Template talk:Bfa-inline
Growing image widths
Over the years, the width of the inline image has grown. Later expansions have a bigger icon than earlier ones -- BFA set the record at 51 width. Would it be worth ammending the templates of the larger ones to make them a bit smaller; say 
size = 40 to be the same as 
?
For an example why this matters, consider the following:
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Whoa! A monster clocking in at 51 width! - Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Now doesn't this look ugly, being actually smaller than the previous one
Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Big jump to the right 
Patch 2.0.3 (2007-01-09): Even smaller! Text is now shifted to the left a bit 
Patch 1.12.1 (2006-09-26): See how small this is
Below I leave the smaller ones as-is, but cap the bigger ones at 40px:
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Smooth - Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Real smooth!
Patch 6.0.2 (2014-10-14): Doesn't it look nice? - Patch 2.0.3 (2007-01-09): But this is still small
- Patch 1.12.1 (2006-09-26): This one too.
The ideal, of course, would be if we remade the older expansion images to have good quality at 40px. Although the current icons look satisfactory when upscaled: DDC (talk) 20:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
- I don't know how difficult that would be, but I'd be fine with just bumping them all up to 50. PeterWind (talk) 20:54, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
- Doing some research, I found these edits which show how easy it is. Just add |50px| to the template; and it turns out it was already done for Shadowlands because the icon is actually 182px wide (which clearly wouldn't work).
I scanned the discusisons and found this also came up (in relation to the vanilla icon, specifically) at Forum:Icon_sizes. I decided to go ahead and make a change, since its easy to revert if anyone disagrees afterward. I am showing below the new icons, which you will see I grouped into three sizes: 36, 46 and 51. These sizes were chosen because they were the sizes of Wrath, Mists/WoD and BFA. The result is still a column that grows in newer expansions, but they are all a bit closer and not as jagged like in my earliest example above.
- 32 -> 36
- 30 -> 36
Already 36
39 -> 46
Already 46- Already 46
- 40 -> 46
- Already 51
50 -> 51 (SVG downscaled from 182)
What do you think? DDC (talk) 01:18, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
- PS. There is one thing I don't know: does setting a width on an image template equal to its actual size still cause the rendering engine to do needless work? Or is it smart enough to know it's already that size and ignore the parameter? DDC (talk) 01:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
- Reverted the changes. It makes the images look bad / blurred and slightly larger than they should be for content (look at the Cata one). It'd be best to keep them as they are now or make better icons to replace the current set. (Which making new icons is gonna be hard to satisfy everyone who is already used to the current set) — Surafbrov T / C 15:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
- Makes sense. The images are so small that there is hardly anything to work with. I tried putting one into an AI software, but it struggled to capture the essence that we see as humans with so few pixels.
- With that in mind, the only other idea I can think of is adding a setting to the template so images can be standardized to a smaller size under certain conditions; and using this setting in the Patch x.x.x templates. Of course, I'm assuming the blur doesn't happen when you shrink the image DDC (talk) 07:36, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
I figured out a solution that requires zero scaling. The example below adds <div style="min-width:51px; float:left; text-align:center">{{bc-inline}}</div> to the patch template, causing the text to be at least 51 pixels from the left-edge while aligning smaller icons nicely. This is done without changing the actual icon template, but instead the changes are done to the patch templates.
- Patch 2.0.3 (2000-01-01):
- Patch 5.0.4 (2000-01-01):
- Patch 8.0.1 (2000-01-01):
Doing it this way would require going back to every patch (especially the older ones with smaller icons) and changing the associated template. DDC (talk) 21:43, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- Since this only affects the patch templates and not the inline templates within content pages, I don't see a reason why this wouldn't work (though the empty space can prove to be annoyance but that's just me). I posted a link to this discussion in the Discord to see if others would reply about what they think about this. — Surafbrov T / C 22:17, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- Looks good to me.
- Tangentially related, but if we do decide to update the icons, I'd ask that they use all caps spelling, because for example the "f" in "BfA" is barely visible, and is only legible to those who already know it is supposed to spell out "BfA". Same for the "o" in "WoD". Have seen occasional confusion on forums due to the legibility of these letters. -- — MyMindWontQuiet 22:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- Probably best to continue the discussion over at Template talk:Patch. Also, considering the confusion for some of these icons just baffles me. — Surafbrov T / C 22:39, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
Alignment issue
Does this look weird for you? Looks like the MoP line and below it is not centered differently than the first, Legion, line? --Mordecay (talk) 20:24, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
- Oof, yeah, it looks like the change breaks the alignment on multi-bullet patch notes. -- Dark T Zeratul (talk) 20:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
