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:
We 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 "Game Design" shouldn't be part of it.
So I would do something like this:
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Articles: I would delete it too, since the allegro.cc main page should work for this too, but WTH.
News: To me, should be on allegro.cc main page.
Recent changes: it's like the "News" section
Random page: This is really weird.
Help: Let's put it somewhere else.
{"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:
Main Page
About
Tutorials
Site Support
Allegro.cc
about
Most of the info that is at www.liballeg.org should be also here.
Explain that Allegro is a game programming library, that allows you to do games, but it's not a 2D/3D game engine.
Tutorials
Differnt ways to install Allegro 5
Hello World
Displays
Events
Timers
Bitmaps
Input
Addons
etc...
Site Support
The same..
Well these are just few of them... What do you think about?
]]>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).
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>It sounds good to me, would be something like
Home
Allegro 4
Allegro 5
Recent Wiki Changes
Wiki Help
Site Support
Allegro.cc
Allegro 4
Main Page
About
Tutorials
Reference Manual
Allegro 5
Main Page
About
Tutorials
Reference Manual
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.
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{"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"}
]]>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.
]]>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 )
]]>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.
]]>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.
]]>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 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
]]>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.
]]>What about this page? http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Category:Allegro5
]]>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"?
]]>How do you rename a page? I was trying to figure that out earlier.
]]>So I could have just moved "Category:Allegro4" to "Category:Allegro 4"?
Yes.
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.
]]>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
]]>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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
How do you rename a page? I was trying to figure that out earlier.
Wait....
we all agreed with this?:
The left menu:
Home
Allegro 4
Allegro 5
Recent Wiki Changes
Wiki Help
Site Support
Allegro.cc
]]>
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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
"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?
Home
Allegro 4
Allegro 5
Recent Wiki Changes
Wiki Help
Site Support
Allegro.cc
]]>
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.
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:
Home
Allegro 5 (switch these around, Allegro 5 is newer)
Allegro 4
Random Page (I'd argue for including this. It's kinda useful. I dunno. Maybe in the toolbox instead)
Wiki Help (I agree Wiki should be pre-pended here, not just "Help" otherwise it's confusing)
Site Support
Allegro.cc (not sure if this should be on the bottom or not)
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.
]]>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.
]]>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.
That's my understanding anyway, but it does make sense to have both here.
Home
Allegro 5 (switch these around, Allegro 5 is newer)
Allegro 4
Random Page (I'd argue for including this. It's kinda useful. I dunno. Maybe in the toolbox instead)
Wiki Help (I agree Wiki should be pre-pended here, not just "Help" otherwise it's confusing)
Site Support
Allegro.cc (not sure if this should be on the bottom or not)
I'm down for this. Though I would suggest the following changes:
instead of "Site Support" it should read "Support the Wiki". By looking at it, I thought "Site Support" was the help section, and I was going to recommend changing it to "Help."
I would prefer "Help" to "Wiki Help", for simplicity
Keep the Random Page. I'm a fan of the random page.
For simplicity, I would move the allegro.cc link to the bottom of the webpage links.
So I would do:
Home
Allegro 5
Allegro 4
Random Page
Support the Wiki
Help
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:
I'm working on a new tutorial that may or may not be useful ... I might just scrap it, but it's worth doing it simply to learn the ins-and-outs of writing Allegro 5 tutorials:
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:
The upload directory (public) is not writable by the webserver.
]]>
We need to decide between "News" and "Recent changes" having both doesn't make sense to me.
They are NOT the same thing. Recent Changes lists recently added or changed pages. News has to do with allegro releases or wiki server issues.
I have a bunch of screenshots to put on there, but when I try to upload files to the wiki I get:
My bad. /me fixes
append: try uploading stuff now.
]]>append: try uploading stuff now.
Works great now, thank you!
]]>I'm really happy you guys are working on this stuff. And if someone is willing to help be a long term helper, I'm interested in giving people wiki admin rights.
append: There's my first stab at re-jiging the navigation menu. the "stuff" box needs a better name... Or removed if you all really feel its unnecessary.
]]>That's cool.
I kinda like "stuff"
]]>There's my first stab at re-jiging the navigation menu.
Thanks for taking care of that!
I guess since it links up to the Allegro 5 and Allegro 4 pages, we'll have to prettify those and add links to the respective Article listings.
EDIT: Also, many thanks to AMCERASOLI for starting up this thread and his good suggestions.
]]>I guess since it links up to the Allegro 5 and Allegro 4 pages, we'll have to prettify those and add links to the respective Article listings.
It can link directly to the category pages if you want..
But I've been thinking we might want to do some fancy transclusion. The Allegro 4/5 pages will suck in the index links from the category pages, and the Main Page can suck in them from the Allegro 4/5 pages some how.
]]>But I've been thinking we might want to do some fancy transclusion.
I have no idea what that means
My initial reaction is to, in some ways, duplicate the Main Page, but customize it for Allegro 4 and Allegro 5 respectively. Perhaps doing what you suggestion, including the Allegro 4/5 category listing in there somehow.
