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Vector background gradient is slightly misaligned
Closed, ResolvedPublic

Description

The white starts fading down to grey too soon. You can see the tops of the tabs.


Version: 1.23.0
Severity: normal

Details

Reference
bz60943

Event Timeline

bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Medium.Nov 22 2014, 3:00 AM
bzimport set Reference to bz60943.

The gradient was last changed in Ie36708f32edf0d83a0be843c115ad82d8014e4e1.

The top can be moved down fairly easily, but for the gradient effect to not look so sudden, the gradient also needs more stops. That will require adding support for multiple stops to the mixin.

The stop should be at 50% to be aligned with the top of the vector tabs, as it was in the old PNG background.

Change 112025 had a related patch set uploaded by Bartosz Dziewoński:
Vector: Restore page-fade.png as fallback background-image for IE 6-9

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/112025

(The patch was actually uploaded by Erwin.)

Change 112025 had a related patch set uploaded by Bartosz Dziewoński:
Vector: Restore page-fade.png as fallback background-image for IE 6-9

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/112025

Rephrasing bug to be slightly more generic in nature. We don't need to restore the PNG per se, just make the design look consistent. Right now the main background no longer fades to white on top (because we fallback to solid grey now in absent of CSS3 support), but the tabs still use the PNG fallback. If we let those fallback in a similar manner it should no longer look broken to the user.

Current: http://i.imgur.com/x1nv6GT.png

What Krinkle said. Falling back to a solid colour is not a bad thing it actually also saves an unnecessary HTTP request.

The tabs work just fine with the IE filters. It's only the top that doesn't because it needs to line up properly.

In other words, break the Vector look for IE 6-9 completely? Sorry, not acceptable. It is one thing if there are visual discrepancies because older browser cannot be made to support newer features. But *this* change is *easily* implemented for older browsers.

Using the IE filter for the tabs is also a bad idea; it will make the text forcibly pixelated because it disables any font smoothing/cleartype for any text rendered on top of it.

Edokter what's broken? It still works right it just has a degraded appearance? Unless I'm misunderstanding...

As I said before this does introduce an additional HTTP request. So although it is easy to do I'm simply asking whether we should... is an additional HTTP request acceptable for a cosmetic fade in effect? What does the IE6 user gain?

I agree the filter is a bad idea.

Such degraded appearance is not acceptable when it is avoidable. I like the new technique, I really do. I just do not believe that it should be implemented at the cost of a considerable user base that do not support it.

It is not an 'additional' request; compared to the old method, you still save a lot of requests from newer browsers, only IE 6-9 (and very old other like Firefox 3.5) will still request the image. Also, some gadgets (OK, mine) rely on the image being present.

(In reply to comment #10)

Using the IE filter for the tabs is also a bad idea; it will make the text
forcibly pixelated because it disables any font smoothing/cleartype for any
text rendered on top of it.

Are you sure about this? I notice no difference in IE8, at least...

On the other hand IE (and windows in general) already has such poor general font-handling that I'm not sure I could notice such a change, because basically I'm looking at it and it all looks terrible.

Er. I don't know.

Oh, actually, I do see it in IE7.

I repeat in a different form. What value does the fade in effect give to the experience of an IE6 user. Why should I care?

(In reply to comment #15)

I repeat in a different form. What value does the fade in effect give to the
experience of an IE6 user. Why should I care?

What value does the fade, or, for that matter, any other visual skin style, give to the experience of any users?

Why do we even have skins?

(In reply to comment #15)

I repeat in a different form. What value does the fade in effect give to the
experience of an IE6 user. Why should I care?

The fact that you are even asking this is indication enough that you should not care at all and step away from this discussion.

I'm sorry you feel this way. I care about unnecessary HTTP requests on older browsers but you obviously don't.

You're right this conversation is becoming tedious so I will. Someone added me so I assumed my opinion was useful but never mind I obviously assumed wrong.

Maybe I came off to blunt. I'm going to reiterate my points:

  • Inconsistent presentation between browsers looks unprofessional
  • There is a really easy fix, so there is no need for inconsistency
  • Said fix is very easy to remove once no longer needed
  • Even with the png fallback, you still save over 85% of http requests
  • No maintenance is required as the Vector skin has been stable for 7 years
  • Using an IE filter introduces more bad side effects

Change 112025 merged by jenkins-bot:
Vector: Restore page-fade.png as fallback background-image for IE 6-9

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/112025

Restoring bug description, it seems the current one is intended for bug 60991.

This is fixed now, thanks.