[WIKI] New wiki theme?

May 27, 2014, 01:57:51 pm

The spring semester's over so I'm resuming the forum re-skin. I'm putting it up piecemeal but once it's complete I'll turn my attention towards re-skinning the rest of Spherical.

The question at hand: should the wiki be re-skinned, and if so should the re-skin match the upcoming forum re-skin?

For reference, the forum re-skin will heavily use The Bricks by Designmodo where possible, as I previously bought it with a developer's license (which includes the addon designs as well) so I can use it anywhere I please. My choice of The Bricks is primarily due to wanting a simpler "semi-flat" UI style, as completely flat has essentially no affordance and completely the opposite (e.g. skeuomorphic) is usually too busy and "over-produced" (in my opinion; especially "shiny black" or "extreme" themes).

The "vinnyfonseca" experiment refers to this Wikipedia re-theme experiment which seems to cover the vast majority of what would need to be themed on our wiki. For Wikipedia it takes a few things for granted, but for our structure (especially the various API pages) things like the right sidebar are perfect for "nearby" pages like the API navboxes.

Or we could keep it mostly as it currently is. Vector is a good-looking skin and I'd mostly only need to change certain colors and spacing that I haven't already in order to match Spherical style (I don't have the color list in front of me, but I'll create a style guide page on the wiki once I find it). I would as a result be taking the time to solidify the existing style guide (which will be on the wiki shortly) to account for the re-skinned forums, the Vector-based wiki, and whatever modifications the portal page receives after all.

Theming the wiki is a larger project than theming the forums. I want to get a sense from the Spherical community about the wiki's current look while the forum re-skin is still in development.

Re: [WIKI] New wiki theme?

Reply #1 – May 27, 2014, 02:14:06 pm

For consistency, I'd say match the forum reskin. The vinnyfonseca design isn't very mobile friendly. Wikipedia seems to handle mobile very well so keeping the current wiki theme, but restyling it would be nice.

Re: [WIKI] New wiki theme?

Reply #2 – May 27, 2014, 07:54:37 pm

I think it would be very nice to make things look more modern, not to mention make it more accessible/readable in the process. A Very Yes from me.

Re: [WIKI] New wiki theme?

Reply #3 – May 27, 2014, 10:21:28 pm

Well, I use the alternative forum skin. Which looks very much like the old forum (and much more to my liking than the default). Since I don't do any mobile surfing, I guess it doesn't matter too much to me.

And I'm excited to see Spherical the site being kept up with!

Re: [WIKI] New wiki theme?

Reply #4 – May 30, 2014, 09:39:09 pm

4 votes and by the usual forumgoers. Man, times are the slowest they've been. XD

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Should the wiki be re-skinned?