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Since the anime started airing recently and we don't have infoboxes for them, I decided this would be an optimal time to bring this up.

About a year ago, Wikia introduced portable infoboxes. As the name suggests, they're portable - they would appear just fine regardless of the device you're using. I propose that we change all of our current infoboxes (which are more or less meta-tables) to portable infoboxes. I've migrated the current character infobox in my sandbox, and it can be seen in action here.

Since this wiki's infoboxes are not complex at all, it was quite easy to migrate. The color scheme of the infobox is decided by the wiki's color scheme, but it can be changed with CSS. I've reworked the color scheme with shades of brown to match the notice templates and the main page. Also, almost every Ace Attorney official website uses that color scheme, which makes me wonder why this wiki is stuck in blue (maybe?) - but that's a topic for another time. Anyway, here is a screengrab of how the modified infobox looks. You can recreate that for yourself by pasting this CSS here.

A few things:

  • Like the current infobox, the first two sections - "Aliases/nicknames" and "One-off nicknames" - are collapsible and are collapsed by default.
  • The infobox incorporates the tab feature for images, which was brought up for discussion recently.
  • Portable infoboxes come with themes. This essentially means that a single infobox can have several different color schemes on different pages. This wiki uses something similar for organizations, but I propose that we use this for characters too.
    • Different themes based on organizations? Like, Fey clan → purple; attorneys → blue; prosecutors → maroon; detectives → brown, and so on.
    • Different themes based on the games? AA/JFA/TT → blue; AJ → red; DD → yellow; AA6 → blue (/any other color of a prominent character); AAI → pink-maroon; DGS/PLvAA → brown.
    • Character-specific themes for characters with similar color schemes? Although that would amount to a lot of custom CSS.
    • Or we could just scrape off the idea and have a single color theme for different infoboxes.
  • Maybe use horizontal groups somewhere in episode/trial infoboxes?
  • Slightly off-topic: we could use Lua to create a navigation for the anime/game episodes.

Please leave your questions and comments below. 限界 09:18, May 6, 2016 (UTC)

