User talk:Tjtrumpet2323/sandbox/Main Page

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• en: I will be taking a wikibreak to tour China with the University of Pittsburgh's Heinz Chapel Choir from 26 April 2009, 22:00 UTC to 13 May 2009, 16:00 UTC. During that time, I will be unable to reply to your questions and comments.
• fr: Je prendrai un wikibreak pour visiter la Chine avec le Chœur de la Chapelle Heinz d'Université de Pittsburgh du 26 avril 2009 à 22h UTC jusqu'au 13 mai 2009 à 16h UTC. Pendant ce temps, je ne pourrai pas répondre à vos questions et commentaires.

Initial Discussion

This main page implementation is seriously cool, do it! --58.106.146.104 00:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

That previous comment was me when not logged in. --Kieran 13:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

This page looks good to me. What do you think needs finishing on it, and what consensus before replacing the frontpage? --Nemo 07:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Having only heard positive feedback thusfar, if I hear no further discussion, I intend to replace Main Page with an up-to-date User:Tjtrumpet2323/sandbox/Main Page on Friday 11 July at some time between 13:00 and 16:00 UTC. If you have any suggestions for improvements to the layout of the prototype, please let me know on this talk page. --Tim P 03:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I really like this, especially as it jives much better with the wikipedia main page. There are two things- it seems to take significantly longer to load this page than the current main page (~twice as long to load the page itself, and ~3 times to load all the files (imgs,css, etc), though I'm not sure what's hitting caches at various internet junctures). Second, the Recent Expeditions doesn't feel like it fits right with the rest of the page. I'd recommend putting perrow=2 in the Template:Expedition Images gallery tag and break Template:Recent Images into two columns. I have a sample up at User:David_Souther/sandbox/Main_Page. David Souther 02:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why the galleries aren't seen as "fitting." Keep in mind that each date will still have the grey box along its top; the template transclusion mechanism is preventing that from being shown on this prototype. perrow=4 seems to be most reasonable to both those who have wide computer screens and those who don't. perrow=2 seems to leave a lot of awkward whitespace on my wide monitor. Nevertheless, I'm interested in others' opinions. --Tim P 04:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The new main page has a two column layout, which gets broken by having apparent "Lists" of galleries, each with anywhere from 0 to 12 photos in it. To me, it breaks the continuity of the bottom of the page; it looks "messy" (to me). When I saw it in your design for the homepage, it just felt a little out of place (that is, it should get put in 2 columns as well). Then again. the version I put together has lots of vertical whitespace. This is where I lament the lack of standards support from all modern browsers, because something obvious like <div columns=X> is missing from all the standards. I am browsing with 17" 3:4 monitors at 1280x1024. PS. Either way, like I said before I think this is lots better than the current Main Page! David Souther 04:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm viewing on a 14-inch 1440×900 (wide) screen. My rationale for the bottom being one column is (a) I took it straight from Wikipedia's Main Page, and (b) It more effectively uses the real estate on the screen to show a wide variety of photos. I don't know, but there's something about the four-wide setup that I find "inviting," for lack of a better word. Another note, the two-column setup might work better if it matched the widths of the columns at the top of the page, but those are intentionally uneven, so any two-column effect might be diminished. --Tim P 05:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

My two aussie cents... I'm with Tim P on this one. The two column gallery seems clumsy - especially at the moment in the version given where there is alot of seemongly random whitespace. it is not clear which images match which days. (though I gather that gallery titles are missing in the sandbox versions, and that would help... I wonder though if the white coords box stands out a bit too starkly though now? (perhaps just tweaking the border to be not quite so thick?) --Nemo 09:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Playing with it a bit more, I really actually haven't been able to get anything I like better... so let's just encourage more people to post photos! :) If there were four or more photos for each day, that would add the regularity I think I'm looking for... wither way, it really comes down to aesthetics, which can be controversial anyway. Tim, great improvement, and I can't wait to see it live tomorrow ;) David Souther 13:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't realize the Australian and US dollars were so close to parity these days... I "toned down" the border roughly proportionally to the new font size, from 3px to 2px. I agree; it seems to fit in better. Is white a bit much? Should I tone down the color as well? --Tim P 16:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as the time to load, I'm pretty sure this wiki is set to barely cache anything, which is already a bit of a problem as the calculational templates become more heavily used. I can probably get hold of the admins and see what's up here... as Main Page both now and in the future should remain relatively static, and won't need to be regenerated every single time someone visits it... maybe just every hour or two, to keep the pictures fresh. --Tim P 04:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I got my numbers for the time from watching Firebug while refreshing pages. The current Main Page was averaging 200ms for the first HTTP request, and ~3 seconds to get all CSS, Images, etc. The ones in our sandboxes were taking ~400ms for the first request, and ~4 seconds to get everything after that. David Souther 04:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Again, it's the "everything else" that really shouldn't be taking much time at all. I don't deny that these pages take a while to load, but I'm fairly confident that somewhere in the long pipeline of data transfer, there's a caching issue that is the primary cause. --Tim P 05:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, ode to the intertubes, whose complex web of mystery and excitement leads to all sorts of technical challenges... There is a bit more templating on this version, so it might be a good idea to let the admins know so they can update their caching policy. Otherwise, as long as it's not taking over 1-3 seconds to start rendering, no big deal. David Souther 13:22, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Launch Delayed

Some problems have pushed back the lunch of this Main Page candidate until at least after I return from camp on 20 July. The coordinate automation template intended for use with this Main Page keeps timing out every time I try to save the real thing (probably a script-timeout issue when it comes to parsing the page). There are also the aforementioned caching issues. Hopefully someone (either me upon my return or someone else in the meantime) will direct a sysop's eye to these issues so that we can have a nice, new Main Page by the end of the month. At least, that's my wish. --Tim P 04:11, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I really like the proposed new Main Page. Hope to see it operational soon! --CJ 13:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I also really like it, hope it happens soon. --Kieran 10:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)