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[wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
I’ve recently had the fortune of getting to know MediaWiki’s image process a bit more (see here), it’s quite nice actually, and it gave me an idea that I think is worth opening up.
I’m very happy to have hakjoon joining me on the backend, but I’m thinking it might be good to have another person in the ranks who handles one thing only…images in TextBook.
Here’s what I’m thinking:
It’s hard enough for potential authors to come up with the time to even write text, but if an article needs graphics too, that can be the deal buster that prevents the article to ever come to light to begin with. Also, some people might be good at writing but simply terrible at graphics, or perhaps don’t understand certain basic principles about economical graphic development. Even more, if you have a bunch of people working on different graphics, TextBook is likely going to end up with a whole lot of inconsistency in graphic design (it’s already happening). Frankly, that’s not what a centralized user manual should be like.
So here’s one idea… now that the new wiki system handles image management in a sensible and useful manner, maybe it’s time we recruit/nominate a graphics person from the community to be the images administrator/manager in TextBook. This person would essentially be responsible for…
- designing the graphics used,
- naming the resulting images using a good convention,
- updating images over time (including file name changes, if needed),
- uploading the images to the server,
- seeing that images are linked up correctly/appropriately in the articles they are associated with,
- and handling such images needs as this, for example.
Writers would initially communicate with the images admin to determine which images were needed for a given article.
I think this is a great idea that will help leverage workflow substantially, as well as give someone else in the community with a particular skill a chance to get involved in a significant way. What does everyone else think?
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
One thing to keep in mind is that a user with screenshot software in addition to Photoshop, et. al would have an easier time in this role than one without. I’m not sure that’s entirely relevant, but I thought I’d throw that out there anyway.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
I don’t know about Mac, but Win comes default with handy Alt-PrtSc capabilities, which I’ve always thought to be much more effecient than any screen capture app I’ve used.
This may sound harsh, but I would rather not have someone who needs community help about how to do something graphic-wise (or tool-wise), that defeats the whole point of a graphics admin. Should anyone steup at all, I’m kind of hoping they will be graphics minded to begin with; meaning they will have all the skills and tools to get the job done semi-professionally.
One thing that did occur to me is that sometimes there is a system being written about that a graphics person may not have access to; e.g., XAMPP, an SFTP program, etc. In such cases, it could be necessary for the article writer to make screen shots that could be forwarded to the graphics person for further processing.
However, the need for this will be pretty low; in fact, graphic needs in generally are pretty low. Having a graphics person would be very helpful in many respects, but not critical. If nobody wants to do it, we’ll get by.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
Destry, I could do this. At the moment I don’t find the time to write articles but I could simply start filling up the “empty” or “graphicless” articles with screenshots.
If I upload screenshot for an article that doesn’t exist, it might, on the one hand, be an incentive for people to write an article and, on the other hand, might already pre-structure things for them because of the highlighting in the screenshots.
I’d do this on a semi-regular basis, working through screenshots as I have time.
If a second person wants to complement me, I’d be happy with that.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
<blockquote>This may sound harsh, but I would rather not have someone who needs community help about how to do something graphic-wise (or tool-wise), that defeats the whole point of a graphics admin. Should anyone steup at all, I’m kind of hoping they will be graphics minded to begin with; meaning they will have all the skills and tools to get the job done semi-professionally.</blockquote>
I don’t think that’s harsh at all. If anything, it’s a very sensible, thought-out requirement.
Personally, I have the tools and know how to use them, but I don’t particularly spend a lot of time on that side of the brain, If people need Mac OS X related screenshots, though, I’d be happy to help out; like Windows, we have built-in screenshot capabilities.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
Andreas, great.
One thing that’s been bugging me for a while is to get all the admin panels documented like I started to do a while back and just haven’t found the time to finish. I like your idea about starting the images and then someone else filling in the blanks. I could even work on text more.
If you don’t mind, I have a couple suggestions:
- We start with the administration interface docs.
- We use a consistent look (as much as possible) like what is already started in the other panel pages; e.g., the Write Subtab and Import Subtab pages.
My original aim for the admin panel docs was to break the entire panels down to their individual control groups — a graphic for each — when talking about each control; sometimes even down to the individual control (like in the case of dropdown menus) so options in the menus could be talked about more clearly too. I revamped the Import Subtab page a bit when I redid the images recently, that might help clarify what I’m talking about.
Anyway, whatever you can do, I’ll try and follow along.
Keep in mind good file naming strategies too. Maybe we should talk about that a bit, figure out what’s best over the long-term. One thing I thought would be good is to use as part of the name is “fig01”, “fig02,” etc…I even used that recently in the new images, but I’m already realizing that’s probably not smart because if the images ever get reorganized then all the file names could lose there semantic positioning in the flow of the document and they’ll have to be renamed and uploaded. So, we need a convention that provides organization on the server-side of things, as well as good association to a given article without being too rigid in article flow. Make sense? Other ideas warmly appreciated.
Physical dimensions should be a consideration too. Smaller (within reason) is always better, which is largely achieved by cropping images to several different localized sections, as needed.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
We start with the administration interface docs.
Ok.
We use a consistent look (as much as possible) like what is already started in the other panel pages;
I’ll try and do the screenshots according to the ones that are already there.
Keep in mind good file naming strategies too. Maybe we should talk about that a bit, figure out what’s best over the long-term.
How about: maintab-subtab-functionalgroup.gif ?
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
As far as looks, just be close, don’t stress over it. Whatever is within your abilities.
The name convention seems good. You might need a fourth piece in there sometimes, for something within the group, so this might be a good separation…
Tab1Tab2-GroupItem.png
Just adjust the group/item part as needed. Might be good to abbreviate as much as sensible too, just to help keep the names shorter (nothing worse than an overly loooooooooooooong file name). For example…
AdminPrefs-Lang.gif
or
adminPrefs-Lang.gif
…are certainly better than Tab_admin-prefs_fig3.gif, but that was my lack of forsight.
Anyway, you have the right idea.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
The name convention seems good.
Ok, am I right assuming that hyphens in the file names are ok? I prefer them over underscores.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
Yeah, definitely. I think they work better in MediaWiki anyway.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
Andreas: We need to update this TextBook page, TextBook Image Use Guidelines, and also the section How do I add images for an article. Since you are the image wand of power now, I’ll leave that to you.
If you think it would be better to just delete the “Guidelines” page, since it was originally created for users to handle images on their own anyway, that’s fine with me.
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Re: [wiki] Images Manager/Administrator for TextBook?
We need to update this TextBook page
Ok, I’m away from my computer until about 4th January so I can’t do anything before then.
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