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It has bothered me for quite a while how the three sections on the main page (Welcome, Featured and Discover/Get Involved) are all different widths, and don't fully take advantage of the entire width of the main page, creating a slightly chaotic whole. Now that Vector 2022 plays with those sections, I figured it was time to fix how these sections get presented to users. What I've worked out isn't exactly a fix to every issue, but it at least rebalances the elements to look less clunky. See lines 1-19 of User:Wauteurz/common.css. These achieve the following:

• Welcome gets widened to use 100% of the width available to it. The satellite imagemap is aligned to the rightmost side of the element.
• The Featured-carousel gets centred in the main page since it can't easily be enlarged or widened, and its menu items are shifted over accordingly.

The only issue that remains, is that Vector 2022 can freely change the font size of all text. Ideally, this is disabled in the JCarousel since the 'large' font size pushes the description out of view most of the time.

Ideally, these tweaks are embedded in the respective elements directly ({{mapbanner}} and the CSS jcarousel-class), but I'm not entirely sure how to go about this, and lack the permission to make changes where I know what to change. These changes are non-destructive and have held up several changes to the main page's content, hence why I've withheld announcing them. If someone with the correct rights (presumably bureaucrats?) and technical know-how can help me out with this, then that'd be much appreciated!
― Wauteurz (talk) 15:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the visually inclined, this is how the main page looks in Vector 2022 with the above changes applied. ― Wauteurz (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not seeing a big difference but I support. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:46, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Ikan Kekek: It isn't a big difference, no. It's simply widening existing elements and centring them so that the main page gets filled up a bit better. I don't have a solid way to change the JCarousel at present and I would need some assistance from people more knowledgable than me to fix that. For {{Mapbanner}}, I also made more or less the same suggestion here. If supported, I could roll that out first thing tomorrow. ― Wauteurz (talk) 01:13, 6 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Support changes as per proposal. //shb (t | c | m) 23:04, 5 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

Since my request for input and support on Talk:Main Page went mostly unnoticed, I'm bringing this proposal to the pub to ensure it gets the daylight it should have, as these are proposals to change the look of a rather important page.

Here's the backstory: For longer than Vector 2022 has been around, I've been bothered by the balance of elements on the main page. The new skin only did it injustices, so I've taken it upon myself to mend the shortcomings of the main page in my quest to make Wikivoyage work in Vector 2022. This all so our site looks a bit more appealing in the new skin. I know many regular editors stuck with their old preferred skins when we got the new skin imposed on us, but this still is something that will affect Wikivoyage's appeal to new editors and readers. If the main page looks chaotic and messy, they'll be less likely to stick around. So to each and every editor, regardless of which skin you use: Please chime in!

That being said, these are the changes I have developed, and have ready to deploy:

• Wider {{Mapbanner}}: Some small tweaks to the template which make it use all the page width available to it, and moves the globe image and image map accordingly.
• Centred JCaroussel: For the same reason, to make better use of the width on the main page, I've got some CSS changes to the JCaroussel ready that center the featured articles. Scaling them up to simply be full page width I have found to be too tedious to bother with.
• Overhauled {{Banner}}: Vector 2022's scaleable font plays too much with the banners for featured articles to where sometimes the blurb isn't even entirely visible. In the same process, I've simplified the way in which this template is used for each category, foregoing the need for a 'section' and 'section-link' parameter, replacing them with a 'type' parameter. Its style is mostly in keeping with the existing banners and should simplify the process for featuring articles more than it complicates them.

What do these changes look like? In the case of {{Mapbanner}}, I cannot easily give a working demonstration as its stylesheet currently overwrites any changes I make to it. Instead, this image is the best I can offer. You'll have to take my word for its functionality being unchanged. The centred JCaroussel and overhauled {{Banner}} can be seen and interacted with on this page. I've done my best to ensure that these changes are in keeping with Wikivoyage's current main page style. I know that entire overhauls are not that popular, so I hope these proposals are good enough.

I am looking for a broad consensus to roll out at least the first two changes, but ideally all three. I don't feel comfortable rolling some of these changes out with only two people expressing support for them. Please, throw your questions and concerns in my direction, and I hope we can together fix what I consider to be the biggest remaining issue with Vector 2022. Thank you in advance.
― Wauteurz (talk) 14:19, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support as the developer of these changes. Vector 2022 dictates how new readers and editors get presented our site, and with its current chaotic and undependable nature, something has to be done. ― Wauteurz (talk) 14:20, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Wauteurz: Any idea for better responsive design of the Wikivoyage main page, as more people access our pages via phone than PC? Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 14:47, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Sbb1413 For clarity, these changes only affect the appearance on desktop devices. The changes to JCaroussel also apply in Minerva (mobile), but due to screen size limitations they won't have an effect in most cases. My main goal is overseeing the damage caused by Vector 2022's roll-out on Wikivoyage. Since mobile devices use Minerva, I mostly leave the mobile appearance alone.

As for my thoughts on mobile, I don't think any of the regular editors have any experience in mobile design, let alone responsive mobile design, so I'm mostly wondering why it's responsive in the first place. I'd personally suggest removing the responsive elements (mostly the feature banners) and replacing them with DotM, OtBP and FTT in simple presentations akin to Picture of the Day and Media of the Day on Commons' main page. The 3:1 banners also are a big problem in my eyes. They're far too short to work on mobile, and I think a square or tall ratio would work leagues better in a mobile format. ― Wauteurz (talk) 15:31, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

• Support very much agree that these changes will be needed sooner than later. //shb (t | c | m) 18:48, 28 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support. Thanks for doing this! As a choosing beggar, I would love to see the mobile front page fixed as well though, the DOTM banner is completely broken at the moment and the padding/spacing of the entire page is wonky at best. Jpatokal (talk) 00:03, 29 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Question for all involved: The new banner uses some icons to depict the category that the article is featured in (i.e., DotM, OtBP and FTT). I assume that we wish to keep these instead of the placeholder icons I have used? I'll be working on adapting those into simple white icons, which should be pretty straight-forward. If we wish to change them in future, then that can always be done afterwards. Having the icons consistent between {{Banner}} and {{Pagebanner}} would be for the better, I reckon :)

I am currently aiming to roll these updates out this weekend (June 7/8), just in time for the next featured article change. ― Wauteurz (talk) 23:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Update: Making and updating the icons was pretty straight-forward indeed: Diff/5071035 ― Wauteurz (talk) 00:20, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Support. Lots of good improvements! Just make sure to fix the "Off the Beaten Path" link to point to a real page. Gerode (talk) 15:10, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done. Thanks for spotting that one! ― Wauteurz (talk) 15:19, 2 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Done! Thank you everyone for your support! I've gone ahead and pushed these changes just now. I've naturally updated the usages of {{banner}} on the Main Page and DOTM-Candidates as well. If there's any issues arising from this roll-out, please let me know. ― Wauteurz (talk) 11:34, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

Awesome! That looks great to me. //shb (t | c | m) 11:46, 7 June 2025 (UTC)Reply