[Bf-docboard] Manual Structure project finished - request for
template translation!
Matt Ebb
matt at mke3.net
Fri Aug 4 13:41:04 CEST 2006
Although there are few loose ends, I'm calling this project complete.
Some articles I haven't touched, since they were so misleadingly out
of date it wasn't worth the time, but for the most part things should
be spick and span and anything that I find left over, I'll continue
to fix up along the way.
Today I added info on the reference template to the style guide
( http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Meta/Style_Guide ) and the
templates page ( http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Meta/
Templates ).
There's one more thing that I could use a hand with though. I
originally built into the reference template the ability to use
different languages! This means that, for example, the template can
be used on a Japanese language page and instead of the template
saying "Menu" in the box it will say "メニュー", and so on for the
other languages, which is of course much nicer. Writers just need to
pass in the two-letter language code that they want to use, instead
of "en" when they call the template.
Now it just needs the translations. The only language other than
English that I know anything much of is Japanese, so even though we
have no Japanese pages, I've edited the RefBox template ( http://
mediawiki.blender.org/index.php?title=Template:RefBox ) with example
text in Japanese to show how to add a translation. It's quite simple
- when you edit the page, it's just a matter of copying the "| ja=メ
ニュー" lines and pasting them underneath with the new language.
If any of you that speak languages other than English can help out
editing the template translating these, it would be great! I'm happy
to help or answer any questions about it too.
Thanks very much!
Matt
On 03/08/2006, at 00:23 AM, Matt Ebb wrote:
> Ok!
>
> I'm pretty much done with all the big changes *phew*.
>
> There's a bit of cleanup work to do (straggler template-ifying/
> moving tutorials/writer's guidelines) that I'll try and take care
> of tomorrow, but for the most part, it's pretty complete. Of course
> the wiki isn't (and may never be), so happy writing, all! :)
>
> cheers
>
> Matt
>
>
>
> On 02/08/2006, at 14:28 PM, Matt Ebb wrote:
>
>> Thanks! No other feedback, so I'm going to go ahead right now :)
>> Will mail again when it's finished.
>>
>> Have fun at siggraph!
>>
>> Matt
>>
>>
>>
>> On 29/07/2006, at 10:52 AM, Will DeVore wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Matt,
>>>
>>> IMHO, I think you are doing a great service to the docs.
>>>
>>> I like the idea of splitting off the tutorials and your proposed
>>> restructure looks good. The BoxGuidelines template looks easy to
>>> deal with. I also agree with the removal of the page title
>>> designators.
>>>
>>> I look forward to picking back-up when your project and the other
>>> BSoDs are completed.
>>>
>>> Have you thought about how to handle versions between Blender.
>>> Sometimes Blender changes quite drastically. What about having
>>> some sort of filter that kinda morphs the document according to
>>> the version of Blender you are interested. I think of it much
>>> like CSS for web pages. Perhaps there could be a list box or
>>> something at the top for choosing the version where certain
>>> sections may appear or disappear or may even change. We could use
>>> templates to control what docs go with which versions.
>>>
>>> Just food for thought....
>>>
>>> Off to Siggraph now. ;P
>>>
>>> -Will
>>>
>>> Matt Ebb wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>>
>>>> You may remember me posting about a project I've been working on
>>>> alongside the BSoD, to improve the information design and
>>>> structure of the reference manual. You can probably find
>>>> previous emails in the archives.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, I've *finally* just about finished the enormous task of
>>>> updating the various manual pages in the manual to use the
>>>> consistent reference information template (http://
>>>> mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Broken/
>>>> ReferenceBoxGuidelines) - there are a couple that haven't been
>>>> converted yet, I'm waiting for the next stage of this project.
>>>> Im already very happy with the results so far, things look a lot
>>>> clearer and nicer.
>>>>
>>>> The next bit remaining in the project in my proposal ( http://
>>>> mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Broken/
>>>> SummerOfDocs2006Restructure ) is tweaking the higher level
>>>> structure of the manual, and splitting off the tutorials into a
>>>> revamped tutorial section. I decided to wait until I'd been
>>>> through all the manual pages already to do this, since now after
>>>> reading and editing just about every page, I have a very good
>>>> understanding of the state of the manual, what is missing, and
>>>> what should be tweaked.
>>>> I've given it some thought, referenced the old discussions and
>>>> have written a proposed, comprehensive TOC here: http://
>>>> mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Broken/ManualTOC . The idea
>>>> is to have another tutorials TOC with top level containers that
>>>> mirror those in the reference manual, both crosslinked (as you
>>>> can see in my page). This keeps the reference manual clean and
>>>> focused, but also allows nice cross-referencing. Notable
>>>> differences between my TOC and the current one are:
>>>>
>>>> * I've included yet-to-be-written placeholder titles based on
>>>> information I found was missing from the manual. Some of them
>>>> (such as node docs) are already elsewhere on the wiki and just
>>>> need to be copied over & consistent-ified. I also think it's
>>>> worthwhile to keep placeholders on the TOC page, since although
>>>> it looks less 'professional' (the manual is hardly at a
>>>> professional level now anyway), it shows people what needs to be
>>>> written, and encourages contribution there.
>>>>
>>>> * I've tweaked some names, and removed all the "/PartIII/" etc.
>>>> designators from the page titles, for a few reasons.
>>>> a) They're unnecessary - who cares if it's part 5 or 6, the
>>>> content is what counts
>>>> b) It makes it harder to crosslink to other pages, instead of
>>>> just intuitively writing [[Manual/Subsurf]] if I want to link to
>>>> the subsurf page, I have to go and hunt down the section number
>>>> too in order to make my link
>>>> c) It makes the ordering of chapters inflexible, since it means
>>>> all new chapters (such as one on compositing) have to be added
>>>> at the end of the manual, to prevent changing all the links
>>>> around. I'm happy to take care of moving current pages to the
>>>> new titles, without '/Part/' (with auto link redirection of
>>>> course).
>>>> (btw, the black text in parentheses is for description now, and
>>>> won't stay).
>>>>
>>>> So anyway, I thought I'd put this up for comments for a couple
>>>> of days, and then go ahead and finish the job! Let me know what
>>>> you think.
>>>>
>>>> cheers
>>>>
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------
>>>> Matt Ebb • matt at mke3.net • http://mke3.net
------------------------------------------
Matt Ebb • matt at mke3.net • http://mke3.net
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