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[levi]

I rarely understand why any links are broken when things are moved. That's what redirect pages are designed for - use them.


I don't know whether it's worth restating that I also don't find the big list a good way to find information. Sure, we needed more hands on board to fix up the old layout, as often it resulted in todos, or links to board threads, but I felt I could find anything I needed to. This way seems unnecesssarily complicated, although that's perhaps because it is. I can see the use as an index page wiki maintainers can use to visualise the overall structure and fix that up where sensible, but it's a long way from being user friendly yet.


I do hope we can get something from this discussion though. There's a lot of useful information in the wiki - it's just a bit tied up at the moment.

 

[comradekingu]

And i agree. Now lets focus on making it better. I welcome anyone to make edits to my pages as they please, provided it makes sense in some way. If you want totally free reigns, like i had, make your own page, often its trying stuff that makes one realize you have found another solution to what doesn't work.

unrelated:http://i.imgur.com/LyjEm48.jpg

Constructive section: The more info that is there for historical purposes we can get rid of the better. Put the info where it belongs, be it on the forum, or the repo.

 

[levi]

Okay, I've had a go at merging the disparate articles on the Introduction to PNDs

http://pandorawiki.org/Introduction_to_PNDs


I've taken out a bit of stuff that was obviously out-of-date, but I've not had a chance to check out most of the remaining text, which I've just tried to structure in a way that doesn't scare off people looking for the basics of how to use them, while still being logically laid out for people looking to make their own PNDs.


Edit: One thing I didn't notice at first was that if you click on a broken red link which has been moved by ComradeKingu, it'll tell you in a box near the top where it has been moved to.

 

[comradekingu]

Great!

I think if all the info from the pnd:faq can be answered that page can be done away with, no?

Personally i never liked the question based listing of information. Roll debate.

 

[levi]

Yes, there's certainly a lot of overlap between those pages. The most frequently asked questions should be exactly the same questions an introductory article should hope to cover, no?


I did have to mangle the question-based layout of the advanced section of the intro to fit in some longer sections, and turn it onto a more conversational approach (but then it becomes linear, which made the alternative platforms stuff hard to deal with). Personally I think we should have an intro and an advanced page, and most of the stuff from the advanced section of the intro going into the latter, and be structured in whatever way most makes sense for it. From a quick inspection of the FAQ, that's split a bit more down to middle on introductory and advanced topics. PNDs are an important topic, and don't deserve to be squeezed onto a single page (plus libpnd).

 

[comradekingu]

I did some more work on the newmain, clocked the first two positive comments about it. Did some cleanup here and there elsewhere. Wally is working on something. And firstpost is updated with new things.

 

[Fzero]

Looks nicer with those simple bullet points than the old icons IMO

With regards to what someone mentioned about having to horizontal scroll on the Pandora screen...

...I see this too, when resizing my desktop browser window.

Is it an old version of MediaWiki you have installed?

When I look at the MediaWiki website, their page contains media queries and the screen is responsive and adjusts nicely when I resize the browser. I imagine that page looks fine on the Pandora screen too.

Just wondering if the version d/l was prior to them [MediaWiki] making it more responsive?

Also if you look on the MediaWiki main page, they've that nice sidebar menu on the left there, which has expandable content for 'Support', 'Development', 'MediaWiki.org', 'Print/Export' and 'Toolbox'.

That style might be nice to add for the main content headings on the Pandora wiki, namely 'Hardware Documentation', 'Firmware', 'Software Projects', 'Emulators' etc...

 

[Binky]

How about changing

"OpenPandora GmbH or OpenPandora Ltd. are not responsible for content, this wiki is NOT an official source of information about your device."

to

"Niether OpenPandora GmbH nor OpenPandora Ltd. are responsible for content, this wiki is NOT an official source of information about your device."

Also, why do we need a pandora logo when there is already oe in the top left of the page? Maybe replace the one in the top left with the paper globe design featured on Ekianjo's boxes?

