Oolite Bulletins

Thargoid wrote:

I'll go through and correct the errors I found later on if I get chance (fuel station certainly ain't equipment, unless your ship is somewhat on the large or thirsty side ).

Thank you. We appreciate your help.

Thargoid wrote:

The only other thing I wondered was the use of symbols rather than text for the categories, to make the table a little thinner and easier to read perhaps.

A nice idea provided that the sorting can be made to work with symbols somehow.

Thargoid wrote:

Also for me OXPs with broken download links should be separated out into a different table pending new links - there's little more frustrating than finding an OXP you want but not being able to get it.

yes agreed.

Thargoid wrote:

And I still think a size column would be useful.

Is this so that people with slow connections can be warned about a potentially large download? If so, could we stick a size warning (perhaps a symbol) in the description or do you think the majority of people will need to sort OXPs by size (requiring a new column)?

Pluisje wrote:

Looking good, even on my small laptop screen. Nice to see the authors in the list.

I still prefer having multiple categories for an OXP though. Makes mixed OXPs easier to find. Probably should have said that half a year ago .

We devoted a lot of effort to getting a consistent appearance across OSs, browsers and screen sizes/resolutions - glad it looks good on your screen.

Multiple categories are not well suited to a manual sortable table as to make it sortable the author would have to enter his or her OXP several times under different categories. Once automation becomes possible, then this is a more realistic prospect.

Thargoid wrote:

I'll go through and correct the errors I found later on if I get chance (fuel station certainly ain't equipment, unless your ship is somewhat on the large or thirsty side ).

Thanks, that would be excellent.

Thargoid wrote:

The only other thing I wondered was the use of symbols rather than text for the categories, to make the table a little thinner and easier to read perhaps.

Can the Wiki code cope with symbols? I had actually wondered about some sort of colour-coding. A small coloured or symbol-ed column could perhaps make room for the 'Size' column if that is adopted.

Thargoid wrote:

Also for me OXPs with broken download links should be separated out into a different table pending new links - there's little more frustrating than finding an OXP you want but not being able to get it. And I still think a size column would be useful.

I'm not sure about a new table for 'No Downloads', although the point you make re frustration is a good one.

Thargoid wrote:

Size would be both for those with limited download capacity (dial-up or slow links etc), and also for limited installation/hard disk size (e.g. I run my set-up off a USB key as it's used across multiple PCs including my work one where I cannot install things).

Would it suffice for there to be a warning (perhaps a symbol eg. or ) in the description for large OXPs or will it be useful to the majority of users to be able to sort OXPs by size requiring a new column?

Thargoid wrote:

As for symbols, I already see some used (e.g. the one for additional authors in the relevant column) so had presumed it would be possible. And I don't see that sorting of symbols would be any different from sorting text, as presumably there would be some sort of hierarchy for symbols as well.

To allow for easy changing of cell attributes, I made a template (my first) to which maik added the contributor symbol: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php?title= ... ction=edit

Adding symbols is not difficult, but having the category that the OXP author enters map to a symbol so that the author does not have to enter some complicated html is not something I know how to do. If anyone knows how to do this, please come forward.

Pluisje wrote:

I still prefer having multiple categories for an OXP though. Makes mixed OXPs easier to find. Probably should have said that half a year ago .

We probably debated this aspect more than any other. We concluded that the main problem with the old system was that so many OXPs were turning up across categories in the auto-generated pages it was totally overwhelming. This was a major cause of the 'User un-friendliness'.
Remember the table we have presented is alphabetical at the moment, but is sortable by category, and for this to work, each OXP can only have one entry. Multi's are covered under Mechanics and Systems (mainly), so they are findable.
Also, when people look for an OXP, they are more likely to want something specific eg new ships, or missions, or a new piece of kit. This system will allow them to find that quickly and easily. We took the view that someone actively wanting multiple features was actually quite unlikely..."I want new ships, a few missions and a different station" for example is not a common request. Even if someone does want these things they will be found easily enough.

Regarding size here's my proposal:

At the moment, an OXP author fills in something like:
{{OXPSortableTableRow
|cat=Dockables
|desc=[[Your Ad Here!]] adds Convenience Stores [[Pi-42]], [[Tescoo Oxpress]], [[Star]], [[Mall Wart]], [[Sainsboory's]] & [[Security Sidewinder|security sidewinders]]
|aut=Griff
|con=DaddyHoggy, Pangloss, Disembodied, Eric
|date=2010-07-25
|ver=1.74}}

In the above, the |con=xxx gets converted to a symbol which you can hover over to get the contributors in the Author column.

I propose adding:
|big=y

If big is defined, then we add a symbol like or to the end of the OXP Name and Description column to indicate that the download is large.

This is easy for authors to use and pretty straightforward to implement. It also doesn't take up too much space. Any thoughts?

Would it be a lot of trouble to add a difficulty/game balance indicator to OXPs?

I've found the hard way that some OXPs add extreme difficulty to the game in unfortunate ways:
Free Trade Zone OXP was quickly adding multiple pirates around the main station in nearly every system. (This was a bug in FTZ and also a bug in Oolite's handling of escorts.)
Galactic Navy OXP was sometimes causing Rogue Frigates to be random pirates almost anywhere. I've seen them come out of Pirate Coves...others have reported seeing them come out of the main station when using Furball OXP.

Some of the OXPs are already self-rated in difficulty.
Author input on the matter would be the best choice.

If downloads are on box.net as many are, it tells you the size before you download. The exact size can also be put on the OXP author's wiki or webpage or even in the description column itself.

Users are presumably only interested in whether an OXP is above a certain size. I don't fancy digging out the sizes of all OXPs to put in a column in which only the largest 10 or 20 sizes are of any real interest and then only to a small minority of users.

The icon would just be a warning that the download is greater than say 5Mb or 10Mb or some size deemed large, which is subjective but can be agreed upon.

Switeck wrote:

Some of the OXPs are already self-rated in difficulty.
Author input on the matter would be the best choice.

Yep. It's already there for a while. So if you feel that a oxp should use it - go for it and add it.
Usage is simple - the template {{OXPLevel}} takes two optional parameters (range 0-6, default 0). Examples can be found on Caracal's, Zieman's and my oxp pages.

I completely agree. Considering we are talking about an overview of the OXPs I haven't heard a good reason yet to put either size or difficulty in it's own column. Even if an OXP author doesn't indicate the size on the OXP's Wiki page your browser should tell you right when you start downloading. If you think the download is too big then cancel it.

I'd be happy to hear a good reason to add either though.

Looks like it's coming along well, I considered using sortable tables for the ship lists, but then got sidetracked with my new job and playing WoW.

Good luck with the new pages.

Personally, i'd say ditch the Version column, i don't see the need. If someone releases an OXP that's just for trunk (like i did w/ the switchy HUDs) then it should stay linkable only from the forums and only get put on that list when the Trunk makes base ~ because theoretically, exerything up to that pointis still an "in progress" OXP. after that, if it's on the list it'll work in the current base version of the game and therefore the column seems a bit redundant?

If the list is to contain only OXPs that work (and ideally I think it should), we need a mechanism to determine if an OXP has been checked against a new Oolite release as noone is going to volunteer to download and test every OXP with each release.

I think that as new versions of Oolite come out, we'll see a good portion of the version numbers not change because they don't work, the authors are gone or noone actually uses them. For newbies that's quite useful.

However, now we have the release date column, one might argue that it performs a similar (but not identical) function - it's unlikely that any newbie will install an OXP that has a release date earlier than in the last six months to one year I would have thought.

So do you think that the release date is sufficient?