[WIKI] Update

[Shir'le E. Illios]

An update on the state of the wiki.

I've got the wiki installed and it all seems to be working fine. I've got a few extension I want to install as well (which are so very nice as you don't have to change the base code), but was having issues connecting to my site with ftp yesterday to upload them. Still, already got a few nice ones in there (like a Bibliography one that allows you to keep a general bibliography which you can reference everywhere).

I also copied over the public domain help pages and made them work (for the most part; there is still one or two issues left because I'm forced to use an older version of the wiki than the help pages did). I also want to write some help pages for EilistraeeWiki-specific things (like extensions and templates to use). But that can wait.

There's probably a ton that could be done with templates as well and we'll likely want to add a number of them, but we'll do that as we go along.

I haven't made any skin yet and it still has the default wiki look. But since it'll be a fair amount of work making a new skin I'll probably do that much later. But that shouldn't change the function of the wiki anyway and there's no reason why we couldn't start writing articles before that.

I also created some new namespaces to put the various things in; I did this mainly to help with searching (so that you can search in just the "rules" namespace if you're looking for a rule-related thing, for example). I'm not completely convinced of all the choices I made here (do we really need a "Settings" namespace which not only sounds confusing but'll likely only contain pages with references to other articles anyway; could just as well be sub-pages off the main namespace), but at least things are in pace there too.

Next to installing extension (and I want to fix the look of the search page too as it looks like a mess now with all those namespaces) the main work left is creating the base structure; articles and categories forming the main tree to hang all the other articles off of.

I hope to make the wiki public (to all of you at least) this weekend. Though since I'm also running an AoC guild at the same time I have to spend time on that too. But I'm convinced that I can get things going so that you all can start to contribute.

Anyway, that's the state that things are in now. Don't lose hope, we [i:2ar5hkqc]will[/i:2ar5hkqc] make this into the primary source of everything Eilistraee.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

[Shir'le E. Illios]

I've been having some network issues (phone company still needs to replace a bit of cable of my phoneline, so my connection is very unstable at time), but even so it's pretty much ready (just very devoid of articles and looking like a standard wiki ).

However, it seems that with a final attempt my website host is finally answering and willing to upgrade me to PHP5 (or so they told me two days ago), so at the moment I'm waiting a few days to see where that goes and will upgrade to the newest version of the wiki software when they do.

Anyway, you can have a look at the wiki [url=http://www.eilistraee.com/wiki/:244b6efc]here[/url:244b6efc]. As I said, not much there yet.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

[Xindeita Dawnstrider]

Looks like a pretty good start! Sadly, I can't think of anything small that I can do to help, hehe. Don't have any big, fancy lore books and no way am I going back through whole trilogies, haha.

[Shir'le E. Illios]

Further update.

Yesterday evening I upgraded the wiki from version 1.6 to version 1.13. Also had to upgrade one of the extensions (as the wiki wasn't working without it), but haven't checked the others yet. Even so any such upgrade is easy.

Also lost a few minor hacks I made to the code. Most notably the search page where I had organized the namespaces you can search in a bit nicer format. Right now those look like an awful mess again. But that should b a fairly straight-forward fix.

And there's likely a couple more extension I'd want to use now (and can use now due to the newer version). But there's no hurry with that I think. Starting to write the articles and such is probably a higher priority.

Oh, and I've got a week vacation early October during which I'm currently planning to have a look at making a nicer skin for the wiki. Though I'm not promising anything.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le

[Shir'le E. Illios]

Another update.

I've looked at all the extensions and made sure they all work, as well as install a couple of new ones. I also put back in the manual modifications like the nicer formatted search page.

I also spent quite some time pretty much creating my own extension, or to be more precise merge two similar extensions together. Namely merging the [url=http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension ... p:2goz4ql9]Cite[/url:2goz4ql9] extension and the [url=http://openwetware.org/wiki/Wikiomics:Biblio:2goz4ql9]Biblio[/url:2goz4ql9] extension.

The new extension (which I'm calling BiblioCite ) has all the functionality of Cite and most of the functionality (all that I was interested in) of Biblio. Basically it adds to Cite the ability to have reference sources defined on another page, so that you can have one central location on the wiki with all the books and such you have. I included the functionality to use the ISBN database, but not the functionality to use PubMed ids (since I seriously doubt we'll use it). I also added some additional functionality like the ability to hide references. And after this weekend it's finally in a state where I'm happy with it.

I also did a fair amount of work on a skin. For me such work usually comes in five steps: graphical design, technical design, implementation, conversion to skin and testing. Graphical design is designing the looks and creating the images, usually making some multi-layer mock-up in PSP. Technical design includes trying all the technical things and how the html/css functionality would work and can be done concurrent with the first step. Implementation is merging the first two steps together and actually turning the graphical design into a function (single) web-page. At the end of this step you usually have a single page with mock-up text that looks and functions the way you want the skin to. Then turning it into a skin tends to be the most complicated step as you have to cut up the code for your single page and replace parts of it with things for the skin, etc. Finally testing is both making certain that the skin works in all cases and testing it on a variety of browsers. And at any step you might have to re-visit any of the previous steps.

After that explanation that you're probably not at all interested in I can tell you that both of the first two steps I've got largely complete. I know how (almost, have one more thing I should test) everything is going to work and I've got a nearly complete graphical design that I'm very happy with; if it works out it'll probably be the best looking site I've made to date (I'd give you a sneak preview, except that if things have to change then the end result might end up being disappointing). I have to do a little bit more work on the title text which I'm not 100% happy with yet and want to include a dividing bar between the text and the top.

Of course, that means that there's still a fair amount of work left to be done on that, but we don't have to wait on a skin to start using the wiki and filling it in with information. My intention is to move across everything from the temple site and possibly make a couple of stub pages that can then be slowly filled out. I do honestly believe that we, together, can turn this into the best source of Eilistraee information on the web (or anywhere else for that matter).

And I feel that we're definitely getting there; now we have to start using it.


Love -x-x-x-

Shir'le