I also agree that the side scrolling should be avoided - 960px is easily be enough width to display a webpage

 

[levi]

Personally, I don't like the last sentence emphasising who's not responsible for it. I'd prefer


"OpenPandora GmbH or OpenPandora Ltd. are NOT responsible for any content here; this wiki is an unofficial source of information about your device."


'unofficial' and 'not official' have the same literal meanings, but the former sounds more positive to my ears, somehow.

 

[Wally]

I'm working on making a guide for "New Users" I was looking at the current guide and decided I need to make it clearer / easier to read. That way I can then branch out to other pages and possibly replace / create several pages of content.

To me the front page of the Wiki needs to be clean / no clutter / easy to read and not scary for first timers (Thanks to ED for pointing that out) giving people the impression that the Pandora is NOT just for hackers.

 

[levi]

Sounds reasonable. To my mind, the current structure of the user manual page isn't bad in how it starts off - it just goes on a bit, and then duplicates a lot of information, and is massively out-of-date pretty much from the get-go.


Screw it, nuke it from orbit!

 

[comradekingu]

FZERO: Lovely suggestions. The mediawiki we have is at least one version old. Its in discussion, along with extra extentions. Mediawiki.org looks sleek, dont know if its all newshineysoftware, but i think ours is tuned to not use so much resources. http://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki i do like this (mobile) style.

 

[comradekingu]

=http://pandorawiki.org/Firmware http://pandorawiki.org/Introduction_to_firmware http://pandorawiki.org/Running_Linux_from_an_SD_card these three are the same thing, and then the same thing over again in the Ångström category, which was previously "hotfixes". Since thats a hard name to spell for any non scandinavs i propose putting it all in "Firmware" and typing "Ångström (default OS)" behind it.

Edit, and i think a redirect is in order (sic) from Ångström to firmware. Then everyone gets their fix, and we can even change OS in the future without much hassle.

 

[levi]

It'd make more sense to have everything under Angstrom (sorry, too lazy to enter glyphs) and put the redirect on Firmware - then if we change firmware, simply change the redirect, rather than having to shift everything off Firmware and onto <old firmware>.


Since I had a go at hacking the intro to firmware before, I don't mind seeing what can be done about all that duplication. Should have a bit of time at the weekend for wiki wangling.

 

[comradekingu]

I gave this a lot of thought, and invariably, a lot of links to firmware, when people meant angstrom, is the result. So in actual fact, it isn't saving trouble upon changing. Since both are new categories, i decided on angstrom, since that means all distributions will go by their name, which has a nice unity to it. Then its also easier to do logos next to it, so you get that mental connection.

"Firmware" was actually the best page, so thats first.

Effectivly, firmware isnt to do with the OS on the pandora, its much too generic a platform, (proven by the many choices provided) and its too easy to change.

With firmware, i think of u-boot, nub, keyboard and wifi code. And for the more novice user, firmware, means nothing.

So when all the smoke an mirrors of duplicating the same category 4 times (plus one more actually) I have done away with "firmware" in its entirety. Now software is software, and OS is OS and everything that fits the bill is on the right.

And with this great stride forwards staying true to concept, we have no redirects, only categories that make sense.

 

[comradekingu]

Lolla provided a table layout, and collapsible elements work!

http://pandorawiki.org/NewMain_pageLollaTest

 

[sebt3]

much much much better.

thanks Lolla

 

[comradekingu]

Implemented what was good on the old page. All the red links are things that have been renamed via links. So we need to properly rename.

 

[Binky]

Lolla provided a table layout, and collapsible elements work!

http://pandorawiki.org/NewMain_pageLollaTest

Much better

Any way of hiding the lines in the tables?

 

[comradekingu]

I know how that works if its not collapsed. However to collapse, its "mw-collapsible" instead of the new one. I think it comes down to upgrading the mediawiki version. There are some very non-intuitive bugs in this release. 

Need a colourscheme that isnt hampering usability for people with bad eyesight.