EvoWiki:Discussions/Style

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Style & Colour Scheme

What's your opinion?

1. The colour scheme should be:

• Black text on white

Is it time consuming to change, Steinsky? If not, I wouldnt mind seeing black on white..at least provisionally. --GFA 02:42, 31 Dec 2003 (GMT)

Not too time consuming, but I think it can have more than one stylesheet and users can specify their own, I'll take a look and see...

OK, those who want black text on white should try setting their preferences to one of the other styles in Special:Preferences. I'll make a black on white version of the default style as well... --Steinsky 16:51, 4 Jan 2004 (GMT)

• White text on black

• Other

• Don't care

Steinsky

IMO the current one is fine, so without a compelling improvement I support leaving it. Wikipedia and talkorigins.org look fine with black-on-white also, so whatever. I'm not very good when it comes to colors. --oplo 08:56, Dec 26, 2003 (GMT)

Actually, we could keep text white, but make the links yellow like http://www.talkorigins.org, if we were going for that look that is --oplo

OK, how's this? --Steinsky 16:37, 4 Jan 2004 (GMT)

Egads, Steinsky, it burns us, it hurts us...gives us back the precious (JGK) 2:15pm EST Jan. 4, 2004

I think it looks sorta cool with the white, but terrible with the red, blue and green. --GFA 19:47, 4 Jan 2004 (GMT)

hrm... ok then, any suggestions for different colours for the links? --81.101.71.52 21:45, 4 Jan 2004 (GMT)

Initially I had the "hurts us" reaction also, but after a few minutes I got used to the yellow links and now I kind of like them. It is very much like T.O.'s organizational pages, which is kind of neat (t.o.'s actual articles are the usual black-on-white, OTOH). The green and red links seem pretty good, but the blue links do kind of clash with the yellow. Maybe a kind of light blue-green? --oplo

If after awhile we can't find something we like, we can always use the default Wikipedia look which is OK. One thing to consider sooner or later is a "look" which looks kind of "official" and helps readers take the material seriously. --oplo

It's really the "Directory", "Useful Pages" and "Resources" colors that clash terribly with the yellow. If they were to be changed to a black on white, like the "About EvoWiki" thinger, the yellow would look really spiffy. I gotta agree with Nic about an "offical" look, and must say that the plethora of alternating, ridiculously bright primaries makes it look a little...shall we say..Fisher-Priceish? --GFA 01:53, 5 Jan 2004 (GMT)

I'll give it a try, but it still feels like my eyes are being lasered out...(JGK) 9:42pm EST Jan. 4, 2004

Good God, who changed it from the yellow and black to this abomination!? For mercy's sake bring it back to how it was before, I beseech you! (JGK 9:59pm EST Jan. 17, 2004)

Silly syn, it looks nice. Very professional --GFA 03:15, 18 Jan 2004 (GMT)

I've only just realised what you're talking about, because I had a cached version of the stylesheet (the software upgrade overwrote pretty much everything). I can upload the old one again if you want? Or I could fiddle around and make it so that you can choose between this one or the old one... --Steinsky 10:30, 20 Jan 2004 (GMT)

I've had to change a table I've created, my G1 creation-arrangement schematic table in Genesis. I tried searching for other instances of "table", but the search function is currently broken. So should I add font colors to fix them in case of future stylistic changes? -- LP

2. The font is:

• Too small

• Fine as it is

Steinsky

Just fine as is IMO. --oplo 08:56, Dec 26, 2003 (GMT)

Fine with me also -- LP

Ta. --Steinsky 02:56, 26 Dec 2003 (GMT)

EvoWiki Logo

Our current pic of Charles is fine for the logo at the moment, but if someone thinks of a more exciting one they should post their idea.--oplo

I like the current one also, but if I wanted an alternative logo, I'd want one that features the ultimate icon of evolution: the phylogeny or family tree. But I have trouble thinking of a suitable "archetypical" or "representative" one that does not look too graphically complicated. The problem is depicting the species at the tree's ends -- how to do that without consuming a lot of pixels. Imagine a tree with a beetle, a mushroom, a flower, an amoeba, and an Escherichia coli bacterium.

Or else we could honor one of our more prolific contributors and have a picture of an Archaeopteryx fossil. -- LP

I'd be honored, but I think for now the Darwin picture is all right. The main problem being I don't know what sort of Archaeopteryx picture to substitute. (JGK 1:03pm EST, 1/19/04)

One of it perching, syn, just like a true bird ;) But seriously, I think Darwin is okay. It would be better though, if the colors were changed around a bit. Doesnt the big black box look sorta out of place? --GFA

The Darwin picture is not out of place, def, what the hell...this is what comes of taking Greg Paul too seriously... (JGK 5:20pm EST, 1/20/04)

Can we change the wikilogo please? what is meant to be at the moment? i thnk a picture of the evolution of man Evolution of man Would look more appropriate at this time!! --spiderboy 08:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The logo is of an ammonite fossil and a strand of DNA... Do know that evolution much much more than simply a "march of progress." And isn't that particular picture of human-evolution copyrighted?--Mr A. 13:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yer ur right i understand that about evolution but i thought that a pictue like that would be more representative of what most people see evolution as. Just noticed the dna strand at the bottom of the pic tho...and yes i believe that that picture may actually be copywrighted Spiderboy 16:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Navigation

This comment is about the main page, and answers the question asked above [Moved to this page --Steinsky], "Does anybody have any views on what the heading of the page listing section should be? ..." For improved usability, I would recommend the following changes:

1) The default page the user sees on entering EvoWiki should be the Directory, i.e. everything above the big bold "Directory" on the main page is removed to a separate page, "About EvoWiki." This way the user does not have to scroll down every time they want to access the directory--the directory is a navigation tool that should be readily accessible. Plus, inexperienced users, or even experienced users (embarrassed grin), may fail to even notice that there IS a directory, since it is completely hidden until the main page is scrolled down. Web usability experts would grade this as a major flaw in the design.

2) The exception to the above is that I would keep a one line description above the "Directory" heading. Something like "The Evolution Education Wiki is a free, reader-built encyclopedia of evolution, biology, and origins. Read [About EvoWiki], or [Help] build it"

3) I would change the heading of "Directory" to "Contents" to be more consistent with usage.

4) The navigation links on the left side of the page would change to:

Contents
About EvoWiki
Recent changes
etc.

5) Consider eliminating the navigation elements at the top of each page (since they largely redundant to those on the left side) and moving the search field and any non-redundant items to the left side. Precious screen real estate is wasted with these -- eliminating them gives more vertical space for content, reducing (slightly) the need for scrolling, and also reduces clutter. Plus, their usefulness is reduced since they scroll with the content, and so can be scrolled out of sight.

6) Consider using CSS to make the left side navigation elements fixed so they do not scroll with the content, so they are always readily available. Modern browsers will handle this, and most old browsers will gracefully degrade by simply scrolling them with the content (since they don't understand the CSS that tells them not to).

Jerry Farm 2004.05.05 jfarmnospam@treeswallow.com