XCOM Modding: Need of a centralized source of information?

[Amineri]

@dubiousintent

 

Thanks for putting the "WIP" banner at the top of the Perk Tree main page. Was that a part of the template? I might have accidentally deleted it, but I don't recall seeing it there. If it's not, I think it would be worthwhile to add to the standard "mod" template.

 

Another issue I'm having with the template is that the basic <nowiki> tags don't work for displaying large chunks of hex code. The hex code will "fall off" the screen to the right (at least it does in my Chrome browser). I'm still using the table format that I developed for the squadsight penalty mod page, but if you can come up with a more attactive way to display big chunks of hex, I'd be happy to see it :)

[dubiousintent]

I added the WIP notice to the template and the min-template in the 'Editing Help' page today, after reading your earlier post that you were working on it. You got done more quickly than I anticipated, but I agree it' a good idea. I've been creating and adding a number of similar messages as I encounter the need.

 

Re the 'nowiki' tag. I ran into that as well (in Firefox). The 'code' tag (as I interpret it) is supposed to be the equivalent or 'nowiki' with word wrapping, but it doesn't wrap either. I've already put in a support request on the matter, but who knows when they will get to it.

 

Couple of things people should note:

The 'nowiki' opening tag must have a space at the beginning of the line. (The '/nowiki' tag does not need it.)

The 'code' block must have a space at the beginning of each line of content you want within the block. Any lines that do not have the leading space with appear outside of the 'code' block.

 

I'm trying to document such 'features' in the 'Editing Help' page as I find them. Feel free to contribute any you discover. That file is located in the 'Category:0_Start_here_-_XCOM' as 'Help:Editing', or just click on the 'Editing Help' link at the bottom of the edit page.

 

As for big chunks of hex, I just break them down into 16 byte lines, like you see in the hex editors. But my programmers editor (TSE Pro) makes it easy to break long lines up like that with dynamic 'keyboard macros'. In the mean time, I've thrown together some HTML to create a simple box which word wraps and added it to the end of the mini-templates in the 'Editing Help' page. However, it may prove necessary to add '<br>' tags to the end of some adjacent lines to prevent concatenation.

 

-Dubious-

Edited May 7, 2013 by dubiousintent

[dubiousintent]

Progress report:

 

I feel the major re-organization is done. I've flattened the categories and (I think) relinked all articles and mods. I do still need to ensure I have picked up any orphaned pages, but will work on that as a 'time available' process. Let me know of anything you think has been overlooked or disagree with.

 

Edit: Almost forgot. I still need to update the 'Navigational RoadMap' page to reflect the actual versus planned organization. That's next.

 

We do still have a lot of references to missing articles that authors felt should be added.

 

Anyone creating a new article: Please ensure it has at least one category designated. When in doubt, use 'Category:XCOM', which is the top level. That way someone will find and link it to whatever category (or more) that seems appropriate. Without a category, an article tends to get lost.

 

I have both the templates linked to the 'XCOM' and 'Tutorials - XCOM:EU 2012' categories, and the 'Modding Subject' one in the 'XCOM Modding' and 'Game Files & Modding - XCOM:EU 2012'; and the 'Mods' one in the 'XCOM Mods' categories. Let me know if you would like a template linked to any other categories.

 

I requested a link to the Wiki be placed on the main forum page, and was told it was possible. So just be patient.

 

-Dubious-

Edited May 9, 2013 by dubiousintent

[johnnylump]

@Dubious: Thanks for your efforts on this. It's a real service to the community.

[anUser]

Thank you so much dubious, you've done great. I know the time and dedication it takes so it's much appreciated.

 

I must admit I haven't made much use of the wiki yet, I'm not researching or modding much lately, so maybe I'm not yet entire familiarized with the wiki and that's why I couldn't find things at first, but I'd like to make a suggestion related to categories to improve navigation.

- Categories are arranged in a hierarchical and not necessarily symetrical manner (this is already done).

- Each article (page, not category) belongs to ALL the categories in it's "category tree" (ie if the "path" were Category:XCOM, Category:XCOM Modding) then the article would have these two categories, the more nested the path the more categories it belongs to.

- Highlighted/selected content of each category is manually linked in the category page itself (the text inserted shows before the boxes with sub-categories and the one with articles)

 

The reason to do so is to avoid that in the attempt to make content more accessible and ordered some of this content ends in fact being harder to reach. The point is avoiding "navigating through a path" to reach some content and instead giving the user the perception that content is ordered in a hierarchical manner, in a way that the content of some category is also available to the categories above... so if you just see a bunch of links, hundreds of them, or maybe thousands, and you don't locate by name the page you want, you just need to *narrow down* the results, via accessing a subcategory. I stress it, because there's a singnificant difference between narrowing down, or filtering the content, and accessing another page with different content. I honestly think that it's much more clear that way I'm saying, even if the cost is that the main categories would end up cluttered with links. There's always the option to manually write some links in the category page itself to direct users to most relevant stuff, or maybe the article with the same name as the category can be used to explain what is in that category.

 

Well that's just my opinion, I'd like to hear yours if you think this matter is still open to debate or whatever thoughts you may have concerning accessibility, maybe it's just me that didn't get it right when navigating. Anyway, thank you all who contribute to the wiki, it's looking pretty good :)

[dubiousintent]

Thanks for such a detailed reply. I've had many of the same concerns, so I will address each point separately.

 

 

- Each article (page, not category) belongs to ALL the categories in it's "category tree" (ie if the "path" were Category:XCOM, Category:XCOM Modding) then the article would have these two categories, the more nested the path the more categories it belongs to.

