The Wiki Rehaul

[Umcaruje]

So, I've been doing a lot of categorizing of the articles on the wiki. I categorized all the Pages that need work into 3 categories:

• Incomplete
• Out of Date
• Too Complex

So if you are planning to work on the wiki (hint hint: @Spekular) you should work on the articles from those categories.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is that we should probably remove most of the old articles. They are full of non-working pictures and weird structure that does not fit in the current wiki structure. Since we are having a new site, I think that the wiki should start with a clean slate (only 1.0+ articles).

I'd love to hear your guys's opinion on this. 🍺

[Spekular]

Clean slate sounds good to me. I think it would be good if we had a clear
plan for the wiki structure that we followed to keep it nice and coherent.
EDIT: @lukas-w I was told to ask you for wiki permissions.

[Sti2nd]

Hahhaa, the SFXR article isn't really too advanced, it is just really hard to understand cause it is more like a fictional text than an informative.

[Spekular]

I must be missing somehing, because I still have no idea how to login to the wiki @Umcaruje @lukas-w

[lukas-w]

@Spekular I can set you up, just send me a mail with the username and the email address you want to use.

[Spekular]

@lukas-w can't find your mail address. Can I tell you my desired name and email here or is it secret?

[Sti2nd]

Not secret, everyone is gonna know your username, and I can already see your mail, so :)

[Spekular]

@lukas-w Alright well I'd like the same username as here, Spekular, and the same email, Spekularr@gmail.com
EDIT: Referred to the wrong person earlier, oops.

[lukas-w]

You should have received a mail with your password ;)

[Spekular]

@lukas-w Here comes the hard part! 👍

[Spekular]

I'll be back soon to keep working on it, but here's what I've done so far on the sfxr page: http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/SFXR

[Spekular]

Ok, so I'm almost done with the SFXR page (http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/SFXR), but there's a few dials I can't figure out. If someone could explain the change, square, and phaser dials, that would be great. (I couldn't hear a difference with square, and I don't know the mechanics behind/reason for the difference in phaser and change.) Also I'm not sure how to exlain filter resonance, as I've never really gotten how it works. @Umcaruje @Sti2nd @lukas-w

[Sti2nd]

Good work! You are super fast. Someone can probably take a look at the missing things some time (not me right now).
Feedback:

• We call dials for knobs.
• The image is now right aligned, I guess because it looks stupid with empty space on the right of the content box, but we either have to change all the other other plugin articles to keep consistency, or keep left alignment. Maybe we should discuss this @Umcaruje

[Umcaruje]

Ok @Spekular, first of all: nice work! It looks much cleaner now. Now some things you should look at:

• The Pictures are usually on the right side of the page, not left, so for the sake of the wiki being consistent, please change that.
• "SFXR is a vst port of the original sfxr" Thats not correct, its actually just a port, it has nothing to do with VST's

[Spekular]

@Umcaruje Do you mean that the image should be on the left on the sfxr page or should I move the other ones to the right?? And ok, I'll change it so it doesn't mention vsts.

[Spekular]

Editing my comment on mobile is a pain so I'll make a new one for this:
Personally, I think images should be on the right. Text is anchored on the
left and flows better if it's uninterrupted, so images should be anchored
on the right. With an image on the left the text suddenly jumps out and
then in again. This is also more space efficient as the image can occupy
the same vertical space as the table of contents. I have no issue going
through the wiki and moving images so it's consistent.some images, like
fullscreen screenshots, might look odd anchored on the rigt, but they look
best centered anyways (imo), so they would be an exception either way.

[Umcaruje]

Hah right anchored images feel very wierd to me, you kinda loose focus from the actual instrument image and you just look at the text. But that's personal preference. I like the old layout of the Preset pages (Image to left) because there is only one image in the article, so it breaks the monotonous text.

[Spekular]

@Umcaruje I think images to the right is standard, since that's the way it is on Wikipedia and most game wiki's I've been on. When a user is trying to learn LMMS they shouldn't have to "relearn" how to read a wiki. There are some left anchored images on Wikipedia but they are exceptions and much smaller in width than ours. Wide images, like our screenshots, appear to be centered. So should I make the wiki "Wikipedia style", or have it the way it is right now? I don't think EVERY image needs to be on the same side in order for it to be consistent.

[tresf]

Anchoring to the right and floating out in right field cyberspace are two different things. Some of your content leaves huge white spaces between the text and the image it is describing. Wikipedia is not a software tutorial. It doesn't have hundreds of software screenshots relevant to the text content like a software wiki does. Please keep this in mind when writing the tutorials. If you can have it flow well, the alignment isn't terribly important, but rather flow and consistancy would prevail.