I added some more things to the Allegro 5 article, just for now.
]]>I have no idea what that means
Transclusion means dynamically including part of one page in another. When the transcluded part of a page is changed, the changes show up automatically in the transcludee (sp?).
]]>Nice, I think we have the Home page ready.
Just two suggestions:
1- I think since the "Help" button is related to the Wiki we should change it to "Wiki Help", many web pages have that way.
2- When we finish to reorganize the wiki, the "Place to go" sections is not going to be necessary anymore(people are going to use the left menu). So we can change it by "Recent Changes".
Ex:
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Now, we need to set how is going to be organized Allegro5/4. Both are going to have the same layout/organization.
I think we need to split things:
Allegro 5 / 4
Allegro 5 / 4 Tutorials (This are related to allegro itself, loading Bitmaps, resizing a window, etc)
Game Design Concepts (Separating logic from drawing, make a guy jump, etc.)
Non Official addons (GUI, Text handler, etc.)
Game Design Concepts, is not our first priority, so if you want to create a tutorial and you don't know about what to do it, try to make one for the Allegro 5 / 4
Allegro 5 / 4
Download
Allegro 5 / 4 Tutorials
Game Design Concepts
Non Official addons
See Also
I don't know what the Pixelate thing is... But we can use it to put this kind of stuff:
- Competition listing
- Allegro Rupee Trading System
- Allegro on IRC
- Community Portal
- Submit a mascot (:-X)
- Pages that need work
- Allegro development
- Allegro's New API (I think this is talking about 5.1 right?)
- Road Map (And this will talk about 5.1)
- Allegro Hack Day
- Todo List
- Allegro website
I find many things redundant, but I don't know.
]]>I think the places to go section is still useful. We can show a sub set of the information in the Allegro 4 and Allegro 5 pages in there, as well as some other pages that don't quite belong in either.
Allegro's New API (I think this is talking about 5.1 right?)
Nope. Its talking about a rather old version of 4.9/5.0. Some pages need cleaned up, or updated significantly.
]]>But I think "recent changes" should be more visible. Can we put "Recent Changes" up, showing its content like "News"? and "Place to Go" (which are basically shortcuts) down?
]]>I think with the clean up, the places to go section will be smaller. I'm not sure how the front page will be organized atm. Still need to think about it.
]]>Or we can put "Recent Changes" showing its content in the "Pixelate" box and let the rest the same
]]>I dunno, where would we put the pixelate stuff? I would like to see the work to wikify the pixelate articles finished...
]]>Hmm.. But what it's the Pixelate stuff? What does that mean?
]]>Pixelate was some online magazine or something. Basically someone here collected various short articles on Allegro related topics then released them from time to time. After work on it was stopped we decided it would be good to put all the articles to the wiki. My plan was to do a half-automated conversion to wiki syntax of the whole thing first, issue by issue, so all 15 issues would be available in wiki syntax. Then later they could be integrated into the rest of the wiki better. However the conversion turned out to be a lot of work and after a few weeks nobody was working on it anymore.
So now I think it would be better to just do away with the pixelate issues and just convert all the articles. It doesn't really matter if the article appeared in issue 12 or issue 15 once it's in the wiki... also that way articles which don't make much sense any longer don't have to be converted at all.
I'll try and move it from the front page to a sub-page now.
]]>Oh I see, since I saw things like "books" and the name of people that was writing the documents, I thought those documents were from people outside this community.
I'm using the Allegro 4 section as "SandBox" but something that I can't understand are categories.
Articles categories:
When I think in an article, I imagine a short text talking about a specific way to do something.
For example I could create an article talking about how to create arrays of objects, and would be an article about programming, and also could create and article about making an object move across the screen with Allegro and would be an article about Game Design Concepts.
But when I press Allegro 5 Articles I see:
- Subcategories: and a another link to Allegro 5 Tutorial.
- Pages in category "Allegro 5":
A5 hardware portability
Allegro 5 Screenshot
We have this:
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But I think instead of say: Allegro 4 articles, should say, Programming Articles. Because we're already in the Allegro 4 section, we now they're allegro 4 articles.
don't you think?
EDIT
But wait a minute... Articles of that kind (programming) don't need to be related to A4 nor A5 so I think that link can point to the same document.
]]>But I think instead of say: Allegro 4 articles, should say, Programming Articles. Because we're already in the Allegro 4 section, we now they're allegro 4 articles.
don't you think?
No, each category should have its own name, that's simpler. Look at Wikipedia, they managed to categorize the total of human knowledge that way so should be good enough [1]
Btw., to whoever is responsible for the CSS, can we have the font sizes please be the exact same as Wikipedia? Wikipedia has the right font sizes for everything in all browsers here but the Allegro Wiki's sidebar text is unreadably small for me.
]]>But if someone upload a document in "Allegro 5 programming articles" someone learning allegro 4 won't be able to see it (and vice versa).
