Hard Light Productions Forums
Community Projects => The FreeSpace Wiki Project => Topic started by: Goober5000 on January 03, 2008, 02:29:07 pm
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I've changed the annotations from asterisks to letters:
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Campaigns_%28FS1%29
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/User-made_Campaigns_%28FS2%29
It would be cool, though, if we had icons or some sort of prettier annotation that we could use instead. Or maybe a chart, with columns for each of the annotations. Thoughts?
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Its simple enough to use wiki table syntax for making charts with columns for each of the annotations... All that is missing are some sort of icons for depicting the annotations. I think chart like system might be the best for making such.
That is something like http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14772
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Why icons at all? A majority of the wikipedia comparison tables are just text with a bit of color coded-ness.
Something like this, only not sucking so much. http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14776
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I'd swap Engine Requirements with "Base Mod" or something like that so you could easily stick "Inferno" or "FSPort" in there, and it wouldn't take up excess column space like "Engine Requirements".
Other than that the list looks worlds beyond any campaign list I've seen so far. A short description would be nice, but I dunno if you could fit that in with the wiki sidebar. Is Javascript possible in the wiki, or is there a way to add expandable sections to get additional detail on the list page?
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14785
Weee, more playing around. This time with color coding. I also renamed Engine Requirements to just Requirements. It seems like a catchall term.
Now I'd think it would look better with gridlines, and it seems Wikipedia can do that automagically. Why can't ours? :(
And I played around with adding a description, but unless you stick it in a new column with tiny text, I don't think it'll work. I tried having a second row with a large colspan, but the gridlines didn't cooperate with it.
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I actually liked the old one better, though that may be a matter of taste. If you're going to go the color-coded route, with visual indicators of data rather than text, I think you'd be better off using a series of icons with a legend at the top of the page. It'd be a lot faster scanning through the list. Especially for Voice Acting, Additional Mods, and Released, since there are maybe 6 icons you'd need at most for those (Yes for voice acting, Yes for additional mods, and Not Released/Demo/Party released/Fully released for campaigns). No for voice acting and additional mods could be indicated by the absence of the icons. You'd buy yourself a lot of extra space too, because it'd save space for the 16x16 icons than 50px wide columns.
In the absence of icons, you could also have separate (untitled) columns, one for "V", one for "M", and one for "N/D/P/R".
On the subject of saving space, "Missions" is redundant after the number of missions in each campaign. It could be reduced to just the number of missions. As long as you don't have any similarly-formatted numbers it should be fine that way.
I do like the idea of grouping the campaigns by chronological order. It could be interesting to play through all of the user-made campaigns from pre-pre-pre great war to post-post-post-Capella and see how they work out.
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Well the problem with icons is how do you represent "Voice Acting" or "Partially Released" in a 16x16 icon? How would Joe Cool know that this icon means Demo? Color coding or not, I'd rather see just text so the information is clear.
But feel free to edit the Sandbox to show off your idea, it is a wiki after all. :p
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OK, I updated the sandbox with an example: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Sandbox
I'm not 100% happy with the result, it seems a bit cryptic at first glance and you have to remember what the letters stand for, but it would let you include more information than the colored-columns approach (which looks a bit cartoony to me :p)
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I don't really like the symbol approach. You've only really saved around 130 pixels of width, which I don't think is worth it if you also require a legend (unless you're running 800x600 :P).
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The benefit I see is that you could add more symbols and give more information about the campaign that would be available "at-a-glance" and you still wouldn't have to worry about resolution. Or you could add another big column for campaign genre, etc.
How small does the wiki generally assume the resolution to be?
EDIT: Adding just one column potentially saves a lot of bandwidth and time because if anybody is interested in that one bit of info and it's not on the list, they'll have to click into each campaign in order to find out. Still, the options you had in the original seem to pretty much cover everything most people would be looking for in a campaign.
After thinking about it, download size might be a good addition if you're going to include the core campaigns of TCs and such.
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Color coding could do the same thing, and we don't have to use my bright colors I have set up. I just chose them because they were just for testing and I just had to type stuff like "Red" or "Green". I quite like Wikipedia's Yes and No table template colors (though they'd be way too bright for the FSWiki).
I don't think the wiki really cares about resolution. The minimum for resolutions these days are 1024x768 anyway. My table is still under that width even with the sidebar. :p If it gets too wide we can chop off a column we don't need.
I think this page is a great example for how you can use tables in a wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_codecs
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I don't like the color coding; it's way too distracting and doesn't allow you to distinguish large amounts of uncorrelated data. Most of the other suggestions are good though.
If we could do something like this revision (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&direction=next&oldid=14784), but with one or two extra columns and no color coding, it would be just about perfect IMHO. Perhaps we could change the release column from Yes/Demo/No to Full/Demo/None.
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Adding those faint lines would be possible AFAIK if it would be possible to enable wiki to use Mediawiki:common.css sheet.
