Wiki Under Construction

Because I'm obsessive and will spend a week on architecture to avoid copying-and-pasting 3 lines, I've spent most of the past 3 days learning wiki, creating a CSS tooltip system that works there and doesn't screw up the display on phones since I don't have access to javascript, and creating a template system that allows putting all the basic information on things in one place then passing it to other templates to pull that information out, while still allowing people unfamiliar with wiki junk to edit them.

I've finally just begun adding content--which I haven't proof-read yet, so it probably contains grammatical and spelling errors. The pages are locked down for user edits until I get the navigation at least stubbed out, but you can get an idea how it's going to look at:

https://interstellar-space-genesis.fandom.com/wiki/Colonies

Fandom goes a bit crazy with ads, hopefully you are using an ad blocker.

Useful things people can do now would be uploading images that might be helpful (Edit/Images), any ideas on the colors, header bar style, etc., and the blog portion should be open.

I'm open to any feedback--suggestions and criticisms aren't going to hurt my feelings. Also let me know if there's any problem with the display in any browser or device--my CSS tool tips were making FireFox and mobile crazy, but I've got it working with all desktop and Android browsers I've tested. If someone can test on iPhone, I don't have one of those, or Safari as I also don't have a Mac, but it should work.

I've pulled images from the game and ISG websites--let me know if there are any objections to that.

 

I've spend the past couple of days switching the tool tip system over from CSS to JavaScript--the CSS system worked, but it was needlessly heavy on resources. I'm just waiting on Fandom to do the code review so it can go live--before that I only I can see the changes.

I've also developed a system to greatly simplify the pages now that I've had a week or so to learn Wiki--it should be much easier for the Wiki-challenged to edit and create them--one line for the InfoIcon or text link to use on other pages, a Synopsis area for a brief description that also appears in the tool tips, and then a Details area only shown by visiting the page itself.

Another day of cleaning that up, applying the changes to the existing pages, and creating a brief page on how to edit and create them, and then I should be back to actual content--adding some more and stubbing out the general organization for people to add more. Hopefully by the end of the weekend after this coming one it will be ready to open up for everyone to edit.

Hopefully in addition to helping players, especially new ones, it will also generate some interest--this game hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

 

The Wiki is likely to be completely broken over the weekend while I'm converting it to the new model.

 

I *finally* got the technical systems to a point where I'm happy with them, and I've stared in on content. I've got the general outline done https://interstellar-space-genesis.fandom.com and a good start on tooltips with short definitions that go into the self-generating glossary: https://interstellar-space-genesis.fandom.com/wiki/Glossary. I still need to get the reference table data and DPL code done but I know how I'm going to do it, and stub out the missing content, I'll probably open it up for editing after this weekend.

 

So I discovered yesterday we can use Lua on fandom.com. I've been trying to separate data and interface because I'll spend a week coding to avoid a single copy and paste, but I had to resort to complex kludges to do that in plain wiki and deal with insane headaches.

For instance, wiki's "if" can only evaluate one conditional at a time--it has no "and" or "or". So you just nest the "if"'s, right? But consider this simple case:

if ( x || y ) a(); else b();

Now try to do that with no "or"--you get:

if (x) a(); else if (y) a(); else b();

There's no way around repeating a() twice--only it's not a(), because you can't define functions--or at least every single function has to have it's own file, and every file that takes parameters has to be re-parsed every time it is called--so it's down to copy and pasting the implementation of a() twice--or doing what I finally did and creating a template for Or and And, which is slow and inelegant.

bool f = false; if (x) f = true; if (y) f = true; if (f) a(); else b(); Nope, you don't have variables, so no f to set.

A fun one was just trying to make infoicons that might or might not have an image and might or might not have a link and might or might not have a tooltip.

I haven't worked with Lua before, but it was simple enough to pick up, and actually can parse data files, so I can put all the tooltips, techs, etc., in one file each rather than a separate template file for every single data element.

I've got the base code for the InfoIcons/tooltips/glossary and for the reference tables working, just need to populate the data files and delete all the wiki kludges.