[Lonestar]

Hello All,

This post is in regards to the FS Doc, of which I'm the new administrator for.  
http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~freespace/fsdoc/

I would like to gather some opinions and suggestions about the FS Doc from all HLP'ers to make the FS Doc experience easier and more intuitive for all who are concerned.
This doesn't mean all requests will be honored, rather they will be considered seriously and added if not detrimental to any other aspects of the FS Doc program.

You may contact me via ICQ or MSN located in my profile or post it here. Try to be as specific as you can, even provide links and examples of what your talking about so we can get through it as quickly as possible.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Also post any content addition you think are required either by quoting the new content, or linking to it.

[karajorma]

Fix the line width.

It makes the whole thing practically unreadable. It used to be set to something sensible but now it wraps at about 80 characters.

[Sandwich]

In regards to the line width, I changed that to be that width. I'll explain why, and then leave it up to you all to decide what to do.

Look at any major or semi-major news site. They all have the text columns relatively narrow. The reason is that the eye has trouble traversing the width of todays screens from the end of one line to the beginning of the next without losing it's place. So especially in sites with lots and lots of nothing but text (forums don't qualify, as you have the breaks between posts, which help tremendously), the line width needs to be kept small.

Now the problem with specifying a line width is that the crappy IE browser doesn't allow a flexible min-width / max-width to be set. One unchanging width is all IE will support, and that needs to be narrower than not, because if it is set too wide, people with narrow screens would have to scroll left-right with every line if the text went beyond the screen width - a major no-no.

Thus, the easy-to-read narrow columns in all of today's major news sites.

So... now that you are armed with the same information, reasoning, and logic that I made the decision on - your choice.

[Lonestar]

At 800x600 Resolution the FSDOC fits fine, although the table width could be slightly larger its not too small. With different resolution sizes on the internet and a majority still being 800x600, im forced to design the wiki with that in mind.

It may be set wider, but dont expect a dramatic increase. My guess is that it seems far to small to you because your resolution is higher then 1024 x 768, if that is in fact the case try resizing your resolution to be a bit smaller to read the FS Doc Easier.

I could also use percentages but this is dependant on the current template which i havent looked at entirely. Ill do my best to make it bigger but i must appease the majority of surfers first.

[Tiara]

Suggestion; Make a mirror to the latest patch that actually works. Currently the patch is linked to www.freespace2.com which has been down for some time.

[Nuke]

my bigest concern is that too few people are adding to it. also of descriptions for things seem inacurate. id also rather programers list instructions for new features there instead of in the forums. of people will cut and paste and thats fine. its just if someone sumerizes for a programer they may simply leave out important details. other than that it was a pretty good idea to have it the way it is.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Nuke
my bigest concern is that too few people are adding to it. also of descriptions for things seem inacurate. id also rather programers list instructions for new features there instead of in the forums. of people will cut and paste and thats fine. its just if someone sumerizes for a programer they may simply leave out important details. other than that it was a pretty good idea to have it the way it is.

Hmmm, any ideas as to how to make people more interested in posting stuff in the FS Doc? Is it too hard to login? Registration problems? Maybe forum user integration would be useful so you dont need to remember an extra login?

[kasperl]

Toss the bloody wikiword loginname requirement. That'll save you a lot of problems already.
More forum intergration would be great, though.

Can we switch from [ link ] to [[ link ]] ? It makes ordinary texts a lot easier, and there are other things that use straight brackets. Double brackets, wikipedia style, are easier, IMHO.

(Yes, it'll cause a lot of work, but a single "link changer" should be able to do that, right?

[Nuke]

Originally posted by Lonestar
Hmmm, any ideas as to how to make people more interested in posting stuff in the FS Doc?

how about avatars for people who add to it. or make an entry add to thei post count. its kinda hard to make people want to take the time to add something. if adding to the wiki increases one's status in the comunity it might be enough to make them use it.

Is it too hard to login? Registration problems?

it was abit trickey the first time i used it, i had to get help. it was just me not interpreting the instructions properly. it all came down to me not knowing what a wiki word was.

Maybe forum user integration would be useful so you dont need to remember an extra login?

it would be nice. if it would make adding to the wiki no different than posting on the forum.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Lonestar
At 800x600 Resolution the FSDOC fits fine, although the table width could be slightly larger its not too small. With different resolution sizes on the internet and a majority still being 800x600, im forced to design the wiki with that in mind.

It's actually set to fit in a 640x480 window, but I'd be surprised if any of us still use that resolution.

