Difference between revisions of "Talk:Main Page"

From MythTV Official Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
(Wrong release date on main page)
(Copyright/license)
Line 289: Line 289:
 
The release date for 0.20.2 at the top of the frontpage was not updated, which may confuse some people.  It should probably be 24-Aug-2007.  I would change it myself, but the page is locked. --[[User:RandallB|RandallB]]
 
The release date for 0.20.2 at the top of the frontpage was not updated, which may confuse some people.  It should probably be 24-Aug-2007.  I would change it myself, but the page is locked. --[[User:RandallB|RandallB]]
 
: Fixed; thanks.  I'd missed it in my own flurry of followups.<br>--[[User:Baylink|Baylink]] 21:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 
: Fixed; thanks.  I'd missed it in my own flurry of followups.<br>--[[User:Baylink|Baylink]] 21:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 +
 +
== Copyright/license ==
 +
 +
Is the contents of this wiki licensed under the GPL? [[User:Lozzo81|Lozzo81]] 20:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Revision as of 20:57, 26 September 2007

There appear to be enough threads of discussion to warrant a TOC.


Nuvexport manual

Hey there, I started a little manual wiki for nuvexport a while ago ([1], http://www.inaudible.co.uk/nuvexport/) and mentioned it on the MythTV-users mailing list, where someone said I could add it to this wiki. I've totally forgoton where they said to add it, and figured I should make sure that it would be ok to do so too. Any thoughts? --Pepsi max2k 10:44, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I searched on "nuvexport" and found Nuvexport. Looks like a good starting place to me. Be Bold. --Gregturn 18:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
Finally moving the nuvexport wiki over to here now - other site was destroyed by spambots. Feel free to help out - moving text across, updating stuff, expanding / improving / correcting things, etc... --Pepsi max2k 21:10, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Move finished. It's still missing a load of info I never got round to writing for the original, so if you feel like it... --Pepsi max2k 13:02, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

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. If you'd like to fiddle around with the layout, you can go over to Main page beta (assuming no one's in the middle of working on it already) and play to your heart's content.
--Baylink 23:41, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we need to lock the wiki down so that only registered users can edit. So many pages seem to get spammed (with pr0n links) all the time!!! I removed all the ones from ~13:05 AEST today, let me know if I should have left it for the admins to do. --WhyTey 07:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Release Update Procedure

The release links on the Main Page should be updated as soon as possible after a new version is officially released; see the policy statement at Talk:Release Notes.
--Baylink 20:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, from Release_Notes_-_0.20.1 I read that 0.20.1 has been released on Saturday, April 28, 2007. Shouldn't this be updated on the Main_Page as well? --Michel 10:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Same thing for Release_Notes_-_0.20.2 -- Released on August 24, 2007, but main page says "11-Sep-2006" -- Maestro, 25 August 2007

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)
Maybe we should just consider installing moveable type or another blog engine on mythtv.org (or just use blogger) and blog the news items. Then we can use the RSS extensions to MediaWiki to display the RSS headlines -Kkuphal 02:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
On my own wiki site, I installed magpie and the RSS patch to scoop up news site RSS feeds. It seems pretty good, except that I ran into caching problems. Something to watch out for. It would cache up the RSS info, and then three days later, it had the same thing. Couldn't determine whether that server or client side caching. --Gregturn 04:38, 1 February 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)
I've been informed that this requires modifying PHP code to implement. Do you have a shadow install on your machine? Is it the same release Isaac has in here?
--Baylink 15:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Look here.
--Baylink 00:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Yep, I know it's possible, and I know how to do it. I am just waiting on the files from Isaac. (I suppose I _can_ make an install on my server, but if there are any customizations Isaac's made, they'll be lost.) I'll email Isaac again to remind him ;-)
--TylerDrake 00:06, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Whoops! I seem to have forgotten about this. I think Isaac sent me a copy of the file I need quite some time ago. I'll see if I can add the mailing list search to the sidebar soon.
--TylerDrake 15:50, 28 May 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)
We need to new images on main page to also have the Click template applied. --Gregturn 04:55, 1 February 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)
So, how do we want to set that up? I need some sort of moniker to denote ticket numbers & revision numbers. I was thinking maybe #1000 and [9000] (respectively) like Trac does, but the #1000 is something that may be used in more instances than in Trac ticket numbers. But that would be easier to keep track of (no pun intended) than two seperate definitions for Trac and MW. Any suggestions?
--TylerDrake 03:48, 29 May 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
I found out, while re-reading the edit help last night, that __TOC__ only *positions* the TOC. If you want to force one even if it wouldn't normally exist, you need to use __FORCETOC__. I rather suspect that's only really useful (except in 2 section pages) if you are putting it in a template to override a __NOTOC__ already on a page.
--Baylink 15:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

