designing pages in the wiki lazarus / 8-Other ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2013-04-08 09:20 This is a follow up to the following message: http://forum.lazarus.fre epascal.org/index.php/topic,20426.msg118689.html#msg118689 Quote from: jwdietrich on April 08, 2013, 09:04:33 amhttp://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Portal:Linux for Linux http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Portal:Mac for Mac http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Portal:iOS for iOS Portals for Windows, Android and web programming are still in the planning phase. I will inform you as soon as they have been created. 1) A note on the side: Why using yet another template for tables? There already is one, see  this page: http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Alternative_Main_Page 2) New designs for wiki page. I do agree, that a table layout for wiki pages is not only nice, but a real improvement to its readability. But we should find a way, where this can be used with the wiki headers "= (sub)title =". So individual sections of a page can be edited on their own. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jwdietrich · 2013-04-08 10:01 OK, the alternative main page has a very good design. However, your proposal is a good example for the problems of the wiki: It is huge and full of interesting information, but it is very hard to find anything (the more as the search functionality is currently faulty). Would you mind to write a short design guide for articles in the wiki? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2013-04-08 10:30 I am not a designer, neither do I complain about your design. (And I think it is a great job to create those pages) I pointed out some technical details: 1) possible duplication of templates (no blame here: hard to find) 2) absence of wiki-headers/sections, using "= title =" style. In order to allow editing parts of a page. The second is actually the more important. You did not comment on it. It is easy to add. The "div style=float" will at the end of the previous section though, but that is not a big issue. For editing content, the div can be ignored. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Chronos · 2013-04-08 17:20 Portals are known from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Portals QuoteA portal is a focus page which highlights a particular subject, to complement the main article on that subject. Portals feature articles covering the portal's theme, and generally provide lists of related articles, and thus provide an alternative means to browse on Wikipedia. But it is questionable if it could really help to community. Portals are just more shiny complement to categories. But before few years no many pages have categorization and no clean category hierarchy was in wiki. At start wiki contributors used link list templates instead of categories to link pages withing same topic together. Maybe we should accept assumption that if Wikipedia use it then it is good for every wiki. Then it is only matter of how many pages are and how many active contributors wiki have. Both portals and categories take time to maintain in long term. Styling portals and template usage should be done mainly according wikipedia portals like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Linux Mentioned http://wiki.freepascal.org/Alternative%20Main%20Page was just another trial to replace main page which is locked. But as wiki haven't active administrator also nobody care pages like http://wiki.freepascal.org/Site_Feedback Nearly every wiki have some start page which contains mainly boxes with links but also news and other portal components. There could be also "switchable" short and long versions of entry page like they have it on http://wiki.osdev.org/Main_Page But definitely start page should contain only most brief and important informations. Color and template style could be adjusted and generalized in time. Indeed somebody should fix search feature on wiki. It was working bad regarding multilingual support and content relevation but it at least doing their job somehow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jwdietrich · 2013-04-08 20:02 Portals and categories are complementary. Categories list all articles with the respective topic-link alphabetically, in portals they are ordered to logical criteria. As costs are negligible we should maintain both categories and portals. Quote from: Chronos on April 08, 2013, 07:20:19 pmStyling portals and template usage should be done mainly according wikipedia portals like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Linux You are right, the Linux portal in Wikipedia is much better than that in our wiki, it is both beautiful and lucid. We should try to adopt some of its features. Quote from: Martin_fr on April 08, 2013, 11:20:53 amBut we should find a way, where this can be used with the wiki headers "= (sub)title =". So individual sections of a page can be edited on their own. This is indeed a missing feature. I will try to implement it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2013-04-08 20:26 Quote from: jwdietrich on April 08, 2013, 10:02:27 pmThis is indeed a missing feature. I will try to implement it. Great. Good work. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jwdietrich · 2013-04-08 23:12 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 08, 2013, 11:20:53 amBut we should find a way, where this can be used with the wiki headers "= (sub)title =". So individual sections of a page can be edited on their own. I have now implemented the possibility to edit individual sections in a prototypical manner for http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Portal:Mac. I didn't find a way to do it with "= (sub)title =", but by some juggling with templates it became possible anyway. If you don't object I will redesign the other portals in a similar way. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin_fr · 2013-04-08 23:17 the = = may work by putting the entire header template into == Code: [Select]==== {{Portal_Head2|00a0cb|Development Techniques|ffe5bb|000000}}  ==== needs a no_toc of course. 4 =, so fontsize is not to big But I am fine with either way. Using sub pages, may make the lay- outing easier. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jwdietrich · 2013-04-08 23:23 Quote from: Martin_fr on April 09, 2013, 01:17:34 amthe = = may work by putting the entire header template into == Code: [Select]==== {{Portal_Head2|00a0cb|Development Techniques|ffe5bb|000000}}  ==== OK, I will evaluate this possibility.