Difference between revisions of "Talk:Main Page"

Revision as of 03:39, 29 January 2006

Main page protected

The Main Page is protected here, as it is on many wikis. We do that for the same reason most sites do: that's the lightning rod; it's the single page that gets the most hits. If there's something you think we ought to have on the Main Page, use the "+" link up there to add a note and tell us about it, and we'll put it on, or tell you where we think it belongs instead.
--Baylink 23:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

News section

I'm wondering if we should have a separate news page to keep the main page from extensive scrolling down. It feels a little distracting to me the way it is and it could use some better "story" seperation. Maybe not to the extent that mythtv.org does, but it feels cluttered now...

I believe we should have a seperate news page, with perhaps the latest news on the main page that then links to the full news page. If possible...--Steveadeff 19:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the News section to a template, and I'll be pruning it here shortly. I'm looking into modifying the MediaWiki DynamicPageList2 extension to allow for better implementations of this and other blogging-ish features. If that works out the way I'd like, we'll be able to move news *above* the category table, since we'll be able to say "only display the headline and first sentence of the first 4 news items", or things akin to that.
--20:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Mailinglist Search

I'm thinking we may want to add another search area under the wiki search to allow users to quickly search the mailinglist archives.?--Steveadeff 19:47, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

That wouldn't suck. Tyler; you know how to do that?
--Baylink 20:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I'll look into it. It's not in the sidebar config, so it might be in another place. Sorry I've not been around -- we just finished finals on Friday. And, yes, that's strange -- they changed the calendar for this year, so we don't finish 1st semester until _after_ Christmas/holiday vacation. I hate it. </ot> Anyway, I know it's possible, because I've seen another MW-powered wiki (I don't remember what wiki) with another search box below the MW-search box. --TylerDrake 04:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Images

I notice that the images next to links (like Hardware, FAQ etc) are protected. Could anyone with admin rights redirect them to the proper pages? --Thorpe 16:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm looking into this; it appears to be non-trivial.
--Baylink 16:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I protected them. Images in MediaWiki link to the image themselves. If we store the images outside of the system, like on the mythtv.org filesystem, we can link them to the same page they represent. I locked them because users were clicking on them, thinking the were the link to the section and then editing the text of the image page with content destined for the sction.
--Kevin Kuphal 23:21, 23 January 2006

It was pointed out to me that you can make the image description page a redirect to the target; apparently the parser copes with that ok.
--Baylink 02:23, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I fixed this using the Click template from wikipedia
--Kevin Kuphal

Nice find, dude. I think the #mediawiki guys even forgot that existed...
--Baylink 20:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Linking to Wikipedia

Nice site, it could be even nicer if we could link to Wikipedia using a syntax like this : wp:Word to link for instance. Mediawiki allows this, it just needs to be configured. This feature can be very useful to link to common definition, concepts, protocols and so on, no need to redefine evrything. For instance, no need to redfine DVR as the WP defition is already good, just link to the Wikipedia definition. This will also create a synergy between the tow sites.

Indeed. I had thought that newer versions of MW didn't come with the interwiki table loaded, but it appears I might have been wrong. Don't forget to sign your comments, folks.
--Baylink 16:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The mechanism is [[Wikipedia:the article you are linking to]]. It works. :) --Gregturn 21:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

However, a good interwiki to add on would be svn. --Gregturn 22:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by an svn interwiki? Do you mean to the Trac wiki? Or did you mean something else? --TylerDrake 04:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was referring to linking to svn.mythtv.org/trac. I was suggesting we create an interwiki link named "svn", since it is hosting the subversion stuff. The name is debatable (calling it either svn or trac), but I assume many people would agree this is something good to link to. Maybe we need a vote, or perhaps Isaac's call on how he wants us to interwiki to tickets and so forth. --Gregturn 22:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

If I can figure out how one does it, we might make TRAC a magic word, like what happens when I say RFC 2100, with absolutely no markup at all.
--Baylink 02:19, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

That is freakin' cool. Now I'm off to the MW site to figure out how that's done. Maybe SVN <edit>9000</edit> will link to the revision # 9000, and TRAC 1000 can link to ticket #1000? Or maybe a different word for the trac ticket system (TICKET or something?) Suggestions? (Well, I guess we need to figure out how to do that first... --TylerDrake 23:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I believe brion said "grep Parser.php for ISBN".
--03:26, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll ask Isaac for that file too =) --TylerDrake 03:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Table of Contents

Is there a way to force the TOC to be generated? I can't figure out what the magic combination is for it to appear automaticalls...--Steveadeff 19:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

A TOC will be generated automagically on any non-talk page with at least 3 subject headers, unless you include the token on the page. All pages should have at least one lede (lead) paragraph above their first section header, for style's sake.
--Baylink 21:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

You can put __TOC__ on any page to force a table of contents. See Sections in the MediaWiki documentation for more details
--Kevin Kuphal 23:23, 23 January 2006

Main Page picture wanted

Does anyone have a really spiffy looking table-top setup with their machine (in a cool black stereo-looking case, preferably) right next to the TV... and a decent digital camera? They call this *Media*wiki for a reason; I'd like to lead with a nice big picture (or maybe an animated GIF, walking through the menus).
--Baylink 02:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Not sure if this is spiffy enough... https://startrek/mediawiki/index.php/Image:Tv_armoire.jpg. If you like it, you are free to distribute it. --Gregturn 05:12, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I might like it, if I could see' it. Check that URL again?  :-)
--Baylink 20:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

'startrek' must be its' _real_ hostname (on his network), because his security certificate is given to a machine named 'startrek'. Here's the URL that we can access it from... https://scifi.homelinux.net/mediawiki/index.php/Image:Tv_armoire.jpg =) --TylerDrake 23:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I'm an idiot. :P Thanks for catching that. --Gregturn 23:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have a Sony U71P that I use as a frontend only has 800x600 res. http://www.ultranote.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=137&Itemid=153. --paul 14:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

That's too cool for school, and I'd love to use a picture of it somewhere, but it's not quite what I'm looking for for the front page. Think WAF. (How much did it *cost*, btw?) :-)
--Baylink 20:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Tips and Tricks section

It would be nice to be have a tips and tricks section in the main categories. This could have articles like installing different themes etc.

Isn't this pretty much what the HOWTO section is? -- Kevin Kuphal