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)
We all make mistakes :-p --TylerDrake 03:40, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Greg, your CIMG4011 is the picture I'm looking for. Long-term, I'd like to put a, oh, say 240 pixel high animated gif that rotates between something like that, an internals shot, and several menu and EPG grabs. I might get to doing that myself, but not until later in the week.
--Baylink 16:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Uhh, what is my CIMG4011? Is it something you spotted on my website? Anyway, I do have a digital camera, and my MythTV box is used in "production" mode. Tell you what, I will take a batch of pictures for different things (DONE: MythTV photos 19:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)), stage them on my web site. Then, you can pick and choose what parts you want, and migrate them here. (I don't want to clutter this site with experimental photos, until we get what we like). --Gregturn 18:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd been google imaging for MythTV, and there was a picture on your site with that file name that I liked. At least, I thought it was your site. Does your camera name files that way? It was a snazzy plasma on wall, with some speakers, with Myth on the display</a>--Baylink 04:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I think I just found that image. Whoah! Not mine. :) I posted some more photos of my stuff. Not quite slick silver. My camera does name stuff like that, but my own web site is also mediawiki, so I upload everything into useful names. See MythTV photos --Gregturn 04:22, 30 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. --paul 10:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't this pretty much what the HOWTO section is? -- Kevin Kuphal
I had in mind more along the lines of very short user based tips. For example I only found out recently there is a key to remove any osd material from the screen, you dont need to use Escape (in default) to get rid of it. Also changing themes etc. Basically a lot more user based and short guides. Compared to the often more substantial and definitely install/hardware topics that are in the how to section --paul 10:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
You mean like the Little Gems page I tried to maintain on the previous wiki? The only thing is that people got around and tried to categorize everything, which kind of doesn't works with just 1 or 2 items under each 'category'. It should have been more like a page you just read and say "Whow I didn't know that, that's nice!". Categorization is even more out-of-place due to the fact that you will probably not be reading it with a mindset of searching for one specific thing, but just strolling-around.
But well.. do with the stuff that's on that page what you want. I'm not a disruptive-reverts kind of editor Henk Poley 15:58, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
For what it's worth, let me say that I rather like the Little Gems idea. There's a tendency to want to put everything on it's own page, because it's easier to refer to it with a wikilink in that case, but certainly it's good to have that sort of stuff collected on one pages you can scan right down, as well. So I guess I can see both sides... --Baylink 14:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes thats the sort of thing, where is this paged linked from? Couldnt find any link to it on the main page or any of the catergories on the main page. Is it worth making it a bit more prominent some how. Another catergory would mess up the symmetry though. --paul 12:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Henk *did* put a link to it right there in his comments.  :-) I'm not sure where else to link it, but I'll find a place. --Baylink 16:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I have reviewed Little Gems, and my issue is maintenance. If you want to define one section for each "gem", then the whole article will grow quickly in size when you have collected 50 gems on the page, and also be hard to maintain any sorting. And where do people find what they want? They must now scan both Category:HOWTO and Little Gems. What this leads me to is putting everything in Category:HOWTO from the start, even the little ones, to take advantage of mediawiki's built-in sorting. As the number of howto's and gems increases, and you approach 200 (max shown for a category), you can move things into HOWTO subcategories. My wiki experiences so far teach me that dissimilar articles seem to work better split up and linked/categorized, instead of merged together, no matter how small, for in the end even the small things grow in size. --Gregturn 17:03, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm torn, Greg. You're right, strategically, but I'm one of those people who, confronted with a FAQ, for example, wants One Big Page, so I don't have to click into 417 individual Q&A pages. This is one of the places where there's a slight impedance mismatch from using MediaWiki; it's not a database, which is what you really need.
Is there an extension that will roll-up all the articles in a category as text on one page?--Baylink 17:22, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
No extension that I'm aware of but...if we did categorize as I mentioned, we could write a periodic Bot script that would auto-generate a compiled FAQ based on all the articles listed in that category. If people made edits to the page, then their changes would be overwritten the next time the FAQ was re-generated. I have many auto-generated pages on the wiki site I maintain at work. Later tonight after work, I'll build a trial-run script and compile it at User:Gregturn/FAQ based on the current HOWTOs. (Just wait till that link is blue!) --Gregturn 17:28, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Okay, I built User:Gregturn/FAQ. Kind of crude, but I can finetune the pattern match. It goes to show we can build something that would automatically harvest categorized material, and let the bots organize it for us. --Gregturn 02:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
If people were looking for something in particular, I'd say separate everything into different pages. It makes the whole wiki-search and organization work well. But this is a tips and tricks section. I don't think the average person will come in and search for a particular tip or trick. More likely they'll see the page title and go "hey, wonder what cool tips or tricks people have." So I think it'd be better to keep one page for everything. If it gets too big then we can split it up. - Stormwave0 04:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Features?

