Presentation advice

Bortas
Bortas
edited February 2015 in Campaign Portal Building
First off, take a look at the "main city":https://morwindl.obsidianportal.com/wikis/citadel-of-udkig my group is at; no need to read it, but just take a quick look at the massive amount of data I'm trying to push out into sub areas:

My idea is perhaps collapsing the lists, so they are only displayed when mouse over ("hidden section test":https://morwindl.obsidianportal.com/wikis/test).

All in all though, everything still feels.... unnatural and a bit tedious, any ideas?

Thanks for your thoughts,
-bort
"Morwindl":http://morwindl.obsidianportal.com

Comments

  • Maesenko
    Maesenko
    Posts: 325
    I think you might do streamline it by breaking most of the tables into two columns to shorten it up a bit, and just make a mark to denote visited/unvisited (an * for example).
    The places or people that require text could be left as is.

    I'd also recommend placing your Citadel map up closer to the top of the page, rather than down at the bottom. A legend would be necessary, of course (perhaps the numbers placed next to the items on the tables?).

    If you have pictures for the persons listed, use those and maybe their name beneath in place of a long vertical list. Possibly break them into a grid, a la the character pages?

    Just a few thoughts for now.

    _~Mae_

    ~Mae

    CotM Selection Committee

  • Bortas
    Bortas
    Posts: 645
    Good stuff Mae, I appreciate it. Working....

    -bort
    "Morwindl":http://morwindl.obsidianportal.com
  • Unknown
    I would also recommend that, with so much content, you include a sectional menu near the top of the page (or maybe even fix it somewhere on the page so that it remains visible). If you need an idea of what I mean you can take a look at my "Creatures Page":https://dragon-age-requiem.obsidianportal.com/wikis/creatures for an example. If you need any help getting it setup I can walk you through it as well.

    --
    Alex
    "Dragon Age: Requiem":https://dragon-age-requiem.obsidianportal.com/
  • Bortas
    Bortas
    Posts: 645
    Argh... I know I should... I'm loathe to do an HTML based menu; upkeep nightmare! Perhaps, if I figure out to do a good one that's nearly entirely CSS, I may consider doing it.

    For now, I'm going to finish implementing Mae's suggestion and see what I think of it. I'll throw up a link when I'm done.

    -bort
    "Morwindl":http://morwindl.obsidianportal.com
  • Bortas
    Bortas
    Posts: 645
    Okay, a second test put up: "test page":https://morwindl.obsidianportal.com/wikis/test

    This is only the geography portion, doesn't include the people... yet.

    -bort
    "Morwindl":http://morwindl.obsidianportal.com
  • Unknown
    edited February 2015
    There really wouldn't be much upkeep involved in it since the sections would not be changing all that often I wouldn't think (the content in them might, but not the section). So, for instance on that test page as an example you would have something like this:

    @|Taverns|Services|Government|@

    That would essentially go at the top of the page adding in whatever else you needed to cover the rest of the sections. Then, in the page content you would do this as you build the page section:

    @h4=. Breweries, Inns, & Taverns@

    Then you just do the content for the section like you have been and repeat that process as needed. As you can see, the menu only changes if you add a new section so really there is almost no upkeep to this kind of menu system, but it allows people to quick jump to the part they want on that page. There is no limit to how many sections you have, you don't have to name them sec1, sec2, etc (can be whatever you like really), and if you really wanted to you can link to those sections directly from other pages as well if you wanted (which can be pretty handy).

    To my knowledge, this kind of menu can't really be generated with CSS (probably with JS, but we can't do that here), so the only real option is to kick it into the pages that need to have one (long ones that have many sections like your cities). They would be unique to that page anyways, so not something you need to worry about copying from page to page so much.

    --
    Alex
    "Dragon Age: Requiem":https://dragon-age-requiem.obsidianportal.com/
    Post edited by Unknown User on
  • Maesenko
    Maesenko
    Posts: 325
    Well, it definitely condensed down nicely. Italics denote unvisited locations, and you've got a legend incorporated so they can find places on the map. Looks good so far.
    Side note: I don't see #20 on the map anywhere, though you have #22 on there twice.

    Aside from that, only adjustments I can think of for what you've already implemented would be a border or inset for the map, and possibly a scroll-over pop-up on the map, so when you scroll over a number a hidden box / alt-text appears stating what that is (and possibly make it clickable, though that might be excessive for now).

    _~Mae_

    ~Mae

    CotM Selection Committee

  • Unknown
    I was peeking at your test page via my smartphone just to get an idea of how it would react for you. The one thing I noticed is the effect of the mouseover for the residents doesn't work so great since the link is to an actual page. The picture popup comes up but the pages load makes you barely have time to catch it. You might consider getting a tiny little generic photo icon that you could position off to the side of the name and add the image hover effect to that for mobile users. You could even go so far to set it up as a special call that detects for a mobile device and then displays that icon only in those instances (since the effect works fine on a desktop or laptop without it). Just a thought for some potential mobile development on there as well, not sure how often your players will personally access the site from portables.

    --
    Alex
    "Dragon Age: Requiem":https://dragon-age-requiem.obsidianportal.com/
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