[Spekular]

@tresf The only content I've done so far is sfxr, and I'm not sure what you mean by floating out in right field? Anyways, I've added lots of images closer to the text in my latest revision, what do you think of it this?

[Umcaruje]

@Spekular There is a difference here. All of our plugin articles have only one picture. Also, the articles themselves are not really full of text, mostly because its good that they are short and understandable. As Tres said, anchoring to the right leaves huge white spaces, and it just drags the users focus from the image to the text. This isn't about what is the 'standard' , it is about what is good. The other Plugin pages all have one image on the left and it looks good.

Let me compare The SFXR article and The TripleOscillator one (Which is imo one of the best and most consistent plugin articles):

SFXR:

TripleOscilator:

This was screen captured on a normal 1080p screen. The TripleOscillator article looks much more solid and consistent.

As for the other articles, they do use right and centered images alongside left ones, and they also look good too.

[Spekular]

Oh crud. Working on this on the go on a laptop I didn't see how drastic the whitespace was. I think one of the culprits here is the table of content though, I can't seem to make the text start next to it instead of under. I'll try and work on the whitespace issue and report back with another iteration soon. Thanks for the feedback, despite how it may seem I do appreciate it!

Here's what I originally posted:

The thing is, in my opinion, it doesn't look good. That's not to say that my
opinion is the one that matters, just evidence that "what looks good" is
subjective. As for the lack of text in the other articles, that's because
they're more compact and general. If an LMMS user wants to know how a
plugin works, they should go to the wiki page on that plugin. If that wiki
page is just a general overview, tons of info is left for the user to find
out on their own. Being unable to find that info might be the reason they
come to the wiki in the first place, and if we know it, why keep it to
ourselves? As for what the rest of the articles look like, if we wanna keep
the wiki the way it is, why overhaul it in the first place?

[Umcaruje]

Another thing: The wiki really had a major rehaul several months ago. @Sti2nd and myself have taken and duplicated almost all 0.4 articles and updated them to LMMS 1.0 (Others helped too, like musikbear and mikobuntu). I just made this thread so that the few articles that are left get done, since we have schools and lives and just couldn't finish. Rehaul in the tittle may sound a bit misleading now, but my point was to fix the outdated and incomplete articles, not go and rearrange the existing ones that have been proofread and fixed very recently.

I also wanted to talk about what is going to happen to the old articles, but I guess I'll open a new issue for that.

[Spekular]

@Umcaruje I suppose I'll anchor the image left and get rid of the other ones, but I'm not entirely sure you'll like that either.

[Umcaruje]

Why would you delete the other images? I never said anything about that.

[Spekular]

@Umcaruje someone mentioned the other articles only having one image. I'll keep them then!
EDIT: As I thought, it was you!

All of our plugin articles have only one picture

Anyways here's the updated article. Still looks odd to me :/ I'm now $100% sure the TOC is the culprit for the whitespace!
Alright, so the whitespace issue has little to do with the image in this case. If I remove the TOC the text can flow around the image naturally, but thats not a very good fix. Once I/we have figured out how to let the text flow around the TOC, the left/right issue is all about preference/consistency. I found a mediawiki help page that shows how to make the TOC "float" so text wraps around it, but it requires CSS editing, which I'm unfamiliar with and don't have access to. If someone else could create a {{tocright}} and {{tocleft}} template (instructions here and here) it would be great.
Here's an (admittedly ugly) screenshot with no TOC and the image on the right (I haven't figured out how to make the image "break" headings on the left yet):

[Sti2nd]

i think the solution might lie in using CSS for showing the image, not the image syntax. Copy it from here for example http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Opulenz

[Umcaruje]

The solution Stian presented is actually how most of the plugin pages are done. Its a nice workaround.

[Spekular]

@tresf I'm getting a "this wiki has a problem" page. It shows up sometimes, sometimes not. Whats up with that? Anyways, here's some screenshots with the TOC next to the image:

[Sti2nd]

The first one! Or just leave it as it was..

[tresf]

@Spekular, I don't manage the wiki nor have access to it so I won't help troubleshoot problems with it.

That said, you should be able to flow Overview into its own area by using something like a HR tag or perhaps some custom CSS. 🔧

[tresf]

Actually, looking at it again, the image and TOC could probably be wrapped into a table or a div, but I've yet to see the wiki markdown so I'm not the one to help with this. 👻

[Spekular]

@tresf

I don't manage the wiki nor have access to it so I won't help troubleshoot problems with it.

The first part was a general question. The mention was because of the screenshots. Also, the way I did all of these was custom CSS!

[Spekular]

@Sti2nd when you say "the way it was" do you mean like this?

