OpenGeofiction
Hi everyone,
I didn’t forget about the new Main Page I was working on. I am hoping for a higher level of consensus before porting it to the “real” main page.
I am happy to do so. However, I have only received participation or comment for about 6 users so far. Thilo and histor have endorsed it (they are our two active admins, I guess). BMSOUZA, isleño and tom_m7 also endorsed it. I’d like at least 5 additional endorsements (and no major dissents) before I take it “live” - I’m hoping for consensus.
I have the impression I can port the page code myself - it doesn’t seem there are any admin restrictions to editing the main page - is this correct?
I will probably be spending a lot of time with OGF for the next 6 days or so - it’s Korean Lunar New Year, so we have some holiday time. Hopefully before I go to back work next Monday I can make the new main page live, pending everyone’s approval.
We can work out feature maintainance over time. It’s not that hard: I have been updating my Ardisphere Portal almost daily now and it only takes me 15 minutes to do the actual updates, not counting separate time creating new articles worth updating to, which obviously wouldn’t apply to our main page features anyway.
- Luciano
Discussion
Comment from Egen on 17 February 2015 at 04:33
I think it looks great. I was waiting for it to go live.
I am not a fan of the live/active map feature. It’s too small to zoom, and it moves around too easily, but I can understand that creating and loading fixed map images would be more work to update.
Honored that you would pick my racecar as a featured image on your demo. :)
Comment from Luciano on 17 February 2015 at 04:57
@Paxtar - as far as the live map images… I actually started using these precisely because I am incompetent at image manipulation - I still use MS Paint as my main image editor. Thus from my standpoint, the live map feature is not only “easier” but the “only way possible.” I have also become interested in the “interactive” aspect of the multimaps - hence my massive project to make a zoomable and clickable subway map, for example. If someone else wants to provide the skills necessary to provide a more attractive “Featured Map” section with edited images, I would very much encourage it. Meanwhile, I will play around with “locking down” the zoom feature of the Featured Map window, to make it less annoyingly responsive to accidental mouseovers.
Comment from isleño on 17 February 2015 at 07:47
I think it’s looking really good.
Personally I don’t feel like the featured map is too small… but maybe that depends on screen size? Locking down the zoom solves the mouseover problem, but it can also make the zoom seem broken. Is there a way to disable the mouseover zoom, but keep the click zoom? Or maybe there’s a way to make any click on the map simply open the map in its own window? I feel like people who click on the map should be able to explore it?
(Speaking of clickability, we might also want to make the name of the featured article - the one in bold - link to the article, like they do on Wikipedia.)
In any case, thanks again for putting so much work into this, Luciano. I can’t think of a reason why someone would object to it. It’s great, and you’re great for making it. :-)
Comment from joschi81 on 17 February 2015 at 09:16
Here’s my short and simple opinion: Wonderful! I like it very much. Thank you!
Comment from histor on 17 February 2015 at 10:34
As I write before: great work and looks good. Let us have this interessant main-page.
Comment from bhj867 on 17 February 2015 at 10:59
I like it. Very official! Hopefully this makes the wiki easier to navigate. Thank you.
Comment from BMSOUZA on 17 February 2015 at 12:27
I can not wait till see this as our Main Page
Comment from Egen on 17 February 2015 at 14:00
My critique was hopefully taken as a minor one. Your new main page is far more interesting than the current one, and I’m looking forward to seeing it live.
If you decide to use fixed maps as links to the OGF map, I would happy to create the images from any areas you select.
Comment from Luciano on 17 February 2015 at 14:34
@Paxtar - I understand. Actually, I find the mouseover behavior of the multimaps very annoying too. But, as I mentioned, for me it’s partly a solution to my bad image-making skills - it lets me solve presenting visual information as a data problem instead of as a graphics problem. I was looking at documentation for the multimaps extension, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to change the default mouseover behavior - anyway, if there is, it would be some kind of server-side tweak, so we will have to leave it to Thilo.
Everyone’s support is heartening. I have taken the first step on porting to the Main Page - I created a shared “sandbox” at OGF:Sandbox, with a copy there at OGF:Sandbox/Main_Page. In the future, when people want to experiment with the Main Page or try a new idea out, that can be a place to do that.
Comment from Easky30 on 17 February 2015 at 17:32
I like the new layout. The featured places is a nice addition, as much as I like to explore it’s nice to see new places.
Comment from Logan230 on 17 February 2015 at 19:38
I give my full support to see this as the new Main Page.
Comment from wangi on 18 February 2015 at 00:49
Go for it, looks great
Comment from histor on 18 February 2015 at 01:18
“Useful links” to the right column - then both are equal long ?? If you want …..
Comment from Luciano on 18 February 2015 at 02:16
Wow - 5 new endorsements! thank you to wangi, Logan230, Easky30, bhj867, Paxtar … I’m going to make the move.
PLEASE be patient with TEMPORARY strange problems as I transfer the code…
@histor - the problem is that the boxes will be different sizes depending on specific content, your browser, and on your screen size. Example
I think it is difficult to control that kind of rendering issue. Not even the experts at wikipedia always seem to get exactly equal columns, IIRC - and they have a lot of extra CSS and extensions. I’m just trying to follow a rough estimate for average column length…