Spring-cleaning the Wiki!

[aegis]

wikicode doesn't use html

[Forboding Angel]

Oh I know, but TinyMCE can be set to use wikicode. The reason why I keep saying that it is needed, is because TinyMCE will also do interpretation, to the point that you can type up your document in word, add your pictures, then copy and paste it into tinymce and it does all the tag work. I should think that if it were as simple as copy and paste that more people (including myself) would be inclined to use the wiki.

I dunno though, I hate wikis. I would much rather have a nested site. Imagine this, a springinfo sort of thing meant for nothing else but housing dev/content dev info/help, along with comments on it and things like that. It would definately be a whole heck of a lot easier to navigate.

[SeanHeron]

I agree that the current site/wiki is very much a maze - I wouldn't say that it needs to stay that way though.

Although a pretty always possible browsing of first level nested pages will never be as easy as on SpringInfo, there are ways to structure things more clearly. A sitemap might be a good way for us to start (and at the same time a useful tool for people looking for stuff).
I'd suggest we try to sort the site overall structure in such a way that every page is nested in another one - keeping everything to three levels max if possible (this would probably mean dropping a good number of the current pages from the sitemap).

I guess you could go for the links at the top of the page for the "unnested" pages, like Athmos suggested.

P.S. Don't know TinyMCE, but I bet there'd be more contributors if we had a "what you see is what you get" editor (though I personally dislike giving up source/text editing if it's avoidable).

[MidKnight]

How about this? put TinyMCE in place of the current editor for a month, and if it doesn't work out, revert to the original editor, possibly with the option of using TinyMCE. It doesn't need to be this hard, guys.

[SeanHeron]

Huh, MidKnight was in before I could insert this edit in my post:
Started a Spring Sitemap (more mockup than anything for now).

P.S. If we went for the nested approach, it would be sweeto if you could always have the "Section" you're currently in highlighted in the top Link-bar (ie if your on the Kernel panic page, the "Games" tab is whitened, if your in a Forum thread, the "Forums" tab is highlighted, etc.)

[AF]

Commercial > proprietary

[Forboding Angel]

Well all I'm saying is that this: http://tinymce.moxiecode.com/examples/full.php

Is a lot easier for people to deal with than a wiki editor.

This is an example of me simply copy and pasting a forumpost from the modelbase thread into tinymce.

[SeanHeron]

Hmm, the problem I see with that is that it's not Mediawiki Syntax - so you'd have to revamp the current content entirely ? Though of course, as some have said, that wouldn't be a bad thing in some ways... still, I'd be happier with having a Mediawiki Wysiwyg Extention - but like I said, thats my preference, not necessarily the best choice.

Edit: this seems to be the ticket for Mediawiki "what you see iwyg".

A Sandbox for testing here (click "rich editor" after selecting "edit").

2nd Edit: Of course you can't use that to paste Html code in (as in your example) - but then you can't have it both ways, we need to decide whether to stick with Mediawiki Syntax or not :).

P.S. If we really wanted to set up decent muliple language version, the way to go (for Mediawiki) would be such (ie the way Wikipedia is multilingual, with interwikilinks). This looks like a good bit of work to implement though. [Add: reread Athmos language comment - and what you said is possible now, it just means having to link in the "language bar" on every page - ie doesn't really happen ]

[Master-Athmos]

@SeanHeron:

I guess the general sitemap you did is ok. Concerning games we might do a category for all stuff that's currently in development (or at least we do a color code or something like that if we put all those in the lists you came up with). Concerning the development part we should make sure that there's no section that clearly points out that it's about "Developing the engine" while the other part is about "Using the engine". So "Content Creation" might not be the best way to phrase this and yes - Lua should definitely stay in that section because as said - it "uses" the engine. We'd also need some more categories there for e.g. explaining the explosion generators & stuff but I guess that's not the big deal...

The same goes for the help section: We especially need some more categories for newbies - i.e. in addition to "Installing Spring" there should be something like "First steps", explanations of the lobbies and how things work there and so on. In the process the "FAQ" section probably should shrink and might even disappear. I mean when you look in the "General FAQ" it's all stuff that should be in the "About" section and most certainly currently already is but it's not a real FAQ imo. I in general have the feeling that the FAQ part always was sort of an unorganized clone of what's written down elsewhere so we should either remove it or put some actually good questions in it and not a collection of questions people too lazy for looking it up will ask...

Concerning the editor / wiki question:
Well I guess we should ask the admin at first if he's willing to plug something new in and then we should list all the alternatives we have and choose from that. Mediawiki sounds interesting to me although I still don't really get what it actually adds in comparison to what we have now...

[Forboding Angel]

Mediawiki is what we have now.

[Master-Athmos]

Oh I see...
Well imo the rich editor SeanHeron came up with is quite decent for a WYSIWYG use. So the question is what the main advantages of something new & different would be...

Once the upload function is enabled again I'd be fine with the recent wiki and its syntax...

EDIT:
BTW Sean is it ok if I edit your sitemap suggestion?

[SeanHeron]

What kind of question is that . Is it a wiki, or is it a wiki?!

Edit: Also - upload seems to work for me: Check http://springrts.com/wiki/Download , I splodged in the Windows logo and Tux just a day or two ago.
Regardsless, I'm open to discussion on wiki-migration (though I wouldn't be the one doing it...).

[Auswaschbar]

What kind of question is that . Is it a wiki, or is it a wiki?!

Edit: Also - upload seems to work for me: Check http://springrts.com/wiki/Download , I splodged in the Windows logo and Tux just a day or two ago.
Regardsless, I'm open to discussion on wiki-migration (though I wouldn't be the one doing it...).

I am pretty sure the windows logo is copyrighted.

[jK]

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/pe ... fault.mspx

Note: Microsoft does not allow the use of its icons in advertising, in books and other printed matter, on clothing or other promotional items, in online and Internet locations, in software applications, in television programs, in commercials, in movies, or on videotape. Icons are not to be used as "artwork" or design elements.

[aegis]

oh joy, someone uberbroke the page....
something about floating divs and the wiki content not staying inside its box.

Code: Select all

<span style="position: fixed; top: 2px; right: 2px; opacity: 0.8;">

should be

Code: Select all

<span style="position: relative; top: 2px; right: 2px; opacity: 0.8;">

[jK]

.. that's intentionally to give more free room for the real content ..

[aegis]

http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/pe ... fault.mspx

Note: Microsoft does not allow the use of its icons in advertising, in books and other printed matter, on clothing or other promotional items, in online and Internet locations, in software applications, in television programs, in commercials, in movies, or on videotape. Icons are not to be used as "artwork" or design elements.

so pretty much nobody can use microsoft's logo, including microsoft?

[Auswaschbar]

Btw, am I the only one who thinks that even mediawiki standard design is better than ours?

edit: also, more vertical space is needed badly

[aegis]

.. that's intentionally to give more free room for the real content ..

uh yeah, except it seriously breaks the page on some browsers and on small displays.

[jK]

.. that's intentionally to give more free room for the real content ..

uh yeah, except it seriously breaks the page on some browsers and on small displays.

It works with opera & firefox. With IE it is just shown as normal (inside the content).