Separate section for artwork on the left bar

[legaiaflame]

Would it be good to have a separate section for all of the artwork on the left bar? I know PDS has a ton of artwork; would it be too chaotic to fit all of the art at the bottom of those respective sections?

[Solo_Wing]

Could you elaborate on what you mean here?

[legaiaflame]

Oh, I didn't realize there was a section for Pictures...

Well, what I guess I mean is: instead of putting the art in the Pictures section (which is sort of a mixture of art and pictures and kind of random);

since there is such a large quantity of artwork, maybe it deserves to have a separate section called Artwork. So it's all in one place and easy to access.

[Solo_Wing]

One clarification that perhaps needs to be made here is what the "Browse by Media Type" list represents. Technically the list items aren't sections representing different themes of content (that's what the Categories are for), but rather types of media. Each media type is unique in some way - for example, articles contain a description and authors, whereas resources do not.

If the pictures media type was to be split into multiple media types (two or even more) there would need to be some kind of difference between them to justify that.

Possibly there's a categorisation issue here, rather than a media type issue?

[legaiaflame]

Actually, the Pictures section is fine since all of the media within is related (like you pointed out). So I guess it is a categorization issue. It's when you arrive within the link; everything could use better organization (everything is bunched together in a list; not separated or divided).

E. g. so when you click on Enhanced Maps it's not really evident or explained as to what games will be in this section.

So maybe different sub-categories? You could list each game as a bold/white separate header: I know it's duplication of the same category, but it's more specific as to what games contain what...Such as:

Panzer Dragoon:

Official Art
Enhanced Maps
Fan Comics
Fan Objects
Fan Pictures
Fan Wallpapers
Magazine Scans

Panzer Dragoon Zwei:

Official Art
Enhanced Maps
Fan Comics
Fan Objects
Fan Pictures
Fan Wallpapers
Magazine Scans

Panzer Dragoon Saga:

Official Art
Enhanced Maps
Fan Comics
Fan Objects
Fan Pictures
Fan Wallpapers
Magazine Scans

Crimson Dragon:

Official Art
Crimson Dragon Concept Art
Crimson Dragon Photos
Crimson Dragon Pre-Release Screenshots
Crimson Dragon: Side Story Concept Art
Crimson Dragon: Side Story Pre-Release Screenshots

[Solo_Wing]

One issue is that some of the content isn't easily dividable into separate games. Take a picture of the Guardian Dragon for example.

This was why I added the ability to add pictures to multiple encyclopaedia entries as related pictures. It acts as a secondary approach to categorisation that can be done on a per game basis (or per location, faction, character, etc).

[Solo_Wing]

I've been thinking of revisiting this issue.

As explained in the previous post, the pictures aren't always easily grouped by game. However, they could potentially be better organised by grouping the existing picture categories into parent categories. For example, we could have a parent category for "Screenshots" and the current category "Panzer Dragoon Orta Pre-release Screenshots" could be a child category, selectable by first clicking on the parent.

The parent categories could be as follows:

Screenshots
Official Art
Product Pictures
Fan Art
Maps
Photos

I think it should be fairly obvious which of the current picture categories would be children of these new parent categories.

Furthermore, the current categories/children could be renamed to "galleries". So, each picture would belong to a gallery, and each gallery would belong to a category.

Thoughts?

[Solo_Wing]

By the way @legaiaflame what do you think of the category groups that I added? Clearer now? Any improvements that could be made?

[legaiaflame]

Yes, the categories are stated and organized in a much more stacked category by category, manner. With the amount of information we are presenting in these games, sub-categories within categories are needed so our brains can sort the chaos out!

An even further suggestion I would make is: the categories that list the various Panzer games could really use spaces. So for instance within the "Official Art" category It would be more structured and accessible for the viewer to immediately see the games listed in order of release and separated from each other: not all together in a bunch/out of order. Also if you deem in redundant, you don't even need the "Official Art" tag after each game category, since you listed it at the top of the entire list. if you see what I mean:

(Before)

Official Art

Crimson Dragon Concept Art
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Concept Art
Crimson Dragon: Side Story Concept Art
Official Wallpapers
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon II Zwei
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Saga - World and Scenes
Worlds Unite Promo Pictures
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Original Video Animation
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Orta - Characters
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Orta - Creatures
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Orta - Iva's Story
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Orta - Vehicles
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Orta - World and Scenes
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Ads and Posters
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Characters
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Creatures
Official Art - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Vehicles

(After)

Official Art

 - Panzer Dragoon
 - Panzer Dragoon Original Video Animation

 - Panzer Dragoon II Zwei

 - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Ads and Posters
 - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Characters
 - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Creatures
 - Panzer Dragoon Saga - Vehicles
 - Panzer Dragoon Saga - World and Scenes

- Panzer Dragoon Orta - Characters
- Panzer Dragoon Orta - Creatures
- Panzer Dragoon Orta - Iva's Story
- Panzer Dragoon Orta - Vehicles
- Panzer Dragoon Orta - World and Scenes

Crimson Dragon Concept Art
Crimson Dragon: Side Story Concept Art

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed Concept Art
Worlds Unite Promo Pictures
Official Wallpapers

You made a big improvement from before Solo; much easier on the eyes!

[Solo_Wing]

This is a good suggestion. I thought I had already listed the categories in alphabetical order, but apparently not. Because the categories might be accessed from outside of the list (e.g. through a web search or via an external link), I think we need to keep "Official Art" in the category name, but there's no reason why this couldn't go after the game title, e.g. "Panzer Dragoon Orta Official Art - World and Scenes".

[Solo_Wing]

Okay, that's implemented. Take a look @legaiaflame; happy to consider further suggestions.

Potentially we could order these by game release date, rather than alphabetically, but I'm not sure if that's best as alphabetical keeps it consistent with how other categories are grouped.

I've also considered listing game specific categories together elsewhere (perhaps clicking on the "saga" in the left hand menu could bring up a list of game specific categories, rather than going direct to the encyclopaedia entry). Lots of different ways it could be done. The hard part it keeping it simple for both site admins and visitors - the site map is already quite complicated.

[legaiaflame]

Yeah that's a bit more tidy!