[Sti2nd]

No, I added the CSS yesterday, it certainly didn't look like that ✋ The TOC was to the right of the image. You can revert the changes from the history tab on the wiki.

[Umcaruje]

Or just remove the TOC. Or not use a subheading for each sentence. That could solve it too.

[Spekular]

@Umcaruje There is a way to make a horizontal TOC, but we haven't implemented a template and IDK how. That could work really well.

47 sentences/9 subheadings = 5.222 sentences per subheading. 29 lines/9 subheadings = 3.222 lines per subheading. 47 sentences/ 15 total headings = 3.133 sentences per heading. 29 lines/15 total headings = 1.933 lines per heading.

[Sti2nd]

@Spekular Maybe it would, but I don't exactly see how, cause the TOC, and the problem with the TOC on the SFXR page is that it is too long in a vertical list, and I can't picture how that would be as a horizontal one :p Any links which show horizontal TOC?

[StakeoutPunch]

Just wanted to pop in and say that I have started tackling articles that are already written, but could use grammar overhauls. I am almost finished with http://lmms.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php?title=1.0:Working_with_VSTs

I still have the last two sections to do, as well as making more accurate section headers (the current ones don't follow the article well imo).

As for the SFXR page, @Umcaruje's solution makes the most sense to me. There doesn't need to be a subheading in the TOC for every knob, for example.

[Sti2nd]

Nice to have an English speaking onboard. <-- From that grammar you see we need it.

[Spekular]

@Sti2nd Here's a horizontal TOC
@StakeoutPunch Do you have a list of articles that need fixing? Or are you just going though them one by one?

[StakeoutPunch]

@Spekular one by one as needed. I work better without todo lists :)

[Sti2nd]

Ok, Horizontal could work, but in this case I suspect it will not. Anyway, without TOC as it is now is maybe the best.

[Spekular]

The sfxr page still needs explanations for the Change, Square, and Phaser knobs, and an explanation of what the reverb knob does in the filter knobs. can anyone explain what these are to me?

[Sti2nd]

Thank you for reminding me on that. What I did was just play around with it and write down what I found out. I come as far as the change. You can probably read yourself up on the effect phaser and then understand what it does.

[Spekular]

@Sti2nd that's exactly what I did, haha. The ones left are the ones that I couldn't hear a difference on/understand the difference.

[tresf]

Don't forget, we can reach out to developers at any time if needed.

Just tag one by name and I'm sure he/she would be happy to explain.

[Spekular]

@tresf I'm not sure who added sfxr though :/
@Sti2nd So, duplicate the signal, shift the different frequencies a bit with time (all pass filter), combining it with the original signal creates phase cancellation that changes with time (loops), then you modulate the frequency shifting (all pass) as well to get an even weirder effect. That's about what I got from it.

[tresf]

Wong Cho Ching ported it for us per:

https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/blob/stable-1.1/plugins/sfxr/sfxr.cpp

But Vesa has written some synths, if wong isn't available.

[Spekular]

@wongcc966422 @diizy could either of you explain the change, square, and phaser knobs in sfxr?

[SadaleNet]

@Spekular
Square: Options for square wave only.
S.DUTY changes the duty cycle. For example, when the knob is at leftmost, the square wave look like this: _|¯|_|¯|_|¯|_|¯|_|¯|_ . If the knob is in middle, the wave look like this: -╵¯╵-╵¯╵-╵¯╵-╵¯╵-╵¯╵-, notice that the minimum position is shifted up and the top position remains unchanged(sorry for bad ASCII graphic).
S.SPD. is duty sweep. It is the change of duty cycle over time. Example: If it is turned to the right, the minimum wave position shifts up over time.

Phaser: phaser is... well, phaser. IDK how it works exactly. It makes the sound sounds less dull. It's similar to phaser fx, but much simplier.

[Spekular]

Ok, I think the sfxr page is pretty much done, if anyone thinks there's missing content tell me. VeSTige doesn't feel done yet, but I'm not sure what more to add. Maybe I should add small screenshots for the icons here as well? ("blue down arrow pointing to a hard drive" is a mouthful to read/understand and the whole thing feels a bit like a wall of text.)

[tresf]

We shouldn't have two bugs open with the same topic (to merge conversation) so I'm closing this one out as duplicate. Technically this one came first, but the other one has bulleted questions/action items so I'm choosing to close this one.

@Spekular please transfer any outstanding tasks from this bug report that you feel worth mentioning over to the other bug so they aren't lost.

Uros seems to be kicking ass with this topic, so I'm sure we'll be able to close the other thread out soon enough as eventually the wiki will be in maintenance mode and dedicated bug reports will be redundant.

[tresf]

Closing as duplicate of #99.