User talk:Aurora/Archive 2

Mind fixing it, it looks really bad. (I'm assuming this has something to do with getting it working on the front page >_<) -- WanderingFox 08:53, 27 November 2007 (CST)

• It's probably the purge I've just added, which I've discovered isn't actually needed, I'll revert the template, sorry -- Aurora 08:59, 27 November 2007 (CST) -- WanderingFox

Nope, purge is gone, but it's still wrapping text. See Talk:Hydro for an example :P

• Yeah I've just noticed that page, weird one this, I've reverted the changed but its still borked :[ Working on it -- Aurora 09:09, 27 November 2007 (CST)

The odd thing is that Talk:Patches is fine. I'm baffled >_< -- WanderingFox 09:23, 27 November 2007 (CST)

Latest addition fixed it! Thanks :P -- WanderingFox 09:44, 27 November 2007 (CST)

• Yeah I realised why - I designed it to do that, lol! My thinking was that it should float text round it like a toolbox. I changed it so the text flows below now as most stuff does it this way, including the contents box so I guess people are used to it that way -- Aurora 09:49, 27 November 2007 (CST)

Your right, thats exactly what it does. They are really handy for people to edit sections, rather than having to edit the whole article (I use them all the time). However I removed them from the Help pages because they shouldn't be editing them that often, mainly reading them and they can distract from reading. If someone really does want to alter the Help pages, they can use the main edit at the top. I tend to remove them from pages that I think will be mostly read rather than written, such as help pages and templates (if they have sections), but I don't think there is a right or wrong time to use it, that I know of anyway (the wiki documentation is so huge they made an entire new site!). There are other cool 'magic words' as they call them, have a look at Magic words on MetaWiki --Aurora 14:21, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Ah OK, I wasn't quite sure what it did. Thanks for the info ^_^ -- WanderingFox 14:34, 29 November 2007 (CST)

Just being reading how they do it on wiki, it appears this does happen there too, trying to find a solution so don't be surprised if userboxes start moving cats. --Aurora 11:40, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Yeah that seems to work, if you have a:

<noinclude>
[[Category:Userbox templates]]
</noinclude>

at the end of the Userbox you create, I've just tried this with the sniper headshots template and it doesnt include user pages in the category, just check it and see if it's what you were expecting, if it is I will update the help file. --Aurora 11:48, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Aye, that appears to work, though I think we should keep the article anyway. It's a nice visual list of all of the user boxes, and I don't think you can achieve that with a category :P -- WanderingFox 11:56, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Oh yeah, I wasn't going to delete that, just catagorize the userboxes. I'll update the documentation and update the templates. I don't like the idea of users having to type this themselves but I don't see any other way round it :( --Aurora 12:07, 3 December 2007 (CST)

I wonder if doing something like the following would work:

<includeonly><noinclude>[[Category:Userbox templates]]</noinclude></includeonly>

My guess is it doesn't, but it could be worth a shot -- WanderingFox 12:12, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Give it a go, I would guess not either but you never know. I'll leave them for a bit for you to try a few things, I'm going to get some dinner and have a break anyway --Aurora 12:15, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Thanks to a bit of lateral thinking and the wonder of ParserFunctions, I appear to have fixed this to only include templates and not pages that include the templates. --Aurora 14:04, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Now the important part, can you get it to filter on everything PAST the User_ part? Right now they're not really categorized, but more just listed (as they all start with User by convention). -- WanderingFox 14:17, 3 December 2007 (CST)

