Feedback: The Manual could be improved

Brainstorm ideas of possible additions to the game. Read this before posting!

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Skippy
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Post by Skippy »

Has this suggestion been deemed unworthwhile? Do you really want to improve the manual or is it actually considered complete?

I note that nothing has happened on this front for the past couple of weeks. I would be happy to offer further suggestions on improving the manual but would prefer to know that I wasn't wasting my time before doing anything more.
Dave
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Post by Dave »

Skippy wrote:Has this suggestion been deemed unworthwhile? Do you really want to improve the manual or is it actually considered complete?

I note that nothing has happened on this front for the past couple of weeks. I would be happy to offer further suggestions on improving the manual but would prefer to know that I wasn't wasting my time before doing anything more.
Skippy,

I'm sorry that your offer to help has garnered so little attention. We really do appreciate all contributions and offers to help, but somehow, sometimes things do get missed.

Personally I think that everyone should be able to edit the manual, and that we should ship the latest version of the Wiki manual with th game -- i.e. the Wiki version should become the 'master' copy.

I am sure that the community could do very well at making a much better manual than we have now.

David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
torangan
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Post by torangan »

Dave wrote:I'm sorry that your offer to help has garnered so little attention. We really do appreciate all contributions and offers to help, but somehow, sometimes things do get missed.
It's a very simple problem - you need someone to care for this area and look for contributions. It's the same as with sound - nobody did something on this until Eleazar recently started to tackle it. Wesnoth has a very huge development community for an open source game but having people who care for each and every area all the time is close to impossible.
WesCamp-i18n - Translations for User Campaigns:
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesCamp

Translators for all languages required: contact me. No geek skills required!
scott
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Post by scott »

I recommend that the current manual be made into a web page or locked wiki and the wiki manual be opened for changes. If it's going to be locked then there's no reason to make it a wiki page.

I implemented this idea, and if it turns out to be bad we can always undo it.

Skippy, try implementing your changes directly to the wiki. Thanks for your desire to help make the game better. If this works for you, then please improve to your heart's content.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Boucman
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Post by Boucman »

only problem is translation... but we'll find a way to cope with that
Fight key loggers: write some perl using vim
im the one you think of
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Post by im the one you think of »

Id be happy to do this, finally an oppurtunity to contribute! yay! I cant start till tomorrow though, im about to leave to go fencing, id appreciate a list of everything yo'ud like included, then i can get to work on it.
Ssshh! I'm secretly male.
Skippy
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Location: Sydney

Post by Skippy »

scott wrote:Skippy, try implementing your changes directly to the wiki. Thanks for your desire to help make the game better. If this works for you, then please improve to your heart's content.
They're in train. I'll do more over the weekend.

It seems to me that the talk page of the wiki may be the best place for further discussions about the manual to take place. The link to it is not, however, obvious in the current page format (although it is undeniably there). Any suggestions?
scott
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Post by scott »

Skippy wrote:
scott wrote:Skippy, try implementing your changes directly to the wiki. Thanks for your desire to help make the game better. If this works for you, then please improve to your heart's content.
They're in train. I'll do more over the weekend.

It seems to me that the talk page of the wiki may be the best place for further discussions about the manual to take place. The link to it is not, however, obvious in the current page format (although it is undeniably there). Any suggestions?
If you change your skin to the non-default one, it shows up. I don't know what they expect you to do with the default skin. Not talk, I guess.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Skippy
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Location: Sydney

Post by Skippy »

Perhaps I'll add a comment and link at the top of the page so that people know to check the talk page and can easily do so even if they are using the default skin (as I imagine most people would do).

Not that there is really anything there at the moment - more planning for the future.
Dave
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Post by Dave »

torangan wrote: It's a very simple problem - you need someone to care for this area and look for contributions.
Are you volunteering? :)

I've tried to assign this position to many people lots of times, but it's very difficult to get someone who has the appropriate skills for the job, and has the time and willingness to do it.

Cedric had this position for some time, and was very good at it, but it made him frustrated, and he eventually left the project.

David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
torangan
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Post by torangan »

Boucman wrote:only problem is translation... but we'll find a way to cope with that
Before a stable release there'll be a long string freeze giving translators time to translate this (by then final) version of the manual. In between they may choose to translate the manual at any time they wish but we'd need some kind of versioning system to make sure that the latest version is used. I guess we could do something a little clunky like: generate a WML version out of the manual where each sentence is a seperate string marked as translateable. Generate a manual.pot file for translators and then write out translated copies of the manual with a program setting the language variable and using the strings gettext produces out of the manual-lang.po files. This would make it easy to spot changes and you'd get translations which may be incomplete but not outdated. Any better ideas?
WesCamp-i18n - Translations for User Campaigns:
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/WesCamp

Translators for all languages required: contact me. No geek skills required!
im the one you think of
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Joined: September 2nd, 2005, 6:06 pm
Location: portsmouth, u.k.

Post by im the one you think of »

Since nobody replied to my post im just going to go ahead and do it, ill start today and hopefully have the first draft by monday, depending on circumstances. If someone can post the list of things to do ill check back once ive got a fair way through and add anything i forget.
Ssshh! I'm secretly male.
scott
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Joined: May 12th, 2004, 12:35 am
Location: San Pedro, CA

Post by scott »

im the one you think of wrote:Since nobody replied to my post im just going to go ahead and do it
That's the spirit.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
Dave
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Post by Dave »

scott wrote:
im the one you think of wrote:Since nobody replied to my post im just going to go ahead and do it
That's the spirit.
Yes it is. :)
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
Skippy
Posts: 85
Joined: February 10th, 2006, 2:09 am
Location: Sydney

Post by Skippy »

im the one you think of wrote:Since nobody replied to my post im just going to go ahead and do it, ill start today and hopefully have the first draft by monday, depending on circumstances. If someone can post the list of things to do ill check back once ive got a fair way through and add anything i forget.
Just check the changes I've already made and the talk page (which is mostly a monologue at the moment). Sounds like you're going for a big bang while I've been making some incremental changes.

The list, as far as I'm concerned, is anything you couldn't understand when you first played the game.
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