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| Cleaning up The Wiki |
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Well Evert say that I'm part of this community, all right, let's see if is true. Personally I don't like how the Wiki is organized and there are others which think the same. The unique way I can contribute for the moment with Allegro, besides money, is with tutorials, and I would like to have a very well organized place to put them. Obviously I'm not going to fill the wiki in a week, but I like to document all I do, and all I learn. Well everybody should put opinions here, these are mine: Allegro's WikiWe need split the content: One thing is Allegro, and another thing is Game Design. Allegro have nothing to do with game designs and Articles is a good category but So I would do something like this: Articles: I would delete it too, since the allegro.cc main page should work for this too, but WTH. {"name":"menuwiki.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/4\/f4838ed912ca759ae75c242846406bd9.gif","w":682,"h":378,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/4\/f4838ed912ca759ae75c242846406bd9"} {"name":"menuwiki3.gif","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/e\/de06dba09b8ac68e8cd7bba9508aec4e.gif","w":682,"h":378,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/e\/de06dba09b8ac68e8cd7bba9508aec4e"} I would do:
about Tutorials
Site Support Well these are just few of them... What do you think about?
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Elias
Member #358
May 2000
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For navigation, I think having Help and Recent Changes there is useful. The former to look up the wiki markup, the latter to see who edited something recently (so can double check/spell fix/improve in other ways). As for News, not sure... if there's something urgent like server maintenance there can always be a notice box so it's the only one which probably could go. Also looking at the front page, there's still the pixelate issues - but I guess there's not much point now trying to wikify the remaining ones. Probably better to just extract the good articles and make normal wiki pages out of them (and get rid of the pixelate column on the front page). -- |
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Neil Walker
Member #210
April 2000
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As my other thread somewhere in this forum, differentiate between A4 and A5. If you don't do that, the wiki will always be broken. Neil. wii:0356-1384-6687-2022, kart:3308-4806-6002. XBOX:chucklepie |
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Mark Oates
Member #1,146
March 2001
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I too, think we should remove the Pixelate issues (convert them to Wiki articles). Thomas has also given me server access and I'll be putting on a fresh coat of css to the wiki. -- |
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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It sounds good to me, would be something like
Allegro 4
Allegro 5
I would like to see just one menu at the home page (the left menu) and a welcome text at the right. May also be instead of a "Welcome", the "About" section, as the home page. {"name":"603558","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/8\/78dcff9ece0450d1a351b7f7cccb0d74.jpg","w":1820,"h":765,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/7\/8\/78dcff9ece0450d1a351b7f7cccb0d74"} {"name":"603559","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/0\/f08acb32867932038285171d20b0e105.jpg","w":1820,"h":765,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/f\/0\/f08acb32867932038285171d20b0e105"}
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Sindisil
Member #12,453
December 2010
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In general, I agree the wiki is in need of some TLC. The most urgent need, IMHO, is to split content into Allegro4, Allegro5, and Allegro version agnostic sections. A newcomer isn't going to know that, if they're reading an article and the code has al_* function names, they're dealing with Allegro5. I concur that the "news" section is perhaps out of place for a wiki. Wiki's tend to be for reference material, rather than up to the minute news. "Recent Changes" and "Help", however, are standard links - something anyone familiar with a wiki is going to expect to find. I'd strongly caution against removing them from the main menu. I would move them to the last two spots, but that's just me. One thing that would be nice would be to make the wiki link on the allegro.cc main page more prominent, since it is such a core piece of the Allegro support infrastructure. |
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Mark Oates
Member #1,146
March 2001
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I created an article for "Allegro 5". Consider this the main launching point for categorizing the distinctions between Allegro 5 and Allegro 4. (If someone else could do the Allegro 4 article that would be great. I've pretty much forgotten everything prior to Allego 5 -- |
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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I'm glad people are working on the wiki! Makes me happy That said, It is relatively hard to change the main media-wiki menu. At least its not apparent how to do it right away. Second, the news section is for wiki related news. The wiki and allegro.cc are not related in any way other than they happen to both be about allegro, and share the allegro.cc domain name. They are run on separate machines, by separate people. And Thirdly, I'm not sure its a good idea to split the navigation solely based on the left menu. Any time I've seen that in open source sites, its confusing, especially so for newbies. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but it isn't a strict left menu navigation setup. -- |
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StevenVI
Member #562
July 2000
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Articles can be put into categories -- why not put all Allegro 4 articles in the Allegro 4 category, and all Allegro 5 articles in the Allegro 5 category? It should only take about an hour for someone to go ahead and do this. __________________________________________________ |
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Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003
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StevenVI said: why not put all Allegro 4 articles in the Allegro 4 category, and all Allegro 5 articles in the Allegro 5 category? It should only take about an hour for someone to go ahead and do this.