What is it? Featured articles? MythTV features? There probably should be a better way to display this, perhaps in a sidebox in a different color background and slight border? --KevinK

I'm not sure what it is, yet, actually.  :-) I left it unboxed because I was getting a little concerned about the boxology on the front page as it was. Sort of a Spotlight place for things which are really hopping, or well done, or some combination, I guess.
--Baylink 17:06, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe do like wikipedia does with a right-hand sidebar box for Featured articles? The frontpage is getting crowded (see below)
Yeah. Or, we could go whole hog, and box the entire front page, like thinkwiki.net does. I've stolen that for tbkinfo.net (which may or may not be entirely installed if you go look), and for that it's gonna work out ok, I think.
--Baylink 00:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Can we add a favicon to the Wiki website please? -Paul

Frontpage image

I have some misgivings about the major content of the site being "below the fold" with the 0.19 release box, the large image, and Features all pushing the major navigation down. I think we should work to have the most often used aspects of the page at the top -- Kevin Kuphal

I concur, but remember that "below the fold" depends a *lot* on your window and font sizes. I sure like what you came up with to fix it, though. I do think that for what we're doing, having a fairly sizeable version of that image (and as noted, I hope to animate it soon) is called for, though. Even with 45K hits on the front page in 3 weeks, I'd guess not *all* our visitors are already running MythBoxen.
--Baylink 00:33, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Wow, I _love_ the new layout of the Main Page! Looks very professional =) (BTW, what theme is that used in the EPG?) --TylerDrake 02:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Thanks guys. I still want to do something different with the Featured Articles but I haven't come up with the right thing yet. I think the special pages should be moved to the toolbox on the right as they probably belong there anyways -Kkuphal 02:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, my plan was sort of to rotate the system pages around so people get to see all the important ones. It was only after I first set it up that I decided to split the system pages from the user created ones.
--Baylink 03:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll work then on some kind of better display (like a colored box or something) and that should move up the categories even higher. Should have something tonight. --Kkuphal 03:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the top box, I like the boxes having borders to give them more sepration. Any suggestions for the top box? --Kkuphal 04:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well; y'could, but I think it's dark enough to hold its own without. I was going to say I liked the category box, but I went back and forth a couple times, and you're right; it stands without it, and it opens up the page some more. Anyone else got an opinion?
--Baylink 05:36, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Is there a screenshots section? I imagine this wiki will be replacing the main page, so it would be good to have a little gallery of various screenshots. I know that's the first thing I look for when looking at software. It's a quick way to show what the various features are and how they look in the real. --JeffSimpson 8 Feb 2006

I dunno about "replacing"; that's above my paygrade.  :-) I am trying to make it useful enough that we'll pull a lot of eyeballs. And you're right; a screenshot gallery seems called for. We've got most of them already uploaded, thanks to MikeC; I'll go create the page and see who bites.  :-) --Baylink 21:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

