This new thread is for working out details related to the new wiki (Vault Wiki). Anyone who wants to contribute to moving L4W content to the new wiki, please jump in here. Use the old "Character Template Bugs & Assistance" thread for anything related to the old wiki (MediaWiki).
I'm not able to help much at this point (because I don't know the wiki admin and templating system yet), but I am going to try and create my character in the new wiki this week.
The L4W pages should all be in the L4W category...
Unfortunately, it appears VaultWiki only updates category pages for pages that have been visited recently. So the L4W page doesn't list all the pages that are likely there.
Luckily, as new/old pages are edited, they do appear.
__________________ stonegod -- LEB judge and spawn of Khyber since 2005 (Blog)
I'm here to help, though i dont know how to build templates or anything too complex, though i'm a quick study if someone could link some instructions on the wiki's language.
Avenging Light
Grasping Shards
Call Spirit Companion Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes
CD: Armour of Wrath
CD: Rubukle Undead
Raven's Claw
Thunder of Judgement The Lady's Aid
Invocation of Ice and Fire
So, if we update our character sheets its going under some new Wiki stuffness? What about new characters? I figured out my first PC with just copy/paste from another character already in the system, but if its different now I guess I'll see what happens when I try.
The current wiki uses software called MediaWiki. ENWorld has said that they are going to retire this system and remove the software. In its place, ENWorld has setup the new Vault Wiki software (which is linked from the "The Vault" in the horizontal navigation bar in the forums). This new wiki is very similar to the old one, but also includes tighter integration with the forums.
Eventually, we will need to move all the current content into the new wiki system. There is an import function, but I read somewhere that the last test import of L4W didn't go very well. We may have to manually move everything, including characters.
Eventually, we will need to move all the current content into the new wiki system. There is an import function, but I read somewhere that the last test import of L4W didn't go very well. We may have to manually move everything, including characters.
The import did okay, but had two major limitations:
- It didn't get the recent version of everything (some of the LEB pages were the newest version, some very old).
- It seemed to have missed some (characters, mostly).
It is still unclear how well the templates are going to work (something I haven't had time to look at).
__________________ stonegod -- LEB judge and spawn of Khyber since 2005 (Blog)
It's been on my mind recently that we should probably give some serious thought to the direction of the wiki, preferably before people put huge quantities of work into it. Questions like: should we stick to being hosted on ENWorld and convert to VaultWiki, or should we go to an external host like wikia or bluwiki, and keep our MediaWiki stuff? And, should we keep our current character sheets, or switch to something more flexible like LEB's sheets?
Since ENWorld has been reasonably quick for a week or two, that reduces one of my objections to the Vault, but... My "this software is crap" sensors keep going off every time I get near it, and I can't seem to shut them up.
Eh. I don't know. It's not like I really have time to put real quantities of work in just now anyway.
I'd like to help somehow, but I don't have much experience with wikis besides the old one, and that was purely learned by looking at other people's coding.
I would, however, suggest more trimmed and condensed formats than what we currently have for the new templates. A minimalist approach would probably go a long way towards making life easier for reviewers.
There's a few minor details about our current format that I also think could be clarified, such as renaming "Attributes" as "Abilities". The current form of "Attribute" and "Attribute Type", would probably also make more sense as "Ability mod" and "Ability", respectively.
It's been on my mind recently that we should probably give some serious thought to the direction of the wiki, preferably before people put huge quantities of work into it. Questions like: should we stick to being hosted on ENWorld and convert to VaultWiki, or should we go to an external host like wikia or bluwiki, and keep our MediaWiki stuff?.
This seems like an important question to address first. We have three options on the table...
Move to ENWorld's Vault
Move to a hosted MediaWiki-based site like BluWiki or Wikia
Host our own MediaWiki site and get an admin from our community
My inclination is to go with ENWorld because that is where the forums are anyways and it looks like there might be some forum / wiki integration possible. Changing software seems like a pain.
I like the big community around MediaWiki so that seems like a plus. And we get to keep all the existing templates. Hosting it with an outside company like Wikia or BluWiki seems like an easy way to do it.
Hosting our own installation of MediaWiki would give us the most flexibility and control, but it also means that L4W becomes dependent on an individual or set of individuals to admin, maintain, fix, etc. the wiki. People come and go so quickly though that I'd be concerned about losing key individuals and getting stuck. In theory, since it would be MediaWiki based, the site would be easy to move to another host.
