Talk:Main Page
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Usage: main discussion page for Herocopia. Please periodically remove older discussions when possible, moving resolved issues to the FAQ.
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Recent Changes
Usage: notify people of changes you've made, such as new categories or adding templates, that may raise discussion or issues. Add links to active discussion on other Talk pages. Questions, kudos or other comments are fine here, too! This is more of a help and feedback for minor questions. Major and continuous issues or debate should go under Unresolved Issues.
New Layout Templates
With the new layout (that unless JG vetos) we seem to have resolved most if not ofall the formatting issues that were in this section of discussion. While the general layout is going to stay pretty much as you see, we will be moving to some easier to use templates, once we get the extended parser functions working.
First off and in general, while pretty solid as a design goal (infoboxes and their ilk are a common wiki construct), and so far everyone seems to like it, the fine tuning remains to be done and official approval from JG is needed.
However, beyond the initial test entry (I used Beautie, Zack went with the Gentleman, I have also updated a few extras for entries that are relevant to the Current Issue of Dark Age (Cleopatra, Pyramid, Natalie and Rex so far). I am moving towards and have built a statsBox that pretty matches the framework of what Fenyx pulled together in his sandbox. It's only problem, is it is fixed in terms of what parameters can be used and is limited to a good set of basic stat-items. But its is good enough for a great deal of our entries. Once we have conditional parsing we can and will expand the list (to a certain point).
I will also build a front end overall character_template for incorporating both the statBox and the bio items like history and powers.
Feel free to use the basic template that are available. See Starfighter's webpage for a basic example for how to structure and use them.
We will construct some additional documentation on the FAQ page soon.
--InfoBroker 12:33, 21 July 2009 (PDT)
Template issues
Templates are basically just substituting/inserting text into the position point of the parameter in the template. One quick hint:
Don't copy the template, copy a issue page that is already using the template and then swap in the info accordingly.
InfoBroker 15:40, 28 June 2009 (PDT)
Quick answer to "Basically why I have to cut and paste if there is a template for it?" is you don't have to cut and paste anything, assuming you know all the parameters and unlike me, can avoid typos, cuz the parameter names have to spelled correctly in order to know what to insert into the template at the parameter positions.
The description section as it displays on the template page(if kept up to date) will save authors typo errors by cutting and pasting it, and then filling in the information for each parameter.
The advantage of doing this is for a consistent layout. Also saves time if we decide we want a different layout for issues, different fonts, whatever. Not to mention all the time saved, trying to debug layout code for errors, or forcing authors to have to understand html and or wiki layout commands. Or at least minimize it as much as possible.
Click on the "powered by wiki..." help links on the bottom of the main page. It will take you to generic wiki information pages. Yea they get deep, I haven't even come close to absorbing them all (nor do I want to), but you may find a page or two that will help explain the mechanics of template usage better than I am doing here.
--InfoBroker 12:55, 29 June 2009 (PDT)
... and doing a quick rescan, reread of your questions, I'm thinking maybe it is unclear to you when the template is being invoked. If that is true, realize, it happens at the time an end client requests to see a page (or we press the "show preview" button). Nothing is happening at the point of editing, or pressing the edit button.
--InfoBroker 13:05, 29 June 2009 (PDT)
... one more quickie note. The character templates are still a mass of flux. Cleopatra, Beauty, Rex and the Gentleman pages are incomplete and have formatting junk in them that will eventually move into a template. Right now, the Quarrel II page calls a later version character template set that embeds more of the formatting. Don't waste a lot of time looking at them if it just confuses you. Once we get the conditional formatting options, I will be streamlining those templates even more and build description section(s) to make building and editing a character more straight forward.
--InfoBroker 13:13, 29 June 2009 (PDT)
I'd like to keep the template discussion in play a bit longer here. Make sure JG sees it.
--InfoBroker 23:15, 10 July 2009 (PDT)
I've done some editing on it...Mostly my questions and responses, but left almost all of yours intact to give it a good setup for putting in the FAQ when it comes time.
Zack
Disambiguation
But was playing around and look at the toolbox part of the tools on the left side. There's some cool stuff and lists I've never realized I could have been looking at, that can help with cleaning up/removing pages, what needs a link(or what link needs to actually be there).
There looks to be a disambiguation function or template. That would be the thing I saw that could come in handy, in that we'd have a page where we could explain certain things and especially if we ever decided to split up some characters or pages again. The only one I've come across that could have benefited was Wodehouse Mews and Wodehouse Mews (street). I'll try playing with it a little to see what I can get. If someone else could too they might have better luck..
Zack
Well I played with it some more, but can't make heads or tails of what I'm doing wrong. I created a template for Disambig and then created an actual page for Wodehouse Mews (Disambiguation). And there's a page Special:Disambiguations where they're supposed to show up. Then I created a category for disambiguated pages and still doesn't. I mean everything looks fine, but I'm just curious what I did wrong to where it won't show up on that special page. Be nice to know for future things we might need to create a disambiguated page for.
--Astrozac 11:41, 21 October 2009 (PDT)
Quick Links for Titles? & idea for the main Astro City entry
Hey JB when you did the templates for the actual book titles you put KB's AC vol 1 and 2, instead of KB'sAC 95 series and 96 series when you first came up with the new format for listing appearances. No preference either way really. Just asking the question for consistency.
