Background color questions
I'm working on a redesign of this template. Currently I've only made code cleanup changes, for example, no longer rendering or serving the blank parts as nested hidden tables, for better performance. I wasn't planning to make any changes to the visual layout, but I noticed two things that I could change if desired.
First, in the wonder card display, there's a gap between the top-right corner background and the bottom part background. There's no gap present there in the games. Should I close this gap?
Second, there's a slight difference between the colors of those same two backgrounds. The top right background color is "{{#switch:{{{type|pokemon}}}|item=f773ad|08a8a8}}", and the bottom part background is "#{{#switch:{{{type|pokemon}}}|item=ef4a8c|009098}}". The color difference becomes more noticeable if the gap is closed. Should I change one to match the other? ライケン (talk) 15:26, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- On second glance, it looks like the color difference was intentional. I can do diagonal stripes like in the games instead of the gap if that's preferred. ライケン (talk) 16:27, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- It might be easiest if you just create a userpage. And/or best, so we can just double-check what form these updates you want to make will take. Tiddlywinks (talk) 16:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- If you wouldn't mind creating a blank page for me, I can paste in what I've got so far. ライケン (talk) 17:38, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- User:Rigel Kent/Wondercard. Tiddlywinks (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, bummer, new accounts aren't allowed to edit user namespace. ライケン (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- Then you could always just put it right here. The template isn't too terribly big, at least not currently. Or you could drop it here. It won't be usable like a template, of course, but it'll still be informative. Tiddlywinks (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh, bummer, new accounts aren't allowed to edit user namespace. ライケン (talk) 18:11, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- User:Rigel Kent/Wondercard. Tiddlywinks (talk) 18:00, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- If you wouldn't mind creating a blank page for me, I can paste in what I've got so far. ライケン (talk) 17:38, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- It might be easiest if you just create a userpage. And/or best, so we can just double-check what form these updates you want to make will take. Tiddlywinks (talk) 16:41, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
(Indent reset) Project:Sandbox#Wonder Card Gen 5 draft. Still working on the details, but the background stripes are there. ライケン (talk) 21:05, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- We're a wiki. Wikis and wikicode (wiki markup) exist for a reason: they're simplifications. Wiki coding is not supposed to be pure tags of spans and divs and etc.
- If you can convert your draft into a wiki markup format, then we might be able to consider it. But if pure tags is the only way you can perfectly recreate the game's designs, we'll have to stick with our good-enough imitations.
- (On a side note, it may help you to keep in mind the maxim, know your audience. You seem to be carrying some (perhaps?) professionally minded sensibilities; but as a wiki, understand that we may not need (or possibly be ready/equipped for) all of what you're used to doing exactly like you're used to doing it.) Tiddlywinks (talk) 23:50, 10 June 2016 (UTC)
- MediaWiki markup includes and extends HTML, so I assume you're talking about MediaWiki's "{| |}" table markup specifically? "{| {| {| |} |} |} {| {| {| |} {| {| |} {| |} |} |} {| |} |}" — the layout of the template right now — is fewer keystrokes than any raw HTML equivalent. It isn't necessarily simpler to maintain, though. Some of those tables are nested four deep. It took me a while to decipher the template's structure before I could make even minor edits. ライケン (talk) 01:36, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
- Let me repeat myself: KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE.
- ...This is a wiki. People around here are more likely to know wikicode (and/or better) than they will generic HTML. We're not going to fill a template with a mess of pure HTML tags.
- There's a question of familiarity/bias in the mix here, too. I do understand that the table structure and nesting can be complicated. But it's still much easier for me to parse than your HTML-only draft. Maybe it's backwards for you. But, again, that's you—KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Tiddlywinks (talk) 01:59, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
- One thing wiki editors sometimes do is use templates as wrappers for HTML tags.