]]>Then someone should convert those articles' code to the other version?
]]>No because programming articles, don't need to be related to Allegro. It's just that, programming. I'm actually thinking in that category because there are already some articles talking about generic programming, things that you can find everywhere:
Category: Programming
This Category should be useful for everyone, even for non allegro users.
- Allegro GUI PHP (this shouldn't be here this is a "Non Official addon")
- Cellular Automata - Game of life and other variants (This neither, is more related to "Game Design Concepts")
- Function pointers
- Return values
Etc...
]]>CSS
In the fresh new coat of CSS I'm working on, those sizes have been increased. There were several fonts at 95%, 85%, etc that I have bumped up to 100% for legibility.
I plan to 'release' the css when it's ready, to avoid incremental commentary (which will always kill a design). I think it will be ready in a day or two.
It looks really nice, btw
]]>I vaguely recall a brief moment in a dream last night where the wiki was re-styled to a Geocities-ish era look with a black starfield as a background. Is that the new look?
]]>I vaguely recall a brief moment in a dream last night where the wiki was re-styled to a Geocities-ish era look with a black starfield as a background. Is that the new look?
Well, at least wasn't a nightmare...
How can I edit this category? http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Category:Programming
What I see is just:
This category contains articles pertaining to the subject of computer programming. [[Category:Articles]]
]]>
It looks really nice, btw
Yay!
How can I edit this category?
Do you mean, how can you add pages to that category? You have to go to each page and add [[Category:Programming]] to them, typically at the bottom. Then they will show up in the http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Category:Programming page.
The same thing goes for Categories. So since the Programming category has [[Category:Articles]] on it, it will show up in the Articles category.
But wait a minute... Articles of that kind (programming) don't need to be related to A4 nor A5 so I think that link can point to the same document.
Anything that is agnostic to A4/A5 should appear in both categories. So, for example, you could add [[Category:Allegro 4]] and [[Category:Allegro 5]] to the Category:Programming page, and then Programming would show up under Allegro 4 and Allegro 5.
]]>No because programming articles, don't need to be related to Allegro.
But the articles could contain example code, using Allegro.
]]>Don't make me break out the Venn diagrams!
]]>But the articles could contain example code, using Allegro.
Well it's true, but I think if it's an article about programming and is using Allegro in the example, since it's related to programming stuffs should be ease to convert it by the reader to use it with other version of Allegro and even other library.
Programming Example:
In this example we're going to show you how to create a class and then use an array of object to display 300 instance of and object that is going to draw a bitmap into the screen randomly.
Here we're talking about classes, arrays and programming stuff, and the al_draw_bitmap function that can be easily modified by the user with any other function which can do the same.
Game Design Concept Example:
In this example we're going to show you how to use events to separate logic from drawing and make a ball bouncing to see the differences when modifying the Logic per second nor the frames per second.
In this case Allegro 5 is obligatory to follow that example, and Allegro 4 is not able to do this job. But even thought by seeing some tutorials even if is not related to allegro 4 nor allegro 5 you may get an idea, for that reason I did this: http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Category:Game_Design_Concepts
Allegro 5 Tutorial Example:
In this example we're going to show you how to use the Allegro UTF-8 string routines so you can handle UTF-8 strings easily.
So...
- Programming: can be used with all version of Allegro
- Game Design: might or might be not use with all version of Allegro
- Allegro Tutorials: are strictly related to eache version.
What you think?
]]>I think any examples or tutorials that exclusively use one version of allegro should also be in the Allegro category it happens to use. That's not to say they can't also be in Game Design, or general Tutorials. But if they make heavy use of Allegro, then they really should be in the Allegro section.
append:
Articles making use of one version of allegro should also make it very clear right away that they use "Allegro X" to make sure not to confuse people.
Yes its' true, each article have an average of reusability.
Article related to: Average reusability Programming High Game design C. Middle Allegro 5/4 Tut. Low
If we split this sections we can link to them in any different current version of Allegro, and future versions too. And put them together so if no Article is made to an specific version of Allegro, users are going to see if that article was made for Allegro4/5/6/7/8 without need to go inside each "Allegro 4/5/6..." tutorials.
Let's see, if for example I create an article about how to create a Mario Bros clone.
I think would be in the Game design concept section, but I need to specified that I'm using Allegro 5 nor Allegro 4. Other people which are using Allegro 7 (year 2013), can see it and learn from that article even is they're not able to just copy and paste.
That is an article that use intensively Allegro 5, but for example collision detection which is generic, can be linked in each version of Allegro.
So for example I say "let's see if there is an article about physics"
I go to: Allegro 5 > Game design concepts, and shows me the articles made for allegro 5, if I can't find what I'm looking for, I scroll down to see if that articles was made for Allegro 4, and if is there at least I have something.
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Other way will be, to have only two version in the wiki, we have currently 4 and 5, then we can have 5.0 and 5.2, in that case what we would have to do is move the articles to each corresponding section, but still specifying that those articles were made with older version of allegro. I don't like this idea because I think is better to have all the documentation online even if is a super old version. But at some point we'll have to remove it anyway. And also because it give us more work.