I should be able to, but I'm not entirely sure what you mean, can you give an example? --Aurora 15:02, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Ahh I get you, you mean list them by sorting, User heavy to go under H. Thats done by category sorting, I will have a look --Aurora 15:05, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Aye, I'd do it myself, but I simply haven't invested the time into actually figuring out the inner workings of the parser functions etc. so I was hoping you could take a gander :P -- WanderingFox 15:08, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Wikipedia says the articles have been incorrectly named, in this case I don't think that is true as we're setting the cat's from the templates and therefore they aren't articles. The ParserFunctions are really for evaluation #if #exp etc, they do have a #titleparts function and if they were subpages (say Template:User/Coffee addict) I could do it. However they have been setup as individual pages, not subpages so it's not possible. It might be worth thinking about this if we do something like this again to use subpages rather than seperate ones. Unless the StringFunctions extension was installed, then I could do it but for the moment I think we should leave it, if there are more grounds to install the StringFunctions extension (which maybe the case later as they are useful). By the way, I don’t know the ‘inner workings of the parser functions’ either, this is the first time I’ve used them, I’m making it up as I go along :D --Aurora 15:44, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Oh I know, I just meant that you took the time to look into the stuff, and I hadn't :P As far as articles go, that is how wikipedia names them, but their standards really don't matter that much as this isn't wikipedia :P While most of them are good and useful, we aren't bound to follow them ^_^ -- WanderingFox 16:45, 3 December 2007 (CST)

Check out the the todo documentation to see what I'm referring to. It's looking for 7 and 8 on Special:Wantedpages -- WanderingFox 14:55, 4 December 2007 (CST)

There was no text in the category, just added some in now. It will probably need to be changed to link to a documentation category at a later date. --Aurora 15:02, 4 December 2007 (CST)

Oh right yeah, I see what you mean, bah, theres always something isn't there :| --Aurora 15:04, 4 December 2007 (CST)

Now fixed, and this is is pretty funny: you can self-transclude, I've just added a {{Template doc}} on itself :P Apparently it only includes it once, there-by not getting stuck in an infinate loop. --Aurora 15:41, 4 December 2007 (CST)

There's always something :P At least it works ^_^

Well, I know the userbox one will show as the workaround I used for the Userbox categorizing will include anything in the Template: namespace that uses the main Userbox template. There isn't a way round this unless the StringFunctions extension is installed so I can filter anything passed Template:. But the Main Page problem, no idea, I'm not sure what you were intending to do with this anyway, I just left it? Was it to put the whole main page on a template? I'm not a fan of putting whole pages in a template, from my understanding, templates should be used for blocks in articles, not the articles themselves. This has caused problems before with people wanting to update the Classes and gave up because they didn't know how to use the templates. Of course the main page shouldnt be editable normally anyway (or the todo for it) but we don't have locking privelages as it is. --Aurora 15:41, 4 December 2007 (CST)

I just added the /doc page for it because it was a template. It was purely a uniformity change, and I don't see a reason to revert back to including the 'do not edit this' line in the main template for the mainpage todo list. -- WanderingFox 15:59, 4 December 2007 (CST)

It appears this is a known bug ^_^ (see http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=835) Hopefully a software solution is developed soon. Until then, I've used a category sort key on the /doc page that was listing so that it shows up under U, rather than in the list of user boxes. -- WanderingFox 13:33, 5 December 2007 (CST)

On another note, your recent changes to all of the /doc pages are incorrect, or more specifically, incomplete. You need to wrap the category inclusion in <noinclude> tags, otherwise the page that the /doc page is transcluded onto will also include that category (see Template:Userbox and note how it has both the Template and Template documentation categories). -- WanderingFox 13:55, 5 December 2007 (CST)

Ahh crap, I've just lost all the text I typed in :[ anyway, the jist was are you reading it the same as me, should the /doc page have a <noinclude> wrap around the cat? --Aurora 14:02, 5 December 2007 (CST)

It would appear so because I've just tried it and it's fixed the problem, no I just have to do it on all the other /doc pages --Aurora 14:06, 5 December 2007 (CST)

Ya, I had that in my original replay, but forgot the nowiki tags, so it wasn't visible >_< Just throw noincludes around the category inclusion and it fixes the problem :P -- WanderingFox 14:07, 5 December 2007 (CST)

Well that was fun, I did half of them and then realised I forgot the sortkeys O_O --Aurora 14:18, 5 December 2007 (CST)

