Talk:PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List: Difference between revisions

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(Cleanup (server bandwidth and compatibility lists splitting problems around xmas 2018))
(Cleanup (compatiility lists "legend" experiments))
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| 7 Wonders of the Ancient World || style="background:#cccccc; color:#777777; text-align:center;" | '''Available...''' || style="background:#cccccc; color:#777777; text-align:center;" | '''Available...''' || style="background:#777777; color:#cccccc; text-align:center;" | '''Not Available''' || This way indicates explicitly that the game was published in 2 regions... but nobody tested them
| 7 Wonders of the Ancient World || style="background:#cccccc; color:#777777; text-align:center;" | '''Available...''' || style="background:#cccccc; color:#777777; text-align:center;" | '''Available...''' || style="background:#777777; color:#cccccc; text-align:center;" | '''Not Available''' || This way indicates explicitly that the game was published in 2 regions... but nobody tested them
|}
=== Guinea pig legend ===
*Changes
**Navigation bar removed, because we can access it from the top-right corner of "#" page section
**Link to this discussion removed because is something temporal
**I think is better to use a width different than 100%... just to difference it from the other tables of the page... lets say 95% or 90% is fine, i dont mind the exact value
**The "Resources" text line at bottom is intended to add as many links as needed, there is no limits, feel free to add more, but try to short them
**I need to short the first line of the description to <s>72 characters max in inline mode</s> (and 95 in table mode)... because that same text line is used in the "tag" templates as hidden text
{| class="wikitable mw-datatable plainlinks" style="font-size:85%; width:85%; margin:auto;"
|+ style="caption-side:bottom; text-align:center; padding-left:15px; padding-right:15px;" | Other compatibility lists: [{{ps4wikiurl}}PS2_Classics_Emulator_Compatibility_List PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List] (on PS4), [https://wiki.pcsx2.net/Complete_List_of_Games PCSX2 Complete list of PS2 games] (on PC)<br>Resources: [https://ps3.aldostools.org/ps2config.html PS2 CONFIG Database] (aldo), [https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-PCSX2-Widescreen-Game-Patches?pid=271674#pid271674 PS2 Widescreen patches archive] (devina)
|-
| style="padding:0px; border-bottom:hidden; width:88px;" |  || style="padding:0px; border-bottom:hidden;" |  || style="padding:0px; border-bottom:hidden; width:88px;" |
|-
! class="nowrap" colspan="3" | [[Emulation|Emulation on PS3]] ([[Talk:Emulation|talk]]){{dot}}[[PS1 Emulation|PS1 Emulation on PS3]] ([[Talk:PS1 Emulation|talk]]) <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[PS1 Classics Emulator Compatibility List|Compatibility list]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>{{dot}}[[PS2 Emulation|PS2 Emulation on PS3]] ([[Talk:PS2 Emulation|talk]]) <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List|Compatibility list]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>{{dot}}[[PSP Emulation|PSP Emulation on PS3]] ([[Talk:PSP Emulation|talk]]) <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[PSP Emulator Compatibility List|Compatibility list]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>
|-
| {{ps2classic}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{ps2classic}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Released for the PS3 at the PlayStation Store, the compatibility is certified by sony.<br>'''It works exactly like when you play it on a real PS2 Console''', the compatibility is as good as {{playable|&nbsp;}}.
! rowspan="3" | GOOD<br><span style="font-weight:normal;">Compatibility</span>
|-
| {{playable}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{playable}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Works perfect without any noticeable error.<br>'''It works exactly like when you play it on a real PS2 Console''', the compatibility is as good as {{ps2classic|&nbsp;}}.
|-
| {{minorissues}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{minorissues}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Framerate problems, audio/video desync, or other small and non-critical innacuracies.<br>'''It works fine''' and can be completed without any huge disadvantages for your gaming progress, the compatibility is very close to {{playable|&nbsp;}}.
|-
| {{majorissues}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{majorissues}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Very low framerate, screen flickering, glitched graphics, or some non-critical broken functions.<br>'''It just works but not good enought''', it will be a pain for your gaming experience, the compatibility is very close to {{unplayable|&nbsp;}}.
! rowspan="2" | BAD<br><span style="font-weight:normal;">Compatibility</span>
|-
| {{unplayable}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{unplayable}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Critical problems, doesn't boots, freezes or crashes after some gaming progress.<br>'''It doesn't works''' and/or can't be completed because there are some critical problem at some point that doesn't allows to continue gaming.
|-
| {{available}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{available}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Released for this region, but nobody tested it.<br>This tag is intended to be used temporally to indicate the existence of the game for an specific region but with an unknown compatibility.
! rowspan="2" | UNDEFINED<br><span style="font-weight:normal;">Compatibility</span>
|-
| {{notavailable}} || <span style="float:right; width:19em; height:1.4em; border:1px solid #bbbbbb; background:#eeeeee;">&nbsp;'''Syntax for wiki editors: '''<nowiki>{{notavailable}}</nowiki>&nbsp;</span>Not released for this region.<br>This tag is intended to be used in the regions where the game wasn't released, e.g: [PAL-EU] & [NTSC-U/C] of a game released only in Japan.
|}
|}