]]>Indeed, if an article is mostly about game design or about some specific algorithm, then yes, it should go in Game Design or Programming, but should also go in the Allegro N section it happens to use. That is if you have something about collision detection, and it only uses Allegro 4, it should go in Game Design Concepts and Allegro 4, but Not in Allegro 5.
]]>Hey what if we did one of these:
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Since we're trying to push people into Allegro 5 and Allegro 4 is considered legacy, I don't think it would be a bad idea to keep new people from being confused.
]]>Yes, I think something like that would be excellent.
]]>Quick note on that. I chose that verbiage because:
it isn't "This article was written for Allegro 4" which may imply that we would need to add a "This article was written for Allegro 5." It's unique to Allegro 4 articles.
it weakly discourages Allegro 4 by calling it "older"
it explains that the warning is to specifically address compatibility, as not to infer that it the article is "outdated" and/or needs to be revised. This also weakly implies prioritizing the use of Allegro 5.
wow, that image looks very professional.
So another question: If exist a page "Bounding Box" with examples using A4 and someone want to do another one using A5, what should he do? name it "Bounding Box A5"?
]]>So another question: If exist a page "Bounding Box" with examples using A4 and someone want to do another one using A5, what should he do? name it "Bounding Box A5"?
I think it would be best to just keep it as one "Bounding Box" page, and have both the A4 and A5 examples in the same article. The main emphasis for something like that should be the theory, not the code.
]]>Exactly that is a good Idea. So if for example, already exist an article talking about B.B Collision, using Allegro 4, someone can upgrade it by just adding a header (Allegro 5) and star writing, then the only thing that left to do, is add a link to that page in the Allegro 5 "Game Design concepts".
Sounds Gooooood.
]]>then the only thing that left to do, is add a link to that page in the Allegro 5 "Game Design concepts".
That would happen automatically if that page just lists everything with the category.
]]>WIP Teaser!
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Nice work man. Looks great.
Only weird thing is the edit buttons. They look out of place and too visible.
Otherwise ... when can we have it!?
]]>Alright guys, consider it in beta release! Thanks for letting me make the changes and I hope you like it.
New Version:
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Old Version:
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Subtle changes, it's how I roll.
I anticipate that there will be a few quirks for special cases that I overlooked. Please share if you find any. In the future, I will address the text-link colors inside the content panes as well as add little tweaks here and there. If you have an older browser that does not support @import (IE6), it will display it without the new css. IE7 also will not display the rounded corners or shadows.
Only weird thing is the edit buttons. They look out of place and too visible.
Hmm.... I'm going to agree with you on that one. I think it was one of those things that I wanted to work but it doesn't as much as I hoped.
]]>It's looking awesome. Thank you for the work that you're doing, Mark.
]]>Now do the official website and manual
]]>Woow man that is just brilliant! That's a Wiki!, I'm short of time right now but I'll be back!
Please let us know when is completely ready.
Now do the official website and manual
What for?
]]>Please let us know when is completely ready.
AFAIK he's done with the wiki design.
You might need to log out of the wiki and back in to see the new theme. I had that problem.
]]>Please let us know when is completely ready.
It is up, in use, and ready to be enjoyed.
AFAIK he's done with the wiki design.
Using it today I'll want to make a few changes to the content paragraph spacing, they feel a little congested. Maybe another thing or two. But yea, it's "done" but will have a few "patch updates" here and there.
Also, I created a new article Allegro - A Game Programming Library. So now we have three distinct ports. That main article, and then the specific articles for Allegro 4, and Allegro 5.
So Er'body Get on That Wiki, I wanna see that Recent Changes page humming along.
Now do the official website and manual
]]>
Hi guys, I'm not dead, it's jut that I'm running out of time these days. I want continue with this.
Yes I had to log out and then back in, It's very nice, I think the AllegroWiki texts style is even better than the own Wikipedia.
Google just send me 75 euros of free publicity I would like to finish my game to promote it on my web page. It's until 31 of this month then it reduce to 50 euros until 30 April and then if I don't use it, completely disappears.
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When I finish all these we could start creating a database for a Trivial game for Allegro and put it on the Wiki, would be funny.
These are some pics of my game so far:
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I need a database of 1000 questions at least that is the most difficult part (in spanish so you can't help me ).
]]>Hmm ... an Allegro 5 Trivia game? That's not a bad idea! Totally nerdy, but incredibly useful!
Hi guys, I'm not dead, it's jut that I'm running out of time these days. I want continue with this.
Same here, except I took a break to make progress on my game. I need to finish up my MSVC 2010 tutorial, and some intersection/collision articles.
]]>Allegro 5 Trivia game
OMG I totally had that idea1`!!
