Board Thread:New Features/@comment-24739709-20150518230347/@comment-24409505-20150523182107

So I've tested the new infobox by reproducing existing infoboxes from popular wikis (all with #1 peak rank in WAM list), as posted here 1, 2, 3. Here's my feedback:

1. I managed to reproduce the infoboxes solely using CSS, without using any "hacks". I looked at the infoboxes of other popular wikis and can say with almost absolute certainty that I can reproduce almost all of them, however different they may look. The majority of the infoboxes differ only in styling, yet they all use different codes to create the infoboxes. Some of the codes are extremely cluttered (like the one in Disney wiki and Cardfight wiki), with many unnecessary repetitions, which are difficult to modify (as you have to repeat the changes 1000x times for just modifying one thing). Others rely on multiple templates to make the infobox work (like the one in Wookieepedia). This new infobox seem to be able to solve all this, as many of the functions (checking if data is empty, etc.) are all done in the background and users no longer need to include them in the code of their infobox.

The best thing about this new infobox code is that if every wiki implemented it, the css selectors would be the same universally. Anyone who wants to copy the look of another infobox wouldn't have to change their infobox code, only copy the CSS and it would work instantly. People wouldn't have to crack their head anymore about what selectors is used or what additional dependent templates they have to copy just to change the styling.

2. The only thing I could not reproduce with CSS solely is the functionality to hide infoboxes or make part of the data collapse, like the Wookieepedia infobox. I think this is a functionality that can be added to the infobox core. Though, only a very small amount of wikis have such functionality in their infoboxes, so I don't think that this should have a high priority now. More about collapsing later.

3. All of the old infoboxes I encountered all over Wikia have their label and data displayed in two columns. I am able to reproduce that look using  but it requires extra work. Especially those with multiple 's are tricky to make the cells have the same width everywhere. Since the majority of the people would want an infobox with two columns, I would suggest to make that possible by default for the desktop version.

4. I notice that sometimes I want to target a certain data field using CSS, like when I was replicating the Cardfight infobox, but couldn't do that because the fields didn't have an unique class or id attached to it. I solved it in that specific case by employing the  selector, but that isn't something that can be applied all times. I suggest to automatically add the data source (from ) as a class name or id to the   div. This also seem to be one of the problems Fewfre mentioned here.

5. I agree with what Imamadmad mentioned here about the infobox in the mobile skin. An extremely large part of the infobox is hidden from view when collapsed. Is there any reason for that? I guess the thought behind that idea is that mobile users may not want to scroll through long infoboxes before they reach the page content? Why not take an approach from the other side? I suggest to show it fully by default, and then place a button at the top of the infobox that allows users to skip the entire infobox if they want to jump directly to the page content.

That's it. Hopefully the team finds my feedback useful and keep up the good work. :)