[Lonestar]

I dont go that low in resolution to check websites, considering no one uses that low a resolution. Ok maybe a small percentage does, if they do they deserve side scroller bars!

[Cyker]

Why make it screen-size specific?

Design it so it scales!

My challenge to you now is to make it so I can read it comfortably in Opera on an 800x600 screen and comfortably in NetFront on a 320x480 screen

Oh, and in Lynx on an 80x25 character screen

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Cyker
Why make it screen-size specific?

Design it so it scales!

My challenge to you now is to make it so I can read it comfortably in Opera on an 800x600 screen and comfortably in NetFront on a 320x480 screen

Oh, and in Lynx on an 80x25 character screen

I could design for the three or four seperate platforms, and use a javascript to detect your browser and settings and then redirect you to the proper pages for your screen size.

Are their any serious browser issues to report besides the size of the content displayed? If not i dont think ill be setting the wiki up for 80x25 anytime soon. Maybe a downloadable Scaleable wiki doc, based on the DB Backup of the Wiki system. So if something is added to the wiki you simply download your desired document and sizes for  quick local reference.

[Eishtmo]

I think the big issue is what information is actually put into the thing.  Most people look at it and go "hey, that's pretty cool," but that's it.  They don't know what specific information needs to be put in the thing.  If a list of wanted information is put up, perhaps it would make it build up quicker.  I know, the idea is for it to grow as people come up with new information, but you have to start somewhere.

I suggest starting with the cold, vanilla Freespace information that I started (and stopped due to lack of time, energy and interest) some time ago.  Litterally rip the information straight from the tables and post it (with explinations and the like).  From there, we move on to modding, Freding, etc, etc.

The wiki login is confusing as well.  Took me forever to figure it out.

[Thorn]

Something I was looking up today. Table explantions. There are only 3 up there now, and none of the ones I was after. If I knew wtf I was doing I would update them myself, but then I wouldnt have been looking for them.....

[CP5670]

I could contribute a few things here, but as Eishtmo said, I'm not sure what exactly is wanted. My ship database seems like it might fit in here (more comprehensive than Sandwich's ), but I need to put this into html first and give it a cleaner look.

Also, it would be useful to make a distinction between official and unofficial information. There were many (sensible) extrapolations from existing facts which, although great to have in there, should somehow be labelled as being not strictly canon, and also one or two references to things entirely from user campaigns, which should probably not be in there.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Cyker
Why make it screen-size specific?

Design it so it scales!

My challenge to you now is to make it so I can read it comfortably in Opera on an 800x600 screen and comfortably in NetFront on a 320x480 screen

Oh, and in Lynx on an 80x25 character screen

Dude, have you even TRIED to view the Wiki on those platforms? It scales perfectly as-is.

Originally posted by CP5670
Also, it would be useful to make a distinction between official and unofficial information. There were many (sensible) extrapolations from existing facts which, although great to have in there, should somehow be labelled as being not strictly canon, and also one or two references to things entirely from user campaigns, which should probably not be in there.

Agreed - perhaps something along the lines of www.ditl.org where they color-code information according to canoninity.

[kasperl]

That'd be nice, especially with some [ canon ] [ /canon ], or [ ncanon ] [/ ncanon]  tags.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Thorn
Something I was looking up today. Table explantions. There are only 3 up there now, and none of the ones I was after. If I knew wtf I was doing I would update them myself, but then I wouldnt have been looking for them.....

Before he was swallowed by a black hole Galemp gave me permission to put his VPView FAQ on the wiki (well actually the HLP FAQ but it's pretty much the same thing).  His explaination of the tables is pretty good and may have what you're after.

In fact I'm quite happy to see anything from my FAQ cut and paste into the wiki as long as I don't have to do it all

[WMCoolmon]

I'd suggest a crash course, explaining the relationship that the mediaVPs, exes, and the launcher all have with each other. Something more technical than the installing instructions, that introduce new users to the concept of filesystem priority, how to effectively build a freespace 2 directory tree, and maybe some stuff on how tables work. Something that would give a general overview of 'common-sense' modding stuffs and how it relates to fs2_open.

I've been meaning to write it up for about a month, but haven't had the motivation to do it all - so I'd recommend that if anyone's interested, they feel free to do it themselves.

Uhm, hmm...something else I'd like to see would be a "major features" discussion, with such things as shinemapping, glowmapping, and (of course) modular tables/hud_gauges table :thepimp:. This would be more aimed at modmakers and technical types, and where you'd check to get info on the Big New Features That Could Really Help Your Campaign. (Go ahead and use that for the page name, I won't mind )