In the game I was thinking of, the questions were like "which is the correct function name:"
al_draw_rotated_scaled_tinted_bitmap()
al_draw_tinted_rotated_scaled_bitmap()
al_draw_scaled_tinted_rotated_bitmap()
al_draw_tinted_scaled_rotated_bitmap()
I think it's a fun idea! I wanna play
]]>Mark Oates: I hate to bother you, but there is a slight bug. I updated my MSVC 2010 + Allegro 5 tutorial with a bunch of shiny screenshots They're put into right-side thumbnails. However they don't show up correctly, at least in Chrome on Windows. They don't stay within the confines of their section; they just all lump together on the right.
I hope it can be fixed. The tutorial page looks crazy as-is
]]>Hmm, that's a MediaWiki thing. Here's what it looks like default (without my css):
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I think what happens is the thumbnail will start (vertically) at the section where you put the thumbnail, but if the sections overlap, then the thumbnails will stack. It's not as cool as the allegro.cc way
If I narrow the window, that seems to support my hypothesis:
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I'm not sure there's anything I can do on that one. I would recommend that you just embed the images, not as thumbnails.
]]>I see. Thank you for looking into it.
I found a fix. I added a Template:clear, and then {{clear}} at the end of each section. Problem solved
Only remaining visual artifact is that the code box is too wide, and the thumbnails thus start digging into it. Not sure how to fix that one ...
]]>Bleh, you are telling people to places DLLs in system32 by hand, to place files in the VC directories, etc. There's a reason I write my own tutorials.
I confess, I used to tell people to do that too.
]]>(What matthew said)++
I was going to suggest changing that at some point. You'll need to, eventually. The "right" way to do it is create a separate folder somewhere with that allegro version's headers and dlls, then tell msvc where to look via that project's property pages. That way you can write in a program in 5.0.0, later upgrade to 5.x.x and still have 5.0.0 (and still properly referenced in its project) for the previous program you were writing.
In doing that, you'll need to create a new section on distributing your program, that explains how to copy the dlls into your distribution folder.
]]>Bleh, you are telling people to places DLLs in system32 by hand, to place files in the VC directories, etc.
Feel free to edit it. It's like, a Wiki and stuff.
]]>I could edit all of your posts on the forums here but I don't do that either.
]]>I wish you would. My grammar is shameful
Anyway, I know it's not best practices, but I just threw it together; making incremental steps here and there. At least I'm putting something on the Wiki, and hopefully motivating others to do the same. I'll come back later and clean it up; maybe even write an installer. It'd certainly be nice to have an MSVC project template, which is on my list of things to do.
Thank you for the feedback.
]]>I hold some reserve for modifying an instructional article that someone else has spent time refining, such as that. This case I think it's ok, though.
I'll be happy to make changes on those sections. In the next few days, though. I'll get around to it.
]]>Damn auto-lock system, I have no time yet, but if I don't write something it's going to be locked.
Anyway, I was seeing the new pages (Allegro 5 MSVC 2010 Inst. and Grid Coordinates vs. Pixel Coordinates) which are pretty good, but for me they're not well placed. I don't know if they're there just temporally.
Instructions about how to install allegro 5 should be simply an "Allegro 5 Tutorial", we could create another section inside the "Allegro 5 Tutorial" besides "Abstract" which it could say "Installing Allegro 5" then "Select your IDE" and there is where I want to place the Code::Blocks instructions, and inside each IDE might be instructions for different Operating Systems.
About "Grid Coordinates vs. Pixel Coordinates" is very difficult to know in which section we could include this, because it's not properly a "Game Design" or a "Concept" about something, but, if Allegro 5 draws primitives different than Allegro 4, then could be placed inside "Allegro 5 Tutorial" since is something related only to how Allegro 5 works.
Allegro 5 Tutorials ★ Installing Allegro 5 • Visual Studio 2010 • Code::Blocks 10.05 | Windows | Linux • DevC++ | Windows | Linux ★ Abstract • Displays: Learn to create a display • Events: Learn about events and how to use them • Timers: Learn how to use timers • Bitmaps: Learn how to create and draw bitmaps • Input: Learn how to get input • Addons: Learn about Allegro's various addons • Primitives: Learn how to draw primitive shapes | Grid Coordinates vs. Pixel Coordinates • Fonts: How to use fonts and draw text • Audio: Learn how to play audio
What do you think??
]]> ★ Installing Allegro 5
• Visual Studio 2010
• Code::Blocks 10.05
| Windows
| Linux
• DevC++
| Windows
| Linux
I'd do the top-level split per platform rather than per compiler. Also, you left out OS X in that scheme.
]]>I'd also NOT have a section for Dev-C++. That only encourages people to use it.
]]>Well I have to admit that DevC++ isn't the best IDE, but that isn't our problem, if someone wants to use Allegro with it (school, people already used to it, etc.) we should provide an installation tutorial. We could make a note for newbies, though.
I'd do the top-level split per platform rather than per compiler. Also, you left out OS X in that scheme.
Oh, it's true I forgot the little apple.
