TaRapedia talk:Formatting/Images

Image filetype

 * The following section has been moved here from User talk:TonyV

I see you [TonyV] have uploaded an item icon as PNG. Shall we make PNG our standard file format for icons? I guess you're aware that background transparency doesn't work for IE6 users (which are still many, more than 30% of all users). Furthermore PNGs don't scale well. I know PNG are supposed to be superior, but frankly I'd rather stick with JPG as our standard. --Tetris L 11:58, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * The following reply has been moved here from User talk:Tetris L
 * I also saw your message about PNGs, and I've tossed and turned over this several times before, and I definitely think that PNGs are the way to go for small and iconic images. JPGs, while great for larger images, are just too lossy for that kind of small detail, and don't have an alpha channel.  I have two big things against GIFs: the colors are a 256-color indexed palette that really sucks, and the transparency isn't implemented as an alpha channel but as one of the indexed entries in the palette (i.e. there's no way to do anti-aliasing on a GIF).


 * Maybe we can put a button for Firefox, IE7, and Opera in a template and put it on the front page and on image pages. I'm not really trying to push people into getting a new browser, and I detest "This site best viewed with..." banners, but the simple fact is that IE 6 and earlier are just plain broken when it comes to displaying images correctly, and we really need that alpha channel to work correctly for reasons that have to do with what I want to e-mail you about.  ;-)


 * There are IE hacks to get PNGs to display correctly, but I haven't seen it implemented in MediaWiki. (I don't want to state this as fact, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I seem to remember someone at MediaWiki saying that they explicitly chose not to support it for some reason.) --TonyV 22:18, 25 June 2007 (EDT)


 * The following two replies has been copied here from TaRapedia talk:Community Portal


 * The native resolution of the item images is 64 pixels x 64 pixels, and they do have an alpha channel. For best results, I think we need to use it in PNG files. Yes, this means that IE users who haven't upgraded to IE 7 yet will see a gray box background instead of transparency, but 1) that's not so bad, and 2) I don't want to sacrifice the quality of the articles or expend a lot of time and effort on broken browsers. As time goes on, fewer and fewer people will be affected. --TonyV 09:37, 26 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I've got no general problem with 64x64. My only comment would be that in some places 64px is much too large. Check the usage of the template, for example on the Skill and ability list. In the icon template the icons are only 25px in order not to increase row spacing too much. --Tetris L 10:02, 26 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Tony, i've reconsidered, and I agree to use PNG for icons, as I've written in the current draft of TaRapedia:Formatting/Images. Is that okay for you?`
 * Oh, and did I understand you correctly that you got ALL the icons from NCsoft? As PNG? --Tetris L 09:43, 27 June 2007 (EDT)


 * Yes, I've got all of 'em. :-)  As for the mini-icons, I think we should still stick with the 64x64 icons, and use the resizing function of MediaWiki for smaller icons.  For example, here are several versions of the same Collector's Head icon: --TonyV 09:56, 27 June 2007 (EDT)
 * [[Image:Collector's Head.png]]: [[Image:Collector's Head.png]]
 * [[Image:Collector's Head.png|48 px]]: [[Image:Collector's Head.png|48 px]]
 * [[Image:Collector's Head.png|32 px]]: [[Image:Collector's Head.png|32 px]]
 * [[Image:Collector's Head.png|20 px]]: [[Image:Collector's Head.png|20 px]]


 * Whoa, that is excellent! Mad props to NCsoft for that. How many are there? It must be hundreds!? Do the image files use the exact same name as the item, or do we have to do some renaming?
 * Resizing will be done using the scale function of MediaWiki, sure.
 * Okay, I'll modify the icon template and some of the other templates accordingly. --Tetris L 10:39, 27 June 2007 (EDT)


 * I noticed you uploaded some of the icons manually. Can't you upload them as a batch? --Tetris L 11:19, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Icon filenames reconsidered
After having "worked" with the current "Item####.png" and "Logos####.png" names for a few days, and after having modified the icon template to deal with at least the item icons, I've come to feel that we've created a monster here, and that we'll regret it long term, because it is very cumbersome, newbie-unfriendly and it will causes us a lot of additional work on the long run. The current system is good because it allowed Tony to upload large amounts of icons quickly, so that we can start using them. But considering the future I think we should give the system an overhaul. I'm willing to put quite a bit of work into it, but I'd rather put in the work now while the system is still young than a lot more work long term.

