Oolite Bulletins

On a related note. Is editing of oxp wiki pages limited to the wiki fairies or can anyone edit them?

I was looking at adding my SIRF update but could not see any obvious edit functions and assumed that for consistency of the pages it might be restricted access, Seeing what can happen to some wiki's that would make a lot of sense.

tinker wrote:

On a related note. Is editing of oxp wiki pages limited to the wiki fairies or can anyone edit them?

I was looking at adding my SIRF update but could not see any obvious edit functions and assumed that for consistency of the pages it might be restricted access, Seeing what can happen to some wiki's that would make a lot of sense.

Anyone with an account can do it. For better or for worse at times even here...

Thargoid wrote:

tinker wrote:

On a related note. Is editing of oxp wiki pages limited to the wiki fairies or can anyone edit them?

I was looking at adding my SIRF update but could not see any obvious edit functions and assumed that for consistency of the pages it might be restricted access, Seeing what can happen to some wiki's that would make a lot of sense.

Anyone with an account can do it. For better or for worse at times even here...

And if you want an account, you'd need to send a PM to Winston requesting one - previously there were far too many spam accounts being opened.

Smivs wrote:

The thing I like about it is the format, ie the OXPs by category, with a brief description of the OXPs. It's a 'Synopsis Page' rather than just an 'Index', and for that reason is much more useful.
Having said that, it's a bit of a mess at the moment, and could benefit from a bit of tidying up. If no-one else wants to do it, I'll try to have a look over the next day or so, RL permitting.

That's exactly it - this page with its brief description of each OXP means that I can quickly see if I'm interested in that OXP or not. With the index, I have to click back and forth one by one between the OXP name in the index and its OXP page. There are now too many OXPs to make that feasible for a newbie.

I also really think the release date and or version of Oolite supported should be on this front page because I can filter out looking at OXPs that might not work with my version.

Y it's a shame - OXP Central was a nice idea, but perhaps too ambitious. I'll happily eat my words if Dizzy resurfaces and gets it up and running.

I would suggest a simple approach based on the current categories page with as I've previously mentioned, name description and version.

If the version doesn't get updated to reflect the current version with which it works, then we know that the author is not updating it any more. After say one year or perhaps a major version change, OXPs with old versions are greyed out.

Within the categories, the OXPs can be in alphabetical order for convenience. The index would not be needed any more.

This should keep things simple.

Thargoid wrote:

It should be more that all listed OXPs should work with the current version of Oolite (except perhaps just after a version update). Adding such information and more importantly keeping it up to date when OXPs (and Oolite) gets updated is a real pain as it's not automated.

I like the idea of only listing 'current' OXPs...that makes sense. One problem here is that it really should fall to the Author to ensure not only that their OXPs are up to date, but that the Wiki entries are as well. Some Authors seem to have disappeared, and not all will be bothered to update the Wiki.
Perhaps the Author should be listed for each OXP as well, for ease of contact/monitoring etc.

Thargoid wrote:

This is why there is the ongoing project for OXPCentral as a better hosting place for such things where all of this will be automated. Unfortunately that is currently on hold, as Dizzy seems to have fallen out of the Ooniverse.

Hopefully he'll warp back in soon

Thargoid wrote:

The way things are going there's risk of ending up with as many index pages as there are OXP pages, which is making matters worse in terms of upkeep.

Perhaps we should be simplifying this. The 'Catagory' list is useful and quite comprehensive (more so if it gets release dates, Author etc added), so why don't we look at maybe just two main OXP pages, An alphabetical Index which simply lists them ALL alphabetically, and the 'By Catagory' page (updated as described above) which as now lists all OXPs by category with a brief description and links to a sub-set of the alphabetical lists of Ships. We should also consider reducing the number of categories.

Just had lunch and refreshed the old brain, so here's a suggestion.
The Wiki OXP Home page links to an updated version of the All OXPs by Catagory page . The alternative Category:Oolite expansion packs page (which is of little real benefit other than being a list of lists) should be deleted.
The 'All OXPs by Catagory' page takes the same format as present but with a revised layout.
At the top is a link to the Alphabetical list of all OXPs.
Next come the catagories (displayed as they are now) but rationalised thus:-
Oolite Enhancements. (OXPs that enhance the core game)
This would include retextures and shipsets, eye-candy OXPs such as YAH and System Redux and anything that doesn't directly alter the core game.
Oolite Feature Expansions (OXPs that add new ships and features to the game)
This would be missions etc and would cover all OXPs that add active features. Some examples would be Feudal States, Galactic Navy, Random Hits, BlOomberg markets etc. This section should also include a link to the A-Z's of ship OXPs,
Equipment (OXPs whose primary role is to add extra equipment/weapons options to the game (eg Rock Hermit Locator, Armoury etc).
Sound Sets
Huds
Miscellaneous to include all other OXPs which don't naturally fit into the former catagories, such as Big Ships, Display Reputation, Save Anywhere, Switek's Mods etc.
Development
OXPs for developers such as Debug.OXP
International Versions

This is just a suggestion for further discussion, but I think it gives us a basis to organise and rationalise the listing of OXPs in a way that makes them easy to find and assess without any duplication. Basically, whatever you want, you'll find quickly and easily, and all from one page.