Yes would be better:
Allegro 5 Tutorials
★ Installing Allegro 5 • Windows |Code::Blocks 10.05 |Visual Studio 2010 |DevC++• MacOS |Code::Blocks 10.05 • Linux |Code::Blocks 10.05 (These are just examples I don't know all the OS nor IDEs) ★ Abstract • Displays: Learn to create a display • Events: Learn about events and how to use them • Timers: Learn how to use timers • Bitmaps: Learn how to create and draw bitmaps • Input: Learn how to get input • Addons: Learn about Allegro's various addons • Primitives: Learn how to draw primitive shapes | Grid Coordinates vs. Pixel Coordinates • Fonts: How to use fonts and draw text • Audio: Learn how to play audio
Well, I'm waiting for the green light to start the modification process.
]]>We should not support an outdated, end-of-life IDE. Doing so just enables users to keep using it. We should not provide any tutorials for it, and point them to a more modern IDE that's still supported and developed.
If someone is that set on using it, they can figure out how to make it work themselves. If they can't figure that out, then they probably shouldn't be programming anyway.
]]>Awww Okeeyy, there is not going to be a DevC++ tutorial... The rest is fine?
]]>You may want to discuss x-code on OS X. I personally find it atrocious, but it's the Apple provided IDE. Not sure if there are any other popular IDEs to discuss for Linux.
]]>Well I'm just putting Tutorials that already exist... If someone want to create another one about X-code he can do it... I'm just talking about the order in which this pages are going to be shown.
]]>You may want to discuss x-code on OS X.
Definitely should discuss XCode.
Chicken and egg problem though: most of us who know Allegro don't know XCode and those who don't know XCode don't know Allegro because there is no discussion for how to use Allegro with XCode.
The main thing for Linux is probably the commandline setup (which is fairly straightforward, thanks in part to pkg-config) which will actually work exactly the same on OS X.
]]>We should not support an outdated, end-of-life IDE. Doing so just enables users to keep using it. We should not provide any tutorials for it, and point them to a more modern IDE that's still supported and developed.
qft
]]>I agree, the only mention of Dev-C++ should be the advice not to use it.
Btw., is there a place in the Wiki which explains how to get the 4 versions of MinGW listed under http://allegro.cc/files? I just wanted to give a link to someone in another thread where to download them and searched on mingw.org but have a hard time figuring it out (And I'm not using Windows myself.)
]]>Btw., is there a place in the Wiki which explains how to get the 4 versions of MinGW listed under http://allegro.cc/files? I just wanted to give a link to someone in another thread where to download them and searched on mingw.org but have a hard time figuring it out (And I'm not using Windows myself.)
edit: mingw.org is an abomination, unfortunately (though it actually is better than it used to be).
]]>I see, so can just click that .exe at the top. But which of the 4 versions will that give you, and how do you get the other 3 versions?
]]>The link at the top is for the latest version. To get the other versions, you have to go into various categories, depending on what components they need. In general, just Base System (which has the main gcc package, gdb, runtime libs and binutils) and Make will do for most uses.
If you look inside those, you'll find the various versions of each package.
edit: I should clarify - the link at the top is for the latest version of the installer. This will allow you to install the latest stable release (gcc 4.5, iirc?), the WIP release (gcc 4.5.2), and the previous release (gcc 4.4). From memory it also installs make, gdb and a few other things as well.
]]>Looking at the changes so far, I'm no sure the SVN pages should have been renamed the way they were. They are explicitly for SVN. Though I suppose someone could add general information to it, but it should have happened before the rename.
]]>Well actually I wasn't sure about that one, but I thought that everyone installing Allegro from a Linux platform was using SVN, I thought they were related.
Should create separated section?
★ Installing Allegro 5 • Windows |Code::Blocks 10.05 |Visual Studio 2010 |DevC++• MacOS |Code::Blocks 10.05 • Linux |Code::Blocks 10.05 • SVN
]]>
Well actually I wasn't sure about that one, but I thought that everyone installing Allegro from a Linux platform was using SVN, I thought they were related.
No, most people will be using the source tar ball. Or eventually[1], official debian packages.
hmm.. Well I'm going to sleep 3:48 here... I was about to let it for tomorrow. I'm tired... You can change it back, anyway I don't think Linux users need this kind of tutorials... This is more for creating-a-game-shouldn't-be-so-difficult newbies...
Good Night.
ZZZzzzZZZzzzzz
Should create separated section?
SVN isn't a platform, so I'd say no. The SVN installation instructions should probably be included in every platform-specific page if they are to be complete. On the other hand, they are similar (to identical) for all platforms.
anyway I don't think Linux users need this kind of tutorials... This is more for creating-a-game-shouldn't-be-so-difficult newbies...
Why do you think Linux users can't be newbies?
]]>AMCERASOLI: why have you duplicated the same content on both "Game Design & Concepts" and the Category "Game Design & Concepts"? You don't need both. Might as well stick it in the Category, then the Category can automatically list pages, rather than making people manually add pages to the "Game Design & Concepts" page.