Most of the icons are used for a unique purpose, and are quite easy to identify: Classes, skills/abilities, weapons, armor, attributes, Logos symbols, GUI elements, ... Even though my most advanced character is not even level 20 I can already identity many of the icons. And as far as I can tell, only the icons for loot and mission items are sometimes used for multiple items. Now, if an icon has been identified, I think it should be re-uploaded with a clear, self-explanatory name, preferrable exactly the name of the article that it is linked to, including parathesis identifiers like "_(ability)", but without any other adders like "_icon" or "_logos symbol". This makes the system much easier and intuitive, especially for wiki newbies, and it allows for easy use of templates with.

Whether a numbered icon image file should be deleted once it has been identified and uploaded with a proper name is subject to discussion. One one hand I'd like to remove the identified ones to keep the category clean. On the other hand it may be helpful to keep them for reference and in case of icon updates. I reckon it doesn't make a big difference regarding storage space or bandwidth use on the server, as these icon files are very small. Tony, what do you think? What is easier for you, especially for future updates of the icons? Keep 'em or dump 'em?

On a side note, the "item" icons shouldn't have been named "item" in the first place, because these are not just for items, but for many other elements: Classes, attributes, skills and abilities, logos symbols, etc. The same goes for the Item template and the Itemref template. But naming them all differently, like it was done with "Logos####.png" is not good either, because it makes the templates harder to code. I have a simple system in mind that will eliminate the old "Item" names.

Everybody who is interested in the matter should take a look at TaRapedia:Icon reference list, which is the list that I use to keep track of the icons. Here you can see the status and progress of work.

Tony, please comment. I won't take any action until you've replied. --Tetris L 04:41, 5 July 2007 (EDT)

Images naming - issues with Logos Elements
Current naming convention for icons is: - This naming convention bring some issues: - One way to solve this issue in general is to add (logos) part in the all Logos image names, which is discouraged on this formating guide.
 * Use .png extension
 * For Logos Elements use Logos element name.png - for.: Power use Image:Power.png
 * For other articles use same name for article name as for the icon - for.: Pistol use Image:Pistol.png; for Lightning (ability) use Image:Lightning (ability).png
 * 1) Logos It cannot have their icon as Image:It.png as it is forbidden to upload images with such short names. For the It I uploaded the image under the full article name, but we have to update the templates to reflect this special case and this brings more confusion to already complicated Logos icon templates.
 * 2) From the game files analysis it looks like there are logos Ice (logos) and Fire (logos) which conflict with Fire damage and Ice damage icons. I propose to move the damage icons to the same name as are the articles, but having Image:Electromagnetic pulse damage.png icon name is very inconvenient for its length - maybe we should create damage icon templates.

- If someone thinks of better and more general way of solving this issue leave a comment here.

→ Zarevak 12:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I would like a solution that minimizes chances of conflicts. Renaming hundreds of images because one of them collides is a huge waste of effort. Therefore I would suggest either a) always specify the type of the image, so It (logos), Pistol (item), etc, or b) upload images based on their internal names, and use templates to map them. The former avoids over-templating, but is vulnerable to name changes. The latter uses templates, but is much more robust and has the benefit of predefined names. Of the two, I think the latter would be best. - Dashiva 22:30, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm against the template mapping as it is used for the first batch of uploaded icons and logos symbols using the Itemref/* and Logosref/* templates. I'd like to get rid of them as it is much easier for the users to understand how to upload now images and it is no problem to reupload the image under different name. This only applies to the ingame icon whose list should be relatively stable changing only with new patches.
 * Uploading the icons under the game filename doesn't solve the Fire (logos) vs Fire damage issue as both images are just part of much bigger image (all Logos symbols are on one image: image01.glm/arch_eloh_logos_glow_v01.dds; Damage types icons are on ui.glm/ui_hud_optimized.dds image)
 * I would personally like to remove the Logos special rule not to include the (logos) part in the image name and reupload all already found Logos images with the standard naming convention - ie.:Image:Power (logos).png for the Power (logos) article
 * As for other icons I would stay with today's naming style with the same image name as is name of their respective article. I think this conflict was just Logos problem because they did get special treatment. If some conflict arises in the future (like special Pistol (ability) for Pistol (weapon)) we can reupload the images with these new names and make a disambiguous page without any icon or with hand-drawn icon displaying the conflict.
 * → Zarevak 23:00, 6 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm still a bit worried about keeping up with name changes, but I suppose it won't happen much once we're past the startup phase. If no one else objects, you have my vote to go ahead. - Dashiva 02:29, 7 November 2007 (UTC)