[Bf-docboard] 2.5 Wiki Changes
Jared Reisweber
jaredr122 at gmail.com
Mon Nov 7 03:01:40 CET 2011
Hi Luca,
I never meant to cause so much stress for the documentation development. I
saw that the 2.5 index had been changed back to the pages that I put there,
so I assumed it was okay to go forward with adding the missing content. I
think this fact is going to add confusion to other wiki editors as well.
Regarding your comment about filling the wiki with 2.4 content, I have been
carefully going through the 2.4 content before porting it to corresponding
2.5 pages and editing all content to reflect its relevance to 2.5, except
for images, which I have been documenting, along with other significant
changes that are needed, in my public spreadsheet: Blender Wiki
Content<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgUiaPsPYcKpdElpc2V3S1JIb21kUTNMT0YzTTJ2X3c&hl=en_US&pli=1#gid=0>.
I don't like to come across as cocky, but I have put many hours into adding
content to this wiki, that users have been complaining about for a while. I
have been carefully respecting the wiki formatting guidelines and even
correcting mistakes made by other users. Everything I have done has been to
improve the user experience. Out of the 454 or so wiki pages, i've only
changed page links for about 70 of them (see the second sheet in my Google
doc), so I don't know what you mean about not following the 2.4 structure
"at all." Honestly it really wasn't clear when I started that the link
structure needed to be the same, but I do see now the problems it is
causing. I completely understand your point in regards to having a
consistent wiki structure, and I am more than willing to put the time in to
transfer content from the pages I created to proper pages for the 2.5
manual when it is agreed upon. That would only take me a few days to do.
I will hold off on adding more pages until the structure is agreed upon.
I'm just curious, and in no way mean to sound sarcastic, but why is it so
vital that users need be able switch between documentation pages for
different versions of Blender. Personally I don't see the major benefit of
having that functionality, but maybe I'm missing something. I can't see why
someone viewing documentation for, say a 2.5 page, would suddenly need to
view its 2.4 or 2.6 counterpart.
-Jared
On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 3:47 PM, mindrones <mindrones at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jared,
>
> right now we're doing some review of the 2.5 manual and, sadly, we're
> finding out that the 2.4 structure has not been respected at all.
>
> Even tonight I see that you are keeping adding pages in the animation
> section without following the 2.4 structure:
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.5/Manual/Animation/Drivers
>
> This is making our review much worse than needed, honestly. It has been
> stated for 2 years (in the old banner) to use the sandbox or follow the
> 2.4 structure, but apart from one proposal page
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Meta:Sandbox/Doc:2.5/Manual_Proposal
> you have simply kept working in the Doc:2.5/Manual not following the 2.4
> structure...
>
> Currently many chapters won't crosslink with the headers-menu for this
> reason. I think in the current skin you have seen what I was meaning
> with crosslinking: I can't understand why you keep not following the 2.4
> structure at all..
>
> Also, there are many pages with 2.4 screenshots, the driver page being
> an example: please don't do that.
>
> It has no sense to just fill the gaps with 2.4 content, because many
> pages will appear as ready, forcing us to read the whole manual to spot
> the problems.
>
>
> The fact that we use a wiki doesn't mean that we don't follow some
> rules; writing in a wiki means trusting that everyone follows the same
> rules, otherwise, as this review has shown, it quickly becomes as mess,
> which means bad user experience, and massive work for us to review :/
>
>
> I would kindly ask you to work in the sandbox, and not in
> Doc:2.5/Manual, for a while, until we sort out a bit the correspondence
> among pages 2.4 -> 2.5, in order to make some order in the structure.
>
> If you could talk more with everyone, your hard work would be much more
> useful, and you would avoid the risk to see your work removed or heavily
> edited, so best we discuss here or at #blenderwiki.
>
> Thanks,
> Luca
>
>
>
> On 06/13/2011 11:10 PM, Jared Reisweber wrote:
> > I totally understand your points. That's why I emailed the docboard. I
> > felt this needed to be discussed. If some one came and made changes, I
> > would be okay if they were logical, but yeah, if they were drastic,
> > there should be some discussion.
> >
> > I see what you are saying about the order of materials, textures and
> > rigging animation. I had felt that lighting and rendering should maybe
> > go together, then I put materials and textures with those. I was looking
> > at Maya's help docs, and they have shading/textures/lighting/render all
> > grouped under a rendering section. But I haven't looked at docs for any
> > other programs. Of course, I guess the order of chapters is probably
> > less important the order of the contents in the chapters.
> >
> > I think the sections that need the most organizational consideration are
> > modeling, animation, and rendering. I personally had felt that the mesh
> > tool sections were too awkwardly separated, so I divided them into four
> > new sections: transform/deform, add and divide, merge/remove, and
> > separate. It also seemed to me that the Object section should go before
> > section on object manipulation, and objects encompass non-editable
> > things as well, that don't really belong in the modeling section.