Also don't put a / in a page name unless its a Sub page of an existing article.
]]>@Evert: I was joking.
What do you mean with manually? they're gonna have to create a link anyway ( [[my new page]] )
There are many ways to organize the wiki: Categories, Lists and Navigation templates.
Personally I don't like the way Categories work.
Disadvantages of categories
Categories can't be edited directly to add or remove entries. This must be done at the bottom of each article to be included or excluded from the category.
The entries in categories can't be edited, such as adding references or annotations to them, and the user must go to the article to see these.
There is no provision for referencing, to verify a topic meets a category's criteria of inclusion
The category namespace is not included by default in searches using Wikipedia's search box.
Searches of the category namespace do not actually search the categories, only the category pages.
Category entries are arranged in alphabetical order only (though you can control the alphabetization). They cannot be organized into sections and subsections on a single page, each with its own descriptive introduction.
Categories can be difficult to maintain:
A category with hundreds of items cannot be moved except by editing hundreds of articles (though a bot can help)
Tracking changes to a category is effectively impossible:
A category's edit history does not show when entries were added or removed from the category. So there is no easy way to tell when an article is removed from a category – it simply disappears with no indication that it was ever there in the first place.
Wikipedia's watchlist feature is useless for tracking changes to a category's membership, because those do not show up as edits to the page (because they don't even exist on that page – they're at the bottom of each member page).
Categories do not support other forms of tracking, such as adding red links. (Red links are useful as gap indicators and as task reminders to create those articles). However stubs can be added to categories.
Categories give no context for any specific entry, nor any elaboration; only the name of the article is given. That is, listings cannot be annotated (with descriptions nor comments), nor referenced.
Alternative names for the same item can be included only by including redirects in the category.
It is not obvious to new users that categories exist, how to add items to them, how to link new categories into existing schemes, nor how to deal with point of view (POV) concerns.
Display of items in a category is limited to 200 on a page. To see the full contents of a category with more members than this, multiple pages need to be viewed.
All this contrast with just this Advantages
Auto-linking. Create a link to a category on an article page, and a corresponding link to that article will be visible on the category page.
Multi-directional navigation. A category can contain multiple subcategories, and can also be part of several categories. Categories are organized within Wikipedia into a web of knowledge starting with Category:Categories.
Categories are good for exploratory browsing of Wikipedia.
Categories are less susceptible to external linkspam than other types of pages, because only Wikipedia articles can be members of categories.
They are relatively unobtrusive in that they generally don't distract from the flow of the article.
Nevertheless I don't like "list" or "templates" neither, I just want a simple way to navigate, like most web pages works... I was thinking to avoid categories.
Also I don't like the BIG "Category:" word before each title.
Well, that is what I think...
]]>Well, the advantages in your list are mostly real advantages:
auto-linking: If we go with categories, the top-level navigation will automatically work. Articles will appear in the right place and be sorted alphabetically. Maintaining the complete navigation by hand may sound more appealing right now but once there's many articles it will be a mess if we don't have someone regularly cleaning it.
multi-directional navigation: We can do that manually as well of course but maintaining it would be very hard, you'd have to link each article in all the places where it's relevant (as opposed to just tagging another category to it).
exploratory browsing: If you read an article, say on some networking subject, you can just click the networking category to see a list of all networking related articles in the Allegro wiki. It would be almost impossible to have the same functionality manually (you'd have to manually maintain a list about all networking related articles and link to it from each such article...)
linkspam: Personally I think that's an advantage. Not because of spam links but because of external links in general... they get outdated or disappear completely, so better to have a wiki page for such links and not just put external links into the navigation.
unobtrusive: i guess alternatives would be just as unobtrusive...
About the bold disadvantages, first you do not want to directly edit them, that's actually a big advantage. I also don't see why its relevant that they are not included in searches, the articles itself is the only thing that should be searched - so again I see that more as an advantage. It's true that you don't see changes to a category, but you see whenever an article has a category added/removed, so I don't think there's a problem. And about the last bold one - if someone isn't aware of the categories they are off just as well as when we would not use categories. So nothing bad about it - but people who are aware of the categories can use them.
Guess I must be really bored - all I wanted to say in this post is I like categories But I can actually see the wiki work without them. It just means we'd have slightly less features and slightly more maintenance work...
]]>all I wanted to say in this post is I like categories But I can actually see the wiki work without them.
Good, then let's move on...
]]>I would also prefer to use categories. Lots less work.
]]>Oh come on man!.
Believe me, Categories are a LOT of work!
If some one is reading a page and he/she wants to improve it just add a link and start writing, what he/she only have to worry about is to put that link in the correct page, and they do it wrong someone can simply cut the link and past it where it belong, and even change the name if is wrong too.
Believe me, new users are NOT going to use categories, and if they do they're going to do something like: [[Category:Allegro 5 Tutorials]]. and that is not how it works. There is going to be Categories of categories of categories, all order by an absurd alphabetic list. I HATE IT!!
