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Update: Admin Dashboard and Editor
I have some great news for you: Today we’ve removed the fixed light or dark theme on both the Admin Dashboard and the Editor.
It's important and necessary for you as communities to have your own look and feel. You have all worked really hard to define and make your wikis unique. And one good way to do this is through your own local color theming. So as of this morning, you'll see your Admin Dashboard and Editor pull in your wiki's customized colors.
For those of you who are new on the scene, here's some background: earlier this year we rolled out the Wikia Editor and the Admin Dashboard. Both of these features had a universal color theme (Admin Dashboard having both light and dark theming depending on the color of your wiki) which separated them as tool spaces from the rest of your wiki experience rather than pulling in the local theme customization. We originally did this because we thought this was an important visual distinction from the rest of your wiki for you as editors and admins.
So, why the change? Basically, the universal theming just wasn’t working for you (or us, to be honest). We know our contributors wanted a seamless theme experience across all sections of their wikis — not just the content areas.
We understand and realize that the benefits of this customization for you and your community are vital. You didn't like it. You told us why. And we agreed.
Enjoy your new/old digs!
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63 comments
Anonymous User-
White theme is maybe good for start but this wiki need some original theme that will remind on game, maybe something with violet-yellow pattern?
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sorry I thought this is castleville wiki...
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how do you make your background big instead of fix and tile
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I've recently been thinking about a creating quiz like the Founder & Admin Quiz to other wikis, but Sarah Manley said that the quiz is still a staff tool. Can anyone see if we can add it into the Admin Dashboard soon?
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Hi Sam, like Sarah said at this point it's still a staff tool...we're not ready to release it yet. We'll post about it when we do. Great idea to add it to the AD.
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why exactly is it just for staff?
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I always thought that was a dumb change. Anyone can tell the difference between a pencil and a screw driver.
---****--- Roads
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I think that it should be optional for wiki's to choose these features, rather than making it mandatory so they have to have a certain theme.
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I think you can still change it through CSS.
---****--- Roads
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Well, I like this. TY.
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"It's important and necessary for you as communities to have your own look and feel. You have all worked really hard to define and make your wikis unique" ANother way to do this is allow us to put code allowing for red cats in or common.js :P. Happy with the change though
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Another way to do this is to allow each wiki’s community to decide whether or not to activate the MessageWall.
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Very nice. While we're working hard to make our wikis unique Wikia is working even harder to make all wikis being the same. That's just Staff Inconsistency or let's tell that we allow customization on each wiki while we don't.
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CAP, it is just that the mixed messages are such a constant. Each wiki is encouraged to be unique, yet Staff drone on about wanting the experience to be the same across wikis. The concepts are mutually exclusive, are they not? <confused>
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Yeah, that's what I call a consistent inconsistency across Wikia.
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Jaw drops. Really? Wikia staff really doing changes the community wants.
- hits himself with a frying pan* i must be dreaming. *ouch*.
No... I actually am reading this right. Hooray for Wikia staff! /sarcasm
But to put it into nice perspective. Congratulations with the new course. I do hope you will continue to provide things which help the community improve the wikis even easier, more subtle, better, smoother and more fun. That said, this is a great improvement.
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YES!
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Best.Change>EVER!!!
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A good change.
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I liked the admin dashboard color thing. D: Is there a CSS class for the "General" and "Advanced" tabs that I can change the background for? And regardless, why not just be able to turn the coloration on or off from Special:WikiFeatures?
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I just left a note on your talk page. These tabs will be changing sometime soon, so the customization won't work at that point.
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Saw it, thanks.
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This is definitely a change for the better, and a long time coming, with the exception of the fact that the source mode editing window now inherits part of the wiki's theming. This, to me, is completely against the principle of source mode editing. But Eladkse kindly provided css code to put this back to normal, here. I have implemented this wiki-wide, if that violates some obscure ToU interpretation I'll have to be informed of that by staff.
Also, I think I should elaborate on "earlier this year we rolled out the Wikia Editor and the Admin Dashboard. Both of these features had a universal color theme (Admin Dashboard having both light and dark theming depending on the color of your wiki" - with the actual timeline of August 4th, Admin Dashboard released & dark theming promised, October 18th, light and dark theming implemented, November 30th, theme inheriting.