IRC faq

Why does the "other resources" link for Beirdo's IRC FAQ link to a link that links to a site? Can't we just link the first link right to the other site? --Kkuphal 05:49, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Because the sidebar link machinery isn't working properly for some reason. It's supposed to snap that link to the internal page and send the user there directly, and something is wrong. It worked itself out when I changed something before; we're watching to see if it does that here, too.
--Baylink 15:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, the front page looks nice right now

The feature box works nice, and it flows right down into the news now. I'm inclined to say I think we're mostly done with the front page, for my tastes. For the nonce, at least. What does everyone else think?
--Baylink 15:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it looks schweeet!! ;) I dare say that notice box about the feature freeze and that super bowl thing you guys watch should have a border of some-sort around it though. It just seems like it needs it. --WhyTey 21:05, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, maybe I'm wrong, since Kevin agrees with you. I was pleased that he side-boxed the feature, since that kept the box from breaking the flow of the page. I guess I think that bordered boxes are worse about breaking that visual flow than non-bordered ones (which feel more like just a background color swatch than an actual box). I'll leave it up to Kevin; if he puts the border back on, I won't take it off.
--Baylink 21:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Ahem!!!  :P How about a border around the coloured box in the news section? The front page is still schweet. ;) --WhyTey 02:28, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Add MythPeople to the categories on frontpage

Add MythPeople to the categories on frontpage.

Well... (and, first, please remeber to sign your talk page notes?) We're not actually *doing* main-namespace pages over here for MythPeople; most of them should either already have been moved to User_talk, or should go there when the users actually appear. I note that you've done a bunch of work this weekend, including some user pages not your own; were those ones you copied over manually from the old wiki? Or were you just categorizing? (You didn't put summary comments on them either, so I wasn't sure what you were doing, and I haven't delved into the page diffs yet.)
--Baylink 19:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm inclined to perhaps add this to the page, maybe after the news is moved? I'm also thinking about adding a MythSystems category that people can put pages or their own user page into if it describes their setup, like mine does --Kkuphal 03:29, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I've already put a link to the Specialpage that lists all users over on the Community Portal. I'm disinclined to encourage pages about users which are *not* MediaWiki Userpages, as I want to encourage people to register and use the 'traditional' MediaWiki facilities for that sort of thing. So I'm not sure I *want* to put :category:MythPeople on a page anywhere, and I think the category page ought to encourage people who show up from the old wiki and look for their old user page to sign up, and copy that material to their new Userpage. Does anyone disagree with this approach? --Baylink 18:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

IE renders the tables poorly

I just found this out because, probably like most people, I don't use IE much. The quick links table doesn't span horizontally under the picture, and the featured pages box doesn't span vertically. --Baylink 14:54, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I'll take a look at it soonish --Kkuphal 03:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
And I may be wrong; I hadn't realized that the quicklinks are *not* colspanned, until I looked closer. --Baylink 18:24, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Frontpage seems cluttered/disorganized

I don't think we are making use of the space correctly on the frontpage:

  • Screenshot not necessary.
  • ICONS too big.
  • Things seem to be scattered all over the place like links/icons/text/random tidbits

--Monkeypet 20:41, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I disagree whole-heartedly. The only thing I would possible remove is the listing of news items down the bottom, but IO love the screenshot and the icons. I think it is very proffessinal. --WhyTey 20:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


Well, I know you've been putting in some work, Monkeypet, so I won't dismiss your comments out of hand. But I disagree with you (which is probably not surprising, since, along with Kevin, I did much of the work on the main page), so let me address your observations one at a time:
I feel that the screenshot, while perhaps not exactly 'necessary', is important nonetheless. While I like Mediawiki a *lot* as an engine for Distributed Knowledge Capture, skinning it well is not an easy job, so most MW's use Monobook... and therefore look the same. My goal in putting the screenshot up there was to make things look a bit different. In time, I hope to replace it with an optimized animated GIF (or PNG; can you do that?) that shows several different screens and menus, as well as some exterior box-shots of pretty installs.
As for the *size* of the picture, and the icons at other points on the page, please remember that while you can scale the *text* of the site (if you're using a reasonable) browser, you can't easily get your browser to scale images as well (unless it's Opera, I gather), so there is no really good solution to the "how big should we make our icons" dilemma: if you're at 640 or 800 pixels, they're probably going to be a bit too large.
And as far as "disorganized"... c'mon. You're makin' that up.  :-) How, precisely, would you suggest we organize it differently? Go move things around on Main page beta, and show us what you think.
--Baylink 21:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)


Here are some comments/suggestions.