Revision as of 00:58, 27 May 2023

Changes 2021 july

I have some ideas for a few upgrades (practical and visual) related with the compatibility lists that affects several pages, are a lot of small details and i guess some of you will want to discusss them incase i missed something that coould be problematic or if you want to do some critic or suggestion. Later i will make a complete list of changes here to discuss them. I would like some agreement before starting doing the changes, if i dont see any feedback i will consider all you agrees with the changes--Sandungas (talk) 08:51, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

  • I my honest opinion, it would be more important to remove all the wrong and double titles and to clean up the list instead of changing it by design. Roxanne (talk) - 16th July 2021 - 16:51 GMT+1
    • I agree that {{Unplayable}} needs another color font but I recommend to make it white like it is for {{ps2classics}}
      • The Flagonly edit is good but I don't understand the changings for your "Jumptoletter" edits.
        • {{untested}} won't help much since people tend to add templates only for Games/Regions they also tested.
  • Im not sure what you mean, ive seen agrippa doing some changes related with the double titles and the style he is using is fine imo, i dont see any problem with it and i dont have any better idea to deal with it. The changes im proposing are unrelated with that, unless you want to propose some kind of rowspanning but that could be problematic for the sorting feature i added and confusing for wiki editors newcomers--Sandungas (talk) 16:31, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
    • {{unplayable}} and {{majorissues}} have the colors inverted with each other, and both uses a border that represents the state "pressed" because both are intended to represent something negative
      • Not sure if you mean the latest edits i made to the template {{jumptoletter}} or the whole purpose of it. Regarding the purpose, the initial goal was to clear-out the bottom of the tables. This way the wiki editor newcomers are going to find a lot of non-understandable stuff at top but the bottom of the table will be very simple. The first requirement was to use an argument to highlight the current page section but later i improved it a lot more because i realized it can be used in many other pages like: {{Template:PS2_Classics_Emulator_Compatibility_List}}, {{Glossary}} or other pages i could be missing and/or could be created in the future, also is intended to be used in all the other compatibility list pages for PS1, PSP, etc...
        • Let me try to show the problem first and try to think in reverse way, the question marks in the table cells are a problem, not only because they breaks the visual style, but mostly because doesnt represents anything at all, are exactly the same than keeping the cell empty, ive seen you made a template {{?}} to try to center the question mark a bit and give it a color but thats not enought imo because is just something visual, the root of the problem (not representing anything) is still there. I think the solution is to use the {{untested}} because it means that """The game was released for this region but nobody tested it""". In other words, is not intended to help the wiki editors, is a new requirement, everytime someone adds a new game he/she should take the effort to google and find for which regions was released and fill the table as a minimal with either {{untested}} or {{notavailable}}. Just to show you an example of what we can do with it, the other day i was checking for how many regions was published all the games from the # section and i know i could replace all the question marks from the # section by {{untested}} because i know the games was published for that regions, also note there was many notes at right that was telling "untested" and i had to add some more notes with the text "untested", and that was not practical, with the new template {{untested}} we could delete that notes with the texts "untested" at the right
  • As I said I don't like those ideas personally but I'm the last one here to block any new ideas etc., especially not since I don't maintain at this wiki anymore on a regular basis. If you feel comfortable with it, go on but I had other views in this list. - Roxanne (talk) - 16th July 2021 - 21:16 GMT+1
    • Regarding the "untested thing", this is what I mean. First we need to "clean" every Title on the whole lists which I know is huuuuuge work to do. But still who is interested when wants to add a Game to check if that Game got released in other regions or not or even if so, who is interested to test a Game from all three versions. If you check the changes in it's list, then you will recognize that only a very small amount of edits contains new entries for a Game, which got tested for two or even all three regions. Every other edit only contains a edit or a new entry for only ONE region mostly.
      • Aah now I see the difference in "jumptoletter", but still don't like it, sorry.
        • Oh btw the ? template wasn't created by me. It already existed before on PS4 wiki for other purposes.

I have been cleaning up the list for weeks. First of all, I want to remove the double/triple entries of the same games. I am following the hints Roxanne has posted some years ago on the PSX-Place. But I have restricted the brackets to the different revisions of the game (for example, MGS 2 Substance). The names for the different regional releases (or written in Japanese script), I am putting as a smaller, italic font below the first one (someone has started doing that already on the list). If the game is made by a Japanese developer and released worldwide, I am putting the Japanese name in the notes section. Second of all, I want to get rid of all external links in the notes section, because we have got a link to the aldostools database here. Third of all, I want to remove every "None" in the notes section too (or such words, like a "working", "without problems", etc.). Regarding the changes, I am not sure if they are conspicuous enough to the reader. --Agrippa (talk) 01:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

  • One tip from me I didn't listed in the PSX-Place Thread: When a Game is both released for PAL and NTSC but with different naming for both region, I always have chosen that region as a first where the Developer is also deployed and/or where the Game was released first. Bully is a good example here again since Rockstar Games is a American Developer, so I listed it on "B" and not on "C" for the PAL name. - Roxanne (talk) - 17th July 2021 - 12:45 GMT+1
    • I have been following this one accidentally, looks like. It is a good point to note too. I am not sure if the {{untested}} thing is needed. The "?" does the job for me. Changing the font colour of the {{Unplayable}} from black to white is a good idea.--Agrippa (talk) 12:35, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Take a look at what i did here with the new template {{jumptoletter}}, the previous revision of the page had the same block of text repeated one time for every section (it was not doing the highlight in red for the current section), so this edit is an improvement, and it can be made in a relativelly simple way (i used the search-and-replace feature of notepad++), an small detail consequence of it is the bottom of the tables looks more simple, and as a bonus i reduced the page size in -12312 characters. The other edit i made here is because the template was designed to be used in it, i wanted to show you the results, is not like a huge revolution because visually and practically looks almost identical for wiki readers--Sandungas (talk) 13:07, 17 July 2021 (UTC). I decided to update the PSP page too, it was tempting because it had some minor problems and was relativelly easy to do, im not going to do it with CFW2OFW Compatibility List yet because is too much crowded, and im not going to do it either with the PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List because is needed to add more settings in the table headers to achieve the "3D" border effects im using in the guinea pig tests, probably i would need to talk about that borders later, but by now keep attention at how i configured the width and text alignments in the table header, is actually solving a problem of incorrect syntax (hard to explain, but there are attributes overriding each others in a nonsensic way imo), the way im doing it in this edit is more simple and the result is the same, unless im missing something... this way with a simple {| class="wikitable mw-datatable" style="font-size:85%; width:100%;" is better--Sandungas (talk) 15:19, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Aah now I get it. Ok this makes things easier, although I don't like the visual design now abd I prefered the older one but this is again only me I guess. - Roxanne (talk) - 17th July 2021 - 19:41 GMT+1
      • About what visual design are you all talking about? Do you mean that "guinea pig" table below?--Agrippa (talk) 22:52, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
      • I guess she means the location of the "back to top" link but i think we agree at this point that location can be considered a minor detail that doesnt matters much, actually at some point back in 2017 we was displaying it in the same way im proposing now, with the "back to top" located at the right of the "Z". Also think in it this way, https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps3/File:9s2YzIj.jpg from a practise point of view the old style had the row of letters and the "back to top" separated but very close to each other it was just a matter of moving the mouse a bit up or down so is not much diferent... but it makes sense to have all the "page navigation links" in the same bar with the new template {{jumptoletter}}, visually is fine, and is intuitive too--Sandungas (talk) 16:20, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
    • I was waiting for an agreement about using the template {{jumptoletter}} in the PS2 compatibility list but i cant wait indefinitelly, i been implementing it in the other compatibility lists for tests, works and looks fine so i did it for the PS2 compatiblity list too, now all the compatibility lists (ps3 domain) are using it, and one of the "legend" floating templates for PS1 (the other for PS2 is not using it yet) and i will make a new one for PSP to do some tests--Sandungas (talk) 12:40, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Initially i was thinking in doing most of the related changes im proposing (after convincing you) in a single edit or a couple at most, but i changed my mind about it, is better to do the changes in steps because this way is easyer to see why im doing every change, next thing im going to do is to "fix" the text alignments in {{ps2classic}}, {{playable}}, {{majorissues}}, {{minorissues}}, {{unplayable}}, {{notavailable}}. If you take a look at the code you are going to realize whoever that made them was trying to align the texts to center, but is not working because all texts are displayed aligned to left inside the table cells. What im going to do first is to use a guinea pig template named {{ps2classic}} where im going to fix that problem, to add 2 more features i imagined yesterday (i want to be able to use them also "inline" in between standard texts outside of tables, and maybe i will also include a "abbr" text to add more info hidden), and im going to add also the settings required to generate that cool "3D border" visual effect--Sandungas (talk) 13:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC). The new template PS2 Classic--Sandungas (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Agrippa, i dont like either the "None" texts at right of the tables (take a look at the PS1 compatibility list to see how it looks when used massivelly), but the problem we have is we need to dislpay something inside the "notes" table cell, otherway if we dont display anything it looks like nobody cared about that game, so what do you think about the new template {{worksfine}} ?, is just a test, feel free to change the texts, colors, whatever, consider it is your guinea pig. It needs to be something generic in many ways, if you have other ideas about what to do with it let me know--Sandungas (talk) 17:26, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Ok, I am still a begineer when it comes to the Wiki, I do not want to discuss a code issues therefore. But I am fine with the "jump to letter" changes you made. They are very good in my opinion and they do look better indeed. About the other suggestions:
  1. Yeah, the alignments have to be corrected to the center. And the Unplayable's font changed to white.
  2. I am not a fan of the "3D border" effect. It is just not convincing me at all in that guinea pig table.
  3. I do not think that we have to use a generic note that everything works fine. When the game is listed as a playable, it does mean to me that it works without a problem (as explained in the template at the top). When there is an issue, we add it into the notes column.
  4. I have a mixed feelings about the new PS2 Classics template. While it is well done and cute, that violet background does affect the clarity of the list. I mean, that saturated green does show the game is very playable, because officially released by Sony.--Agrippa (talk) 23:06, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I just realized about a detail related with the location of the {{jumptoletter}} navigation bar. In few words, is going to be a lot more useful if we locate it at top-right corner of the tables (in the way im doing it in the guinea pig in this edit). The point is... try to do this sequence of actions: 1) Load the page for first time, so you are at most top 2) click in the link to the "T" section 3) Now try to click in other link of the navigation bar... oppps you need to move the mouse whell, damnit. The goal of locating the navigation bar at top-right corner is because we will have the bar always visible everytime we click in a new letter, so we can navigate the page by clicking multiple times in it without using the mouse whell (thats a great feature for lazy dogs). To be fair i have to say that the previous location of the "back to top" link at top-right corner was fulfilling that purpose (but i didnt realized about it so i was not taking it into consideration), and in some way i broke it when i moved the "back to top" link to bottom. But i was trying to be practical from the point of view of how the mediawiki markup/code was written, i was trying to simplify it, and what im suggesting now is also for practical reasons because i think is going to work great and is an improvement (in comparison with the previous table style used some weeks ago at top-right corner of the tables there was only a "back to top" link but no links to other page sections). Also, if we locate the navigation bar at top-right corner it makes redundat the other navigation bar located inside the Template:PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List. Think in it while taking a look at the page, if we relocate the navigation bar at top-right corners of the tables we are going to have the navigation bar from letter "#" visible since the first time we load the page. Btw roxanne, do you mind if i rename the template Template:PS2 Classics Emulator Compatibility List to Template:PS2CompatListLegend ?, im asking because we have 2 more in the collection of templates that are "children" of the compatibility lists, Template:PS2CompatListCounter and Template:PS2CompatListHeaders and im trying to follow a shorter naming convention--Sandungas (talk) 18:19, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Please take some time to consider the problem im trying to explain in this edit related with the new template {{available}} im proposing to solve it. If at some point someone starts trying to complete the "availability" of some page sections in the same way i did in this edit with the games from the # section (in other words, without doing any test, just by googling) you are going to realize is a bit frustrating because there is some info (the existence of an untested game game for a specific region) that cant be represented in the actual compatibility lists. I added a couple of tables at bottom with examples from "real world" cases where it can be seen that by adding only the {{notavailable}} is not good enought because it leaves some room for speculation (the options 1 or 2 from the "Notes" column are the kind of deductive process most readers are going to do) but if we add the {{available}} then there is no room for confusion and allows to remove the weird {{?}} (hint: the {{?}} doesnt means anything, are pointless). The only reason why i decided to use the {{?}} temporally was because are configured with the data-sort-value="8", i needed it as a test to check that the new sorting methods was working fine, but in long term all the {{?}} needs to be replaced by other tags, and one of the good consequences of what im proposing by using the new {{available}} is that we can replace all them right now without need to do any test, the only thing needed is... time, pacience and care to check for how many regions was published every game in this link ---> https://wiki.pcsx2.net/Category:Games or https://wiki.pcsx2.net/Complete_List_of_Games. You know... as a minimal we can replace every {{?}} by either a {{notavailable}} or a {{available}}--Sandungas (talk) 02:25, 29 July 2021 (UTC)
  • As probably some of you noticed in my previous edits of the last days related with the compatibility lists i didn't changed any color of the "tags" that are actually in use, either in the tables themself of in the "legend". But now everything is ready to start implementing some changes that affects the colors. Long story short... i been playing around latelly with 4 different ways to applicate colors to the tags: "background color", "font color", "font shadow color", "border color". The only color changes im going to do now are the background color of the "PS2 classic" (background from green to blue), and the "notavailable" tag (background from lightgrey to darkgrey, and font to lightgrey), im going to update the hidden descriptions in the tags, update the "legend", implement also the new "counter", replace all the apparences of "official" by "ps2classic" and add some examples about how to use the new "available" in the compatibility list--Sandungas (talk) 20:53, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
    • As I said before, I am not a fan of the blue PS2 Classic tag. There is no need to introduce another "available" tag. There is a need to update the region exclusive games to lessen the amount of "?".--Agrippa (talk) 22:27, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
    • The "white logo/text on top of blue" is the design used by sony in the cardboard box of some PS1/PS2/PS3/PS4/PS5 bundles, and also in the PlayStation Store. In this case im using it to represent the store, i even added an icon with the white bag in the "tag" for the most noobs that doesnt understand what means the name "PS2 classic" and the cosequences of being labeled that way (it represents the best compatibility), in some of the experimental versions i was even adding a link to the official store just to be even more explicit but i remove it at some point because i thought it was excesive, anyway, i think the {{ps2classic}} represents very well that it was published in the store. The {{available}} is an improvement for the wiki reader because allows to give info to the reader that it was not posible to give before, is also intended to delete all the notes at right with the sentence "Untested", and in long short term is a {{?}} killer--Sandungas (talk) 02:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
      • The "available" tag is not obvious to the reader. It has to be named just "untested". Its background has to be little more brighter, the same as the "?" sign tag in my opinion. Similarly, the "notavailable" and "available" fonts are not clear to me. I think we have to change the meaning of the "playable" tag. It has to be like the PCSX2 one equivalent and as the name itself does suggest - playable from the start to finish. Now, it is described as a "Works perfect without any noticeable error." Unfortunately, very few games are playable perfectly without any noticeable error. And never will be. Even the Sony released PS2 Classics have got a imperfect workarounds, just like slowing down the game to get rid of the jitter. When it comes to the new template, I think adding a symetrical grey table at the bottom to include the resource links would improve a look in my opinion. Just like expanding the width to equal the list's headers below.--Agrippa (talk) 19:02, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
      • Well, the initial proposal was to name it "untested" but after the critics i decided to name it "available" to make more obvious that is a negation of the "notavailable" that already existed, the decission to name it "available" was also becaue is easyer to remember for wiki editors, anyway now it shows the text: "Available but untested", both names was popular (used here or in other compatibility lists), so the best solution was to include both, the colors used in "available" and "notavailable" are inverted, with this i mean... the background color of "notavailable" is the font color of "available" (and the other way around, the background color of "available" is the font color of "notavailable"). This creates an intuitive color relationship in between them, i dont mind the exact color tones other than needs to be greytones i will make some more tests here for you to see other greytones combinations but i like the actual "available" and "notavailable" colors because looks like bleached, i was not trying to achive that bleached effect, is just something that happened while trying to adjust them but thats a good visual effect because are like a group for "undefined compatibility".I dont see any description in the PCSX2 wiki about the "playable", i guess the "playable" description: "playable from the start to finish!" could be a bit better than "Works perfect without any noticeable error." but i dont like it either because i dont think including the word "playable" in a description of "playable" is gramatically correct, lol, i mean is like cheating, in a description we are not supposed to use the word we are describing, but im taking a look at https://rpcs3.net/compatibility and they are falling in the same fault :D. This is one of the times when i would really like someone native english speaker with some good redaction/resuming skills and tell us a nice description, short, explicit and very accurate, i dont have any special preference for that descriptions btw... the only restriction we have (consequence of the "hidden text" feature i implemented in the tags) is the first line of the descriptions needs to be 95 chars max... so feel free to play around with the "guinea pig legend" at bottom of this page (you or whoever that wants to suggest new descriptions) and overwrite them, dont worry about breaking it the table we can recover it from the page history. The area at bottom of the "legend" (where appears the links with the "resources" and "other compatibility lists") is not restricted in size like it was before, i mean... right now we just have 4 links but i would like some of you to suggest more links to add, there are no limits really if at some point we cummulate a lot of links it would be fine visually, links can be cummulated at bottom like an inverted pyramid, thats something we was not able to do before with a good look but now is ready incase is needed, also keep in mind we can use that same "legend" style in other compatibility lists that could require more links--Sandungas (talk) 01:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
  • Im playing around with a new visual effect that looks pretty nice, it looks so good that im convinced of doing it but i want to advise you before the change, in short... i want to replace the background color of the tags by a gradient of 2 colors, this is mostly a reminder of how to do it, and also allows you to see how is going to look. Try to edit the "ps2classic" template, replace all apaprences of background:#0070D0; by background-image:linear-gradient(#0090f0 0%, #0070d0 33%, #0070d0 66%, #0050b0 100%);, click in "show preview" (and dont save the changes, let me do it later). I dont really want to change the current background colors but as you can see is needed to modify them a bit because instead of using a single color now is going to be needed to use (at least) 2, for the "color start" and the "color end" of the gradient (and i guess both should be a bit different than the one we was using). Btw, this allows to achieve a different "3D effect" of what i was trying before with the borders and outline settings that was more problematic. I need to make some experiments with all this effects to see if i can use a combination of them... anyway, it seems we are moving on to the next experimental level. My original goal of the first versions of the guinea pig table was to use some kind of 3D effects to represent different compatibilities, and it seems this degrades of colors allows to do it in a non-problematic way :) --Sandungas (talk) 12:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Im going to enable the 3D effects in the default "table mode" of all the 8 compatibility tags, but also im going to drop the feature to align them to left/right by using syntax {{tagname|left}} or {{tagname|right}}. When i edit wiki and i need to modify something i use to "superseed" the previous version (always adding but never removing), the fact is the tags was originally intended to be able to configure his horizontal alignment inside tables to left/right/center (but the feature was broken)... so one of the first things i did was to "fix" that feature of the tags, is working fine but as far i see this custom alignment is not used in any wiki page, and personally i dont see any circunstances where it could be handy... sooo in the practise is mostly pointless but the "logic" used in the tag templates to identify when is used the parameter "left" or "right" is tricky, by removing the support to align them left/right inside the tables im going to simplify them a lot--Sandungas (talk) 14:53, 11 October 2021 (UTC). And im going to swap the background colors of {{available}} and {{notavailable}}. The logic i was trying to follow before is the darkest gray color represented the worst compatibility (so "notavailable" needed a background color darker than "available"), but now i think the most intuitive rule to follow is "the absence of color is the worst" (in other words, the gray tones with a high tendence to white are worst). In some way this is was agrippa was suggesting to do when he was insisting in using a extremelly bright gray tone for "notavaiable", at that point i increased the brighness of both (because in some way i agreeded with him, i wanted both to be very bright gray tones) but now i think it was not enought, the best solution is to swap them--Sandungas (talk) 16:12, 11 October 2021 (UTC)


