Template talk:Lead article with large image

I love this, very news website looking! --TUFKAAP 19:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is brilliant. We need to push this sort of dynamic page element further, have more of this sort of thing. --  Zanimum 21:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Appearance
Just FYI, I had a test run of the main page with this template in use at browsershots.org. The Internet Explorer screenshots didn't work but I used that to test personally. Notably, Firefox on Ubuntu displays all fonts as being much larger than they should be, so when editing this template's text remember to leave "Ubuntu space" &mdash; about 10-15% buffer space. Otherwise the text will wrap or overrun the bounds on Ubuntu. (Note that this may not be Ubuntu-specific, may be a Gnome issue in general; I'm not sure). -- IlyaHaykinson 21:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit this
I've been bold and added an "Edit this" link to the template (just after the Image credit link). Is this okay with everyone? This is a great idea, BTW. --Saxsux 22:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm torn; on one hand it's helpful, on the other hand folks that frequent the site will know how to find this template &mdash; it's also now linked from the Newsroom. I'd say let's keep it for now. :-) -- IlyaHaykinson 22:16, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, bad execution
I love this idea. With some tweaking it would work brilliantly. Right now, though, it looks ugly on the main page. It breaks up the flow of the page. We'd benefit from a shorter image, centered, with some sort of maximum height imposed. Otherwise this is going to turn into a big huge image portraying the main story with all the rest pushed far down the page. --Skenmy(t•c•w•i) 20:36, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree that it looks bad. A 450x330 image is not significantly bigger than the old Lead article template, but provides more impact.  The advantage over other skinnier images is that this will allow us to easily reuse photos that are commonly present on Flickr and the Commons -- i.e. images with a 4:3 aspect ratio.  If we went to smaller images it would mean that we would have to re-edit and upload each image we wanted to use.  If the re-editing/re-uploading problem was gone, however, I'd agree with you.
 * One thing that I would recommend is for interested parties to develop a framework that would allow in-wiki image cropping. This would allow much more creative uses of available photos.  -- IlyaHaykinson 21:15, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Some of the caption text needs work though, look at the Greek fire protest story, pretty atrocious text no good on the eyes, we need to set a text caption standard for light photographs and dark photographs. --TUFKAAP 05:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree..or at least good pictures that have good color we can adapt to better. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 05:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Breaking news
I really like this, and think it's a great idea; but do we have any provision for breaking news? In the event of an important breaking news story (a few examples off the top of my head could be things like 9/11, 7/7, Cumbria train crash, etc) while the story deserves to be on the front page, there might not be a relevant free image available for hours - or even days - after the story breaks, and nobody really wants to trawl through Commons looking for a semi-relevant image when they could be contributing to the article. Do you think it would be a good idea if we had some sort of generic "Breaking News" layout (maybe with the Wikinews Breaking News logo in the background)? --Saxsux 10:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I made Template:Breaking news lead; the contents of that should be copied by folks to this lead and modified if there is something going on. -- IlyaHaykinson 01:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Just noticed. I like it. Nice job :) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 17:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Small capitalization mistake
"Summer" shouldn't be capitalized. (Stupid security measures that won't let me edit semi-protected pages until 48 hours after my account has been created...) Stupid Corn 11:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it.  —FellowWiki Newsie 22:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Same idea as on http://www.daytondailynews.com/
The lead with the large image looks exactly like the one on http://www.daytondailynews.com/.  —FellowWiki Newsie 16:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Nice :) I like that one too :) DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 17:36, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Text overlay is broken
I'm reposting this here from the main page, since noone bothered to reply there, or otherwise take action so far...

The new style of displaying important news as title overlayed over image seems to be constantly broken here for me - see a sample screenshot. I'm using Opera 9.20, but I think it has more to do with my font selection (I use Verdana for all standard font families). Therefore, a reminder: when using absolute positioning for text, you must specify both font name and font size in pixels, so that you know how large exactly the string will be on the screen, and can resize other elements (i.e. the semitransparent background strip) accordingly. Otherwise there is always a chance that it will look broken for someone. Int19h 12:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry no one responded. I'll look into the issue (aka try and figure out what font we should use/do we have a standard font). Bawolff ☺☻ 05:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The images are still consistently broken here. As for the "standard font" - I'm afraid there's none, really. You can't just use a generic family, you have to use a specific font - and, obviously, there's no obligation on the client browser to have such one available; and if it doesn't, then the image is broken. The only proper way I see to do this is to rely on dynamic font downloading as defined by CSS2, but I'm not sure what browsers even support it. Int19h 17:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
 * They are not "consistently" broken. This is an entirely new format and quite a difficult one to learn. And if you are referring to the image or the like not working in Internet Explorer, that is because of IE's fault, and not ours, because their browser does not support the format. And it is, from what I know, impossible to make it work for IE...at least for the people who worked to create this lead.


