Talk:Main Page


 * This page is for discussing changes to the Main Page. To discuss this wiki in general, please use the Community Portal.

Main Page now has inputboxes, HTML, CSS
I recently redesigned the main page. There are now inputboxes to create and search Wikihack articles. Everything is formatted into a table, but because I used so much HTML and CSS, the main page might now be difficult for less-advanced users to edit.

Wikicities:Help:Inputbox has information about the "create" and "search" inputboxes, in case you are trying to work on those. MetaWikipedia:Help:Table documents the table syntax. I use http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21 to find CSS for the "style" attributes of HTML tags.

Try contacting me at User talk:Kernigh if you have trouble editing the main page. --Kernigh 04:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Request for aid
Hi, I'm Vercalos over at the DnD Wiki, and I was wondering if someone here could write up an article on Nethack, and its connections with Dungeons and Dragons--75.3.252.2 07:07, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The links between NetHack and D&D are very deep, so it's not simply a matter of listing them. I've never played D&D myself, but from what I understand, it is NetHack's primary source, in terms of both mythology and gameplay. Of course we like to downplay that to avoid the wrath of D&D's current copyright-wielders :) --Jayt 22:26, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Protect?
I think the front page should be protected - it gets vandalized a lot and protecting it will be consistent with other wikis. Lotte 20:13, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * It isn't being vandalised all that much. If you're worried about it, you can set your preferences to email you when pages you watch are changed. See Wikia:Help:Main Page and Protection for reasons to not protect it. Angela (talk) 05:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I concur; IIRC it's only been vandalized two or three times in the last couple of months, which is a very small price to pay to have it remain publicly editable. --Jayt 10:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I protected the page from unregistered users. All registered users can still edit it, so I don't think we are losing anything? --ZeroOne 15:49, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Kernigh writes: Some MediaWiki communities popularily claim that newly registered users must wait for four days to be "autoconfirmed" before they do certain things, which might include the editing of pages protected against unregistered users and the uploading of replacements for existing files. This does not seem to be documented anywhere. However in fact I have just now registered an account called "Kernigh sockpuppet" but was unable to edit the Main Page here.
 * Meanwhile, I should mention that protection of the Main Page would not be "consistent with other wikis" because other wikis are not consistent. For example, http://wiki.t-o-m-e.net/FrontPage is a protected "immutable page" but MeatballWiki is not.
 * Unregistered or new users who try to edit the Main Page will see a link to Wikihack:Protected page, so I now create that page. --Kernigh 22:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

News
I added a news section, editable through Template:News. Things of interest that could be news:
 * New releases and ports
 * New 3rd party tools
 * New public servers
 * New NetHack articles in the media
 * Interesting DevTeam comments
 * Major new NetHack websites
 * Majorly notable ascensions
 * Wikihack milestones (1000 articles, 1,000,000 articles :-) )
 * Probably more...

I would support letting the news section slowly expand until it occupies the whole right column, pushing out the article creation and search boxes (the first is becoming less useful as more articles are created, and the second is redundant anyway). --Jayt 16:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Featured article?
Should we begin having a featured article every $TIME_INTERVAL (probably month)? A lot of the other Wikias (even some with far less popularity than this one) have featured articles. As for where to put it, I'd right-justify the monster block and put the featured article to the left of it (my stab at it). I recommend Dig for victory and Mjollnir as possible features. --Eidolos 03:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Kernigh writes: Yes, I think that featuring an article would much improve the Main Page! I do not like having it left of the monster block, because my usual browser windows seem not wide enough; in User:Eidolos/Main Page the featured article was jammed into a tall, narrow column. Also, I think that the featured article should be higher up, to attract those bored readers who know not where to start on a wiki as large as this. Thus User:Kernigh/Main Page is my attempt; I invite anyone to edit it. --Kernigh 03:51, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

moved from Wikihack:Community Portal

From User:Kernigh/Main_Page, I've created User:Jayt/Sandbox/Main_Page, which is one possible idea. The CSS is a bit sloppy - too much space is wasted on borders and margins - and I haven't spent any time on the colours. I think this design could work quite well; how does it look on a 1024x768 screen? And are the abbreviated role names a bit jargony? --Jayt 13:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, it is cut after the fourth line of the Mjollnir-text ("...lightning damage."). The roles could be expanded and divided to two rows; there's plenty of space for that as the header "Roles" and its "[edit]" link are on two different rows... But I don't know if that really matters. I just happen to like the current main page. --ZeroOne 14:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Kernigh writes: Here is how Jayt's design appeared upon my Macintosh. My usual Firefox windows seem to be 932x586 pixels. (Yesterday I was using Konqueror upon OpenBSD.) I wanted the featured article to be higher up, so I took a second screenshot after running a JavaScript based on the one that I programmed for http://oberin.wikia.com.

I have not tried it, but possibly the black "Hello, welcome to Wikihack!" thing might be made smaller by reducing margins or padding somehow. --Kernigh 02:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I've made several CSS tweaks that tighten up the layout: User:Jayt/Sandbox/Main Page. Again, the colours could use some attention from a fresh pair of eyes. I think this new revision is good: title, introduction, Roles, Items, Feature and News are all immediately apparent, even on a 1024x768 screen (that's apparent, not fully visible - it's enough that someone notices there is more, and then scrolls down). I've also created currentfeature for easy editing of the featured article. --Jayt 16:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Barring complaints, I will make User:Jayt/Sandbox/Main_Page the new main page on September 1st, so Mjollnir can have a full month in the limelight. --Jayt 23:24, 25 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I really don't like how everything's broken up. :( I'd vastly prefer User:Eidolos/Main_Page only with those nice colored boxes. My CSS-fu is lacking. --Eidolos 00:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * How about now? All the links are together. More is visible on a 1024x768 screen than I realised. --Jayt 13:17, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm.. it's certainly better. I'll approve. Though I still prefer template:overview, I figure I'm going to have to compromise. :) --Eidolos 16:32, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Headline suppressing javascript
To go with the shiny new Main Page, I think I will add this javascript to the main monobook.js file. It does the same as Kernigh's script above - buys us some extra space by suppressing the heading on the Main Page. Please let me know if there are any problems. --Jayt 23:04, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Monster ordering / colours
For those that haven't noticed, I've reordered the monsters on the main page to put monsters internally referred to as black at the head of their glyph range and adjusted them to use {<nowiki{</nowikiblack}}. Disagreements about the colour to be used for the template should be directed there, but if there are any comments as to what the ordering of the monsters on the main page should be I'm open to them. (I for one would be open to putting them in internal order.) -- SGrunt 19:03, 1 October 2006 (UTC)