Seems like one way to move forward would be to determine if the Vault or MediaWiki is better for what we are trying to do.
Proposal; this gets stick'ed or something. The thread isn't getting nearly the attention it should for questions as important as this.
The convenience of inputing values only once into the CS would be beautiful. Making a character, without copy paste, is a nightmare with the current set-up. Especially if that character has aftereffects, or effects below particular hit lines.
The character sheets need changing, and they should definitely be more flexible. When the Ki focus comes out, even more will likely change, adding to the problem. I like the LEB sheet, but if we could improve on that, it would be even better.
Oh, and What is this integration of which you speak?
Integration: The wiki links directly to posts and threads via the {post} and {thread} tags. It has the same smilies, formating, and etc as the rest of the boards. It is essentially an extension of the boards (as opposed to a separate entity, which is why Morrus switched).
I don't think moving offsite is good plan. If ENW is down, then so is L4W/LEB. Doesn't matter if the character sheets are elsewhere (and less integration as mentioned). Moving it to a site controlled by a few its suicide as attrition makes loosing control of the operation a possibility.
The best thing for the sheets would be some UI/script to allow editing without driving down to the wiki level: But that has to hosted externally (and someone has to write it). A script to convert CB files to partially filled out sheets would be good too. Neither of which I have the time to do right now (though I know how to do it); have to teach and do research, you know.
So, in the long term, I think moving to a more LEB-like format is the way to go (especially as complexity increases). I don't relish converting the characters already here, though.
__________________ stonegod -- LEB judge and spawn of Khyber since 2005 (Blog)
Stonegod, do you know if there is a way to reference parameters from another template entry in another template in the same article?
In other words, is it possible to enter ability scores once in the summary template and then reference those values in other templates in the same article?
In other words, is it possible to enter ability scores once in the summary template and then reference those values in other templates in the same article?
I haven't tested it yet, but I don't think so unless redirection worked (i.e., you could include parsed template parameters as arguments to other templates within the same template page). You just can't set a variable and reuse it throughout the page (which is what I think you wish); it isn't processed the same way is in javascript in that sense.
__________________ stonegod -- LEB judge and spawn of Khyber since 2005 (Blog)
I've been reading up on nested templates tonight. Seems like it might be possible to use the following approach...
Template:A contains "the quick brown {{B|waldo={{{3}}}}} jumped over...". As above, except the third positional parameter of Template:A is passed to the named parameter 'waldo' of Template:B.
We could specify ability scores in a certain order in the parent template and then pass them to the child templates with something like {{L4WbasicMeleeAttack|L4WabilityStrength={{{1}}}}} which would pass the value of the parameter in the first position from the parent template to the parameter named L4WabilityStrength in the L4WbasicMeleeAttack template.
It looks like one of the problems with the L4W:Character template is that the parameter "Name" is also used in the powers template. I haven't figured it out yet, but it seems like there must be a way to be more specific with the namespace when using the "Name" parameter so it doesn't put the power name into the character name location.
Here's a link to the Character template if anyone wants to take a look at it...
Is there a way to put images in the wiki? The current one I mean. Just wondering if I could stick pics of my PC in there so any DM that wanted to use it for a token could snag it easy.
As part of working up to starting this adventure, I went through the previous one and took some notes for the wiki, which you can find here: Broken Wards. Check it out if you feel like it, and feel free to clarify anything I've missed or messed up.
I've started a similar page for this adventure, which I intend to (try to) keep up as we go along: Daunton's Dead Shadow
The main page for the new wiki (if i'm looking in the right place "http://www.enworld.org/forum/showwiki.php?title=L4W") seems to have naught on it yet but a poll which i assume was from when L4W was new. I think it would be a good idea to have a central contents page that sets out all our wiki info in an uncluttered way. The old main page has a short list of common categories at the top and then a lot of text about factors to do with the community and setting in brief, this is all relevant stuff, but i don't think having it on the main page helps to keep thing organised within the wiki.
I'd suggest a contents page that is set out in a more structured way that mirrors the game we all play and that it contains no extra information:
Avenging Light
Grasping Shards
Call Spirit Companion Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes
CD: Armour of Wrath
CD: Rubukle Undead
Raven's Claw
Thunder of Judgement The Lady's Aid
Invocation of Ice and Fire
Last edited by Fragsie; 16th October 2009 at 02:52 AM..
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