But on the whole, glad this has happened. -
I should probably also say that whatever has happened to the editing window is seemingly not inheriting the wiki's themes, but rather doing the blanket light/dark theme and making the background white/grey as appropriate.
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Hi Acer, Thanks for weighing in. Yep, you are correct on the timeline — I just made the blog post short & sweet just to get to the good news. As for the editor — you are not violating any ToU. So you're all good. For your next comment — I am not following you. I am seeing on my wiki that the editor (in both modes) is pulling in the wiki's theme — can you be more specific or send me screenshots w/ info via Special:Contact? Thanks!
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On w:c:chrisnolan, the theme is a cream background behind text, but the editing window in source mode has a white background. Yet on dark themed wikis it puts dark background on editing window, it would seem?
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I am seeing cream in both.
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Ah, I see what's happening. In light themed wikis, it darkens the background colour for the bits outside the editing window. ie, on chrisnolan it has cream inside window and dark cream edges (sorry, thought it was white inside). Presumably this is to distinguish between editing window and non-editing part. However on dark themed wikis, there's not really any noticeable difference between grey and dark grey, so the whole thing blends into one colour, leading to me wanting to remove it. As I say I think source mode editing should just be black on white, and I see what you've done to distinguish between input area and UI, but I don't think its working on grey-background wikis
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I am seeing a definition on all dark wikis I have checked, not a blend. If I am missing something, please get me a screenshot on my talk page. It sounds like you fixed this on 24 to make the editing area white though...Let me know if we need to discuss more.
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I like the black editing window on my wiki. It's black and green (Omnitrix symbol colors), and the white was really annoying in the editor. The gray was okay, but the window itself was still all white.
---****--- Roads
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We understand and realize that the benefits of this customization for you and your community are vital. You didn't like it. You told us why. And we agreed.
Glad to see that you only need 3 months and a half to realize that how bad idea was to have a fixed color for Admin Dashboard, after so many complaints since it was released and even members of the VSTF removed their sysop membership on community central just to be able to do their work efficiently
I hope next time you won't need so many time to realize your decisions are causing major trouble to users.
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So grouchy, but I generally agree.
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The "My Tools" menu seems to be going behind the right rail in the editing window. Tested on Chrome 17 (which may not be supported as a dev version) and Firefox 8.
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If it’s any help, I am not seeing that occur in Internet Explorer 9.
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888, I looked, but apparently my toolbar is not as long as your's? ;) So I am not seeing what you are describing on Avatar (I checked in Chrome & Firefox) — can you get me a screenshot or hit me up on chat?
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Yea, looks like my toolbar is longer. :P
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Thanks 888, I have filed a bug report.
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this would be great if it didn't do this. My browser is mozilla 3.5. Anybody wanna tell me whatsup?
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What about updating your firefox version to the latest one?
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I go to k12.com, a homeschool site. In order to go to school, my browser can't be newer than mozilla 3.5 :( That or the horrible fate of using internet explorer 8.0 O.o
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I just accessed k12.com using Firefox 11. I had no problems
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yes but it's different for highschoolers. and I login via the OLS login button in the top right corner.
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My school uses Blackboard which seems to be pretty much the same software as yours. It also tells me that only FF 3.5 is supported. I access it using 11 with no trouble at all.
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It's like your the god of everything internet! *marvels*
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I run an old 3.6.x version of Firefox just to see how the behavior changed since the latest version. I see very few new core or necessary features being added... just a version race with Chrome. I use the newest Firefox most of the time, though.
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Are you guys working on the bug that causes the background to change when you scroll down from the very top of a very large page ( Example :The Goldvane Trilogy
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I'm not seeing a background change when i scroll on that page. Can you be more specific about what you're seeing, and in what browser?
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I cannot see a change, either :(
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Could be browser specific...
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- coughIEcough*
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Your right, it doesn't do that on Google Chrome, but it does with Internet Explorer. It's rather hard to explain.
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Very nice, it looks better all around. The blend makes the page flow seamlessly into the editor.
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good. I had a dark theme, It wasn't looking too good. Thanks for changing this!!
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Indeed, this is great news. (:
