Talk:Menu

Split

This article is pretty big. Some of the sections here have a lot of info, and could probably work well being their own articles. In fact, I feel some of these sections could be expanded further, but just haven't yet out of fear of bloating the article. We can wait for the next game's release to decide if stuff like the save file selection, area selection, etc. should be independent articles or not. — {Espyo^T} 15:25, 23 January 2017 (EST)

Yeah, this is pretty extensive. Upon release of Pikmin 4, this page is gonna be huge. Perhaps making an article for major menus and minor ones would be a better way of distributing this info. V64 (talk) 15:11, 26 February 2019 (EST)

We still need to document P3's and HP's menus. We may need to start splitting even before P4 when we're done! — {Espyo^T} 16:24, 26 February 2019 (EST)

I absolutely agree that this article should be split. But how would it be done? Would it be split by game (which would be easier and produce less articles, but would make comparison harder) or by type of menu (giving many articles with cross-game information)? - Botanist (talk) 18:23, September 25, 2020 (EDT)

I don't think it would make sense to split by game, not only because like you said, it would make comparisons harder, but it would also repeat a lot of information. Having to explain how the Onion menu works three different times doesn't sound like a good idea. Splitting by type is probably the way to go, but it shouldn't be one article per menu. Off the top of my head, I think we could split between common external menus (title screen, options), common in-game menus (radar, Onion), and those game-specific menus (Piklopedia, voyage logs). — {Espyo^T} 10:04, September 27, 2020 (EDT)

Alright, here's a proposed division of the article: Menu for general menu information (such as the graphical styles of the different games) and for documenting menus not found elsewhere, Main menu for title screens and other menus accessed from there (like the options menu), Pause menu for the options displayed when pausing (this may grow substantially when Pikmin 3 Deluxe comes out), Area selection menu for the area selection screen, Story mode menu for the file selection or day selection screen, and Results screen for all the various ways the games tell you how well you did on a day or playthrough. Other menus can be incorporated into other articles. The Onion menu section can be put in the Onion article, the Treasure Hoard and similar logs can be described in their own articles and linked from the Area selection menu page, and menus for side modes can be described in the pages for those side modes. - Botanist (talk) 17:27, September 28, 2020 (EDT)

I feel like a lot of those would make for very small articles... Maybe they can be subpages of the Menu article instead, like how check-in works. At least that way it's a bit more clear that they're just parts of a greater whole, and not just loose articles with barely anything to say. I don't think that some menu documentation should be moved to other articles, because I think it's more organized if all menu info is in one place. Finally, I think the general "menu" article should only be a hub and general explanation article, and not document anything else. This is because a reader that's not paying as much attention will, at a glance, think this article is only about those loose menus, and won't realize there are actually more pages about more specific menus. The loose menus can be documented in a "misc." subpage, and the fact that it's a subpage also makes it more okay for the article to be something loose and random. — {Espyo^T} 12:29, September 29, 2020 (EDT)

So would the new pages be Menu/Title screen, Menu/Options, Menu/Saved game selection, Menu/Day selection, Menu/Area selection (which could include Olimar's voyage log), Menu/Piklopedia and Treasure Hoard, Menu/Onion, Menu/Pause, Menu/Game results (I think this is a better name than High Scores), Menu/Day results (could also contain the cave results), Menu/Challenge results (also contains Mission Mode results), Menu/Challenge Mode, Menu/2-Player Battle, Menu/Mission Mode, Menu/Bingo Battle, Menu/Bonuses, and Menu/Misc.? That sounds like a lot of small articles, but I think it could work well. Some of the menus could be implemented into other articles, like Radar. - Botanist (talk) 17:48, September 29, 2020 (EDT)

I guess so. As we go on, it'll become easier to understand how to tackle this problem. — {Espyo^T} 16:18, October 1, 2020 (EDT)

Menu/Onion is now a thing, to test the idea. Is this a good way to implement the split? - Botanist (talk) 18:11, October 1, 2020 (EDT)

Seems all right. I'm thinking maybe we should have a navbox, but all in due time. — {Espyo^T} 11:11, October 2, 2020 (EDT)

I'm wondering if similar but slightly different menus should share subpages. The Saved Game Selection Menu in Pikmin and Pikmin 2 could logically be combined with the Day Selection Menu in Pikmin 3, even though they do slightly different things, because their overall function (to get the player from the main menu to the area selection menu) is the same. But if that was done, what would the subpage be called? And is it worth doing this in other situations too, such as with the Challenge Mode Menu and the Mission Mode Menu? - Botanist (talk) 01:33, October 7, 2020 (EDT)

Probably. Pikmin 3 effectively doesn't have a save selection menu, so we probably shouldn't treat it as such in the first place. Challenge Mode and Mission Mode could probably go into different articles. This is really case-by-case, I suppose. — {Espyo^T} 14:52, October 7, 2020 (EDT)

Alright, the page has now been split into 18 new subpages. The subpages still have a lot of work to do, but they contain all the information from the main article. Has the split been done correctly? - Botanist (talk) 19:35, October 7, 2020 (EDT)

Restructuring

The article has been split! Almost all of its information is now contained within subpages. Unfortunately, this makes the main article look terrible, and also messes up a lot of links around the wiki. I think this article really needs a major restructuring now. And since most menus are accessed from other menus leading back to the title screen, I think it would be interesting if the article was arranged in a hierarchical structure, with the main menu as the first heading, and subheadings leading to menus accessed from there, and so on until all menus accessible from other menus are present (including those that aren't even in the article yet, such as Mission Mode and Bingo Battle). In-game menus would be listed in another section in a similar way. Would that work, or is there a better way to arrange the article? - Botanist (talk) 19:35, October 7, 2020 (EDT)

That sounds like a fun plan, if it can be pulled off! Can you try to sketch out some hierarchy, please? I feel like it won't really work, but I'll be happy if I'm wrong. — {Espyo^T} 11:24, October 8, 2020 (EDT)

I tried to make a visualization of the menu hierarchy, but it didn't work because of all the crossovers. (For example, Options is accessed from Pikmin 2's main menu, but Hey! Pikmin's area select screen, and it'll be in the pause menu of Pikmin 3 Deluxe.) For now, I'll make the basic structure 'Hub menus' (which lead to other menus and things like that) and 'Standalone menus' (which just alter or display stuff and don't lead elsewhere). - Botanist (talk) 03:06, October 9, 2020 (EDT)

Right, agreed. — {Espyo^T} 13:56, October 9, 2020 (EDT)

Moving subpages?

Now that most menu subpages exist and have Pikmin 3 information, I wonder if using subpages was the right idea. The use of subpages make them confusing to link to. Perhaps it would be better to use Options menu instead of Menu/Options, and Area selection screen instead of Menu/Area selection. — Botanist_(talk) 16:27, December 7, 2020 (EST)

Now that the division is done, I agree. Though I think none of them should be called "X screen", they should all be "X menu" for consistency. — {Espyo^T} 11:37, December 8, 2020 (EST)