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#1 2008-09-25 12:00:20

Destry
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From: Haut-Rhin
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[wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

I’m gradually pulling a coarse comb through TxB content organization, and I have a question about Community Projects, which are not really user docs, but still legitimate wiki content.

In this case (and probably this case only) I think a custom namespace would be appropriate to keep these kinds of pages separate from the normal wiki user docs in the main: namespace (this becomes very useful when people search for pages by namespace filtering).

For the sake of being clear, let’s call these types of activities “workgroup” activities and the resulting wiki pages workgroup pages. Judging from the fact wg activities are few and resulting wiki pages few as well, a single custom namespace should suffice. Something easy and indicative, like wg:.

Why easy? Because to use a custom namespace prefix properly, it must prefixed to any page going in that namespace, so something shorter is easier to remember and type than something long. For example the page indicated above could then be changed to wg:Community Workgroup Projects, which is easier than using “workgroups:” as the namespace. Also, when it’s short you don’t need to go the extra mile on your interwiki page links and add alternate link label syntax (you should avoid this anyway as it hides the informative value of what namespace the destination page is in). For example, you should not have to type all this [[wg:Community Workgroup Projects|Workgroup Projects]], even if it is tempting.

Anyway, any objections? Something I’m missing? If not, all workgroup related content will be recreated thus, and all future workgroup content should be prefixed accordingly. It will be up to respective workgroup activities to keep their pages titled accordingly (prefixed and distinctive from individual activities).

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#2 2008-10-06 15:58:17

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

Couldn’t use “wg:”…MW already laid claim to it, though not as a namespace (ID conflict somewhere).

Anyway, we now have two new custom namespaces. We should not need more.

  • wkgrp: — this is for workgroup pages
  • txp: — this is for pages that are not user docs or workgroup related

I only created the latter because I came across a page called Textpattern Feature Requests, which seemed to fit in something like that. It also allows a nice place for future content yet to be defined (which is nevertheless not user docs).

Last edited by Destry (2008-10-06 15:58:37)

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#3 2008-10-06 16:21:36

ruud
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

If this is something users will have to type or see, perhaps use ‘wrkgrp’ or even ‘workgrp’ or ‘workgroup’ or simply ‘group’ instead of wkgrp (which is neither short nor easy to remember).

What are these community projects, are they currently part of Textbook and why should they be?

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#4 2008-10-06 21:14:31

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

This (or whatever spelling) would need to be added as a prefix to any title going into that namespace. That’s how namespaces work. Just like category:, template:, help: or any other.

As for the the projects, none have been very active that I can tell for quite a long time. They were started by various folks working together on different txp activities of one type or another. TextBook was chosen because it’s a wiki, available, and Txp-oriented. No fault in that. Nobody forced using TextBook, there’s no reason to continue using it that way. Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, but if such activities are pursued in TxB, they should be in their own namespace.

If not wanted, all those old pages should probably be axed and the namespaces dropped.

Last edited by Destry (2008-10-06 21:16:06)

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#5 2008-10-07 11:06:59

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

ruud wrote:

If this is something users will have to type or see, perhaps use ‘wrkgrp’ or even ‘workgrp’ or ‘workgroup’ or simply ‘group’ instead of wkgrp (which is neither short nor easy to remember).

You know, looking at it again, “wrkgrp” is what I intended to create the first time. I think we can add easy to mistype to that list of problems too. :)

“group” isn’t terrible but could be misleading to content grouping. “workgroup” is a bit long but probably the best choice of all; would be the most intuitive and easy to remember. We should probably go with that, if anything.

Last edited by Destry (2008-10-07 11:08:22)

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#6 2008-10-07 11:12:05

Bloke
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

‘workgroup’ or, if deemed too long, ‘workgrp’, umm, works for me.

For consistency, since the others seem to be full words (‘category’, ‘template’, ‘help’) then this one should probably be such, too.

Last edited by Bloke (2008-10-07 11:12:23)


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#7 2008-10-08 17:17:59

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

More of your loving feedback is needed. I’ve been wading through wiki pages, and there is non-user doc pages that exist that are nevertheless not really workgroup type subjects either.

To demonstrate this better (and even provide ongoing value) I’ve used some categories to organize these pages at primary and secondary levels. Have a visit at category:Side Content (don’t get hung up on the label for now, just think about the overall situation).

As the intro indicates, that is a top-level catch-all for all wiki content (I’ve so far found) that is not Txp user docs content. All pages are alphabetized at bottom there. There’s also secondary categories that further sub-categorize the content based on what I figured they are about. Although I did not do it, it’s possible these pages could be sub-categorized further at a tertiary level, as suggested by the example links in this category hierarchy:

  • Side Content (All non user docs pages. All categories and content below can be accessed starting here.)
    • Workgroup (Pages for community workgroup activities. Note some exist in the workgroup: namespace but I stopped that until we clear this up.)
    • Plugins (Plugin-related, apparently)
    • Feature Requests (pages Txp dev related)

Note also it’s possible that a given page might fit into two or more other categories. This is particularly evident with some of the Feature Request pages.