Smivs wrote:

I like the idea of only listing 'current' OXPs...that makes sense. One problem here is that it really should fall to the Author to ensure not only that their OXPs are up to date, but that the Wiki entries are as well. Some Authors seem to have disappeared, and not all will be bothered to update the Wiki.

I think that's why having a Version column for the version of Oolite the OXP was tested against is useful because if the author doesn't update it, it will be obvious.

Smivs wrote:

The 'All OXPs by Catagory' page takes the same format as present but with a revised layout.
At the top is a link to the Alphabetical list of all OXPs.

If the categories have OXPs ordered alphabetically, is a separate Alphabetical list of all OXPs all that useful? I'm just thinking that it's another thing that needs to be manually updated, but if it could be generated from the categories somehow, then fine. Otherwise, my question is do people find it sufficiently useful that it's worth the effort to keep it up to date?

As for your category breakdowns, that's great.

I usually don't like lists (you might have spotted that) but the alphabetical list of OXPs can be quite useful sometimes, and it seems a logical thing to have.
Having said that, it wouldn't bother me much if it was done away with.

The wiki uses Mediawiki by the looks of it and it supports sorted tables with sorting on multiple columns possible:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Sorting

Hence my suggestion is to have a big sortable table with:
Name Category Description Version Author

It could initially be set up to sort by Version, then Category, then Name.

Thargoid wrote:

The point I was trying to make before is that it's all very labour-intensive, and more so when people come up with yet another new way of doing something, or yet another list.

The beauty of the Category:Oolite expansion list (the one that is "of little benefit" and was proposed to be deleted) is that it is auto-generated. The OXP pages have template tags on them, and these are listed in the various lists automagically. No update/upkeep necessary, other than including the template tag when the OXP page ws written (look at the bottom of my OXP pages for examples).

I didn't want to seem too disparaging about that page, but to most mortals it really is of little use. What we need is a page we can go to if we want something OXP and just find it. If I want some new missions, I want to go to a 'Missions' heading or something, and find a list with descriptions so I can decide what's right for me. The 'Category:Oolite expansion list' simply doesn't come close to doing that, I'm afraid. Perhaps it's Auto Generated nature doesn't make it very Human friendly.

Thargoid wrote:

The problem also with categorisation is where to put some things. Some are easy (e.g. Armoury.oxp is a weapons OXP), but some aren't (what is Aquatics? - it adds ships, a mission, a dockable station plus weapons and equipment). We end up with OXPs scattered across multiple categories, and then of course you get the ones that don't fit anywhere.

If it adds ships, missions etc it adds to the core game and therefore goes under Feature Expansions, surely? This example illustrates one of the problems we currently have, in that the same OXP shows up in several categories because it does several things. The list therefore becomes unwieldy. This is why I very deliberately did not suggest a 'Dockable Objects' category, because half the OXPs would appear there as well as everywhere else!
The ones that don't 'fit anywhere' go into Miscellaneous. Simple.

Thargoid wrote:

At the moment we've got a few fine fellows around here who've stopped taking their medication and so decided to polish up the wiki. It's a huge job, and a never ending one. Especially given that arguably the tools aren't designed for the job. But I know from experience that adding OXP stuff to the wiki is a real chore, and as we get all these proposals it makes things a hell of a lot worse. Some changes are better (e.g. the OXP table going to alphabetical split-up is great, as you may not realise the alternating background colour is set for each entry, so add by adding a line you had to change every other entry down to the bottom to keep the sequence - at least with the letter-blocks it's only to the bottom of the block now).

Kudos to the 'fixers' - JazHaz and ADCK spring to mind here.
I am aware of the background colour issue...it is a pain and makes me wonder whether we really need this feature at all. OK it sort of looks nice, but...
Is there no way of applying a style sheet to the Wiki?

Thargoid wrote:

Speaking as a minor contributor to the thing I would urge to keep things simple and as they are unless really necessary (or things can be automated).

I like 'Keep it Simple'. As for keeping things as they are, well honestly it's a bit of a mess in places, and fails to deliver what we need too often, so if something can be done to improve it, I think it should be.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm not just complaining or making un-realistic suggestions, I am quite happy to do some of the graft myself. If I do, I just want to make sure my input is welcome and will be to the benefit of the community at large.

I would second Smivs comments.

Think of a use case. Newbie wants to install OXPs and browses the wiki. Where does he/she begin?

I would say not going through A,B,C,D,E,F....X,Y,Z, clicking on each OXP on each of those pages.

I think updating the wiki should be the job of the OXP author and so I'm all for keeping it simple.

Hence I reckon you only need the single page sortable table with Name Category Description Version Author + links to individual OXP pages for OXP authors to customise (Name could be clickable link).

I'm happy for someone to come up with something simpler that meets the newbie use case I mentioned above.

mcarans wrote:

I would say not going through A,B,C,D,E,F....X,Y,Z, clicking on each OXP on each of those pages.

Hence I reckon you only need the single page sortable table with Name Category Description Version Author + links to individual OXP pages for OXP authors to customise (Name could be clickable link).

We had a single table before. The problem was the amount of OXPs on it, it was too unwieldy to edit and keep updated. In fact it got to the point where it was causing problems with my computer. Wiki pages don't work well when a table is bigger than 64k, and it was!

Thats why it was split into at first two pages, and then ADCK split into alphabetical. Much easier to maintain and edit.