Wikipedia talk:Map data/Fracture zone

Latest comment: 5 months ago by ChaseKiwi in topic tiny clickable areas

tiny clickable areas

edit

Please make it easier to actually consume the "interactive" content.

That is, make a wider band around the lines clickable, not just the lines themselves. They're narrow and it is hard to click them or even to understand they're clickable. CapnZapp (talk) 14:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

Apologies but such interactive content is always a compromise and since you mention an issue that has much exercised me but your request implies frustration:
  1. Such interactive content can be easier to use if your screen, mouse and mouse mat or equivalent and web browser are of suitable specification. I do not recommend finger tapping on a midrange smartphone (although this works for me with similar shared frustration you must feel, on a cracked midrange smartphone screen I had to hand)
  2. The software and its interactions were not designed by me - this is an issue for respective developers as I am a content creator all too familiar with software features (bugs) and limitations
  3. Changing the data files post production where such issues were considered in development (at least by me) is not a recommended hassle (you are free to do it like any Wikipedia editor, but perhaps not recommended to most as geojson and wikipedia switching syntax are unforgiving and need the support of addition tools (e.g. project would be close to impossible without adequate hardware, a good browser, bathometric mapping copyright rules, Goggle Scholar, GPS visualiser, a Json debugger and adaptation of a friendly text coding environment like Xcode or Kate)
  4. Wikipedia has had to make interactive content compromises
  5. Wikipedia has turned off features that would make it easier to consume such content for both security, bandwidth and server load reasons.
  6. I am grateful you have shown an interest in the maps created with what tools are available to me, most of which simply did not exist when I started writing on wikipedia
Technically lines can be:
  • made wider in pixels with no data inflation overhead (some are for example already 5px wide, but for current mainstream browsers whoever considered this mouse over interaction seems to have done a good job at even 1px width). I had to compromise at 5px width as higher caused graphical display issues on this project.
  • Have a transparent wide line inserted over top or a polygon. This would result in data duplication and this mapping already uses about a third of the processing limits allowed for a page. Add in multiple references, other interactive content, or a load distribution issue amongst the backdoor wikipedia servers and all you get on the served up wikipaedia page is red warning messages.
ChaseKiwi (talk) 06:00, 14 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sounds to me the overarching decision point should be: is it really a good idea to present the information in this way? To me this map contains just a couple of "interactive" elements that could and should be presented much more accessibly, without requiring the reader to "pixel hunt" to gain the information. CapnZapp (talk) 10:03, 14 June 2024 (UTC)Reply
Frankly to me lists of items in a large text table can be a poor way of abstracting out complex geographical information as in List of fracture zones. Where the technology allows I prefer both approaches as they are complimentary - see Mýrdalsjökull. ChaseKiwi (talk) 19:56, 14 June 2024 (UTC)Reply