Last modified: 2014-10-08 00:40:23 UTC
Currently the h4, h5, and h6 headers are all styled with the same size and weight and subsequent apparent importance, despite being used on the page to designate a hierarchy of sections. As a result, h4-h6 sections can appear as though they belong to the wrong parent section, confusing readers. Example: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors?showall=1 'Product Management' is a subset of 'Product', but due to the skin formatting there is no way to tell when using Vector.
This changed during the [[mw:Typography refresh]]. The lines at fault are in https://git.wikimedia.org/blob/mediawiki%2Fskins%2FVector.git/HEAD/components%2Fcommon.less specifically: h4, h5, h6 { font-size: 100%; /* (reset) */ This makes it impossible to tell the difference between h4, h5, and h6. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/sandbox&oldid=626297051 Note: We used to have this, if I read SVN correctly: h2 { font-size: 150%;} h3 { font-size: 132%;} h4 { font-size: 116%;} h5 { font-size: 100%;} h6 { font-size: 80%;} which wasn't perfect, but it was clearer. (See sandbox diff)
Created attachment 16529 [details] screenshot of the staff page and sandbox A screenshot of the Staff page (mentioned in comment 0) and the sandbox (linked in comment 1). Taken in Firefox32 in Ubuntu.
(In reply to Quiddity from comment #1) > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/ > sandbox&oldid=626297051 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Quiddity/sandbox&oldid=626297051&useskin=vector
Change 162304 had a related patch set uploaded by Legoktm: Make h1-6 sizes consistently different https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/162304
H1-H5 are properly affecting the information hierarchy in the TOC, which seems reasonable to me. I'm not sure I see the value in a proliferation of stylistic differences from H1-H5 beyond what is absolutely necessary. I certainly don't want to see an instance where H5 or any other header element is smaller than body text, as that would be very odd. Additionally with so many Header styles, the balance between the smallest and largest would be very small (nearly indistinguishable if H1 was a reasonable set size and H5 was limited by the body text. Additionally as humans we're pretty bad at relative sizes, so when these elements are not directly next to each other (which they really are) the difference in size will already be difficult if not impossible to discern.
Jared, please don't change bug statuses when they already accurately reflect the status of the bug. (In reply to Jared Zimmerman (WMF) from comment #5) > H1-H5 are properly affecting the information hierarchy in the TOC, which > seems reasonable to me. I'm not sure I see the value in a proliferation of > stylistic differences from H1-H5 beyond what is absolutely necessary. The ToC is not visible in the body of the page in the Vector skin. The headers are the only visible distinction available when reading the content itself. > I certainly don't want to see an instance where H5 or any other header > element is smaller than body text, as that would be very odd. Additionally > with so many Header styles, the balance between the smallest and largest > would be very small (nearly indistinguishable if H1 was a reasonable set > size and H5 was limited by the body text. This has been addressed in the related patchset. > Additionally as humans we're pretty bad at relative sizes, so when these > elements are not directly next to each other (which they really are) the > difference in size will already be difficult if not impossible to discern. That doesn't mean the information should be removed entirely. If folks can tell the difference, then it's potentially useful information to them. If they can't, then they're not going to care about this anyway.
I think status is justified.. During the refresh we experimented with various font sizes and purposely made these all the same size. I wrote that code... Let's discuss this more but we shouldn't be merging a patch for this without further careful discussion.
(In reply to Jon from comment #7) > I think status is justified.. During the refresh we experimented with > various font sizes and purposely made these all the same size. I wrote that > code... So what was the reason?
Hi Issara, I changed the status, because I don't agree that there is consensus at this point, and as Jon pointed out this is as designed currently
The rational as far as I remember was partly what I enumerated above, the Header levels are correctly being used as a way of structuring data, and that based on frequency of use on wikis the added complexity of visualizing these at different sizes, with a minimum and maximum of our existing H1s (high end) and body text (low end) that the granularity between these becomes at best meaningless, and at worst visual noise. Jon feel free to add anything I missed or correct me.
So, to clarify, the reasons for making h4-6 the same were the following: * Most projects have no use for h4-6 in the first place * Having different styles for h4-h6 might confuse people Is this correct?
Let's not forget that individual wikis can (and should) adjust font weights and styles based on their own need in Common.css. This is particularly true for wikis that use non-Latin scripts (Typography refresh is particularly bothersome in Vietnamese, for instance). I'm not sure its possible for us to build a "one size fits all" model.l I, personally, am not seeing any issues. This feels to me like a platform/browser/language interaction bug that should be handled on the local wikis. I'm not certain there is a need to merge this patch.
(In reply to Brandon Harris from comment #12) > Let's not forget that individual wikis [...] should [...] adjust [...] > Common.css. This is particularly true > for wikis that use non-Latin scripts Simply not true, sorry. EXTREMELY disturbing to read such a fringe opinion presented as universal truth. Maybe Wikimedia Foundation doesn't, dunno; but MediaWiki supports hundreds languages equally. You're warmly invited not to misguide the public about the i18n features of MediaWiki without appropriate knowledge of them. Thanks.
General note: This was changed in 1.23. Also still waiting for a confirmation of why it was done.
Note, LESS could be utilised to allow you to style things differently based on the current language. e.g. use a different font We can also add different css files to different languages. It's just never been done yet. If we want to do that rather than Common.css to solve real issues in other languages I am happy to help with getting those patches merged. ResourceLoader and LESS is a powerful thing that we are not making the best use of.
That can be easily done with plain CSS too, we have quite a few language-specific tweaks in shared.css.
Change 162304 had a related patch set uploaded by Bartosz Dziewoński: Make h1-6 sizes consistently different https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/162304
Change 164712 had a related patch set uploaded by Isarra: Adjust header sizes to scale apparent size according to header weight https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/164712
