Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals/archives/2010/November

Wikinews portal banners

All of the main Wikinews portals except for one (that's 'Crime and law', 'Culture and entertainment', 'Disasters and accidents', 'Economy and business', 'Education', 'Environment', 'Health', 'Obituaries', 'Politics and conflicts', 'Science and technology', 'Sports' and 'Weather' but not 'Wackynews') have got a Wikinews portal banner on them (like this example or this, for instance). I was considering the prospect of adding Wikinews portal banners to portals for countries. Do you approve of this idea? What is your opinion? --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 18:41, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I would rather the portals looked like the main page (like Brian McNeil's portal design), possibly with some kind of cutomised banner at the top, or instead of the blue Wikinews one behind the title (if we go with the latter, I don't think we should go much further than colour-coding, though). Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 21:13, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

How does User:Dendodge/Portal headers look as a preliminary suggestion? Feel free to tweak MediaWiki:Common.css/User:Dendodge/Portal headers to make them look better. Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 21:57, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

• I like. May I suggest the following - as two additions to integrating this with my portal design prototype?

Two optional parameters in my template: img_overlay= OR img_replace=.

These to be used to put a graphic on top of the default Wikinews logo, or to replace it altogether.

Then we can, as a default, put an image like scales-of-justice over the logo. Or, where folks like Diego have done a custom Chile logo, that can be used.

Of course, it does all still rely on more coding so the process flow is Publish->MakeLead->PortalLeads. The latter trying to run off categories (Hint, hint, Bawolff). --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:38, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Hint noted, but my free time is limited at the moment. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I have to say, I am impressed with the new portal headers Dendodge. They work quite nicely. Just one minor detail: The 'Disasters and accidents' portal header is lacking an image. (Although, to be honest, I have no idea as to what image to put in that gap.) Well done. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 23:11, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, we've been discussing that in IRC - I thought maybe a cartoon tornado or something, but I can't find one. Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 23:12, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that the image of the fire works well enough. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 23:38, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

+1 for liking Dendodge's idea. Bawolff ☺☻ 04:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

I think they would look better without center images. They don't really fit well. --Yair rand (talk) 05:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we shoudl use Brian McNeil's idea and overlay the images over the Wikinews logo instead, then? I quite like the centre images, though - they make the banners more unique. I'd like to do both, ideally. Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 18:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I don't know. The center image really messes up the effect of the banner; the faded Wikinews logo on the right and, to a certain extent, the text, look like they're "behind" the light blue (or whatever color) background, but the center images look "on top", enough that the effect is ruined. Maybe it could be fixed by making the center image translucent? (Is that even possible to do without having it mess up on some browsers?) --Yair rand (talk) 21:43, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Should be possible using css on firefox, webkit (safari, chrome, Konqueror), opera and IE based browsers, with it degrading gracefully to being non-translucent on other/older browsers. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:25, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm nto clever enough to do it that way, but it's a simple two-click process in Photoshop to create translucent versions. I would like the CSS approach, though, if somebody is capable of doing it. Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 17:34, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

CSS added. Not entirely sure I like the result though. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:44, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they look too bad. I've also started making some customised Wikinews logos (so far I've done crime & law and culture & entertainment) - they're at the bottom of the page, and the crime & law one is in the place of the Wikinews logo in the top left (where they would be intended to go). How do they look so far? Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 19:18, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• I like the customised logos; I don't like the effect the CSS monkeying has produced. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 20:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Are we allowed to combine lgpl images with the logo? I personally think the new logos are a bit too busy, but thats just imho. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I just used the pictures that were already there - I'm not sure what the licensing rules are (that's part of the reason I only made two). If they're too busy, maybe we should just use the text, but I'm not sure that would give enough of a unique identity to the portals. (Ideally, we could link this with infoboxes in some way, so every main category/country infobox would have a logo associated with it, in the same way as news websites like the BBC use different templates for different types of article, but I don't know how popular that idea would be). Δενδοδγε _τ\^c 18:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Portal graphics - break

I've not sat and hacked thru the 'demos' yet; a point above is why I thought the CSS 'hacking' might be needed - mixing copyright licenses.

Ask Shaka to draw up a matrix of what's compatible since, technically, a new image based on the WN logo should be gifted to the Foundation. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:37, 17 November 2010 (UTC)