13 replies to this topic

[RZR0]

This has been bothering me for some time now... The usage sections on wiki pages are often cluttered, messy and incomplete. I suggest we revise the guidelines for this section. Maybe we could replace the various usage recipes just with links to pages of where they're used? The recipe would be on that page anyway. It may not offer the same instant overview we have now, but it'd be a lot tidier and easier to update.

[dgelessus]

What I've seen on a few pages is just a collection of {{GridBox}}es. Generally speaking that's a good idea, but was is never noted in any guidelines, so I kept removing it. Maybe if we update the template to use {{Grid/Item}} we could switch to that. Perhaps even add a Minecraft Wiki-style hovertext?

[ostPavel]

{{Itemref}} might work, too.

[RZR0]

What I've seen on a few pages is just a collection of {{GridBox}}es. Generally speaking that's a good idea, but was is never noted in any guidelines, so I kept removing it. Maybe if we update the template to use {{Grid/Item}} we could switch to that. Perhaps even add a Minecraft Wiki-style hovertext?

It does seriously compact things, but it might not provide a very good overview as the names would only be visible when you hover over them. Maybe as ost suggested, itemref might be a better solution?

[dgelessus]

The issue with itemref would be that if we put it in a bullet point list, we whould have a lot of unused space, and if we put them all in one line, they would not be aligned in any way, and some item names would get split up onto different lines. It would be nice to have some kind of table with dynamic columns, like Wikipedia does it with reference lists. If you change the window width, the number of columns will also change. No idea how exactly they did that though...

[Celestial Oblivion]

Can we not just hide the usage section on pages that have too many by default, and show them if the user hits expand like with navboxes?

[dgelessus]

That would be possible, but we'd have to do it manually on every page and it wouldn't solve the problem of having to update them all every time a recipe changes.

[Celestial Oblivion]

That would be possible, but we'd have to do it manually on every page and it wouldn't solve the problem of having to update them all every time a recipe changes.

 

That was not one of the issues RZRO had with the current system. I agree we probably don't need to have every usage recipe in the page, since people have NEI for that, but I think the most important ones should remain with the crafting grids we have now. Since for some items (especially in gregtech) it is very hard to figure out what the important recipes/uses are.

[dgelessus]

but it'd be a lot tidier and easier to update.

implying that at the moment the usage sections are not easy to update efficiently, so yes, it was one of the issues RZR0 named. It may be good to fully display some of the most important uses, but we would then also need some kind of criteria for what should be considered "important".

[Nulifier]

The issue with itemref would be that if we put it in a bullet point list, we whould have a lot of unused space, and if we put them all in one line, they would not be aligned in any way, and some item names would get split up onto different lines. It would be nice to have some kind of table with dynamic columns, like Wikipedia does it with reference lists. If you change the window width, the number of columns will also change. No idea how exactly they did that though...

 

Looks like they did it using multi-columns from CSS3. It wouldn't work for users of IE 9 and down (http://caniuse.com/#feat=multicolumn) but it will just show the list not in columns.

 

I put together an example here: http://ftbwiki.org/U...ier/MultiColumn The only issue with this right now is that it needs a column size specified or else the text will wrap ugly. This could be fixed on the Itemref template though.

[Celestial Oblivion]

implying that at the moment the usage sections are not easy to update efficiently, so yes, it was one of the issues RZR0 named. It may be good to fully display some of the most important uses, but we would then also need some kind of criteria for what should be considered "important".

 

Do we have much objective criteria for things like what videos or images to use? Like most things it will probably be up to editor who changes the page, and their are talk pages if there are any serious disagreements.

[ostPavel]

Looks like they did it using multi-columns from CSS3. It wouldn't work for users of IE 9 and down (http://caniuse.com/#feat=multicolumn) but it will just show the list not in columns.

 

I put together an example here: http://ftbwiki.org/U...ier/MultiColumn The only issue with this right now is that it needs a column size specified or else the text will wrap ugly. This could be fixed on the Itemref template though.

Looks neat!

[RZR0]

Looks like they did it using multi-columns from CSS3. It wouldn't work for users of IE 9 and down (http://caniuse.com/#feat=multicolumn) but it will just show the list not in columns.
 
I put together an example here: http://ftbwiki.org/U...ier/MultiColumn The only issue with this right now is that it needs a column size specified or else the text will wrap ugly. This could be fixed on the Itemref template though.

Nice! Perhaps we could use that to make the front-page more dynamic too? Would be nice if everything could flow into a single column on mobile.

[dgelessus]

Nice! Perhaps we could use that to make the front-page more dynamic too? Would be nice if everything could flow into a single column on mobile.

That would probably be more reasonable with @media CSS properties that change the layout depending on the window/screen width. So far I couldn't yet find any good way to relayout a table's columns, or to make a lookalike table using simple div tags. The column CSS props will unfortunately not be of much use, because we have different column widths for the main body and sidebar, and we want some control over the layout.