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Group and describe skins
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Description

In Preferences we see
Skin
Chick (Preview)
Classic (Preview)
Cologne Blue (Preview)
Modern (Preview)
MonoBook (default) (Preview)
MySkin (Preview)
Nostalgia (Preview)
Simple (Preview)
Vector (Preview)

In the file "HISTORY" we see: ..."Chick" skin for mobile devices...

I.e., each skin apparently has different goals. What needs to be done is
somehow getting these goals across to the user, while at the same time
keeping the list tidy.

One method would be tooltips with a blurb about each skin when the mouse
is upon it. However, text browser users need to be able to see the blurbs
too.

Or/and you could group the skins:
Moblie/PDA
Nerdsworth (Preview)
Holmesglug (Preview)
Artistic
Plushwaithe VII (Preview)...

No need to go hog wild like WordPress theme screenshots in their 'dashboard'. But
at least do add a word or two telling the differences between the skins.
You see the user currently has to click to preview each theme one by one, and by
the time he gets to the bottom, he has forgotten what the top one looked
like.

Or e.g., mention that they are grouped, say, in order of decreasing
"calorie content", so e.g., users of small devices would try the ones at
the bottom first.


Version: 1.16.x
Severity: enhancement

Details

Reference
bz19120

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 21 2014, 10:37 PM
bzimport set Reference to bz19120.
bzimport added a subscriber: Unknown Object (MLST).

I don't like this idea. I think it needlessly complicates things for users. When a user hears the term "skin" they think it's the visual style they wish to see when accessing the website. They should not be thinking of what medium it's on.

If we're producing skins designed for different platforms (ie: chick is for mobile, modern/monobook for desktop browsing), then we are going about skins in the wrong way. Ideally, we should design all skins so they degrade nicely to mobile and text browsers. I would think effort would be better spent improving skins across all our supported browsers, rather than targeting specific browsers with specific skins.