[pmwiki-users] New WikiGroups on pmwiki.org [Was: Volunteering for a PITS issue]

tamouse mailing lists tamouse.lists at gmail.com
Sat Oct 13 10:42:18 CDT 2012


On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 9:09 AM, Petko Yotov <5ko at 5ko.fr> wrote:
> Simon writes:
>>
>> I have to speak in strong support of a separate group for skins
>> I think that the community is asking for this, and more, is volunteering
>> to make it happen.
>
>
> I have asked the community for the "reasons" why should a category of
> recipes (Skins, and not Administration or Uploads for example) be moved to
> its own group. I wanted to know what problems we currently have that require
> a separate group. And I also asked how should we deal with this group and
> with the Cookbook group translated in other languages.
>
> For the moment, the only real inconvenience we can agree upon is that from
> the names of some pages (eg. Flickr, PhotoGallery or Choice) it is not
> immediately clear that the page is about a skin.
>
> This is a problem with readability.
>
> I am willing to find a way to fix this inconvenience, but we actually found
> more than one way to do it and we should select the better one.
>
> There is also something that should be clear - the Cookbook contains many
> things: modules, simple recipes, skins, even some core documentation. I have
> the feeling that for some people the cookbook should only contain "modules",
> additional programs that are downloaded and installed. For these people
> there are only modules and skins, nothing else, and they see that other
> pieces of software only have those. Our cookbook is more than just for
> modules, and the skins are one category among other recipes/modules.
>
> Peter explained it better than me.
>
> If we create a new Skins group, it should be considered part of the
> Cookbook.
>
>
>> Having skins in a separate group would have several benefits
>> * it clearly identifies skins (look and feel) as separate from add ons
>> (functional extensions), thus emphasising to PmWiki potential users this
>> benefit
>
>
> We might agree that a number of skin recipes offer far more than look and
> feel, with SiteHeader, SiteFooter, RightBar, skin themes etc. We also have a
> number of look and feel recipes that are not skins, and a number of recipes
> that concern or manage skins, but are not skins. There is not a clear line
> what should be in this new Skins group, and why some recipes shouldn't.
>
>
>> * it obviates the need to categorising, or naming conventions for skins
>
>
> Categories: there isn't a problem or a difficulty to add categories to the
> recipes - and if one isn't added, just tell me and I'll add it.
>
> The benefit of having categories rather than WikiGroups is that a recipe can
> be in many categories but in a single group. Moving all skin-related recipes
> to a new group will not obviate the need to categorising, for example the
> blog- or gallery- oriented skins in these categories.
>
> Naming conventions: using a page name "Skins.Name" is a naming convention,
> but instead of a suffix you ask for a prefix. Currently there are no naming
> conventions, most of the skins end in *Skin.
>
> To improve the readability, an alternative to a new group could be to just
> rename the other skins to have a suffix. This will be easier and as
> effective.
>
>
>> * the cookbook group is big enough without skins
>
>
> It is also even bigger without the RSS recipes -- should we move them to a
> new group?
>
> I feel that most visitors either search, or browse the Cookbook categories
> to find what they need or might use. Nobody reads all Cookbook pages one
> after another.
>
>
>> Even if there is a bit of manual work to fix links, etc, I'm happy enough
>> to contribute.
>
>
> It is not only a bit, it is also about clarity (no clear line what should be
> there), maintenance (new upload directories) and future (other languages).
>
> I am not strongly opposed to a new Skins group (we have more than 90 skins)
> but I am still unsure it would be better than, for example, have a *Skin
> suffix, in order to fix the perceived readability inconvenience.
>
> Petko
>
>
>
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At first, I was all for having a new WikiGroup for Skins, separate
from the Cookbook. One of the reasons was that I have been thinking
about and trying to limit my skin designs to just layout and
presentation, not functionality or content. However, it's been
difficult in all cases to make a clear distinction. Groups to me offer
a very very high level of categorisation, categories a lower and a bit
more flexible. I am changing my mind about where skins should live on
the wiki, and agree that the Cookbook group is the right place, but
with some additional work to make skins a bit more apparent, and
possibly some additional effort to expose the distinction for new
people looking for information (although already having a separate
entry in the side bar I would think should be enough).



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