> >
> > For the rendering section, I reordered the pages to: using the camera,
> > setting the rendering quality, and then options for outputting renders.
> > The animation section was difficult. I removed all pages referring to
> > IPOs, and tried grouping pages by their editor window.
> >
> > How is the cross-linking going to work? Will the 2.4 pages just have
> > links to their respective 2.5 page, or is it something more complicated?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 3:37 AM, mindrones <mindrones at gmail.com
> > <mailto:mindrones at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Jared,
> >
> > I think it's ok if you keep working in the sandbox and when you think
> > you are done you add some little text below each chapter to explain
> what
> > you have done and why.
> >
> > For example roght now the 2.5 manual has materials and textures after
> > rigging and the animation. That's disputable. IMO usually people
> start
> > with static scenes, adding materials (colors, you know :) and after
> some
> > expertise they start to rig and add constraints etc.
> > I have to admit that I've been thinking at that approach many times,
> but
> > I'm convinced that this kind of changes have to be discussed here.
> >
> > If you want to merge pages or write new ones, again make new pages in
> > the sandbox.
> >
> > Bastien has done the same months ago and though it's been hard, it
> has
> > given its fruits and now the manual is more mature than before, at
> least
> > in my opinion.
> >
> > If we really let the manual open for such changes, then go figure if
> > suddenly a "Jared2" comes and start to change all your changes again,
> > what would you think?
> >
> > Probably you would say, hey let's discuss first! :)
> >
> > Laters,
> > Luca
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 06/13/2011 06:54 AM, Jared Reisweber wrote:
> > > Okay. Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I got a little excited.
> I'll
> > > copy over the current state of the manual to Meta:Sandbox, then
> revert
> > > the manual back to look like the Doc:Manual/earlier Doc:2.5/Manual
> > index.
> > >
> > > The sandbox link is:
> > >
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Meta:Sandbox/Doc:2.5/Manual_Proposal
> > >
> > > The 2.5 index had considerable differences from the 2.4 index
> already
> > > when I started, so its hard to judge what I should put back and
> > > add/remove. I changed it back a little bit. Do you want me to
> straight
> > > up just revert it back to the version before I messed with it, or
> make
> > > it look like the 2.4 index? Bleh, now I'm really confused. heh.
> > >
> > > Some of the changes I made were necessary, as many topics were
> missing
> > > completely, and many 2.5 features are very different from their 2.4
> > > counterparts, such as the animation system.
> > >
> > > Other changes were made to consolidate very short pages together.
> > Also,
> > > some features from 2.4 were rearranged in 2.5's interface, lending
> > > themselves to be grouped differently in the manual. For example,
> > > consider the Output Panel, and the Format Panel in 2.4's render
> > > settings. These have changed considerably in 2.5, as far as
> > > organization. The manual should reflect this new grouping and
> > workflow,
> > > which why many of my changes seemed logical.
> > >
> > > The pages are still there for the most part, they just have been
> > grouped
> > > a little differently, and some have been added. It probably looks
> more
> > > changed than it actually is. Most of the changes have more to do
> with
> > > the usability of manual itself than the changes to Blender in 2.5,
> > in my
> > > opinion.
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 10:22 PM, mindrones <mindrones at gmail.com
> > <mailto:mindrones at gmail.com>
> > > <mailto:mindrones at gmail.com <mailto:mindrones at gmail.com>>> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hey Jared,
> > >
> > > I've been looking with more attention at the 2.5 manual index
> > and WOW..
> > > I have to say that you are making it diverging quite a lot
> > from the
> > > official manual index...
> > >
> > > As stated in the orange banner up there, the idea is to update
> the
> > > official manual pages for 2.5 changes, while what you are
> > doing is too
> > > much drastic in my opinion.
> > >
> > > Personally I'd prefer you to revert your changes in
> > Doc:2.5/Manual and
> > > prepare a sandbox page where you propose these structural
> > changes here,
> > > so that everybody can discuss. Otherwise crosslinking will be
> > impossible
> > > and really it will be very hard to compare the changes against
> 2.4
> > > manual.
> > >
> > > I don't really think blender 2.5 is so much different from 2.4
> to
> > > justify all these structural changes in the manual.
> > >
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Luca
> > >
> > > _____________________________
> > >
> > > http://www.mindrones.com
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> > >
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> >
> > --
> >
> > Regards,
> > Luca
> >
> > _____________________________
> >
> > http://www.mindrones.com
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> --
>
> Regards,
> Luca
>
> _____________________________
>
> http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/User:Mindrones
> http://www.mindrones.com
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