GLEST WIKI SUMMARY: 27 June 2011
Well, haven't posted in this topic for over a month, despite loads and loads of work on the wiki. For those who don't frequent the
recent changes page (which I wouldn't recommend, I've added over 500 edits in the past month, and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemies to read all my edit summaries). Speaking of edit summaries, a friendly reminder to use them. The box to the left of the submit button is meant for edit summaries (oddly enough, the drop down options box doesn't seem to work. I'd remove it with CSS, but that'd probably be classified as a no-no under Wikia's lousy ToS). So, please enter at least a short description of what you did. Unless the page in particular was a user page, talk page, or sandbox, you should enter an edit summary. It can even be one word like "expanded" or "spelling", but it should be there.
Why? The edit summary is shown in the history of the page (the entire history is always kept, and is NEVER deleted, even when the page is deleted). Edit summaries allow us to know exactly what edit is what, and makes undos (reverting a single edit) and rollbacks (rolling back a chunk of edits that one user performed, sysops only) easier. If you end up being wrong with your edit, it prevents us from thinking it was vandalism (though, we
always assume good faith). Furthermore, the edit summary can allow us to identify those who post from IP addresses (such as those who think that boycotting the signup progress, and thus ensuring that you see the ads, which are hidden for logged in members, actually making Wikia more profit) can be identified. If you want examples, just take a look below.
This image is of the recent changes page, showing edit summaries on page edits and moves (in the parenthesis). When there is multiple edits on page, you can see them all by expanding the list by clicking on the blue arrow to the left. Cur is a quick link to compare the revision to the current page, and prev will compare it to the previous revision, allowing you to see a diff of the changes.
Now, on to a new subject. As mentioned, I've done a lot of changes recently. But...500 edits? What was all that used for? Well, remember how I mentioned I was abandoning the Glest Guide in favor of the wiki? The first step is the XMLs. There is hundreds of modeling tutorials online by people who put my (1337) skills to shame, but Glest's XMLs are unique. Some parts are self explanatory (but should still be explained), while other parts are as cryptic as Sherlock Holmes. At any rate, ALL of the XML pages have been redone from SCRATCH. Full definitions, syntax highlighting, and paragraph explanations. No more messy, short, and all too lacking comments in the XML itself, now, each section gets its own header (and the page uses the <tt>{{TOC limit|2}}</tt> template to prevent the table of contents from being 105 lines long) in order of appearance. This means there is room for long explanations, examples, images, links, etc (you cannot have a link in the syntax highlighting tags).
Speaking of syntax highlighting, how is that done? Simply surround the code with
<syntaxhighlight lang="xml"> [..] </syntaxhighlight>. This will cause text inside to be formatted as an XML. As well, to ensure that special highlighting tags (we'll get to that in a second) work to 100% efficiency, please use tabs instead of spaces. A CSS change has made it so all tabs will be 4 spaces wide instead of the default 8 (note: only firefox 4+ and opera 10.60+ support this CSS value so far, which is cutting edge CSS3. Also, you may have to bypass the cache - by holding shift while you reload the page - in order to see it). Theres loads of advantages to using tabs instead of spaces, but I won't go over them. If anyone wishes to be stubborn, go google stuff.
Now, on to the controversial part, which I naturally saved for last. A fore note that those who oppose the concept would be wasting their breath to say so, it's here to stay, and it's for the better of everyone. Moving on, if you'd care to examine the
XML subpages, you'll notice that there is a key at the top of the first XML example, and the backgrounds of some code blocks are highlighted. In case the key isn't obvious enough, yes, I just merged Glest, GAE, and MegaGlest into one XML. The normal stuff has no background, while the GAE only stuff has a red background, the MegaGlest only stuff is blue, and the stuff that both GAE and MegaGlest support (but Glest does not), are purple.
Now, I'm sure you want some reasoning, and there is that. The Glest wiki will be the dominant modder haven, with all the guides and tutorials to teach people how to learn to mod. Firstly, we must note we do not have neither the man power nor the wish to maintain a large number of pages that are largely the same. Because a modern modder will need to learn the differences in what they can do, the code is comparable on the same page, as well, it provides a central way to see all the modder's options. Now, they are able to see possibilities they have, and are more compelled to mod for one of Glest's forks than for the outdated Glest.
Continuing on to appease the naysayers, this is a way to document all of Glest's features on a single page to reduce confusion, and prevent us from having to make multiple edits to dozens of different pages. Finally, should the two engines every merge, we have a very easy way to have a unified XML documentation. The javascript code that is used to replace special comments with the background shading can very easily just remove the comments.
Again, do not waste your breath opposing any of these changes. You will be ignored, and you will not be justified with a reply. Do not waste your time trying to revert the pages, as such will be considered vandalism after much hard work. Do not waste your time copying parts onto MG or GAE only pages, as they will soon be placed with redirects to these pages, since they are far far more complete (for example, MG's unit XML page does not explain anything at all about using skills or commands) and in every way superior. This is just a notification to let you know, and to encourage people to help add anything else that may be missing, such as several of the still undocumented GAE functions (see the GAE board). I went through the existing pages for both MG and GAE with a fine tooth comb, and rest assured that everything that either page has is already on the main XML page, and I am currently merging the new GAE pages just added today (it may already be done by the time you read this).
Thank you for reading this extremely long post, and have a nice day. Happy wiki-ing!