I hackishly copied mediawiki's common.css file's 'wikitable' and 'prettytable' to fswiki common.css but seems like that didn't do the trick. Either that or then i just managed to break something.
I think (a guess) that it is related to this http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_talk:Common.css#Help_me_pls
My feeble attempt... http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Common.css
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Is that page actually applied to the HLP wiki? Or does somebody have to edit the CSS file and upload it via FTP?
Also, be aware that the page you linked has all the CSS stuff commented out.
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Is that page actually applied to the HLP wiki? Or does somebody have to edit the CSS file and upload it via FTP?
AFAIK you can edit that CSS file (or other skin related css file like hlp.css) via FSwiki. And it should apply also to HLP/FS wiki
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Cascading_style_sheets
Also, be aware that the page you linked has all the CSS stuff commented out.
Does it? IMHO the comment sections should leave the actual CSS content still 'active'.
EDIT: http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/MediaWiki:Monobook.css this ought to clear the issue. That page is non edited that is it has only the default content - /* CSS placed here will affect users of the Monobook skin */. Almost similar to the one which was at the 'MediaWiki:Common.css' page. IMHO makes it clear that those pages are part of and apply to the FSwiki assuming the php setup allows for that.
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1) Campaign releases:
Please post them in the Freespace wiki so that newbies can easily find them. I take ages to find a campaign. When I find one, I play it and post it myself. I also created a sort of website www.squidoo.com/freespace2 where you can vote for your favourite campaigns. Sorry, the list is quite limited. I am trying to play them in chronological order, which reminds me;
2) Please submit campaign releases in the page in chronological order and not alphabetical... the later does not make sense. I tried arranging the ones I played for FS1.
3) I've become an avid fan of this game. I am no programmer but would like to contribute more other than fork out donations... ;)
So I suggest that a new section on the hardlight homepage is added for newbies:
a. New to Hard light? Step1 xxxx Step 2 XXXX
b. List of available campaigns link to the Wiki list
c. Ideas of how newbies can help...donate, voice act etc etc...
d. Create a link to a suggestion thread of the forums on the main page
Any feedback is welcome. Trying to help :)
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14803
Look ma, no colour coding and a description line! Does the description work? I'm not really sure about it. It'll mean a lot more text to read through, which I don't think is good for a list. But it might get people to a campaign they like faster.
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I like the concept and prefer version 1 :)
However:
1) The campaigns should be in chronological order and not on a person's personal preference. If it sucks, there is the comments section after clicking on the campaign link.
2) Colours are too flashy. I would keep to the current Wiki colours and add the content of table 1
3) Remove the campaign description
Wish I would know how to do it myself and show you... ;)
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14803
Look ma, no colour coding and a description line! Does the description work? I'm not really sure about it. It'll mean a lot more text to read through, which I don't think is good for a list. But it might get people to a campaign they like faster.
Looks good. :yes: I'm not sure about the description line either, but I'm inclined to say go with it. :) It helps break up the rows so the text isn't all crammed together, and as you said, it helps people get to a campaign faster.
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I like the description as well. It does look a bit more cluttered but I don't think it'll look too bad as long as the descriptions are consistently one line.
I added a hover-description to the number of missions, but IMHO it's a worse alternative to what we've got now for a number of reasons. It also can't be used in the obvious place, for the name, because Wiki already defines a title attribute for the hyperlink. That being said, it might be useful for something else. Hold your mouse cursor over the number of missions if you don't know what I'm talking about.
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I like the concept and prefer version 1 :)
However:
1) The campaigns should be in chronological order and not on a person's personal preference. If it sucks, there is the comments section after clicking on the campaign link.
2) Colours are too flashy. I would keep to the current Wiki colours and add the content of table 1
3) Remove the campaign description
Wish I would know how to do it myself and show you... ;)
1: Well there was some research into organizing campaigns into a timeline. However its a bit tricky since nearly every campaign is its own continuity. But if we can think of a way to neatly do this, I wouldn't object.
2: Yup, they need to be a bit more subdued. Though I think I have an idea...
3: Dunno about that now. :p
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It's a wiki. The most important thing is to get the campaigns in in the first place; if the exact order is wrong, someone will come along and correct it.
Getting all of them in will be the longest, hardest part.
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Can it be a different color other than blue? Like reddish, since that's the whole HLP theme?
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Easily.. Just say which colors (in html color id values)
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How about something like this:
#702925
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How about something like this:
#702925
Like http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14820 ?
BTW 'glow' tag is not exactly the most useful one.. I for one can't see it at all..
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Like http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php?title=Sandbox&oldid=14820 ?
Yes that one looks perfect. :)
BTW 'glow' tag is not exactly the most useful one.. I for one can't see it at all..
Guh I wanted it to look like a solid color. Highlighting it works...
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Bah. I like the blue version better.
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Every one is a critic...
EDIT: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,51430.0.html