 * We are all learning here. But we are learning to make your experiences here better. We welcome all comments for technical issues and such. And we love new and exciting ideas, but it takes time for everyone to learn how those things work. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 17:34, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * They are consistently broken for me in a sense that for every new lead article with image, the text overlaying the image is layed out wrong. And no, I'm not using IE. If you cared to read my top-level message, it clearly states that I'm using Opera 9.2. There's even a screenshot which makes it absolutely clear! It also details the technical reason for brokenness: absolute positioning used to lay out text without explicitly specifying the font family, which is a big no-no, since it's inherently unportable (you don't know how large the text is going to be on my screen, so how can you define its position and be sure it does not wrap or overflow?).
 * As for the thing not working in IE - as I understand, the problems with IE had to do with the ticker, not the image itself. What I'm talking about is an entirely different problem - have a look at the screenshot. It can and does manifest itself in any browser - it all depends on the user's font settings. Anyway, given that more than 80% of all users viewing this site are going to use IE, then anything that breaks IE to the point of being unreadable is unacceptable (but again, as I understand, the ticker issue is not like that). Int19h 07:20, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

On to constructive suggestions. I've investigated the support for auto-downloading of fonts in major browsers, and, unfortunately, it's not a good cross-platform solution. The only modern browser which still supports it is IE. Netscape 4 used to support it, as well, but Netscape 6 dropped it, and Mozilla followed suit. No idea about Opera & Konqueror/Safari, but if Firefox can't handle it, it's not like it matters. Another idea is to use SVG, and let MediaWiki generate PNG as it usually does. This effectively guarantees precise layout on any target browser/platform, but I do not know if it is even possible to make an SVG template. Can someone clarify this? Int19h 07:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats not possible with mediawiki (without extentions, which probably isn't happening). We could use javascript to generate svg but thats a firefox and opera only solution (although i've heard that vml is close enough to svg that that might work, I really don't know enough about the subject and sounds like it'd be extremly hard to code). We could use some other javascript image solution (aka canvas or Java applet drawing) but they all have their downfalls. I think this is the best solution at the current time. The only other possible solution I could think of is someone making a mediawiki extention that allows image overlays ( base=foo.jpg img1=bar.jpg img1coords=12x4 ..., but that is way way beyond my experiance.) All font-family and font-size should be specified exactly and font-size should be specified in absolute units. Bawolff ☺☻ 05:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to make a jpg/png image with the headline so it works on all browsers, as unfourtunately not everyone uses firefox --User:Anonymous101 (I would prefer it if you replied via the email link) 21:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
 * yes (sort of). You can, but it is not the easiest or the most convienent thing to do. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Al Gore photo too wide!
As the title says. On 1024x768, you end up with a horizontal scrollbar. It's only a few pixels, but maybe the image ought to be cropped or resized? --62.254.220.101 18:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Change
I hate it...because its already complicated enough and now I have to relearn everything about it...if its going to be like this, then we need the same options like text size ect...and I don't know color codes...words are easier IMO. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 12:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree, this is really complicated and sets the treshold rather high to edit it, but than again it looks really nice if you put some work into it.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Photo
Is not it would be better to use this photo? Where Cristina celebrate the election results with Kirchner


 * Yes it would have been good to, a bit late now. I'm not entirely convinced of the OTRS ticket, it doesn't specify which cc-by license applies. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 22:48, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

11 Dec
Has anyone got a problem with me replacing the Breaking News Image with an appropriate image. If not, I will change it soon. Or of course you can change it. If you have any problem please contact me via my talk page so I will be told when I recieve it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Anonymous101 (talk • contribs) 15:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I suggest using the image below but am searching flickr and commons for a better alternative. --User:Anonymous101 16:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

No better alternative found, please change if you find it. --User:Anonymous101 16:27, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Heath Ledger photo (January 22, 2008)
Is a copyvio. See [http://www.wireimage.com/GalleryListing.asp?navtyp=SRH&str=Heath%20Ledger&sfld=C&sevntI=2776 Photo by Kevin Mazur, 2007-11-13. &copy;Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com. Photo ID 15134415]. Lupo 12:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Editing this
How do I get permission to edit this? Diligent Terrier 18:44, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Any registered user after about two days should be able to edit this. Bawolff ☺☻ 06:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, thanks - now I see that I can. :) Diligent Terrier 22:52, 11 February 2008 (UTC)