Just isn't the day for intelligent wiki updates today >_< -- WanderingFox 14:21, 5 December 2007 (CST)

Trying to move "Category:Melee Weapons" to "Category:Melee weapons" so that it conforms with the naming conventions. -- WanderingFox 09:50, 10 December 2007 (CST)

From what I know of them, categories are dynamically created and destroyed when links die. I should imagine if all the pages were changed to lowercase W, the category would change. I'll have a go shortly, see what happens. --Aurora 11:41, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Well, sort of :[ that does move all the links and a new category is created, but it's kind of a fundge because I had to go through all the pages that linked to it and change them as well. After that ,no more broken or double links were showing but the original category still existed and the text needed moving over to the new one. This means the original category is blank and does not show in the category listing but does exist so it will need to be removed by Nos. Basically a real pain in the arse and that was just a small category and if you want to do the same for all the other categories be my guest; I'll see you in a few months when you've finished ^o) --Aurora 12:03, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Conveniently that one and the custom maps one are the only ones named incorrectly. Maybe if I feel ambitious later tonight I'll move the other one :P -- WanderingFox 12:05, 10 December 2007 (CST)

gah, this is tedious, get on Steam, we can have a chat --Aurora 12:35, 10 December 2007 (CST)

I'm away from my home computer for another 3 hours or so, but I'll be on after that :P -- WanderingFox 12:48, 10 December 2007 (CST)

I agree with you, the real problem is the ToDo box. Because this box can grow when edited, it needs room to and if I expanded the two sections across, if it grew bigger than it is at the minute it would create a gap between the Item Pickup and General Topics sections. I think we need to decide if the ToDo is actually needed and provides any benefits to users. I would say that it does because it's easy for them to find things to pickup and complete. However I don't think (and never have) that a ToDo box is appropriate for a front page, especially an editable one. As you know I always tend to defer to how Wikipedia does things, they don't have anything on the front page about helping out, they put all that info on the Community Portal. However, Wikiversity do and I think this is useful for users to notice they can contribute in an early/small wiki like ours. Having looked around and thought about it, I would go for having a separate 'How to Help TF2 Wiki' section under all the others. Removing the ToDo section would them give too much room to the 'Classes' and 'Official Maps', so the two options here would be a) increase the picture size to fill the remaining space or b) make the 'Item Pickups' a similar size to the ToDo, give it some pictures and run it alongside the 'Classes' and 'Official Maps'. This one I have no preference, either would do but b) may give better visibility to the sections below. You thought you were asking a simple question didn't you? that'll teach ya ;p Have a think, let me know you preference. --Aurora 12:32, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Replace it with a static version, if you happen to go to the talk page of the main page, you'll see I've already created a second todo for more specific things that need to be done. The way I saw it was that the todo on the front page was a list of generic "these always need to be done" things, and that it shouldn't really ever be edited (except of course for inclusion of really important things). Hence why I made a second ToDo box for global things that need to be done on a more specific nature (ie. ensuring all the pages match our naming convention, etc.) Anyway, my solution would be to replace the todo box with it's equivalent wikicode, stretch it to the bottom of the item section, then span the last two sections across the bottom. That way we have the best of both worlds. The general todo on the main page that points people to general things that need to be done, while we also get to keep the more specific todo page on the main talk page that lists the specific things that need to be done on a global scale. -- WanderingFox 12:46, 10 December 2007 (CST)

If I understand you correctly, that leaves the problem of the 'Classes' and 'Official Maps' width being increased and leaving gaps. Also I would prefer it not to be between the 'Item Pick ups' and 'General Topics', either below 'General Topics' or at the very bottom. --Aurora 13:00, 10 December 2007 (CST)

No no... Layout stays EXACTLY as it is, except that the following occurs:

• ToDo list is replaced by a static representation of itself (same position on page)
• ToDo list is stretched downward so that it ends at the bottom of the Item Pick Ups section
• General Topics is colspaned across to fill the entire page like the header
• Featured and Newest articles do the same as General topic (except each only takes up half the page)

