Wiki wish list

Just a plain shabby thread, the title explains it I think. Oh, there are some dedicated threads out there already, for example for creature documentation, you can use those too.

And my wish? More people realizing how great a classical wiki is for any kind of guides and that contributing is as easy as editing forum posts.

 

The API can provide any data available in various formats such as JSON or CSV, alternatively complete content and features for embedding in iframes. Fetching data should be the smallest issue and there are really many ways to do it, for the data it doesn't even matter where it is used. For example, on this page Narfi experimented with data for a mobile app iir: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/User:Narfi/Queries, it has query (anyone can edit) with armor sets displayed in a table on the page and below the same query (anyone can edit) just as link to a CSV file.

The data structure is probably sufficient but small changes could make the process easier, and potentially applying those small changes should be relatively easy too. Anyone looking into it can do that, no coding skills required.

The data is far from complete, so that's something to address, which can be done on demand and shouldn't be much of a problem either.

Everything that makes sense to be pre-calculated can be calculated on the wiki, and that depends on the use-case I guess. For example if you want to enable the user to enter custom markup values to calculate cost/use for a weapon you need the the base decay and not an already pre-calculated cost/use value.
Theoretically it would be possible to save formulas in wiki templates too for use on the wiki or by external tools, and in case of changes wiki editors could edit the formula instead of a developer the code of an tool.

For very basic use-cases for an on-wiki tool some advanced wiki editing could be sufficient, due to the fact that the classic wiki approach means that users cannot only edit cells in database tables but also edit structures, forms, templates, queries and such without any coding skills.
For more elaborated features coding skills would be definitely needed, for an on-wiki tool at least javascript experience, for an external tool merely using the data skills depending on the platform.
The advantage of an on-wiki tool would be: less skills required, collaborative editing, many features already provided by wiki modules, open source code, properly licensed.

So the basic question is: what should such a tool (or any tool/feature) be able to do exactly (and what not)?

As a little example: I, completely lacking any coding skills, was able to get something very basic done within an evening, using standard features of the wiki:

 

Yep, there's room for improvement. Quickly put in something very very experimental:

http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/ROCKtropia_Missions/DataTables​

(Don't click the other planets or views, only ROCKtropia and DataTables works so far, but for a preview... it's almost done for Teleporters)

 

Ok, 1st version of Filter view and Drilldown view available now. So what exactly to drilldown and filter on?

 

Oh, well, my PHP & JS skills are developed enough to tell the one from the other but not really much further. Otherwise this would probably be the coolest wiki on the planet, lol. But I'll see what I can do.

(If someone with PHP and/or JS skills is reading this... ever considered looking into mediawiki development? )

For example, the pages with Special:BrowseData are enabled by an open source extension, there are a couple of configuration parameters and I was able to customize a couple of things but I'm lacking skills to do much more.

I've removed most of the categories appearing in that sidebar because indeed that was confusing, it contained only Rt mission plus TP categories because the browsing feature isn't done yet for other data. What I did is turning the sidebar into tabs and once everything is done there should be one tab for each major category (Creatures, Items, Missions, TPs, ...). So... tabs or sidebar?

Another thing I've changed is some kind of tagcloud-style thingie for the filter values, meaning values with a lot of results will be in big letters, values with only a few results will be small, etc. Best to be observed there: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Special:BrowseData/Teleporters Not sure whether that makes sense at all?

And another option we have is the threshold before the number of filter values is turned from clickable text snippets into a single dropdown field. That can be observer there (Mission Chain parameter is tagcloud style text snippets while Creature parameter is drop down with autocomplete): http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Special:BrowseData/ROCKtropia_Missions So the options are: clickable text snippets (with or without tagcloud style) only, dropdown fields only, or a mix (current setting) with a threshold defining when a parameter will have the one or the other.

No, all of them, lol. Only kind of done for TPs yet:

• Standard
• DataTables (icon to the right of the search field shows the magic)
• Plus (that one was created by @Chazlow )
• Filter
• Drilldown
• Category
• Export (Atom, CSV, JSON, RDF, RSS)

And next I'll have to look into the map I guess

 

Removed the tagcloud-style, and found a workaround for wiki markup and html in text properties appearing as plain text.

Regarding dropdown vs clickable text snippets, the text snippets are in alphabetic order too. They might be helpful for a more explorative browsing style, for example the display of the skills rewarded by missions. And they are probably easier to use than dropdowns when there are just a few options, for example for mission scope: Hunting, mining, carafting, exploring. So... maybe keep both dropdown and snippets but lower the threshold when the number of filters keeps growing, and review it when the browsing interface is done for more categories.

 

First version of TP maps is done for the planets:

• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Planet_Calypso_Teleporters/Map
• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/ROCKtropia_Teleporters/Map (unfortunately most have old coords and appear off the map)
• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Next_Island_Teleporters/Map
• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Planet_Arkadia_Teleporters/Map
• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Planet_Cyrene_Teleporters/Map
• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Planet_Toulan_Teleporters/Map

 

I'd suggest disambiguation like Wikipedia does, example Teleporter:Club NEVERDIE. 3 with the same name sounds strange.

Aah, usually you get to the file page by simply clicking the image, doesn't work for those maps because they are not embedded in the regular way. Here's the file page for the Rt map: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/File:ROCKtropia_Overview_Map_512x1024.jpg, towards the bottom there's a link saying "Upload a new version of this file", rest should be self-explanatory.
I've put the maps in a Category:Wiki maps so they are easy to find and will try to get a link to the file page on each page with a map.
In general files can be found in various ways, the ones you've uploaded yourself appear under "Contributions" (top menu bar with the user name & search box), there's also a gallery of files sorted by date with search options, and a couple of more ways...
I do have some maps with higher quality too (not the new 'Rt' tough) but the disadvantage would be longer page load time due to bigger file size. Something we have to consider.