Compatibility lists dependencies

The dimensions of the tags are dependant of the font size. This wikitable uses font-size:85%
data-sort-value Tag Syntax Tooltips
0 PSone Classic {{ps1classic}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|ps1classicShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
0 PS2 Classic {{ps2classic}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|ps2classicShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
1 Playable {{playable}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|playableShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
2 Minor Issues {{minorissues}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|minorissuesShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
3 Major Issues {{majorissues}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|majorissuesShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
4 Unplayable {{unplayable}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|unplayableShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
8 Available {{available}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|availableShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
9 Not Available {{notavailable}} Inside a table {{Compatibility Tags Descriptions|notavailableShort}} Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions
N/A PSone Classic {{ps1classic|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A PS2 Classic {{ps2classic|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Playable {{playable|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Minor Issues {{minorissues|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Major Issues {{majorissues|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Unplayable {{unplayable|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Available {{available|text}} Inline Custom text
N/A Not Available {{notavailable|text}} Inline Custom text
Notes
  • GOOD compatibility Tags: PSone Classic PS2 Classic Playable Minor Issues
    • Colors
      • The colors of {{ps1classic}} and {{ps2classic}} are inspired by the official style used in PSN store, PlayStation console boxes, etc..., white text/logo on top of a blue background
      • The font color of {{playable}} and {{minorissues}} is derived from the background color of {{ps1classic}} and {{ps2classic}}
    • 3D effects
      • Inline Mode: "bump", common for all tags
      • Table Mode: "bump"
  • BAD compatibility Tags: Major Issues Unplayable
    • Colors
      • Backgrounds in orange/red tones
      • Shared font color in a red tone darker than the backgrounds
    • 3D effects
      • Inline Mode: "bump", common for all tags
      • Table Mode: "hollow"
  • UNDEFINED compatibility Tags: Available Not Available
    • Colors
      • Backgrounds in gray tones, {{notavailable}} have the brighter background color because represents the worst compatibility
      • Shared font color in a gray tone darker than the backgrounds
    • 3D effects
      • Inline Mode: "bump", common for all tags
      • Table Mode: "flat"

Guinea pig tables

In the first "Prototype 1" table below i was trying to use the border settings to create some visual 3D effects (specially "inset" and "outset"... and also "groove" and "ridge" that are a bit meh), the problem is the border is displayed outside of the table cell (it overlaps the separation lines and each other cells), because by default the wikitables are using the seting "border-collapse:collapse", you can take a look at how it works here
Long story short... to bypass that collapsing of the borders the first trick i used was to do a "border-collapse:separate" in the wikitable and some more settings and tricks derivated from it. The biggest problem was that the table displays the lines in between cells with 2 pixel thickness (this looks bad and is not a standard wikitable)

Prototype 1 (this is not a standard wikitable and the 3D effects was meh)

