Documentation Wiki

Synthesia is a living project. You can help by sharing your ideas.
Search the forum before posting your idea. :D

No explicit, hateful, or hurtful language. Nothing illegal.
vicentefer31
Posts: 899

Post by vicentefer31 »

The next video-help I want to do is about the Song Library, but I'm going to wait until the textbox is ready.
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

That's probably a good call. That will change things quite a bit.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Alright, here we go.

Synthesia Help Wiki

It's a vanilla installation of MediaWiki with the following changes:
  • Forum user name integration. Use your Synthesia Talk user name and password.
  • Secure login. The login page should redirect you to an https page. After signing in, it should pop you back out to non-https. (I've been looking for a solution like that for the forum for a while but that would mean going back and bulk updating EVERY message with an inner-forum link to the non-https version too. :( )
  • A YouTube video extension. Super easy to use. You just do something like this: <youtube>DdpsPM5fyNk</youtube> where the thing in the middle is the similar-looking chunk of text in your address bar when you're looking at the video.
I'm going to mostly stay out of it. Hopefully you guys can self-organize. ;) When I get a chance I'll dress up the side bar a little bit more with a nicer looking logo that is actually designed with that amount of space in mind.

Here are my plans for making it a success:
  • Mention the link here, today.
  • Mention the link in the next couple of dev preview posts.
  • After a week or so (or however long it takes to get some rough categories/structure in there that is basically just missing the actual content, I'll mention it in a post on the front page.
  • Once it's looking pretty solid and full of good info (a month or two from now?) I'll put a real link up in the nav area at the top-right of the website.
NOTICE: I've never run a wiki before, so please bear with me. If there are any administrative things I need to do or setup that is missing, please let me know. If you find any extensions that you think we couldn't live without, feel free to mention those too. I haven't tested anything at all like attachments or images or whatever it is you can do with a wiki. Let me know if any of that isn't working. This is a learning experience. Let's do this together. :)
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nice Wiki! Ive made a very short beginning for Quick Start Guide.

Are you gonna post about the Wiki on the Main Page (Synthesia's site itself) after the wiki is almost finished?
And how can we translate pages? Or need you to be a administrator?
Is it an idea to post a download link (a big button) on the Wiki?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

aria1121 wrote:Are you gonna post about the Wiki on the Main Page (Synthesia's site itself) after the wiki is almost finished?
I went into quite a bit of detail about that in the post *just* above yours. ;)
aria1121 wrote:And how can we translate pages? Or need you to be a administrator?
Other languages are kind of tricky. Because it's sort of an official wiki -- because it lives on the actual Synthesia web server -- I need to make sure everything that's going on over there is legal. If it's in languages I can't read, I can't be sure about that.
aria1121 wrote:Is it an idea to post a download link (a big button) on the Wiki?
Do you mean so you can download something like a manual? Something like a PDF or whatever? I'm not sure there is any way to do that, though it is a cool idea. I'll check around to see if there are any extensions for MediaWiki that allow it.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

aria1121 wrote: Are you gonna post about the Wiki on the Main Page (Synthesia's site itself) after the wiki is almost finished?

Nicholas wrote:
I went into quite a bit of detail about that in the post *just* above yours. ;)
Err, didnt see :)
aria1121 wrote: And how can we translate pages? Or need you to be a administrator?

Nicholas wrote:
Other languages are kind of tricky. Because it's sort of an official wiki -- because it lives on the actual Synthesia web server -- I need to make sure everything that's going on over there is legal. If it's in languages I can't read, I can't be sure about that.
What do you mean with legal?
aria1121 wrote: Is it an idea to post a download link (a big button) on the Wiki?

Nicholas wrote:
Do you mean so you can download something like a manual? Something like a PDF or whatever? I'm not sure there is any way to do that, though it is a cool idea. I'll check around to see if there are any extensions for MediaWiki that allow it.
Well, I tought Synthesia itself. But a manual or PDF is also a very good idea!
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

aria1121 wrote:What do you mean with legal?
There are lots of things that can go on that aren't legal. Bad/incorrect advice could be given about copyright issues (or suggestions of blatantly disregarding it). Links or other references could be made to warez or pirated versions of software or music. Maybe I'm being a little paranoid, but I'd like to be able to read everything that's going on a site that I'm legally responsible for. :D
aria1121 wrote:Well, I thought Synthesia itself. But a manual or PDF is also a very good idea!
For now, having a living document (only) on the wiki is fine by me. The idea is that things will be changing rapidly for a while yet, so packaging anything up might be a waste of effort. Once we get a little closer to 1.0, my opinion might change.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Can you explain me how to upload files? The Helper-guide-thing-for-editors I didnt understand well...

Edit: Im very happy watching this grows!
Edit2: Q: Can you place a mini link on the big blue bar at the top of the forum page that links to the Wiki?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

aria1121 wrote:Can you explain me how to upload files?
I just checked and it looks like file uploads are disabled for some reason. I'll fix that.
aria1121 wrote:Can you place a mini link on the big blue bar at the top of the forum page that links to the Wiki?
I might add that as one of the steps in the middle of the list above.
vicentefer31
Posts: 899

Post by vicentefer31 »

vicentefer31 wrote:The next video-help I want to do is about the Song Library, but I'm going to wait until the textbox is ready.
I'm thinking I'm going to do a video for every Window of the game. And even before the video of the Song Library I'll do a video for "Choose Track to Play". I see a lot of people have problems with "You Play" and "Play Automatically",... and I hope the video can help. My question is: Should I wait until "Editable Track Instruments" is ready?

Should I do the video or should I wait?
Should I stay or should I go now?

If I do the video will be trouble
And if I wait it will be double
So come on and let me know
This indecision's bugging me

If you don't want the video, set me free
Exactly who'm I'm supposed to be
Don't you know which clothes-shirts even fit you? :lol:
Come on and let me know

So you gotta let me know
Should I do the video or should I wait?
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

That's awesome. :D

As for track instruments, 0.7.3 will *not* be the major overhaul release for that screen. With the UI Z-Ordering support, I expect to make a pop-up menu you choose the instrument from. And you'll be able to pop it up simply by clicking on the instrument icon or the instrument name.

As much as I'd love to overhaul that screen (like, right now ;) ), the month is already moving along pretty quickly.

Making a video now will still be relevant after this release. You just won't be able to show the instrument changing part. That's all.
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Nicholas wrote:I just checked and it looks like file uploads are disabled for some reason.
Image file uploads work now. Should just have to click the "Upload file" link in the sidebar.
aria1121
Posts: 1505

Post by aria1121 »

Nice, Ive figured it out. Ive added some images.
Edit: Right now I am working a lot at the site

A suggestion: Use .PNG format instead .JPEG because PNG has better quality
Here a comparisation of PNG an JPEG:
Attachments
At the left PNG, at the right JPEG
At the left PNG, at the right JPEG
3.png (50.49 KiB) Viewed 13625 times
Seanpek
Posts: 66

Post by Seanpek »

aria1121 I suggest the comments you added be put on the discussion page, or people viewing the page may get confused.
Seanpek
Posts: 66

Post by Seanpek »

Just to add on, do you think we should make a page on the basics of piano?
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Seanpek wrote:Just to add on, do you think we should make a page on the basics of piano?
It certainly wouldn't hurt anything, though I probably wouldn't go much further than a single (relatively brief) page. The best use of that page might even be to direct people to other high quality sites that are dedicated to talking about the basics of piano... of course, without making just a page covered in links.

I guess a nice balance point would be a page that described just enough about the piano to get started with Synthesia, and a section at the end describing where they can go to learn more.
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