Category talk:Main Page

Would the thematic indices be better shown as a table, similar to Main Page Development Categories, Tabular version? LadyGeek 03:14, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * As long as the tables are easy to update, since this is a manually operated listing of categories and short descriptive elements. Blbarnitz 03:21, 3 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Sue, I formatted a table for the Financial Category page and placed it on the Portal Main Page test page for now. (I will create a new page for these so that it won't mess up the Portal Page presentation.} This version is good in that it maintains consistency with the Portal Main frame styling. However, the Portal Main has an index of links, and these category tables contain links to Main Categories, but then provides descriptive comments indicating what each category contains. The styling in the box, however, makes these descriptions indistinguisable from the front page links. I have made the links bold as one means of setting them off from text. Not sure if there is another solution to this problem. Blbarnitz 06:00, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Barry, you beat me to it. I was going to do the formatting for you. The overall problem is that, even if the category generation could be made completely automatic, it still needs manual intervention to put the topics in an easy-to-read format. I think that a lot of readers have problems looking at the default alphabetical category listing. Using your thematic format helps considerably.

On this page, you can make the list as long as you want as there are no size contraints. The portal must fit within a box.

With this format, I may go and modify your tables to use the same box header and footer techniques like the portal page. That way, all the same templates are used. If you want to change the colors or layout, all you need to do is change the template and everything follows. A basic principle of software design - make your functions generic so you can reuse them everywhere. LadyGeek 00:21, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

On second thought, the tables are just fine. I did a quick experiment in the Categories development area. Due to the variable lengths in each category, the boxes don't align to the bottom dimension properly. For the sake of simplicity, the result is visually less aesthetic. It's more work just to keep them aligned. LadyGeek 02:50, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

The page title has been made general, so I deleted "Financial Planning". LadyGeek 02:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the other page (and left-side navigation link) is titled Table of contents, should this page maybe be titled Expanded table of contents? --CyberBob 16:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This is the central root page of the entire wiki, so I do not think we can fiddle with the title without having to redirect every category listing in the wiki. I have added a text title to this category page. The table is a manual thematic grouping of the automated alphabetized wiki categories list which this root page automatically generates. The thematic table is a response to the main forum memberships' befuddlement at seeing alphabetized category lists (with no indication of what is inside), or whole lists of automated alphabetized pages with no thematic organization. . --Blbarnitz 17:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking more along the lines of just having the table on its own page entitled Expanded table of contents. Since it's a manual table, that wouldn't create any havoc. I was just thinking that someone looking at the Table of contents page would click the expanded link only to wind up at what might seem to them to be the wrong page, since its called Category:Main Page. It may not be a big problem. And either way, I'm sure a table of contents will be helpful to visitors. --CyberBob 17:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)