Follow? The only things really moving are the last two sections -- WanderingFox 13:07, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Like this: http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1498/likethisve5.jpg (I got bored >_>) -- WanderingFox 13:12, 10 December 2007 (CST)

OOOOh diagrams and everything, yep I get you, working on it. --Aurora 13:15, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Unfortunately cap'n, she cannie take it :( The only way I can do it is by fixing the width of the entire page (to around 800px) because if I span the two bottom sections across, the side box (ToDo) has nowhere to scale to on the viewport. To get an idea of what I mean, look at this scaleok.jpg (note the pictures in maps aren't centered, I didn't notice this but will fix). If you get a 404 or 403 error type the url in, don't know what's going on there. Fantastic, everyone can view in whatever resolution they want...dan dan darrrr. If I span the two boxes below across and try the same thing, all sorts of funky stuff happens, here's the example: scaleissue.jpg. In HTML4 and below you could use the height property on tables, works pretty well, but since 4.01 and above the height property is depreciated and there is no direct css equivalent, you should use div alignment instead of tables. If you have a look at the source of this page you will see the DOCTYPE is 'XHTML 1.0 Transitional', wonderful stuff but I can't use the height property or fix it to use an older DOCTYPE as a workaround :( Anyway, I'm rambling, what I'm getting at is theres no way to scale down nicely if tables are spanned below others unless the whole page is reconstructed in div's or it has a purely vertical flow, i.e. all the boxes run below each other. Unless you know of a solution? because it's got me :$ --Aurora 14:48, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Don't suppose you tried forcing the width of the todo box did you? Last time I saw that problem, forcing the width and height of the todo box (ie. make it non-scalable) will force everything else to float around it. Just a thought, I'm much more of a CSS layout guy. -- WanderingFox ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 14:54, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Addendum: Try forcing the height of everything next to the todo box, along with the heigh and width of the todo box. As long as the numbers are correct, that should force the contents to line up. -- WanderingFox ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 14:56, 10 December 2007 (CST)

You can't use the height any more for reasons of above (god knows why they took it out, Im sure they have their reasons), however sometimes I get so wrapped up in the complicated stuff I overlook the simple sh!t! fixing the width of the ToDo (now 'Help TF2 Wiki') worked a charm, you sir are a genius, or something. By the way, stop using font,sup and small tags, they will be gone soon as well ;p you want

-- [[User:WanderingFox|WanderingFox]] <span style="vertical-align:super;font-size: smaller">([[User_talk:WanderingFox|Talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/WanderingFox|Contribs]])</span>

--Aurora 15:45, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Fiiiiiine... Jeez :P Also, there's a small layout issue on the front page (the sections to the right of the todo page, aren't floating to the left, but instead float to the center) -- WanderingFox ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 15:57, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Me 'heading up the style change'? I'd rather not, but Nos is content to just do the admin stuff, I'm going to stop asking for stuff :| Anyway, yes I know, I also know of several other pages (civilian etc) I'll make you a deal, I'll get to them as soon as you stop giving me more work :D --Aurora 15:49, 10 December 2007 (CST)

Alternativly, you could point me to what needs to be done, and I'll do it. Either way is fine by me :P -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 16:03, 10 December 2007 (CST)

For some reason the last sections aren't colspaning properly. That is to say that the last part of the page only goes half way across (see: http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/5530/ie6tm8.jpg). Thoughts? -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 08:19, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Fixed (I think), it is in IE6 anyway but I don't have FF or any other to test here at work --Aurora 08:54, 11 December 2007 (CST)

Yep. Thanks... The wikitables on the front page still give me a headache :P -- WanderingFox (Talk • Contribs) 08:57, 11 December 2007 (CST)

They do me, wikitables are all well and good until you come to complex ones, then you lose whats going on. --Aurora 09:02, 11 December 2007 (CST)