Forum:Card article redesign

Following Forum:Set page redesign, I think card articles need reworking too. They've been following the same format for years and just got added to rather than redesigned as new stuff was documented on them. There are a number of problems with the current format:
 * The first thing you see when you open a page, is the image and the card's name in many languages. The image is fine, but most readers aren't going to be interested in more than the English name, which is already in the page title, the top of the table and in a lot of pages, the image. So most people are going to be scrolling through a lot of information before getting to what they're looking for.
 * Once you scroll past the image, which probably happens at the end of the names section, the left column of the article is blank. The default skin has a small enough content area as it is, so it's not desirable to waste another 300px. A lot of stuff on the right gets crammed as a result.
 * The card's stats, English lore and sets are probably the content the reader is most interested in. Sets is kind of lost in the middle of a sea of collapsibles.
 * The pages look terrible on mobile devices.
 * The "other card information" links are near the bottom. I don't have any evidence to back this up, but I think a lot of readers aren't noticing them. I think they should be somewhere more obvious.
 * The black box at the bottom is a bit of an eyesore. The cards limitation status(es) are also something the reader is probably most interested in and I think they're easy to miss in that box.
 * Long outstanding problem: We can't search by sets using SMW.
 * A lot of the properties for "card search categories", which are not applicable to the card have "No Entry" as their property. I'm sure there's a much better way of handling this.

I've taken a stab at designing a new layout trying to address as much of these as possible and make the pages a bit more visually appealing.

-- Deltaneos (talk) 02:13, August 21, 2012 (UTC)
 * At the top of the page, you have the image at 200px, with some of the more important information next to it. You don't need to scroll much to find it and it's not crammed. There's no wide empty column below the image after this section. It's a bit more colourful and somewhat matches the design of the cards and yes, it is slightly influenced by Konami's database. Statuses (Forbidden, Limited etc.) would be displayed in this section too if the card is anything other than Limited.
 * The aforementioned section has a set of tabs, split by language. Click a different tab, you get mostly the same information, but with the name, lore and image in the chosen language. I'm a bit unsure about how I've handled the extra Japanese name stuff. I don't think we'll go beyond English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean and maybe Chinese for this. Although I think we'll add a section for other names and make some distinction between official and unofficial names.
 * In the mobile skin, you'll only see the English version of the above section. Tabber does not work so well on mobiles.
 * I think the "other card information" links are much more obvious.
 * Sets (and everything below them) have the full width of the content area to play with. English and Japanese are set to show by default, while the other languages are set to hide by default. (They're all hidden in the current setup.) Set number, set name and rarity are nicely tabbed. The rarities full names are used now that we have space. The abbreviations we were using were unofficial and I think we should use the abbreviations from Konami's DB if we are to continue to abbreviate. I haven't actually wrote the code to add the set searchablity, but it should be doable.
 * Anime/manga appearances have room for both the episode name and number.
 * The "other versions" section for cards which are quite different in the anime, manga, video games etc... I've thought it was out-of-place to put another card table in the appearances page and that it would be too much to make separate pages for them. I thought it would be nice to give them some decent recognition. Anything in this section probably won't be given SMW properties, so that they don't mess-up search results.
 * A lot of the parameter names and input is the same. Some stuff has been changed for simplicity or having some standardisation across all templates. One of the things I like is for the Japanese name, you'll just use  There's no need for any separate parameters to split up the kanji and furigana.


 * Yeah, I have to agree with you on most of your points. The card articles are really cluttered, and the important stuff that most people want is somewhere in the sea of collapsible boxes, your design seems really simple and clean. Plus, with the current card articles, I think most people get flooded with information when viewing the page, and making it much more user friendly is something I would love to help with if I can. Although my one suggestion would be to have the various language tabs correctly spelled and capitalized, I think that makes it look more professional and reliable. -- - Dark Ace SP ( Talk )  19:33, August 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I must confess, I had a peak at your new design while you were creating it (I saw it on the Recent Wiki Activity) and I thought the Tabber function worked great, and separated the languages out nicely. I also thought the image was also a nice, manageable size, thus letting me agree with Ace's comment about the new design being user friendly. I think the current images are a tad large. -- Bobbles Talk 19:41, August 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * The card article pages are also really large with all that information they have, and Neo's design takes care of that. -- - Dark Ace SP ( Talk )  19:44, August 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Oh... dear. Well, I can't say I'm a fan. I think it'll take some getting used to if we do use it. I like the little box with the card information, but I don't like the rest of the page much. Also, how do we deal with cards that are OCG only, or part of sets not out in Japan yet in this version? Since it separates ENG and JPN information, we'll need a JPN section with English details, which may be a little messy. Also, I would argue that Japanese names have enough relevance to have more prominence on the page. I definitely think it's a well-presented and neat redesign, but like I said, it will take a long time to get used to.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 20:01, August 21, 2012 (UTC)


 * Just wanted to add that I'm a fan of the current way we list cards. Yes, it's old, and yes, it has issues, but isn't there a way we can redesign it and keep it more close to home, while still fixing the issues that you mentioned? Just a thought.--YamiWheeler (talk • contribs) 20:04, August 21, 2012 (UTC)