]]>Nah. Categories only require putting ONE single link per category on the page itself. Without categories you now have to find all of the Stand Alone pages that link to that page and change them there.
]]>What? that is not true.
If you create a page called "Allegro RULES" and you change the name to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" "Allegro Rules" is going to redirect you to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" until you change "Allegro RULES" to "Allegro RULES EVEN MORE" and then you can delete the "Allegro RULE" redirect.
Caramba... Allegro Rules!
I think I found a way to use: Categories, Pages and Subpages. I'm going to be testing...
EDIT:
@Tomaso:
I deleted the "slash" but the page still there, you can delete it. because the front page says: "255 Articles" and that is not true... there is one article repeated... Mine
What happened to the AllPages page on the wiki? It used to link to all the articles, but now it's a search page? WTF?
]]>It seems to be a change in some setting, I'm not sure. But if you enter A in the first box and Z in the second, and hit enter, it'll list all the pages in the section you choose.
]]>Yes I solved by pressing "2D physics resources" it's like everything is in there.
]]>Now that you've already done a fair bit of work in re-jigging the wiki, I only have one real request wrt categories. Please don't remove the category links on pages, we don't have to use them for the main navigation, but it would be nice to have a list some place of all the categories so people can view them all in one easy place. Also, new pages should be properly categorized as well.
]]>I'm going to create two paralleled worlds here, basically the same than Wikimedia.
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So, if you want to surf trough categories and find something easily you can do it, but in you want to surf inside pages you're going to be able too. this way we have the advantages of both...
The thing is we're going to need a page called Allegro 5 and a category called Allegro 5 too, well actually it's like that right now, but I'm going to do it with all pages (if it needs to be a subcategory of course), this is what Wikimedia does, and I think is very good.
What do you say?
]]>What do you say?
Pretty much what I was saying. Just don't rip out the existing categories, and try to categorize new stuff you're adding, if you remember
]]>Ok, But I'm not going to touch Allegro 4 or articles related to Allegro 4 (too much work and too many people to talk with).
Also there are a lot of Categories that shouldn't exist with redundant titles, if their refer to Allegro 5 I'll include it in the new arrange...
This wiki is based only in Categories, almost everything is a new category, I can't find a Sub-Category of something... Shouldn't be that way.
The thing is I'm trying to figure out a way to include articles/documents not only related to allegro, but also things like the "Game Idea Repository" thread that Neils did, but everything needs to be connected. There are a lot of good articles that are "floating" in the Wiki, they're not linked (besides the categories) and even using the Categories navigation system you're not going to be able to find some of them, since they're not linked. The unique way to find some of the articles/documents is using the Search box, or the "show all pages".
So we should create a hierarchy that is beyond the Allegro 5. I included the "Game Design & Concepts" inside Allegro 5 Tutorials but that's just a temporary place. The main category should be something like:
Allegro --- Main Category Allegro Versions --- This are Sub-Categories Allegro 5 Allegro 4 Game Design & Concepts Collision detection Network programming Physics More ------------- In case the list is too big Game Idea Repository Armor Ambush Battlezone Clone More ------------- In case the list is too big Vector graphics Vector graphics Vector Render API Vector gradient fill Vector graphic objects etc...
This way articles/documents are visible and linked, and when someone create a new article/document he will know very well to which category belong. The "navigation" menu will still pointing just to allegro 5 and 4 since they're the main objective of this wiki, but at the same time we'll have hierarchy that allow us to create articles that doesn't need to be related to Allegro itself.
]]>There is no need for the "main category". In your examples, the needed categories are: [[Allegro 4]], [[Allegro 5]], [[Game Design]], [[Game Idea]], [[Vector Graphics]]. Then you tag each article with the category or categories it belongs to.
You can then also get a list of articles in a category (Tomasu: how?) if that's needed for the navigation pages.
]]>(Tomasu: how?)
I'd have to look it up, but I'm a bit busy till the late afternoon today...
]]>Yes I know what you mean, but there isn't a way to make categories looks like this: http://wiki.allegro.cc/index.php?title=Sandbox
They'll be sorted alphabetically.
]]>There is, it's what I was just asking Thomas
]]>Oh, if there is a way to make categories and sub-categories looks like that, that would be great. That way the main section will be always actualized!.
]]>On the sub category, you put it in the category of the parent. Or something like that.
]]>I helped clean up the Windows, Code::Blocks 10.05 and Allegro 5 page. I fixed grammar and spelling, removed a small piece of bad advice, and gave the page a little polishing.
]]>Thanks man, I really need help with my English grammar. I think Windows, C:B and Allegro 5 are a very important topics for newbies. By reading those articles they can pass to the next level.
MSVC is good too, but too much sticky for me.
Edit: Well, I think I'll be back in a few months, need to finish some projects, in the meantime, if you're a newbie or if you are not, remember there is a wiki waiting for you to add or improve some articles it's really easy and remember that by doing so you're helping yourself. See you in "Cleaning up The Wiki Part II"
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