# · A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Back to top
Logo PS2.png Game Name Europe.pngPAL-EU United States.pngNTSC-U/C Japan.pngNTSC-J Logo PS3.png Compatibility Notes
{{ps2classic}} Store logo mini.png PS2 Classic PS2 Classic PS2 Classics
{{playable}} Playable Playable Playable Works fine 16px.png Works fine
{{minorissues}} Minor Issues Minor Issues Minor Issues
{{majorissues}} Major Issues Major Issues Major Issues
{{unplayable}} Unplayable Unplayable Unplayable
{{available}} Available
(but untested)
Available ?
{{notavailable}} Not Available Not Available Not Available

After some experiments i found different ways to create 3D effects inside the cells, so is not needed to use the trick to uncollapse the table, it works in a standard wikitable, also the 3D effects are way better, im using 2 shadows in black & white with different displacement, and the shadows merges with the background using alpha, this simplifyes the color adjustments a lot, and visually it creates perfect gradient of colors, im also using an additional "outline" effect with a displacement to improve the 3D effects a bit more

Prototype 2 (this is a standard wikitable)

# · A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Back to top
Logo PS2.png Game Name
Europe.png
PAL‐EU
United States.png
NTSC‐U
Japan.png
NTSC‐J
Logo PS3.png Compatibility Notes
Get The Party StartedSearch in YouTube class="nowrap" style="background:#007fdf; box-shadow:inset 2px 4px 6px 0px rgba(255,255,255,0.3), inset -2px -4px 6px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.2); outline:3px outset rgba(255,255,255,0.2); outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#ffffff;" data-sort-value="0" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Store logo mini.png PS2 Classic class="nowrap" style="background:#9fdf9f; box-shadow:inset 2px 4px 6px 0px rgba(255,255,255,0.5), inset -2px -4px 6px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.15); outline:3px outset rgba(255,255,255,0.2); outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#0050b0;" data-sort-value="1" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Playable class="nowrap" style="background:#dfdf7f; box-shadow:inset 2px 4px 6px 0px rgba(255,255,255,0.5), inset -2px -4px 6px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.15); outline:3px outset rgba(255,255,255,0.2); outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#0050b0;" data-sort-value="2" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Minor Issues Good compatibility tags have a "3D bump" effect (goes outside the screen)
Get The Party StartedSearch in YouTube class="nowrap" style="background:#df8f2f; box-shadow:inset 2px 4px 6px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3), inset -2px -4px 6px 0px rgba(255,255,255,0.35); outline:3px inset rgba(255,255,255,0.2); outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#660000;" data-sort-value="3" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Major Issues style="background:#df3f3f; box-shadow:inset 2px 4px 6px 0px rgba(0,0,0,0.3), inset -2px -4px 6px 0px rgba(255,255,255,0.35); outline:3px inset rgba(255,255,255,0.2); outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#660000;" data-sort-value="4" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Unplayable Bad compatibility tags have a "3D hollow" effect (goes inside the screen)
Get The Party StartedSearch in YouTube class="nowrap" style="background:#d8d8d8; outline:2px dotted #a8a8a8; outline-offset:-4px; text-align:center; line-height:0.5em; color:#666666;" data-sort-value="8" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Available
(but untested)
class="nowrap" style="background:#c0c0c0; outline:2px groove #c0c0c0; outline-offset:-3px; text-align:center; color:#666666;" data-sort-value="9" title="Template:Compatibility Tags Descriptions" | Not Available Undefined compatibiity are flat (different than the others)

The problem... template {{?}}

# · A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Back to top
Logo PS2.png Game Name
Europe.png
PAL‐EU
United States.png
NTSC‐U
Japan.png
NTSC‐J
Logo PS3.png Compatibility Notes
007 - Quantum of Solace Playable ? ? Option 1) The person who added the {{playable}} for PAL region forgot about adding info for the other regions
Option 2) The game was published only in 2 regions, so one of the {{?}} needs to be replaced by a {{notavailable}}
Option 3) The game was published in the 3 regions, but the way how the actual compatibility list works doesnt allows to indicate it because the {{?}} doesnt gives any help to the reader
7 Wonders of the Ancient World ? ? Not Available Option 1) The person who added the {{notavailable}} for NTSC-J forgot to add another {{notavailable}} in one of the other regions. The game was published only in 1 region
Option 2) The game was published in the other 2 regions, but the way how the actual compatibility list works doesnt allows to indicate it because the {{?}} doesnt gives any help to the reader

And the solution... template {{available}}

# · A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Back to top
Logo PS2.png Game Name
Europe.png
PAL‐EU
United States.png
NTSC‐U
Japan.png
NTSC‐J
Logo PS3.png Compatibility Notes
007 - Quantum of Solace Playable Available... Available... This way indicates explicitly that the game was published in the 3 regions... but nobody tested 2 of them
7 Wonders of the Ancient World Available... Available... Not Available This way indicates explicitly that the game was published in 2 regions... but nobody tested them

