, I have thought that it could be a nice tool or such to have all or at least most of the template messages listed in the Palette page, to have an easy overview over what types of graphical styles and elements are currently used.

Keeping the visual stuff and appearance to all look like one thing, as opposed to different things, will improve the experience for a visitor, I think. I might make a page somewhere, or use a section in an existing page, to list the current various graphical elements and pages that have some specific design type style or look. Then it could be easy to start from there, knowing what is the current situation and what possibly needs to be adjusted or brought up to date or such. Coming up with various new elements and designs or such that might be needed, might be a little bit of a project, though, but there's no rush, of course, and once it's started, it will progress and eventually get somewhere. :-)

Optimist


edit: seems tinWiki links with colons in them don't post right?...

[edit on 4-6-2008 by Optimist]

Yes, I have noticed that as well, the links to tinwiki pages do not work, or perhaps it is the colons in them. God knows, I have enough problems with my own colon to start worrying about it here to. HA ha. Hey, I think this is a wonderful idea you have. Do you think we need revamp pages for each page we update? I think it would be a good idea, as opposed to doing everything in the sandbox. Maybe I can even start to wrap my lobes around this table business which gets a little beyond the reach of my ken at times. Good thinking Optimist!

William One Sac,

I want to try and make a kind of menu page, like a Project page (as the one I made for the 9/11 pages), listing new revamp pages. I definitely agree that creating separate pages for each revamping is a practical and nice way to go about updating the visual style of the various pages and elements (like template messages).

In addition, I want to try and make a short help page to describe those wiki table codes. I'm not very good at HTML or CSS, but the little things I know are helpful when trying to make some tables using wiki code. I do understand how to get some of it done, making tables. I'd say, what's maybe most confusing, compared to normal HTML table codes, is that there isn't that possibility of indenting the tag pairs and what's between a tag pair, if you see what I mean, since if one indents stuff in wiki code, indenting means something in itself, and all sorts of stuff happens. Anyway, I will see if I can make a brief help page on the topic of wiki table code.

As for the URLs with colons in them, I use a redirect through the tinyurl.com service. Works great. Also, check out colonzone.org. :-)

Optimist