Now grab your umbrellas!

Brainstorm

What if instead of having the custom namespace “workgroup:” (which only covers one type of these stray pages and thus implies we might need more custom namespaces to cover the others), we create a single, generic custom namespace like dev: or nodoc: that is short, easy to remember, and serves as a catch-all for any non-user-doc page. (I like “nodoc”, but suggestions are welcome.)

Then we use wiki categories as I’ve demonstrated above to organize the non-user-doc pages in meaningful ways for navigation/usability reasons. Categories are a lot more wiki-friendly than custom namespaces and this limits the need for custom namespaces to just one. What do you think?

You might be a little puzzled about all this, particularly in respect to why we might need a custom namespaces at all (which requires prefixing all such page titles with the namespace prefix). The reason is simple, and my time devoted to wading through all these pages is a case in point:

  1. The wiki is first and foremost for Txp user documentation — how to use textpattern from installation to customization. This is the content that belongs in the main: namespace (the wiki default for primary content). Non-user-docs content should not be in this namespace, because…
  2. Admins and editors, who actually care enough to try and give order to the expansion of the wiki use the wiki’s namespace search tools (the search form at the top of the (All Pages screen) to find and manage pages for a number of reasons. It’s a LOT easier to do if pages are properly organized to begin with…or as the wheat farmers say, the grain is separate from the chaff. (And that’s why these functions/configs are available — to shape a meaningful wiki.)

So again, what do you think about this approach?

The other end of the rope is: do we need to use the wiki for peripheral activities at all, and if not, do we delete the non-user-doc pages that exist (being they’re pretty dormant anyway)? Viewpoints wanted on this too, because what we shouldn’t want to do if we really want to make things better is do nothing at all (that’s likely why people complain about TextBook to begin with).

Last edited by Destry (2008-10-08 17:24:12)

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#8 2008-10-08 17:52:55

ruud
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

I think most of that plugin stuff (judging by those two examples) belong either in the plugin help of that particular plugin (zem_event) or in a forum thread, but not in TextBook.

Same applies to feature requests, IMHO. I read forum threads about feature requests, not those Textbook pages.

I wouldn’t mind seeing those non-user-doc pages deleted from Textbook. Keep it clean.

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#9 2008-10-08 21:26:57

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

ruud wrote:

I wouldn’t mind seeing those non-user-doc pages deleted from Textbook. Keep it clean.

Totally agree.

Before just outright deleting them, we can stop flag them and move them to category:Deprecated, where they can sit until further salvaged for anything useful. Don’t be shy, folks.

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#10 2008-10-09 03:02:12

hakjoon
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

Docs for zem_event are a interesting case, it’s all community effort because there is no maintainer and there really was no documentation, so the documentation has come about the same way the documentation for TXP has come about. It could maybe go into a workgroup if we want to get into semantics. Honestly it could probably not be linked to from anywhere in TXB and just be linked to from the help file or the forum thread.

I think the feature requests area was an area for people to better flesh out discussions that were happening in the forum. Zem used to always ask for details, mockups, use cases before he would even talk about feature viability (not that any of those efforts ever led to any of the features being built). Those pages came out of the community trying to do it’s part in that regard. Normally it was linked to from a forum thread. Sometimes it was a summarization of what came out of the forum thread.

I actually don’t think it’s the worst thing to have in place for other developers looking for things to add, there’s still some good stuff in there that has never seen the light of day.

Last edited by hakjoon (2008-10-09 03:02:41)


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#11 2008-10-09 07:48:04

Destry
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

Patrick’s right, there was dev/community push once upon a time to use the wiki for these kinds of things, and anything that lends to promoting the wiki is a good thing. Wiki’s are meant to provide easy collaboration, afterall, and that was the reason going into these side efforts.

There’s even signs this could be valuable again (though author plugin stuff really might be served better in a new-and-improved .org…someday.)

In that respect, what I was proposing before would be the ideal way to keep it live but organized and isolated from the main core documentation. The only vectors to peripheral project pages would be:

  1. a link to the containing, top-level category (e.g., category:Projects, category:Side Content, whatever) where one could then drill-down through the subtopics, and
  2. via the namespace search form at All Pages, where all such content would appear under the custom namespace it should properly be prefixed with (e.g. dev:, nodocs:, whatever).

Note the pages for the zem_event project use the old tag page titling convention, so that’s yet another source that would need put to .txt files before reimplementing the CaptialLinks=false config.

Speaking of which…

Last edited by Destry (2008-10-09 08:57:52)

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#12 2008-10-09 20:25:11

hakjoon
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Re: [wiki] Txp community workgroup activity in TextBook

Might be able to lowercase the page title in the DB. I was trying that before and it wasn’t working but I haven’t ruled out that it wasn’t because of the namespace clash.


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