Color tests

Time ago i made a template that comes in handy to do some color experiments in a easy way, is intended to fill a table cell with "background color" and "font color" this way: {{cellcolors|#000000|#ffffff}}, the first value is the background (black in this example) and the second is the font color (white in this example)
The value is composed by 3 bytes that goes from 00 (empty color channel) up to ff (full color channel), in order RGB, e.g: #ff0000 is pure red, #00ff00 is pure green, and #0000ff is pure blue... #4080c0 is 25% red + 50% green + 75% blue... all the values with the same byte repeated 3 times are grey tones #333333 #c0c0c0 #dadada, etc... feel free to make some test in the table below

Tag_1 Tag_2 Colors Notes
TESTS WITH 2 COLORS ONLY
Not Available #d3d3d3 & #000000 This ones are the colors used many months ago, before the {{available}} was created
Available Not Available #cccccc & #666666 This ones are the colors used in my first attempt, but the background of {{notavailable}} was too dark
Available Not Available #cccccc & #777777 I made another intermediate attempt with this values, but the background of {{notavailable}} still was too dark
Available Not Available #d0d0d0 & #909090 This ones are the colors used actually at 2021-08-04
Available Not Available #d8d8d8 & #909090 To increase the brightness of the {{available}} background the result would be something like this
Available Not Available #e0e0e0 & #909090 To increase the brightness of the {{available}} background the result would be something like this, a bit more contrast
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #909090 To increase the brightness of the {{available}} background the result would be something like this, a bit more contrast
Major Issues Unplayable #dd9900 & #bb0000 A test using only 2 colors and decreasing the brightness of the {{majorissues}}, the readability is low
TESTS WITH 3 COLORS
Available Not Available #e0e0e0 & #b0b0b0 & #777777 Using 3 colors gives us more freedom, basically, we can choose any color for the backgrounds, then we choose a color for the font that is common bor both (and needs to have a good readability in both)
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #c8c8c8 & #777777 Im still tring to increase the brightness of the {{notavailable}} background
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #c8c8c8 & #888888
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #d0d0d0 & #888888 Too much "bleached effect" the readability is poor
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #c8c8c8 & #777777
Available Not Available #e8e8e8 & #c8c8c8 & #666666 Too bright both
Available Not Available #d8d8d8 & #b8b8b8 & #555555
Available Not Available #d8d8d8 & #b8b8b8 & #666666 winner IMO
Major Issues Unplayable #ffaa00 & #ff1000 & #000000 Actual, used since years ago
Major Issues Unplayable #ff8800 #ff0000 #770000 The readability of {{unplayable}} is low but doesnt really matters, the red color is always very notable
Major Issues Unplayable #ff8800 #ff0000 #770000 winner by now IMO, the {{unplayable}} is a bit more readable
TESTS WITH 4 COLORS
Major Issues Unplayable #ee9900 #991111 #ff1111 #ffcc66 My initial color suggestions taken from the guinea pig table, i was having problems trying to do it only with 2 colors so i was doing tests with 4
Major Issues Unplayable #ff8800 #990000 #bb0000 #ffaa00 I would like to decrease the brightness of the {{majorissues}}... to difference it very well from the pure yellow used by {{minorissues}}
Major Issues Unplayable #ff8800 #990000 #cc0000 #ffaa00 That red maybe was a bit dark, softening it a bit doesnt makes any bad

The point of all this color changes is that i want to create a visual effect in between tags to classify them in the 3 groups indicated in the legend

  • UNDEFINED compatibility, composed by Available and Not Available
    • Backgrounds in gray tones, shared font color in dark gray
  • BAD compatibility, composed by Major Issues and Unplayable
    • Backgrounds in orange/red tones, shared font color in dark red
  • GOOD compatibility, composed by PS2 Classic, Playable and Minor Issues
    • Backgrounds in non-related colors... but what we do with the font ? (the ps2classic needs to be white but the others cant be white)... i still think a blue font (a darker blue this time, taken from the background of the ps2classic) for them would do the job... because now the blue color represents the best compatibility so blue font=good (while red=bad and gray=undefined)


Tag_1 Tag_2 Tag_3 Font color/effects Notes
PS2 Classic Playable Minor issues Black font Actual colors at 2021/08/12, the black font have too much contrast, specially now that the text is displayed in bold inside the tables
and also when compared with the other tags for the groups "undefined compatibility" and "bad compatibility" that are going to be softened
PS2 Classic Playable Minor issues Font color of {{playable}} and {{minorissues}} = background color of {{ps2classic}} here im taking the background color of "ps2classic" to use it for the font of the others
PS2 Classic Playable Minor issues Font color of {{playable}} and {{minorissues}} = #0050b0 Darker blue font
PS2 Classic Playable Minor issues Font color of {{playable}} and {{minorissues}} = #0040a0 Darker blue font
PS2 Classic Playable Minor Issues This is the only way to use a white font, by creating a shadow around it, so... white font surrounded by blue represents "good compatibility"