Medieval Engineers Wiki:News: Difference between revisions
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{{SEO|description=Wiki News!}} | |||
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{{Header|News}} | {{Header|News}} | ||
<div style="display: inline-block; width:100%; font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">[[Medieval_Engineers_Wiki:News_Archive|View the Archive →]]</div> | <div style="display: inline-block; width:100%; font-size: 100%; text-align: left;">[[Medieval_Engineers_Wiki:News_Archive|View the Archive →]]</div> | ||
== | ==2018-10-18 0.6.4 and More== | ||
*0.6.4 Update | |||
*Data Category | |||
*Sourcing Information and Creating Pages Documentation | |||
Updates have been slow on the wiki while we worked on the combat update. We've also been working on engine changes for 0.7 since February so we were all pretty loaded down for a while. With the release of 0.6.4: Major Combat Overhaul I was able to export changes. I had hoped to be able to export the new effects that are used by nearly every item in the game to support the combat system. After spending far more time on it than I should have I came to the conclusion that the effect system is potentially infinite. This is great for the game but incredibly bad for the wiki. I gave up trying to export them and instead wrote the effects by hand. I didn't write every detail of the effects but rather the ones that have a noticeable effect on the character or gameplay in some way. With that out of the way, I finished updating all of the blocks and items for 0.6.4. | |||
[[:Category:Data]] is the new place where I'm keeping tables that have to be manually updated. This is working well as it makes a single place that has to be checked after pasting in the exported game data. Each page there has notes on where to find the information. | |||
The last changes I've made are two new pages for wiki editors to help ease the learning curve. The first page is [[Finding Source Information]] which explains how to search through definitions. I answer a lot of questions about this and even modders constantly say that finding where things are defined is the hardest task. Certainly it's not easy to search through so much data but actually searching it is incredibly easy if you know what object builder to search for and how to search files for content. This page explains all of that in detail. The second page is something that grew out of that and turned into more of a guide. It kept growing more than I thought it would and I had to force myself to remove large portions of text multiple times to keep the size down. Anyway, that's how I ended up writing [[How To Create Pages]] which describes the basics for creating a page, laying out the sections, the process of writing (from draft, to stub, to finished page), a quick and easy guide to linking, a quick explanation of templates, and a few useful things at the end. When I first started outlining the page it was mostly a primer on how templates are used here. I still feel that's the most relevant section of the page but hopefully, everything that I included explains the basics of the entire process. It should answer the questions that I get most often. | |||
All the Best, | |||
[[User:CptTwinkie|~CptTwinkie]] | |||
==2018-06-06 Extensions== | |||
I've been working with some extensions to get some new functionality working on the wiki. One of the extensions has been installed since the beginning of the wiki but until now it was difficult to use. [[User:CptTwinkie|~CptTwinkie]] | |||
{| class="wikitable" | {| class="wikitable" | ||
|- | |- | ||
! | ! Extension !! Notes | ||
|- | |- | ||
| | | MultimediaViewer || This extension provides lightbox functionality to images and galleries. There are no changes needed to articles...it just works. It can be disabled in Preferences. | ||
|- | |- | ||
| | | CodeMirror || This extension provides wiki code highlighting in the editor. It is off by default but can be turned on by clicking an icon in the editor. | ||
|- | |- | ||
| [[Template: | | WikiSEO || This extension provides metadata for search engines and link embedding. I've created a simple template to use it called [[Template:SEO]]. '''This template should be used on ALL pages.''' | ||
The image is optional. If you leave out the image URL entirely from the template it will use the wiki logo instead. The description is mandatory but can be left blank if there is no description available. There should be a description for every page eventually so it can be copied to the template. I tried to find an automated solution for this but there was nothing that provided quality image and text results. | |||
|- | |- | ||
| [[Template: | | EmbedVideo || This extension has always been around but I made two templates for using it. It embeds video links directly into articles.<br/>[[Template:VideoID]] loads videos using service and id information. This method can break if the video site changes its link format.<br/>[[Template:VideoURL]] does the same using the URL of the video instead. This method is a little less reliable but is more stable over time. | ||
|} | |} | ||
== | ==2018-05-22 The Long Form== | ||
I had time over the last month to write some text and I made the most of it by working on the [[:Category:How_To_Play|How To Play]] category. I was able to get many of the pages there to a more-or-less complete state and the remainder of them are not far behind. This includes the [[:Category:Engineer%27s_Book|Engineer's Book]], [[:Category:HUD|HUD]] screens, and all other [[:Category:Non-HUD_Screens|Non-HUD]] screens. I also made some progress on the [[:Category:Flora|Flora]] category which now has some basic information available. [[Taxes]] was updated and expanded. This includes the [[Taxation Table]] which was expanded and will provide additional information on all of the pages it is used on. | |||
On the more technical side of things, I moved all of the medieval theme related styles out of the templates and into the site and theme CSS files. It's not the best CSS organization (meaning it will not be convenient to reuse the selectors I created) but it means that the current templates won't have medieval formatting when used with other themes. | |||
I also installed the [https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Popups Popups] extension. It is a light-weight version of Wikipedia's Navigation popups that displays summary text (usually stopping at the first heading) and an image (usually a large one) from the beginning of articles when you hover your mouse pointer over a wiki link. The text is quite predictable in most cases but the images seem to update slowly and don't always behave as expected. Even so, it is a helpful feature on Wikipedia and I think it will be appreciated here as well. Click the cog in any popup to configure or disable it. See any page's Page information to preview the image selection for that page. Image selection is only updated when a page is saved and it may take some time (tens of minutes or hours) to show in the popups. My guess is that it's related to the slow updates in this version of the wiki that can be seen in slow category updates. I don't have a plan to update the wiki itself but we are now at the tail-end of version support for most extensions so I may have to consider it sooner than later. The slow updates seem to not be a problem on newer releases. [[User:CptTwinkie|~CptTwinkie]] | |||
Latest revision as of 13:00, 18 October 2018
2018-10-18 0.6.4 and More
- 0.6.4 Update
- Data Category
- Sourcing Information and Creating Pages Documentation
Updates have been slow on the wiki while we worked on the combat update. We've also been working on engine changes for 0.7 since February so we were all pretty loaded down for a while. With the release of 0.6.4: Major Combat Overhaul I was able to export changes. I had hoped to be able to export the new effects that are used by nearly every item in the game to support the combat system. After spending far more time on it than I should have I came to the conclusion that the effect system is potentially infinite. This is great for the game but incredibly bad for the wiki. I gave up trying to export them and instead wrote the effects by hand. I didn't write every detail of the effects but rather the ones that have a noticeable effect on the character or gameplay in some way. With that out of the way, I finished updating all of the blocks and items for 0.6.4.
