User:Aron Manning/Design/Desktop Improvements vision
Appearance
Initially posted at Desktop Improvements feedback
Brief summary of how I imagine the new design:
- Fixed header (from Timeless and Minerva)
- Sidebar tab icons: TOC, site navigation (hamburger?), article tools, bookmarks
- Small logo
- Search bar
- Language bar
- Button bar for user tools
- Echo alerts and notifications icons
- Watchlist and User contributions icons
- Cogwheel icon for skin settings, theme selector
- User menu drop-down icon optionally with user-name (from Timeless)
- Multi-tab collapsible left sidebar
- TOC (primary)
- Smooth scrolling animation
- Site navigation
- Links re-prioritized
- Article tools and gadgets
- Bookmarks
- TOC (primary)
- Content
- Vector tabs ("Join discussion, Edit history, Edit, Edit source") moved on one line with article title, next to each other
- Protection expressed by "View source" button with a padlock icon instead of edit buttons
- Discuss and Edit buttons emphasized for logged-in users
- Sticky section-headers, paragraph icon, edit icon to its right
- Collapsible sections, at least the linking sections at the bottom: See also, Notes, References, Further reading, External links
- Vector tabs ("Join discussion, Edit history, Edit, Edit source") moved on one line with article title, next to each other
- Collapsible right sidebar (enabled by default on wide screens)
- Article tools bar also available on the right sidebar for increased editor efficiency
- Article activity stats panel
- History panel (recent edits, possibly combined with activity stats)
- Discussions panels (recent comments on talk page)
- Color themes (experimental project): white, paper, dark themes, user created themes, theme crafting competitions.
Some of these features that aren't available yet (bookmarks, activity stats, history panels) are listed to ensure their place in the design.