Replies inline. --Baylink
  • "Main Page" - Since we are on the main page, do we really need to say "main page". I suggest removing it.
It's automatically put there by MediaWiki, as are all article/page titles.
  • Quick links section takes up about 1/4 the space on the frontpage. Why is this called "quick links" and is it important enough to take up so much space?
As to why it's called that, you'll have to ask Kevin, who created it. As to why it's there, and contains what it does, well *I* thought it was self-evident, but perhaps I'm wrong. Not everyone who happens on the site, though, will be a Wiki maven -- that's pretty obvious from the 50,000+ hit count on the main page in the first month, I think.
  • Categories takes up about 1/2 the space on the frontpage.
Yup. That's our primary page access methodology.
  • Articles are the main thing that I am interested in. However, the articles section takes up a little 1/8 box.
You've misunderstood entirely: those are *featured* articles. As different parts of the site become worth of feature, they'll change. Clearly, the front page cannot list *all* the articles on the site; there are several hundred of them.
  • What I really would like to see on the frontpage is links to some cool contents and articles. Kinda like the frontpage of the wikipedia site. A burb of some "featured article", always something different and new. Help direct me when I am bored and show me some cool articles to tempt me.
And that's what I'm attempting with the Featured Pages box. Perhaps we should move it up under the picture, instead of putting it on the side next to the category list? Or make it wider? Remember, too: we're pretty new at this, and we have about 6 active staff editors at the moment, where Wikipedia has twice that many who just work on the front page. We're not Wikipedia at the moment (and hopefully, we never will be :-), but I don't think we're doing all that bad a job...

Anyways, I didn't mean to sound harsh. Just offering some input. --Monkeypet 05:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I don't flatter myself I have a monopoly on common sense or design, either; input is always good. And I've been on Usenet since about 1983; blunt doesn't bother me either.  :-) --Baylink 16:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Why not make this the root page?

The top level page on the myth site is updates to infrequently... why not use the WIKI root page as the main site page?

I'm pretty sure I don't know what you mean. :-) Our main page gets updated every day or two at the worst; it's one of the reasons I left the full News section up there. What is "the WIKI root page", if it is not Main Page? (Oh, and I would say to sign your questions, but you haven't registered :-). --Baylink 16:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I know I wasn't clear. What I mean to say is that the WIKI looks great, has great content and seems to be working fine, so why not use it as the root page of "www.mythtv.org" rather than the old static page that is being served up now. If this is already your plan, feel free to ignore my stupidity (which is why I am asking anonymously).
Ah. Now I understand it (and, actually, your original query as well :-). That's up to Isaac, and I suspect he's going to want to leave things as they are for the nonce. In particular, until we cobble together a way to re-extract Robert Kulagowski's excellent Official Install Guide *back* out of the wiki into a flat file to include in the distribution package, he's going to continue to maintain, and post, it separately. --Baylink 00:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

MythTV and Pal60/GC 60 Hertz support

Using Debian Sid, and a WinTV PVR-150 MCE version.

Drivers ivtv0.8, kernel 2.6.18, recent version of MythTV.

Hooking up Gamecube to the PC, and unable to record from it in 60 hertz mode, which should be (is) Pal 60. The frequency seems alright, the image is still, but the colours are very wrong. It's mostly black and white, and has a lot of interference around lines. Pal-M gets better results, but seems to be blacn and white with blue where it was supposed to red colours.

Wrong release date on main page

The release date for 0.20.2 at the top of the frontpage was not updated, which may confuse some people. It should probably be 24-Aug-2007. I would change it myself, but the page is locked. --RandallB

Fixed; thanks. I'd missed it in my own flurry of followups.
--Baylink 21:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Copyright/license

Is the contents of this wiki licensed under the GPL? Lozzo81 20:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)