feedback on new wiki theme

[Connor Imes]

Jordan Mantha wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Matthew East <mdke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> Recently I've been developing a new theme which is intended to replace
>> the existing themes on the documentation wiki
>> (https://help.ubuntu.com/community). The intention of the theme is to
>> make reading the wiki easier for a user (so the interface should be
>> cleaner) and for an editor (so there is an editbar at the bottom of
>> the screen which follows the window as you scroll).
>>
>> This is a call for testing and feedback of the theme. I'd really like
>> to implement a similar theme for the development wiki at
>> wiki.ubuntu.com if the feedback is positive.
>>
>> To test the theme, log into the help wiki and go to the preferences
>> page (UserPreferences). Set the theme to 'ubuntunew' (you can easily
>> set it back later). Then just edit a few pages and see what you think.
>>
>> It still needs some work in terms of the fonts and rigorous testing
>> with non-firefox browsers, but I'd appreciate any additional feedback
>> that people have at this stage. Please send comments to me, or if you
>> are really keen, patches! The code is here:
>>
>> https://code.launchpad.net/~mdke/ubuntu-doc/helpwiki-newtheme
>>     
>
> This is a very nice theme and looks more professional and usable to
> me. My only complaint is that it's rather narrow on all my computers
> (widescreen laptop and LCD displays). It looks like we're losing an
> awful lot of screen real estate. Is it possible to make it a fluid
> rather than fixed width theme? http://www.ubuntu.com has the same
> issue. It ends up looking rather cramped on all my computers and more
> like a blog site (perhaps because of the ubiquity of some of
> Wordpresses past default themes :-) ).
>
> -Jordan
>
>   
I like the new theme as well, and agree that the page should not be 
statically sized.  If we want to implement the static size somewhere, it 
may be more appropriate for the official docs, not the community 
documentation (then it's more like reading a book or a manual).

It is easier to post about things that immediately bother me a bit, so I 
will do so now:
-The background shading is nice, but it only needs a little bit on the 
side, with the rest of the screen available for text and screenshots 
(when applicable).  Also, the shading is different in size from 
ubuntu.com, which I would not have noticed if I didn't view the two 
pages side by side.  Do we want it to match?
-I'm not entirely sure I like how the horizontal bars are missing in 
Title 1 headings, but I'm willing to give that a try,  I mention that 
because I believe they are useful for separation in a properly formatted 
page.
-I also noticed that the Tabs in the upper right are gone, so it feels a 
bit empty on that part of the page.  Will these be re-added?
-I think the Page History link at the end of a page should be in the 
non-moving footer.
-The "copyright" part of the footer seems a little awkward.  I think we 
can condense it so that there isn't whitespace between the two lines.  
We may even want to separate it with a small horizontal rule, perhaps of 
width slightly longer than the text, but not the full page width 
(details, details).  In the old theme the copyright footer had a 
different background color, which separated it from the page content and 
therefore made it less intrusive.

Ideas for improvement aside, I really like this theme - it doesn't 
really take any getting used to (which is good), and looks much more 
clean and professional than the older theme.  I really hope we can have 
this ready in advance of Intrepid.  Thanks for making this happen!

-Connor