Talk: Crystallized

Wall overhaul

I saw the stuff you did on the Wall article - wow! I think it looks extremely good! I had likewise been thinking that the article needed an overhaul, and so I'm happy it finally happened. After I updated the image (didn't take long before it was outdated, though) and added some missing walls I somewhat got the impression that I was the one who had to tend to the article (which I did a rather poor job at), but the stuff you've done has completely blown me out of the water! Great work!! :D NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 03:12, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hello again! I think I've come up with two suggestions which perhaps would improve Walls, Blocks, and possibly other articles. The first is that the sections should be collapsible, allowing users to load content on demand in order to lessen overall page load. Coincidentally, Morenohijazo addressed the same issue in regard to Recipes today - please see my comment there. Of course, something like that will only be possible if Terraria Wiki supports such a feature. Secondly I'm thinking that images of placed walls/blocks/whatever would serve better when included in the lists, rather than when gathered in a top image. That is, I'd be happy to chop the image you made into tiny pieces and spread them across the tables (sorry for sounding brutal). What do you think? NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 14:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

If we support such a feature I am all for it - I've had similar crashes when editing the Item IDs and Tile IDs pages, and I've been doing some work with collapsible tables on Wikipedia and they are quite nice. As for the images, when I originally did the page revamp I was actually thinking of doing separate images per section, but a singular page image is more standard in terms of wiki formatting. It is difficult to reference and even more difficult to read, though, I'll admit! I'm working on the Blocks image and I'll definitely make separate versions of that one, but if you want to rearrange and chop the Wall image and see how it looks I have no opposition! --Crystallized (talk) 14:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Most wikis that have collapsible sections use Javascript to simply hide the content until something is clicked. It wouldn't solve the page load issue, because everything is still loaded when the page opens, even though it isn't displayed. I think you'd need a more complicated back-end database type of solution for something like that. I'd suggest the low-tech solution of splitting large lists into multiple pages with nav links at the top, like Item IDs 0-200, Item IDs 201-400, etc. That's how this kind of thing is usually handled. Equazcion ^(talk) 21:38, 24 Mar 2014 (UTC)

Personally I think AJAX seems like a good very solution - at least it works well on Wowpedia. Both it and nav links refer to other pages, so AJAX could be used to produce clear overviews. I'm no programmer, so I don't know exactly what it requires for this site to run it, but I assume it shouldn't be too difficult as both Wowpedia and Terraria wiki are part of the Curse network. With that said I still think simple nav links can be useful too! As for collapsible tables: if they have no impact on page load then I retract that as a suggestion. Wikipedia➝Help:Collapsing makes it clear that the content stays on the actual page, so I admit I should have seen this coming. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 23:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Could you link to a Wowpedia page where Ajax is used? I'd be interested to try and see how they do it. Thanks. Equazcion ^(talk) 23:27, 24 Mar 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, let's see. A list that uses it. The first section being loaded in that list. The template that provides the function. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 14:35, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Looks like the "AJAX tables" code block in http://wowpedia.org/MediaWiki:Common.js does this. Not sure if it came from a MediaWiki extension, but there are some that apparently do something similar. It might require require some editing/testing by an admin familiar with the tech/coding stuff. I'm not sure if there's enough activity here for something that involved to happen... We may need to settle for splitting pages, but if the Ajax thing is implemented I wouldn't complain :) Equazcion ^(talk) 15:51, 25 Mar 2014 (UTC)

Oi, you two, this is my page :D I like the AJAX tables much more than the idea of splitting pages. Can't hurt to ask Icke or throw a request up on the Admin board, yeah? Even if we don't have it installed now, we might be able to get it installed. It would still require the creation of separate pages to target, so I don't find it particularly ideal, but IMO it's better to be able to see all the information at once, if you want. --Crystallized (talk) 16:34, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for hijacking your talk page! x-) I've uploaded the "pieces" and added them to the Wall article now. I suspect that the tables' width-numbers may need some tuning, but overall I think it doesn't look half bad. Please tell me your honest opinion. NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Oh! I love it! I didn't actually realize what you planned to do but I totally love this idea; it's better than what I thought you were doing! :D --Crystallized (talk) 15:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I am very glad to hear you appreciate it, I didn't want you to feel that I ruined any of your work. Thank you for the kind words! Also, there is a small thing I am wondering if you could help with: the gifs you placed on the 1.2.3 crafting stations give me the impression you are skilled when it comes to to gif-making, so could you perhaps do the same with the animated walls (Arcane Rune, Rainbow Brick, Waterfall, Lavafall)? Only if you want to, of course! NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 22:54, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

After having a fit of creativity I decided to give .gif-making a try, and in the end I managed to produce these .gifs (1, 2, 3, 4) of makeshift quality myself. Just letting you know, so the job won't be done twice! :-) NoseOfCthulhu (talk) 03:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)