Bumping in hopes that this would get noticed. 限界 15:03, May 10, 2016 (UTC)
Sorry it's taken a while to get around to replying to you. It's good to see you fiddling around trying to improve templates and the general look of the wiki. It's very much appreciated! :)
My initial thoughts are:
  • The tab feature for profile images looks great. I like it a lot.
  • Colour scheme-wise, perhaps by organization/job might be the easiest option? However, by game is also very appealing. When I was fiddling about with changing the episode navbox, I used the following for each game:
    • PW: AA - black (#000000)
    • PW: AA: JFA - tan (#AD8554)
    • PW: AA: T&T - dark blue (#174276)
    • AJ: AA - red (#731821)
    • AAI: ME - burgundy (#854B61)
    • GK2 - sandy brown (#BCAF85)
    • PW: AA: DD - light blue (#4562A7)
    • DGS - dark green (#353F34), although sepia might be another thought
    • PL vs. PW: AA - taupe (#483C32)
I guess that would make PW: AA: SoJ dark yellow or gold? But this is just me throwing ideas about. One of my concerns regarding the "by game" option is whether it would be by the character's first appearance or their most recent appearance? To be honest though, maybe using the current court record-inspired colour scheme for all of the character infoboxes might not be a terrible idea...
  • I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "horizontal groups" or using Lua. Could you clarify for idiots like me?
  • I've been thinking for a while that having the character's name in other languages right near at the top of the template is beginning to look a little out of place. Anyone else think it's a little odd to have that sort of out-of-universe stuff there? Maybe we should move it nearer the bottom (with the possible exception of the fan patch names for GK2 characters)?
  • Another thing I've been thinking about is whether or not more sections need to be collapsible? Maybe all of them could be, with the important ones open by default? Also, following on from my previous thought, maybe all of the "out-of-universe stuff" (i.e., localized names and actors, and maybe leifmotiff and debut episode) could be in a collapsible table at the bottom that is closed by default... Again, just thinking aloud here... - Strabo412 (talk) 15:43, May 12, 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for taking the time to reply! :)
  • The only issue with adding color schemes based on organizations/jobs is overlapping. For instance, Mia Fey would have both the "Fey clan" and "defense attorney" themes. But that could be resolved by picking the dominant one. It's a lot simpler than the games one, yeah.
  • I really like most of the colors you've suggested for the games. The only ones that I'm confused with are PW: AA and JFA: was there any specific reason for picking those colors? Also, sepia (or maybe a lighter, paler shade?) would definitely better than dark green. I'd personally go with the character's first appearance for by-game classification, but it could also be the one with most in-game appearances or how much influence it wields over the character's story. I'm not sure about the current court record-inspired theme; it looks too bland, but maybe that's just me.
  • Of course! :) By "horizontal groups," I meant something like this: several items in a single row rather than multiple columns. This can surely be incorporated into some of the infoboxes to lessen their height. Lua can be used for creating navigation links. Like for instance, Turnabout Samurai would list Turnabout Sisters as "previous episode" and Turnabout Goodbyes as "next episode." What Lua would do is essentially remove the need to fill in these values. See this page foe a live example. The infobox invoked this module and populates the navigation.
  • This bugged me too, so it's good to know I'm not the only one. The "Names in other languages" can definitely be moved above "Miscellaneous."
  • After getting some suggestions from a few people, the general complain about the infobox was that it was really long. Collapsing a section or two would surely with help that. 限界 22:21, May 12, 2016 (UTC)
No worries! :)
  • I can't really think off the top of my head of any examples of overlap that don't have an obviously dominant choice. The organisations/jobs does seem more like it's the best option. However, part of me does still like the idea of the game-based one, I'll admit. The problem with using the organisations/jobs option is that most characters will still have to use the court record-inspired theme. Unless you were thinking of combining the two; using organisations/job where possible and using game for the rest?
  • The colour choices come from this mess I tried to work on for a while, with most of those coming from a now deleted template and the modified version the user who made said template was working on. The colour choices are mostly from the background colour used for box art (for example, the Japanese box art for PW: AA uses black and JFA uses something vaguely close to my choice). The dark green for DGS was just nicked from the aforementioned template (although sepia does seem like a better choice for a game based in the past), while PL vs. PW: AA comes from this template I made for the game using an approximation of Layton's colour scheme.
  • Horizontal groups do sound like a good idea. Using Template:CaseData as an example, would it be something along the lines of grouping together dates, courtroom, and presiding judge; defense team leader, defense team assistants, prosecutor, and defendant; and victim, time of death, weapon/cause of death, and verdict? That could save a fair old chunk of space...
  • Ahhh... I've seen the sort of thing Lua does on various wikis, I just didn't know what was behind it. Having something at the bottom of the infobox that lists the previous episode, the current episode, and the next episode was another thing I was wondering how to do, but never pursued. This is definitely something worthwhile doing in my eyes. Actually, it might also be worthwhile listing what the previous and next episodes are chronologically as well. For example:
Turnabout Memories
Episode order:
Previous: Farewell, My Turnabout
Current: Turnabout Memories
Next: The Stolen Turnabout
Chronological order:
Previous: Turnabout Beginnings
Current: Turnabout Memories
Next: The First Turnabout
On the other hand, maybe I'm overcomplicating things... :P
  • Another thought I had was that combining "friends" and "affiliates" might also be a good shout; there have been arguments before about whether or not some character is a friend or not of some other character and it seems like it's far more trouble than it's worth.
  • I also think the actor section of the character infobox might need to be tightened up a bit at some point... - Strabo412 (talk) 23:25, May 12, 2016 (UTC)
  • Using the two together is a great idea! We could have themes for organizations/jobs and game themes for characters don't fit into the former type.
  • Ah, that makes a lot of sense now. Most of them are usable as is, but my main concern lies with PW: AA: black seems a bit too "off" for that game, at least.
  • Those are some great groupings! I'm glad you agree with the idea. :)
  • Perfect! I, too, was thinking about having "Episode navigation" and "Ace Attorney chronology" sections. And it's quite simple, really! :D All that would change for the chronology one would be the order of appearance of episodes. Everything else would be the same.
  • Combining the two would only result in a big right row for some characters and I'd prefer avoiding that. Another idea would be to merge the three rows into a single one spanning over two columns and separated by modified <hr>s. Something like this.
  • I have no opinion on the "Actors" section. As long as it sticks with the other out-of-universe info, I'm fine. 限界 18:41, May 13, 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to start with my thoughts no this topic generally before getting to my thoughts more specifically on the visual designs of our wiki's infoboxes.

Over the past few months, I browsed various Wikia wikis on a phone (i.e. using the mobile skin) and found that a lot of infoboxes broke or spit out wiki code as junk text. Our character infoboxes in particular were positioned at the bottom of each page (at least, that's what was going on the last time I checked), though in the past they'd be positioned correctly, but the collapsible elements didn't work. I also found that the main page was messed up under the mobile skin. I wondered whether we could have the site use different wiki markups depending on the skin. I never really ended up asking around about it, instead using the mobile main page editor (which apparently is only available to admins for some reason, and doesn't show up on history / recent changes) to make a mobile version of the page.

