Talk:Plugins Draft by Spades

• Clinking a link in the alphabetical list should jump down to the plug-in entry in the categorized list rather than having a direct download link (like it was on the old page). Having the direct download link listed on the page multiple times will be a maintenance nightmare.
• Having a general/recommended category kind of defeats the purpose of organizing the plug-ins in the first place. If I go to the Trading/Mining category, for example, I would expect to find TradeAssistant listed there. Instead, you could have a recommended plug-ins list that links to the entries in the categorized list (like the alphabetized list).
• The Interface category is getting to be quite long. I recommend breaking navigation and cargo into separate categories.
• Ditto on the Communication/Player Interaction category. It would be better to split it up into two categories: Communication and Notifications.

--Chocolateer 02:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I was expecting to get criticism for the whole 'categories' thing, but not of such a constructive nature. Thank you for surprising me in a positive way Choco :)

• I thought about that a lot, but since now the plugins are organized in tables rather than in sub-chapters linking to the entries themselves is not that easy. One possible way of doing it would be including anchors in the table, but that again would make it harder for a wiki-inexperienced user to add a plugin, and it would make the code look quite a bit more messy. Alternatively I could create another template that already includes an anchor which would be a little less messy. Or do you maybe have any other ideas?
• Again we face the problem mentioned above. Linking to the table entry... God my brain is beginning to melt thinking of possibilities.
• That's a rather nice idea and can easily be achieved :) I'll see to it within the next few hours.
• Dito. Hehe.

--Andy Spades 11:56, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I just realized that anchors won't really work anyway; not only do they make the code messy but the article as well (since html anchors are visible through wiki markup). Oh what to do, what to do...

Linking to the Category also seems quite superficial...

I just tried including anchors in table cells' attributes when I found out that html anchors don't work anyway, not even the example in the Sandbox. Starting from zero then. --Andy Spades 12:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Input Needed :)

Okay people, thanks to spuck I found a way to do this anchor-like stuff. I reworked the alphabetical list and the "Recommended" section and added "ids" to each table row. Now that the page is almost ready to be published (after the TO DO list has been worked through) I require (a) some general feedback, what you think of this 'project' and (b) some input to these specific questions:

1. Which plugins do you miss in the "Recommended" section? (I'm definitely going to add the DroidButtons.)
2. Should I move the "Disclaimer" up to the top of the page? (Currently someone who loads the page & clicks on "Plugins by Category" will not see the disclaimer.)
3. Whoa, I'm tired, I completely forgot my other questions.
4. Oh, yeah, I remember one of them: Should I include a little description of the /lua ReloadInterface stuff in the "Installing plugins" section?

Guess that's it for now, thanks in advance, Andy Spades 02:02, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

1-Recommended list looks good. Probably best to keep the list short, but do add DroidButtons 2-Dunno 4-Yes

• Looks like the list of new plug-ins added to the wiki includes: DroidButtons, HUDmessages, MaxProfit & NavHome. Rin and CS also added some to VOUPR recently without including them on the wiki for some reason.
• Should CombatAssist be marked as obsolete or something? I didn't think it worked anymore

--Chocolateer 20:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm looking at the code and, as a plugin developer who will want to add his plugins to the list as they come along, am turned off by the amount of maintenance that is going to be necessary. Trying to pigeon-hole a plugin into a category isn't bad, and most are fairly cut-and-dried, but then having to add it in two places and make sure I have the anchors properly created, plus making sure I don't mess up the wikitables. It's a nightmare for someone who's not experienced in editing a wiki. Much of this could be simplified through the use of templates, kinda similar to what I still need to fix over on racecar (it did work at one time, until I tried extending it further and got frustrated). Even wikipedia doesn't trust casual editors to get wikitables correct. They have lots of templates for creating the types of tables you have. Draugath 01:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for the feedback. As I have already said in IRC, I've now set up my LAMP server again with a mediawiki install so I can test things locally without spamming the VO wiki. So far I've created some templates to limit the complications of wikitables and automatically create the anchors - the editor would still have to make two edits for a plugin, even if the first one is only its name. That's the limits of wikicode for you (we have talked about this draugath). Now when I manage to squeeze it in between plugin coding and writing essays about bloody 15th century courtlife in the Electoral Palatinate, I will try another approach that draug suggested: A category page with transcluded sub-pages for each plugin. It might work. Andy Spades 15:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC)