A suggestion.....

[Pryftan]

How can you disagree with somebody who has footnotes for their message board posts? (1)

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(1) You can't.

[AtionSong]

The number of tutorials we would be able to create would be limited initially to just tutorials for Blender until we find out if Cyan wants us to use our PRP (unlikely) or one they provide (more likely). That being said, I can think of the following basic tutorials that would be helpful to create, if we wanted a guide to basic age "building":

- Basics of Blender Interface
- Creating and Manipulating Objects
- Textures and Shading
- Height Maps & UV Maps

[Nadnerb]

If you want to show someone how to use blender, just point them at the blender.org tutorials. The Guild of Writers should only host things specifically related to it's specialty: age building. (of course, with visible links to the appropriate places for those who need to learn blender first)

Even if we don't end up using the same exact tools we are now, the process of making said models usable in plasma will be a useful experience. It shows you what kinds of things you have to do to make your models run in the engine, and what capabilities it has. Waiting for Cyan to do something will get us nowhere. We would not be here now if we were still waiting for them.

[Aloys]

That last sentence could be our motto, or the site's official slogan..

[Kierra]

I think a large part of why Cyan introduced Guilds in MOUL is because of all the hard work and persistence/diligence of all those who continue to create tools for the community to build Ages with.

Something like "Cyan helps those who help themselves"?

~Kia

[BAD]

Why do you hate wikis?

Well, you asked for it...

Short answer: Ease of navigation.

Very long asnwer:

Most wikis violate fundamental rules of useability for informational web sites: the user must never get lost, he must always know where he is and see where he wants to go. He is USING your web site, not killing time.

This pretty much dictates:
1- having a useful path on the screen at all times (where am I);
2- having a useful navigational tree on the screen at all times (where do I want to go);

Let's look at the Alcugs wiki which is pretty much typical (it uses mediaWiki which is the de facto standard). Start at the main page: http://alcugs.almlys.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.
There is a navigational menu at the left which seems to comply with rule 2. But it is not useful, as it does not relate to the informational content of the wiki. Scrolling down the main page, you see some main topics:

• Introduction
• PRP Blender Plugins (PyPRP)
• Unofficial Ages
• Troubleshooting, Bugs, Suggestions
• Historical Archives

These should be in the menu on the left, under a general heading named "Contents". Clicking on "Contents" should open this list. Clicking on the list shoulg either load the required page or open a lower-level list.

Now let's see what Ages exist. Down on the main page, there's a link for "List of Available Ages". Clicking on it loads a new page titled "UnofficialAgeList" (1). I'm on the page now, but the menu at the left has not changed, and there is no way, anywhere on the page, to go back to the previous level, apart from the "back" button, which is not a reliable navigational tool anymore (2). All I can do is go back to the main page. This is bad.

There is now a content menu on the page, which is good, but it is not in the navigational menu on the left, which is bad. If I want to use it I must scroll back to the top of the page, which is bad.

Now that I have ventured deeper in the site's structure, I don't remember where I am. Looking around on the page, there is nothing that tells me that. I'm lost. Why isn't there a path at the top similar to what the GoW forum shows me? It should say "Contents / Unofficial Ages / Unofficial Ages List. Those three elements should be clickable.

For an example of what I'm talking about see this link to a site I made some years ago:
http://collegegarnier.qc.ca/spip/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=3

Even though it is in French language, you can try the navigational tools. You will find:
- A dynamic navigational menu on the right, with square bullets for terminal links and arrows for links with sub-sections (I'd rather have it on the left but the client wanted it on the right);
- Page titles with the exact same name as the links;
- A dynamic path always displayed at the top (always exactly at the same location).

Of course, I have invented nothing about useability best practices. All I know comes from the excellent work of Jakob Nielsen, well-known useability guru since well before the Web was born. See his site http://useit.com for lots of enlightening material.

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(1) Oops, another big useability no-no. The link and the title should be in sync, otherwise it is confusing and very difficult to find the place again using a search function. Even worse, the meaning of the title differs from that of the link. Which one is it?

(2) As an author you don't have full control of the user's browser. You can't predict where the back button will lead, especially with the new multi-tabbed browsers, the plug-ins, frames, applets, etc.

Chacal,

You are my personal hero right now!(1)

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(1) I did shamelessly quote your whole message to get people to read it a second time.

[Trylon]

Chacal,

You are my personal hero right now!(1)

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(1) I did shamelessly quote your whole message to get people to read it a second time.

I agree with all the content of Chacal's post.

I'm hoping a new Wiki here can be tweaked to provide the level of content presentation a good tutorial site should have.

[Aloys]

I totally agree Wikis are not exactly a great thing when it comes to usability but unfortunately they are the best thing when it comes to collaborative work on a site..
I don't know how easily (or if) the interface of a wiki (and mediawiki in particular) can be customized, but if it possible then it is definitely something we should look into..

A different and probably better solution, would be to use a regular site but with a content management system attached and a public access.
It'd just need to be able to have accounts with varying autorizations so we can have public accounts with restricted access (for the regular content update) and admin accounts to setup and maintain the whole thing. It'd allow us to use a totally custom interface, so it'd look great and integrate seemlessly with the site. And it woud be relatively easy to update while still maintainnig a public access.
But it would be more difficult to put in place, and we would first have to find a free content manager that'd fit our needs. (But there are plenty of free CMSes we could surely find one that woud probably fit). Also we'd need to teach people how to use it, but decent content managers are easy to use (just forms to fill), not much more difficult than posting on a board. In fact it's often easier than a wiki because most of the time you don't need to write wiki/html tags at all.

That'd be a better solution than a Wiki in terms of usuability for everyone (both readers and writers), just more difficult to setup.

--
(if anyone is whiling to look into this, Wikipedia has a decent list of CMSes here

[Chacal]

(1) (2) (3) (4).
(5).


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(1) Please remember that it was a Friday afternoon, I was sitting at the office pretending to work on a document while trying to prevent my brain from jumping out of my skull in boredom.
(2) Also it was about a long-standing pet peeve of mine.
(3) Also I plan to recycle the post for use on another forum where we're discussing a wiki so it was a good investment for me.
(4) Also I love footnotes.
(5) Aloys, possibly we can just change the wiki template to include navigational tools.

[Trylon]

(1) Please remember that it was a Friday afternoon, I was sitting at the office pretending to work on a document while trying to prevent my brain from jumping out of my skull in boredom.
(2) Also it was about a long-standing pet peeve of mine.

(5) Aloys, possibly we can just change the wiki template to include navigational tools.

My thoughts exactly. The wiki CMS base is pretty handy when you get used to it. If we can change it to provide proper navigation, it might just be what we need,
Perhaps I'll be looking up a php wiki engine, and try to make a few changes if I have a free afternoon.