{{tt}}as a <span> wrapper being a good example of this. Do you think something along the lines of{{block | class=hello | style=font-size: small; | Hello world! }}be too complex a replacement for{| class="hello" style="font-size: small;" |- | Hello world! |}? ライケン (talk) 22:09, 12 June 2016 (UTC)- I'm trying to see the point you're aiming for, or your honest issue...and I don't really...unless this is just an attempt to keep arguing for how you want to do it. If that's the case, I'll keep it simple: I'm not interested one bit in that argument; either write like we ask or give it up, please. Tiddlywinks (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh. You could've asked earlier. Here's one problem. Nested table layouts are, among other bad things, known to be poor for performance. One author calls nested tables a "legendary performance hit". This template creates such a heavy browser load, that a number of pages transcluding it reliably crash my browser's layout engine. More lightweight HTML output would make those page viewable again. ライケン (talk) 01:45, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- If you can figure out something that helps improve our performance—while using wikicode—great, please! Tiddlywinks (talk) 02:13, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sure — what about a helper template that outputs a
<div>abcde</div>, but is used in the usual way, such as{{Block | abcde}}? A helper template like that could substitute for one-cell tables{| |- | abcde |}, reducing the HTML output while (hopefully) not complicating the wikicode. ライケン (talk) 03:47, 13 June 2016 (UTC)- Unfortunately, that's not really the sort of solution we can just throw around and call it a day. (Supposing we'd even be okay with simply disguising a div like that; I'm not certain if we would or not.) Calling one template from within another can be a problem fundamentally—there are cases in the past where staff had to substitute templates that were called within another precisely because of this problem. Trading one problem (efficiency) for another (risk of hitting template limits) is not a great solution. (Hell, anywhere efficiency is likely to be a problem, we'd probably also have to worry about running over that template limit.) Tiddlywinks (talk) 05:54, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry for the delay, I thought I left a reply. Anyway, my last suggestion was a terrible idea. I forgot it's already a built in parser function in MediaWiki. That makes it even easier: most basic case, switching a wikitable to a blockquote would go from
{| | abcde |}to{{#tag:blockquote | abcde}}, no additional template required. It gets more complex when styled and nested, but hopefully still usable. See Project:Sandbox#Wonder Card Gen 5 mockup for an update, is it still too complex? ライケン (talk) 03:02, 17 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry for the delay, I thought I left a reply. Anyway, my last suggestion was a terrible idea. I forgot it's already a built in parser function in MediaWiki. That makes it even easier: most basic case, switching a wikitable to a blockquote would go from
- Unfortunately, that's not really the sort of solution we can just throw around and call it a day. (Supposing we'd even be okay with simply disguising a div like that; I'm not certain if we would or not.) Calling one template from within another can be a problem fundamentally—there are cases in the past where staff had to substitute templates that were called within another precisely because of this problem. Trading one problem (efficiency) for another (risk of hitting template limits) is not a great solution. (Hell, anywhere efficiency is likely to be a problem, we'd probably also have to worry about running over that template limit.) Tiddlywinks (talk) 05:54, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Sure — what about a helper template that outputs a
- If you can figure out something that helps improve our performance—while using wikicode—great, please! Tiddlywinks (talk) 02:13, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- Oh. You could've asked earlier. Here's one problem. Nested table layouts are, among other bad things, known to be poor for performance. One author calls nested tables a "legendary performance hit". This template creates such a heavy browser load, that a number of pages transcluding it reliably crash my browser's layout engine. More lightweight HTML output would make those page viewable again. ライケン (talk) 01:45, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- I'm trying to see the point you're aiming for, or your honest issue...and I don't really...unless this is just an attempt to keep arguing for how you want to do it. If that's the case, I'll keep it simple: I'm not interested one bit in that argument; either write like we ask or give it up, please. Tiddlywinks (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
- One thing wiki editors sometimes do is use templates as wrappers for HTML tags.
- MediaWiki markup includes and extends HTML, so I assume you're talking about MediaWiki's "{| |}" table markup specifically? "{| {| {| |} |} |} {| {| {| |} {| {| |} {| |} |} |} {| |} |}" — the layout of the template right now — is fewer keystrokes than any raw HTML equivalent. It isn't necessarily simpler to maintain, though. Some of those tables are nested four deep. It took me a while to decipher the template's structure before I could make even minor edits. ライケン (talk) 01:36, 11 June 2016 (UTC)
(resetting indent)No, this still isn't working... You have intrigued me a bit with some of what you've said. But your latest solution is basically the barest lip service to using a wiki format. I'm sorry, but we are not looking for radical changes. Tiddlywinks (talk) 05:12, 17 June 2016 (UTC)