Memory Alpha
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Memory Alpha

In addition to global Fandom styles and scripts, the layout of all Memory Alpha articles is controlled by a variety of local CSS and JavaScript pages which can be edited by administrators: MediaWiki:Common.css, MediaWiki:Common.js, and MediaWiki:ImportJS control the FandomDesktop skin while MediaWiki:FandomMobile.css controls the FandomMobile skin. On top of all that, pages in the MediaWiki namespace are used to specify text and other content of the page interface, while various templates and style guidelines exist to standardize Memory Alpha's look and feel.

This project page was a place for the community to suggest and discuss possible changes or additions to the layout of this site. All discussions held here are recorded below as a historical record – please do not add any further comments. New proposals should be made and discussed at Ten Forward - Layout.

Special:AllMessages[]

I never used Special:AllMessages for anything, but the colors are... urgh. Make it black! --Memory 21:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Done by copying parts of the MA/de CSS, where this was already fixed. -- Cid Highwind 22:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

New TOC design[]

NOTE: Two temp images removed. -- Cid Highwind 14:05, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The image to the right shows the style I now use in my personal stylesheet for the automatically generated content tables. Changes are:

  • Border is solid instead of inset (minor).
  • Font size is slightly smaller, subsection have less indentation.
  • Links are not underlined.
  • Most obviously, different sections are separated by a horizontal line.

Combined, I feel that these changes make even big TOCs less obtrusive, while at the same time increasing readability. Does anyone have further suggestions, or would object to making this a sitewide change? Note: All changes are optional and could be implemented independent of each other. Everyone can check out that design for him-/herself by copying my CSS file. -- Cid Highwind 19:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a great improvement to the current TOC, especially in cases of long, multi-segmented articles. --Aurelius Kirk 19:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

To the right is an image of the current TOC, uploaded by Vedek Dukat, which reminded me of something: Please don't assume that the image above will be exactly what the new TOC will look like for you. Different OS, browsers, browser settings, installed fonts etc. may lead to slightly different results. -- Cid Highwind 20:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I like it. Truth-be-told, I never had a problem with the TOC table as it was before, but I can definitely see the advantages of the updated version. I agree, it looks less obstrusive and more readable. I support the new table format. To quote a certain bald-headed starship captain, "Make it so." --From Andoria with Love 00:11, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Changed it to the new style. Further comments or "bug reports" welcome :) -- Cid Highwind 22:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Personaly i think the size should be increased a bit as i find it a bit hard to read.--Mafeu 14:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Returned to original size. If there turns out to be a consensus either way, the rest can still use their personal css file to override that setting. Please comment here if you do. -- Cid Highwind 14:44, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I saw its new form now for real and I must say I don't like it. I find the horizontal lines between the different sections to much. They attract to much attention and split the overview of the TOC. A TOC to me should be simple and easy to view at the first glance. (thats why the numbers are there) To me its not a TOC any more but some strange mini paragraph with sections in it. If it becomes standard please place the appropriate CSS code, by with users can reverse it for themselves, on a seperate page so they don't have find the proverbial 'needle in a haystack' to reverse it. I don't have a problem by removing the underlineing of the links, I do that already myself anyway. -- Q 19:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
The only thing I don't care for is the lack of underlining. All the other links in the entirety of everything Wiki are underlined. Even though these are only links to sections of the same page, it still bothers me that they aren't underlined. -Platypus Man | Talk 20:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Color[]

  • Use a slightly darker color for the page background - should increase readability. -- Cid Highwind
  • Apparently it is possible to use different background colors for pages in different namespaces - should we make use of this? -- Cid Highwind
  • External and Interwiki links could be colored differently from standard wiki links. -- Cid Highwind
  • Other colors for links: dark blue and glaring red on dark grey are sometimes hard to read. -- Cid Highwind
  • The table on Special:AllMessages needs to be checked, remove background color. -- Cid Highwind

Random thoughts[]

  • Change most border styles to "solid" - inset/outset often looks ugly. -- Cid Highwind
  • Change the arrow on Special:RecentChanges to something that better fits the MA theme. -- Cid Highwind
    • Along the same lines, I've long thought we should change the "magnify" image to something more "Trekish". — THOR =/\=
  • Remove the Wikicities logo from the internal search field. The IE can't show it properly (transparency didn't work and if it works [with Opera], it's not readable because of the black background) and we have the same link at the bottom with a better logo. --Memory
  • The Wikicities logo is all but invisible in Firefox or Opera because of the transparency, but the Google logo looks horrible. --Vedek Dukat Talk | Duty Roster

Bottom margin[]