This has been done all along to some extent, but I think what you are suggesting is more along the lines of ALL article/pages being linked into the top level (Category:XCOM), and then the sub-categories becoming filters to exclude unrelated pages. It's more of a 'bottom-up' approach instead of the more traditional 'top-down' approach. I can see that working better given my view of 'categories' on the Nexus functioning more like 'indexes' than 'table of contents', but would like to hear others opinions.

The problem I anticipate (not encountered so far by design) is of too many categories to fit on one line at the bottom of the page. I'll try an experiment and see what happens. Edit: It wraps, so that is not a problem.

There should be, in my opinion, some exceptions to this general approach. in the particular case of the sub-files of mods, they only make sense within the context of the mod itself. (Otherwise, if they are 'stand-alone' they belong in other sub-categories under Modding such as Functions.) Hence the current approach of only linking the parent or descriptive page to higher level categories, which currently are Mods and Game Files & Mods, and mod dependent pages within a category of the same name as the mod itself. I could see linking the parent page to the 'XCOM' category, but not into the Modding or Tutorials or we have no reason to have any separation at all.

Edit: With the exceptions outlined here, I believe everything is now linked to the top level XCOM category.
If you find any pages you think should be linked but aren't, please let me know.

Another exception is the content of the 0_Start_here category. That content could easily be linked to all the categories. However, much of it is of a 'read once' variety. I think perhaps a better compromise would be to link that category to all the other categories, to make it easiler to access from everywhere. But I would like to hear comments from others who use the Wiki frequently. I can foresee a case being made for certain files being linked either to other particular sub-categories or universally.

What we can use is some filtering criteria documented into the 'Navigation' page. The big problem comes with pages that cross essentially all filters. Then once again you might as well not bother with filtering.

- Highlighted/selected content of each category is manually linked in the category page itself (the text inserted shows before the boxes with sub-categories and the one with articles)

Not clear as to what you are looking for here. There is already a description of the category, which does appear before the sub-categories. All the pages and sub-categories are automatically linked in when the category is added to the pages. I can add some HTML to the category description to make it standout more, like the notices that appear on some pages (i.e. the templates are good examples) if that is what you want. But manually adding text descriptions of linked material defeats the purpose of using the category system in the first place. And it's just too much work. If an article is in multiple categories, or gets rewritten so it goes elsewhere, chasing down the manually added descriptions and references will be horrendous undertaking. It's bad enough already trying to cross-link articles that refer to each other.

 

 

The reason to do so is to avoid that in the attempt to make content more accessible and ordered some of this content ends in fact being harder to reach. The point is avoiding "navigating through a path" to reach some content and instead giving the user the perception that content is ordered in a hierarchical manner, in a way that the content of some category is also available to the categories above... so if you just see a bunch of links, hundreds of them, or maybe thousands, and you don't locate by name the page you want, you just need to *narrow down* the results, via accessing a subcategory. I stress it, because there's a singnificant difference between narrowing down, or filtering the content, and accessing another page with different content. I honestly think that it's much more clear that way I'm saying, even if the cost is that the main categories would end up cluttered with links. There's always the option to manually write some links in the category page itself to direct users to most relevant stuff, or maybe the article with the same name as the category can be used to explain what is in that category.

I thank you for this final comment because I was originally of the view that the top level category (XCOM) was TOO crowded to be useful. However, I have come to find that as I got familiar with the content I would prefer to jump to XCOM to find the page I wanted, rather than drill down. The term 'filter' exactly expresses how I evolved to using the sub-categories. You have helped clarify what I hadn't taken the time to examine.

The matter is indeed still open to discussion and revision, but the sooner the better. The longer we take to settle things, the more work is involved. I think the need to put everything (except the mod specific pages) into the top level XCOM category will move forward in the meantime, in part because that is what Dark0ne desired initially and in part because others see the need as well. I would prefer to get some consensus on filter criteria (especially for material crossing sub-categories) before moving on with changing that. I think the 'Navigation' page discussion tab, or here, is the place for that.

-Dubious- Edited May 11, 2013 by dubiousintent

[dubiousintent]

Amineri is graciously providing a 'Notes' page on a number of aspects of changes her mods make. While they are linked to the Mod's category, I am wondering if people would find it useful to have them liked into the 'Modding' category. A good example is the 'XCOM Squadsight Aim Penalty Adjust To Hit Notes' page. For those who haven't seen them, they primarily consist of decompiled statements and then the equivalent hex code over the 'old' and 'new' statements changed in the mod. While they describe the code well, there is very little other commentary, so it is not anything like a tutorial. But they do convey information that others should find useful.

 

Some of the other smaller mods just have one page but also have similar information.

 

If we do link these pages to 'Modding' then they will also get linked into the top level 'XCOM' category as well. In my view, anything anywhere other than 'Modding' also belongs in 'XCOM' and possibly elsewhere.

 

Comments and opinions?

 

-Dubious-

[Bertilsson]

I have put together a little html file for reverse lookup of all enums in XComGame.exe here:
http://hem.bredband.net/bertrich/XCOM/ReverseLookup.htm

I didn't realize that anUser had already created a similar tool until this one was almost complete.
On the positive side it should be a bit more user-friendly as it requires no input-files and allows for some filters to be used.

Also it should be very easy to adapt to other games which use unreal engine if anyone has a need for it.

Edited May 12, 2013 by Bertilsson

[dubiousintent]

Thanks. Added to 'Modding Tools - XCOM:EU 2012' page. And somehow I seem to have missed AnUser's tool. Link, please?

 

-Dubious-

[Bertilsson]

In the spoiler in post #37 in this thread.

 

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/937059-xcom-modding-need-of-a-centralized-source-of-information/?p=7591905