After this, I considered converting our templates, particularly the character template as it's so ubiquitous. However, from what I saw in infoboxes that were converted to the infobox markup, certain visual features were lost in the transition. I again considered whether it was possible to change the wiki code depending on the skin that is used, or whether the look of the template could otherwise be retained on desktop skins while still using the infobox markup. So this brings me to this forum thread. Generally, as far as changes in appearance go, I just let whomever is working on and discussing such matters decide what direction to go in. In this case, though, I suppose the questions to ask are:

  • What visual elements do we want to retain from the current infobox, and what elements do we want to change?
  • What aspects of the changes between this infobox and the current infobox are due to preference, and which are due to things just getting lost in translation?
  • Is it worth trying to retain elements of the current infobox?

As a reference, the current infobox "ecosystem" is taken from the Final Fantasy Wiki's character infoboxes, which also got converted recently. From what I can tell, the left column background colours were retained, but the rounded corners were lost. Also, the title boxes have the relevant game's logo on them, which I don't think was there before. I just thought that this was worth mentioning to have a better idea of what exactly our options are for the actual migration to the new markup.

I might comment on the specifics discussed so far at a later time.

capefeather (talk) 21:49, June 4, 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I definitely agree with using more collapsible sections and perhaps merging the friends and affiliates. capefeather (talk) 22:37, June 4, 2016 (UTC)

Thought I'd put in my two cents:

  • The tab feature looks really good. Although, even though I was the one who suggested using years for the tab titles, I'm starting to think using that character's age would be better (i.e. "Age 21", "Age 24" etc. for Phoenix). This is because the years don't mean anything to people who aren't familiar with the AA timeline (which is probably most people). Also, the question of which portraits to use for past versions of characters who have more than one artwork should probably be subject to voting.
  • I don't think it's absolutely necessary to have more collapsible sections, but if we do add them, the most obvious candidates would be actors and names in other languages, since they're not as relevant as other sections and take up a lot of space. One thing that bothers me is that nicknames/honorifics in other languages (i.e. Naruhodo-san, Naruhodo-kun, etc.) are uncollapsed, which seems silly when the English nicknames, which are more relevant, are collapsed. However, I think the leitmotif/debut episode should remain uncollapsed, since it takes up very little space anyway. Also, it should go without saying that occupation, associates and biological information should be open by default. You seem to have used a smaller font too, that would definitely help reduce the infobox size.
  • I'm fine with any of the color schemes you proposed, though I would suggest using green for detectives. If we use the game-based scheme, the colors Strabo suggested seem pretty good, but maybe PW: AA characters could have gray instead of black; it's close enough and looks better.
  • I'm against merging the friends and affiliates, to be honest. It's true that there's a gray area in some situations, but it doesn't happen nearly often enough to warrant such a big change, IMO. It would just result in a huge and confusing affiliates section (imagine how big it would be for Phoenix), not to mention that it would entail having to edit every single character page.
  • As for the episode infoboxes, having the next/previous episode (in both play order and chronological order) is a great idea. It would both look good and help with navigation.

Bluebully (talk) 01:18, June 7, 2016 (UTC)

Revival[]

I'm kinda sad to see nothing came of this, since it all sounded like good ideas. Bumping this topic in the hope we can revive the conversation. - Strabo412 (talk) 00:02, November 1, 2016 (UTC)

This is probably a couple of months later than I should have gotten back to this, given that we might have been able to take advantage of the increased traffic due to the release of SoJ, but it's pointless to dwell on that now. Right now, I think I'll focus on the Character and Place infoboxes, because I believe they're the easiest and most urgent ones to address. CaseData brings up its own questions...

Anyway, for me the primary reason to convert these infoboxes, is to make them function well on the mobile skin. I don't know how familiar everyone is with how the portable infoboxes work on mobile, but suffice to say that it's partially collapsed, only showing the top chunk of info. I think that the info on the collapsed infobox should be the most important, or at least of great importance, so I find that the current ordering of info isn't ideal for that, namely the nicknames being the first thing to come up, and in some cases, taking up the whole collapsed space (see the mobile preview of Slyst's sandbox example to see what I mean).

A lot of time has passed since this was brought up, and though this thread wasn't brought up in the news, I do think some form of the changed infobox should be implemented very soon at least for Character, because most if not all of the users who would have wanted to contribute to the discussion have probably done so already. I'm thinking we make the shift now, and any lingering feedback and additions could still be made here. The plan is to implement what Slyst has in the sandbox, except:

  • the nicknames and names in other languages are moved between associates and actors
  • associates, actors, and names in other languages are collapsed

capefeather (talk) 22:44, November 22, 2016 (UTC)

Gah! I completely forgot about adding it to "News"! Oh well, any thought about the other changes suggested here? - Strabo412 (talk) 22:56, November 23, 2016 (UTC)
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