Category:Data is the new place where I'm keeping tables that have to be manually updated. This is working well as it makes a single place that has to be checked after pasting in the exported game data. Each page there has notes on where to find the information.
The last changes I've made are two new pages for wiki editors to help ease the learning curve. The first page is Finding Source Information which explains how to search through definitions. I answer a lot of questions about this and even modders constantly say that finding where things are defined is the hardest task. Certainly it's not easy to search through so much data but actually searching it is incredibly easy if you know what object builder to search for and how to search files for content. This page explains all of that in detail. The second page is something that grew out of that and turned into more of a guide. It kept growing more than I thought it would and I had to force myself to remove large portions of text multiple times to keep the size down. Anyway, that's how I ended up writing How To Create Pages which describes the basics for creating a page, laying out the sections, the process of writing (from draft, to stub, to finished page), a quick and easy guide to linking, a quick explanation of templates, and a few useful things at the end. When I first started outlining the page it was mostly a primer on how templates are used here. I still feel that's the most relevant section of the page but hopefully, everything that I included explains the basics of the entire process. It should answer the questions that I get most often.
All the Best,
2018-06-06 Extensions
I've been working with some extensions to get some new functionality working on the wiki. One of the extensions has been installed since the beginning of the wiki but until now it was difficult to use. ~CptTwinkie
| Extension | Notes |
|---|---|
| MultimediaViewer | This extension provides lightbox functionality to images and galleries. There are no changes needed to articles...it just works. It can be disabled in Preferences. |
| CodeMirror | This extension provides wiki code highlighting in the editor. It is off by default but can be turned on by clicking an icon in the editor. |
| WikiSEO | This extension provides metadata for search engines and link embedding. I've created a simple template to use it called Template:SEO. This template should be used on ALL pages.
The image is optional. If you leave out the image URL entirely from the template it will use the wiki logo instead. The description is mandatory but can be left blank if there is no description available. There should be a description for every page eventually so it can be copied to the template. I tried to find an automated solution for this but there was nothing that provided quality image and text results. |
| EmbedVideo | This extension has always been around but I made two templates for using it. It embeds video links directly into articles. Template:VideoID loads videos using service and id information. This method can break if the video site changes its link format. Template:VideoURL does the same using the URL of the video instead. This method is a little less reliable but is more stable over time. |
2018-05-22 The Long Form
I had time over the last month to write some text and I made the most of it by working on the How To Play category. I was able to get many of the pages there to a more-or-less complete state and the remainder of them are not far behind. This includes the Engineer's Book, HUD screens, and all other Non-HUD screens. I also made some progress on the Flora category which now has some basic information available. Taxes was updated and expanded. This includes the Taxation Table which was expanded and will provide additional information on all of the pages it is used on.
On the more technical side of things, I moved all of the medieval theme related styles out of the templates and into the site and theme CSS files. It's not the best CSS organization (meaning it will not be convenient to reuse the selectors I created) but it means that the current templates won't have medieval formatting when used with other themes.
I also installed the Popups extension. It is a light-weight version of Wikipedia's Navigation popups that displays summary text (usually stopping at the first heading) and an image (usually a large one) from the beginning of articles when you hover your mouse pointer over a wiki link. The text is quite predictable in most cases but the images seem to update slowly and don't always behave as expected. Even so, it is a helpful feature on Wikipedia and I think it will be appreciated here as well. Click the cog in any popup to configure or disable it. See any page's Page information to preview the image selection for that page. Image selection is only updated when a page is saved and it may take some time (tens of minutes or hours) to show in the popups. My guess is that it's related to the slow updates in this version of the wiki that can be seen in slow category updates. I don't have a plan to update the wiki itself but we are now at the tail-end of version support for most extensions so I may have to consider it sooner than later. The slow updates seem to not be a problem on newer releases. ~CptTwinkie