I'm doing it now EDIT: I moved a lot of stuff into different 4/5 categories, but the work is still incomplete. I'll get back to it later today. Side note: I'm not just in the Allegro category; I've split things like Allegro Tutorials into Allegro4 Tutorials and Allegro5 Tutorials. The IDE configuration category will also need to be split. etc. It's all a WIP right now. Feel free to revert my changes if I do something stupid
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Billybob, instead of creating new pages and clearing the old ones, just rename them. Then the wiki will do the proper job of forwarding one page to the other. -- |
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MiquelFire
Member #3,110
January 2003
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What about this page? http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Category:Allegro5 --- |
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Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003
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Thomas Fjellstrom said: Billybob, instead of creating new pages and clearing the old ones, just rename them. Then the wiki will do the proper job of forwarding one page to the other. For my mistakes on the Categories (Allegro4 instead of Allegro 4)? Yeah, sorry about that. I'm still learning. So I could have just moved "Category:Allegro4" to "Category:Allegro 4"?
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Mark Oates
Member #1,146
March 2001
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How do you rename a page? I was trying to figure that out earlier. -- |
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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
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Billybob said: So I could have just moved "Category:Allegro4" to "Category:Allegro 4"? Yes. Mark Oates said: How do you rename a page? I was trying to figure that out earlier. The tool bar at the top of pages has a "move" tab when you're logged in. -- |
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Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003
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You click the "move" tab at the top of the page (if you're logged in) EDIT: TF, thank you for pointing out my silly mistake. I'll be sure to move categories should I ever screw that up again EDIT: Okay, I think I got all the tutorials and articles sorted. So there are now 3 major categories: Allegro (agnostic), Allegro 4, and Allegro 5. Allegro 5 basically has two articles under it
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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No no no no!! Wait a minute. Stop posting and modifying things until we have a "base" about how the Wiki is going to looks, otherwise we're going to work twice. We need to decide How the Wiki is going to be organized first, then we can do another modifications, and then we can start uploading documents. Thomas Fjellstrom said: Second, the news section is for wiki related news. The wiki and allegro.cc are not related in any way other than they happen to both be about allegro, and share the allegro.cc domain name. They are run on separate machines, by separate people.
We need to decide between "News" and "Recent changes" having both doesn't make sense to me. Thomas Fjellstrom said: And Thirdly, I'm not sure its a good idea to split the navigation solely based on the left menu. Any time I've seen that in open source sites, its confusing, especially so for newbies. I'm not sure what the best solution is, but it isn't a strict left menu navigation setup. Having just one left menu is the easiest and best solution. I think is what people expect. then when you press for example Allegro 5, it shows you at the right another menu, obviously bigger and also divided in other sections. The left menu never is going to be bigger than 6 - 10 links. But we need to tell people that exist two version of Allegro completely functional, and they need to know that all the info after pressing that button is going to be related to allegro4/5, and we can do that with the left menu. StevenVI said: Articles can be put into categories -- why not put all Allegro 4 articles in the Allegro 4 category, and all Allegro 5 articles in the Allegro 5 category? It should only take about an hour for someone to go ahead and do this
That is what we're going to do. Billybob said: I'm doing it now I'll leave the Allegro category on all them for now, until the Allegro4 and Allegro5 categories are accessible. EDIT: I moved a lot of stuff into different 4/5 categories, but the work is still incomplete. I'll get back to it later today. Side note: I'm not just in the Allegro category; I've split things like Allegro Tutorials into Allegro4 Tutorials and Allegro5 Tutorials. The IDE configuration category will also need to be split. etc. It's all a WIP right now. Feel free to revert my changes if I do something stupid
Please let's first decide how the Wiki is going to looks like, then we can do the next. Mark Oates said: How do you rename a page? I was trying to figure that out earlier. Wait.... Wiki Organizationwe all agreed with this?: The left menu:
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Mark Oates
Member #1,146
March 2001
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AMCERASOLI said: No no no no!! Wait a minute. Stop posting and modifying things until we have a "base" about how the Wiki is going to looks, otherwise we're going to work twice. This, I disagree with. Strongly, actually. What we need to do is have everybody jump in there and get our feet dirty. Get everybody involved, everybody familiar with how it works, everybody participating, everyone talking about what changes they made, how it fit in, etc. This may cause bumps in the short term, but is best for the long-term and for the community. What we shouldn't do is be passive and feel like the wiki "belongs" to magical more-knowledgeable experts of allegro, arresting our ability to participate until some dedicated committee has considered the ramifications of some changes. I think what BillyBob is doing is exactly right. He's in there, sure he didn't do something "the right way" (rename to Allegro 5), but the net result is that all of us learned from his mistakes and are more confidant about our role in the wiki. -- |