Currently, tables on Memory Alpha have no bottom margin, which looks bad when a table is right above text. The same is true for <pre> tags. I recommend a bottom margin of 15px for both tables and preformated blocks of text. To test what this would be like, add the following to Special:MyPage/common.css:

table.grey,pre{
  margin-bottom:15px;
}

For implementation for all users, an admin should add the above CSS to MediaWiki:Common.css. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 18:21, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Thoughts, anyone? 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 22:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Update: I've done more testing and found that 24px is lots better than 15px. So, here is the text I propose be added to the site CSS:

.grey,pre{
  margin-bottom:24px;
}

Thanks, 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 18:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The proposed change has been implemented. Thanks, Renegade54! 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 01:19, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

LCARS interface[]

Okay, I've looked all over and I can't believe nobody has suggested an LCARS/Okudagram style layout. (Literally, I feel like a real noob suggesting it!) The whole website, I mean, but especially the navigation side bar and the page top. It seems natural to me that the Federation's largest data repository would have an LCARS interface. Has this never been suggested? More to the point, wasn't an LCARS layout considered at this websites inception? Or is there some limitation to Wikia websites that makes this impossible? :) -- Joe

Currently, it is possible to loosely base the look off LCARS, but since Wikia wikis are about to change their default skins, I'm not sure it's going to be an option anymore. - Archduk3 16:36, September 15, 2010 (UTC)
In fact, this has been suggested before. However, ask a usability expert about an interface like what we've been presented as LCARS, and you might find out that it isn't really usable at all - especially not in a web site context. This, the fact that it would be hard to achieve with Wikia/Mediawiki restrictions, and the fact that the result would look somewhat "fannish" have prevented any work in that regard. :) -- Cid Highwind 16:43, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

Redux[]

Well, Fandom's customization policy would obviously prevent us from making the website look like the LCARS interface globally, but if, as I have suggested elsewhere, the Gadgets extension is enabled on Memory Alpha, an LCARS theme could be made as a gadget that logged-in users can enable if they so desire. I don't have time to come up with all the CSS for this right now, but I'll get to work on it as soon as I can so I can show people what it would look like. Stay tuned! (PS: I know this discussion has been dead for quite a while, but I think an LCARS interface would be an awsome idea if it were optional, so I'm leaving this comment so this idea doesn't die before we get a chance to see if it could work. LLAP!) 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 16:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I've created the basic styles and structure. If anyone wants to test it out, simply add

(removed)

to Special:MyPage/common.css. Please bear in mind that it is very much a work-in-progress and I intend to make major revisions at some point down the road; any suggestions people have are welcome. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 02:00, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, Memory Alpha: LCARS Theme, Version 1.0.0, is officially complete. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment them, but I think this is about all that I can think of, so unless one of you thinks of something, the CSS is finished. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 21:47, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

It doesn't look terrible, but the colors need some work and the MA logo definitely needs to be included.–Gvsualan (talk) 03:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

I've let the MA logo display.

The colors I use are from the LCARS seen in Star Trek: Picard (I got the hex triplets from Andrew Jarvis's site). However, there have been several different color schemes used with LCARS over time. Individual users can change the colors by adding something like this to their personal CSS:

:root{
  --color-one:<hex triplet>;
  --color-two:<hex triplet>;
  --color-three:<hex triplet>;
  --color-four:<hex triplet>;
  --color-five:<hex triplet>;
}

However, if you think a different color scheme should be used by default, which one would you suggest: the "clasic" color scheme used in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager; the blue color scheme from Star Trek Nemesis; the orange theme from Star Trek: Lower Decks; or one of the two "legacy" themes used in the early seasons of The Next Generation?

Another option is to have multiple color scheme gadgets, separate from the main LCARS gadget. That way, a user could choose between various standard color schemes, one for each of the above, for instance. If you think this is a good idea, I'll create those so you can test them out.

Thanks for the input! 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 23:01, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

So . . . does anyone have a preference for which of the options I have suggested we should carry out? 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 22:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, I've created several separate CSS color file, each for a different color theme. Options are the "classic" theme, the Nemesis theme, the Picard theme, and the Lower Decks theme. When one of these is combined with the main CSS file, it transforms Memory Alpha into an LCARS interface of the chosen style. My proposal is that this be made into several gadgets. Each gadget would use the main CSS file plus one of the color files.

Thoughts, anyone? Feedback is welcome! 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 01:15, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

This has been implemented by Dennis; if anyone wants to suggest further changes, you can do so here. 🖖 Mr. Starfleet Command (talkcontribs) 23:12, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

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