And I got an idea for the Astro City page. I remember, JB you wanted it to be a place for Kurt to talk about topics, but how about try to make and maybe even some of the other neighborhoods/sections, look like an actual Wikipedia city entry? I remember looking on the New York City's page once looking up info on the boroughs and something came to me the other night recalling that and how it would be neat to do it here for the actual city. I know it'd take some of the very detailed tools of Wiki formatting.
One other formatting issue I thought about, was what about the Roustabout and some of the ones JG put up from Dark Age Book II #1? If we move everything over to new formats and templates that JB has created we'll almost have to butcher some of these original ones. If we ever get to it, I think it might be worthwhile to have sort of a misc place to put them, so fans can find the ones that originally appeared in stories. I know a long time ago I moved the History of Romeyn Falls article from Romeyn Falls to its own page. Just something else to think about. Might be able to put em with templates or just have a Misc category for them or things like the H. Guard adventures page that don't fit elsewhere...
Zack
title templates
They were first built with the year, which is how the GCD differentiates certain comic titles. IT is a good way to avoid confusion for certain comic titles. I shifted it to vol 1 and 2 a week or so ago for several reasons, main one being that it how they are titled in the indentias, and will make it easier for casual visitors here to properly reference the back issues if they want to get them. Consistency is easy. Use the templates for the titles going forward. If we decide to change them again, we change the template, and presto(!) they all get changed. LOT less work for all of us as well.
Roustabout
Interesting you bring that one up. It is my intent to eventually go back to that entry, and get it to cosmetically look as close to the Pastoral story panel as I can. About the only thing I was going to add was the fan speculation section way at the bottom and leave a marker in the discussion page to let people know they shouldn't be editing the upper section of the page, only the fan spec section. I would add a link (at the bottom) to an update page if we every decide that Roustie needed one.
For Black Velvet and others, for the past couple of weeks, I have been mentally designing an Eagle information entry/section that would either be able to fold into the overall page for those entries, or be separate and linked. It too would look as much as possible like the sheets shown in the comics (if we didn't loose information, I would just scan in images for them). But those need to be supplements, since they are "other" documents, not herocopia.com depicted in the comical books like Roustie.
We might want to enhance the presentation of Dr. Gearbox to more seamlessly tie to the comic and our overall character page design directions, but for now he seems to work well as is. But once we have the conditional parser, he will get some changes coming his way.
--InfoBroker 13:56, 19 July 2009 (PDT)
re: Astro City page
I wanted it to be a place for Kurt to talk about topics? Really?? I did??? Musta been wild brainstorming and idea tossing or something along those lines. My main thinking, now that this wiki is shaping and firming, is it should be a page that covers the history and attributes of the Astro City, just like the other pages focus on the information (best we have) for the particular topic. I would like to see Romeyn Falls not be a separate page, with the info combined into one, and a forced link to Astro City.
And now I remember, I think I suggested we put the article that Kurt wrote there as the base for the page or something like that.
--InfoBroker 14:09, 19 July 2009 (PDT)
-That's fine, I was just double checking before I do it on pages with the year version of the series already on there instead of vol 1 or vol 2.
-I just got to thinking about entries that have been put up by JG and what to do with them vs our current format/templates..
-I can't remember either exactly, can probably look on one of the earliest versions of the page... But I'm with what you're saying, I just think it might be neat to try to have the page layout/format be like other city pages on wikipedia, well as best as we can with our own quirks and formats too. But like New York and St. Louis as examples. I know we'd have a lot of blanks in there though...
I think I'm probably the one that created the separate page for Romeyn Falls. I know I've done it on quite a few. Mainly as I'm going back through and getting the all the info here, then we can decide what to filter where.
Zack
I like the idea of the Astro City page itself thematically following those examples you provided Zack. And we keep the "The City" category page looking like a Chamber of Commerce sponsored page with lots of tourism themes and ads and plugs and things, like JG's initial intents. That will give them distinction, and practically eliminate repetition.
Cool!
--InfoBroker 08:55, 20 July 2009 (PDT)
Unresolved Issues
Usage: discussion of pending issues or things that we continuously keep coming back to. Suggestions Welcome!
Herocopia Admin Requests
Usage: A mailbag for the Admin, requests that we need or decided on, that we have to wait for the Admin for.
Misc
the email confirmation button isn't working properly
we need parserFunctions enabled for our wiki? See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ParserFunctions
also need Dynamic Page Lists. [1].
JB
Pertaining to Astro City Rocket
Also caught something on the main Astro City site. The dates for the Junkman articles are incorrect(unless they were changed in TPB collected forms...). In issue 10 the date was given as Nov 7, but the Rocket is showing the 27th on the archives page list and the 21 on the actual articles. And I think the Shark article is supposed to be sometime in late August or early September...
Zack
Navigation requests
The Other Category still needs to be added to the navigation part to the left(which as far as I can tell only JG can edit). I think that's the only "main-type" category that isn't over there everything else are just sub-categories. EDIT: Events is the other category that needs to be added...
Zack
I'd suggest adding a templates under the resources. That way we have them all together and keep em off category pages...
Zack
The reason some of the templates are showing up on the category pages, is because they embed the "category info" inside the templates. For standardization purposes, it is nice to have it there. But this causes them to get registered with the category. Don't know if there is a way to suppress this.
I would like to have a navigation bullet for listing all the templates. That would be very helpful. But again, I don't know if the overall wiki engine provides for this.
I would also like to limit who can edit templates to a very select view. Once this is fully in place for characters, a single malicious user can change an awful lot of pages with just a single edit of a template.
--InfoBroker 14:23, 29 June 2009 (PDT)
