Structural changes end of 2015 / Discussion

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This is the discussion related to the wiki page Structural changes end of 2015.

Searching document content

eziosoma 03 Nov 2015 20:27

I don't know if the wiki will continue to have important documentation stored as PDF files. I think that this is a good idea from the point of view of the control of a document as a whole unit with version etc…, but it is more complicated to collaborate also for translation because it requires other skills, like latex and git usage.
PDF documentation bust be kept aligned with software version so may be it should be also referred by the version history. Also the translation of a pdf document cant be progressive, it should be done in ha whole and it takes some time.
Also PDF document may be are not searchable by the wiki search.
If important information is present only in the pdf it should be a problem to find it.

Nevertheless some wiki pages contains redundant information that must be kept consistent with the PDF across version (double work, also for translations).

B.T.W.: the search box in the page template is not sensible to the selected language. Have a look to this samples for how to do it:

https://www.thymio.org/en:search
https://www.thymio.org/it:search

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cbarraud 04 Nov 2015 07:42

Thanks for the input!

Indeed, it's a bit of a conundrum. The PDF files allow a bit more power in terms of look and coherence, but it's more complicated to translate. The goal would not be to have information only in the PDF file but to keep them for special cases such as tutorials, special activities, etc. Sometimes, it may induce some sort of double work but we won't make actual copies of the content of the wiki into pdf and keep both. We may just "talk about the same subject". It could happen with some part of the tutorial for example, but that's pretty much it.

What we could do if latex or git are a problem (which I totally understand by the way), is that the translations could be done in another way (word, txt file, etc) and then, we could find a way to put this back in the same format. To be honest, we really would like to do that but we don't have all the manpower we want… it could take some time if we start something like that.

For the search, I totally agree. Crucial info should not be exclusively in PDF files (and I think this is not the case). We should have all needed info on the wiki, then special files in PDF.

And for the search box, I will investigate, it's weird (but we already had a lot of trouble with the search…) I keep you in touch.

Thanks again for your effort!! :)

Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 13 Nov 2015 07:14

I'm seeing that page tags are used to code what is the contextual menu to be shown.
Do you you think that it is a good chose (maintainable, not redundant, auto consistent,…)? Are you looking for an alternative?
This could be the right moment to put in place a simpler mechanism(if any).
The information of to wich section a page belongs to is already coded in the parent.
If you move a page you have also to retag it…

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Re: Usage of Page tags

cbarraud 13 Nov 2015 07:48

That's exactly it. Tags are used to display the correct links on the top bar and side one. I did an extensive search on Wikidot to find a way to do something like that and that's the best method I found. If you know another way to do it which is easier, don't hesitate to tell me :)

The main problem is, there is really few methods to test something in Wikidot. The only way to do it properly is the [[iftag ]] (at least from what I know). Or to use data form page (like the new way to add creation), but you need to have all the pages you want to test in a "data form" form…

If you find another way, I'll be glad to hear it.

Re: Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 13 Nov 2015 09:18

Looking better at the code template, there are three things managed through the usage of special tags:
one is the horizontal menu, the other one is the vertical menu, and the other think is the "orange" link in the side menu. This seems the feature actually the one that requires a re-tagging when pages are moved, because all the child pages mus have the same tag. Also if the page is called from more than one section this must be taken in account.
One solution could be reset the .active style on the style-sheet with color orange and this will manage the link color for the pages directly linked o the menu; for deeper pages, use the breadcrumb instead to keep track where the user is.
What do you think?
Seems to you that this will reduce the re-tagging work?

In the meanwhile I am investigating other possibility by using wiki features and doing some test under the site category test:.

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Last edited on 13 Nov 2015 09:18 by eziosoma Show more

Re: Usage of Page tags

cbarraud 13 Nov 2015 09:25

One solution could be reset the .active style on the style-sheet with color orange and this will manage the link color for the pages directly linked o the menu; for deeper pages, use the breadcrumb instead to keep track where the user is.

I'm not sure to see what you mean by that. I know some things about css but I'm not an expert ;)
Concerning the breadcrumb, we looked at that once, but didn't use it (don't really remember why…) We should investigate that. If I understand correctly, it will remove half of the tags, right?

Re: Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 13 Nov 2015 10:47

After having a look around it seems hat in the wikidot reference there is nothing usable apart page-path, but it is based on data form with drawbacks you have already said.
An idea could be to write down some javascript with jquery, to "grep" the root of the breadcrumb and based on that define the right link color in the left menu.
It is not immediate like an approach and will require some coding, testing and debugging. I don't know if it is worthwhile.

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Re: Usage of Page tags

cbarraud 13 Nov 2015 10:54

One problem is that javascript tends to be killed by wikidot when you put it in a page. The whole system of Wikidot works with js so they prefer to avoid users using it in their pages. You can have a try but I believe that these kind of workarounds are simply not possible…

Re: Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 13 Nov 2015 10:56

If I understand correctly, it will remove half of the tags, right?

Yes, more or less. You will avoid to codify and maintain the _page tags, only the _section tags.

If I'm right the _page tags are dedicated only to decide the color of the link (orange) in the menu.

An alternative could be having the possibility of re-tagging in a bulk way and not by hand page by page.
Have a look there:
http://community.wikidot.com/howto:mass-tagging-pages-by-wikidot-api

It seems to require the Pro Account, or to get the
Community site Status:
http://www.wikidot.com/faq:community-sites

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Last edited on 13 Nov 2015 11:10 by eziosoma Show more

Re: Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 13 Nov 2015 11:01

One problem is that javascript tends to be killed by wikidot when you put it in a page. The whole system of Wikidot works with js so they prefer to avoid users using it in their pages. You can have a try but I believe that these kind of workarounds are simply not possible…

It is possible if you use the html embedding tag, as done for instance for the colorizing. This will be executed in a dedicated iframe.
Unluckily this a add a level of complication in getting access to wiki pages html elements, and this is the reason for more effort.

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Re: Usage of Page tags

cbarraud 01 Dec 2015 09:23

One other problem if you go this way is that you have to add something (a js script) in every pages to have the links on the side displayed (or at least I think…)

We have the _template page of every category (fr:, en:, …) that takes care of displaying the side bar so that you really just have the content of the page in the page itself.

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Re: Usage of Page tags

eziosoma 07 Dec 2015 07:18

You are right, the code should be put only in the template page, but a this point, the integration with the content page must be verified.

Is it worthwhile, just for having in orange the link? The breadcrumb already contains all the needed information?

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Re: Usage of Page tags

cbarraud 07 Dec 2015 07:30

We tried something with the breadcrumbs some time ago but I don't think that it worked. We can maybe go a bit deeper but I think that the problem with breadcrumbs was that the breadcrumbs we could get was the one of the template page but not of the content page.

To be tested ;)