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Edgar Reynaldo
Major Reynaldo
May 2007
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AMCERASOLI said: We need to decide between "News" and "Recent changes" having both doesn't make sense to me. "News" is for major news about the wiki and Allegro, and "Recent changes" is for recent modifications to the wiki by contributors, at least as far as I know. I think both categories should stay. They're really not causing a problem as far as the organization of the wiki goes. My Website! | EAGLE GUI Library Demos | My Deviant Art Gallery | Spiraloid Preview | A4 FontMaker | Skyline! (Missile Defense) Eagle and Allegro 5 binaries | Older Allegro 4 and 5 binaries | Allegro 5 compile guide |
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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Mark Oates said: This, I disagree with. Strongly, actually. What we need to do is have everybody jump in there and get our feet dirty. Get everybody involved, everybody familiar with how it works, everybody participating, everyone talking about what changes they made, how it fit in, etc. This may cause bumps in the short term, but is best for the long-term and for the community. What we shouldn't do is be passive and feel like the wiki "belongs" to magical more-knowledgeable experts of allegro, arresting our ability to participate until some dedicated committee has considered the ramifications of some changes. I think what BillyBob is doing is exactly right. He's in there, sure he didn't do something "the right way" (rename to Allegro 5), but the net result is that all of us learned from his mistakes and are more confidant about our role in the wiki.
We all are going to get involve in this. But we need to go in the same direction. And to do so, we need to follow some rules. Edgar Reynaldo said: "News" is for major news about the wiki and Allegro, and "Recent changes" is for recent modifications to the wiki by contributors, at least as far as I know. I think both categories should stay. They're really not causing a problem as far as the organization of the wiki goes.
Well let's see what other say. But to me the "News" section shouldn't be here. We already have a lot of places to put News about Allegro (allegro.cc front page, allegro.cc Allegro Development forum and liballeg.org) If those who do "News" about allegro, wants to upload the info in all these places, we can also have one in the Wiki too. Make more opinion about the left menu: Let's finish first one thing, then we can all start uploading tutorials articles and everything. What do you think about this?
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Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003
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AMCERASOLI said: We all are going to get involve in this. But we need to go in the same direction. And to do so, we need to follow some rules. I'm all for discussing over-arching themes to our updates to the Wiki, but Mark Oates makes a great point. Sometimes you just gotta get out of the classroom and get dirty. The great thing about the Wiki is, you can revert all my changes. It might be redoing work, but that's the way the world works. Quote: But to me the "News" section shouldn't be here. I think News should remain in its little box on the main page, but it should not be linked on the left-side. Just bury a link somewhere else. Recent Changes is a function of the Wiki software. I think it should go in the "toolbox" below (on the left side). So it's:
EDIT: I just noticed that "Recent Changes" is linked on the main page (towards the bottom). I think that's good enough, so it can just be removed from the left all together.
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AMCerasoli
Member #11,955
May 2010
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I like that. And instead of "place to go" we can put "Recent Changes" So we have News about Allegro, and Recent Changes about the wiki at the home page.
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Evert
Member #794
November 2000
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AMCERASOLI said: We need to decide between "News" and "Recent changes" having both doesn't make sense to me.
I think both are standard Wiki links that one would expect to be there, and both serve different purposes: one is about things people may need or want to know ("Wiki off line from bla until bla for server upgrade", "Allegro 10 released", "Speedhack held December 2022"). The other links to articles that have recently been edited or added. |
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Mark Oates
Member #1,146
March 2001
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Billybob said:
I'm down for this. Though I would suggest the following changes:
So I would do:
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Billybob
Member #3,136
January 2003
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Mark Oates said: instead of "Site Support" it should read "Support the Wiki".
Thank you. I thought that sounded weird as well, and think Support the Wiki sounds much better. Only an admin can edit the navigation bar, so ... EDIT: Install Visual Studio 2010 and Allegro 5 WIP. I have a bunch of screenshots to put on there, but when I try to upload files to the wiki I get: Quote: The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver.
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