User talk:Red Agliator/Archive

Semantic MediaWiki extension
I was looking through your notes and noticed that you couldn't achieve something due to the lack of Semantic MediaWiki. If you need, I can install this extension over the weekend. I remember looking at the extension when I first started the site, but it's installation steps require a little bit more effort compared to the average mediawiki extension. I ended up telling myself that I would install it should any users request it. --Tyrx (talk) 12:55, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Don't install Semantic MediaWiki yet. I get the sense that there are many different ways to approach what I want to do, but I haven't done even a first pass at researching the pros and cons of the various methods. (My only experience with SMW is from examples on other sites, so I don't know its limitations.)


 * On the other hand, if any of the other extensions I've seen are trivial to install, that'd be great. (Futzing to learn functionality is my preferred method, when it's not a lot of work to set up.) The Variables extension and Arrays extension are two that look likely to be useful. But again, it's probably not worth installing them if it's not a trivial process.


 * Thanks for offering! I will very likely ask for some extensions in the future, and it's great to know that you're willing.
 * - Red Agliator (talk) 14:44, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Both the Arrays & Variables extensions appear to be safe, so I've gone ahead and installed them.
 * --Tyrx (talk) 13:03, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

SMWiki Footsteps
(Removing the other conversation, as it seems rude to leave two on your page for myself.) From what I've seen the things you've written make good sense, though I've not had the time to study them much. Alas, life away from the computer is busy lately. I only have vague ideas of where and how to apply SMWiki at the moment, but when I get some more time I'll look over it and see what's up. Thanks for looking out for me :D -Anon The Third (talk) 13:32, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
 * You're welcome! Though, really, I'm looking out for all editors: One of my goals/hopes is to make it relatively easy for MW editors to change/add to the wiki without having to learn all about SMW and the other extensions. (Or at least with only, say, an hour or so learning time, though that might be too ambitious.
 * --Red Agliator (talk) 13:45, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Image "Standards"
I've noticed that many of the pages describing Building Materials have multiple image placeholders: Material, Texture, Block, and sometimes Inventory. Could you please explain how these images should differ, particularly Texture versus Block? Also, the inventory images seem to be labeled as "75px". Is this (going to be) the standard size for uploaded inventory images?

--LoonWoof (talk) 17:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Good work on the inventory images! Should there be some sort of caption adjacent to the images? And I don't understand what's happening with some of the tool item pages: Crude Axe and Bronze Axe both have identical "preambles" --
 * thumb | right
 * inventory.png
 * inventory.png

(except that Crude Axe has "120px" in place of "thumb") but the Crude Axe main image shows on the left in my browser while the Bronze Axe shows on the right...? Also when I edit the Crude Axe page I don't see the "Wikitext | Preview | Changes" tabs with the formatting bar below it and the "Drop files here" box. Is this just me? Any ideas what's causing this?

--LoonWoof (talk) 04:31, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, some pages have "frames" with the Enlarge icon around the images but others don't. Compare Crude Axe (no frames), Bronze Axe (one frame), and Animal Horn (two frames).

--LoonWoof (talk) 04:39, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Chatting & more
I don't have Skype (and I try to avoid all micro$oft software), so if you could set up either Yahoo or AIM that would be great. Now also seems like a good time to have a conversation about co-ordinating our efforts.
 * --LoonWoof (talk) 00:48, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Info on Using Images in Wikis
I found an informative page that I think you might find of use. --LoonWoof (talk) 03:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That is a good one, it convinced me about why using thumb is better than px. (The fact that I can choose my own default thumb size...yay!)  -Red Agliator (talk) 14:29, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: Projects
Find someone to rework Controls and Commands! Soon! What did you have in mind regarding "reworking" these pages? (They seem rather ugly to me, but mostly correct in content. Hmm... there are commands on the controls page... And there is nothing that distinguishes Creative mode controls from Survival mode controls... Are these the issues you have with the pages? Anything else I've missed?) --LoonWoof (talk) 06:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Doh! OK, after stumbling over a few links (and slapping myself a couple times for good measure) I discovered your notes on the talk page of Controls... I'll look it over in detail and see what I can do with it &mdash; though I've had my own troubles with tables. =/ One more question (yeah, right, sure): Should these pages continue to be separate or would combining them make more sense? --LoonWoof (talk) 06:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I've made what I hope is significant progress on updating the Controls page. Please look over my new version and let me know if you think it's headed in the right direction. Since it's looking like pretty much a complete overhaul I decided to work on it in my sandbox. There are still several items you pointed out on the Talk:Controls page that I haven't addressed yet and I haven't done much yet with the Creative mode section, but you can get an idea of how it will look eventually if I stay on this path. Also, I'm waiting to add the "out-of-date" code block until I start changing the live version of the page, since I learnt that the Special Pages get "polluted" with links into the User namespace. =/ (Not really a big deal, but I want to avoid "spamming" my personal links into other namespaces.) --LoonWoof (talk) 03:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Mass Converting TGA>PNG
Figure out how to mass convert TGA>PNG without losing transparency.

A-hem.  *cough*       Okay, this seemed like a fairly simple task (but I've never done it before on this scale) so after about 5-10 minutes of research and set up and 20 minutes of unattended processing I converted every single TGA within the TUG game folder to PNG &mdash; a total of 1781 images. (Well, that's the number of images that I ended up with; there may be duplicates or something since I started with only 1741.) Now while I haven't checked all of the resulting images, the ones that I did check seemed to have maintained their transparent backgrounds. Woohoowhee! First, I used this command in Linux:

It finds all TGA images in all the TUG folders and copies them to a new location (a single folder in this case). Next I had to install an extension to GIMP, the graphic app that I use in Linux:

Once that was installed I only needed to open GIMP and select, add the files to convert, select   with some options and then. The process is described over here! Um... I've also determined that the TUG wiki has the MsUpload extension (according to Special:Version) that will allow uploading of multiple images at a time. Ah... which images should I dump here? =) --LoonWoof (talk) 02:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Cool! You got that done very quickly! It'll still take me some work to get the same capability on my end, since don't yet have GIMP installed, and the closest I have to Linux is the Mac command line.
 * With all the duplicates and old versions they haven't deleted, you won't need anywhere near 1700 uploads. I ended up with fewer than 200 inventory icons for all items in the game. (Far more than we have on the wiki yet.)
 * Each object/item in the game has a text file in the game folders. (Crude Sword is at C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\TUG\Game\Core\Data\GameObjects\EquipableObjects\Weapons\Crude Sword.txt.) The text includes which image file to use for that objects texture or menu icon. (Usually in the Placeable or Equippable sections, I think.)
 * Don't expect the names of the correct images to stay the same as we get new releases. They seem to make new files when they want to change the image instead of updating old files.
 * &mdash;Red Agliator (talk) 14:36, 2 October 2014 (UTC)


 * First of all... Good golly, Miss Molly! you've been busy this morning. Good work! My simple brain is having trouble keeping up with what you're doing here (and I mean just what you're changing, let alone how those changes work), and then there are the projects I'm (suppose to be) working on, and all the things I need to study/learn... Anyway...
 * I'm very much aware of how many of the images will never be used on the wiki (unless we start adding copious info regarding the inner workings of the game &mdash; which, come to think of it, may be useful for people interested in modding...). There are tons of graphics used for generating texture effects (i.e. bump maps), lots of images for showing tools/weapons with varying states of damage, blah blah, blah. It seemed simpler and ultimely less time-consuming to just do everything so the ones that we needed would be available as soon as it was decided to upload them. As for the files and folder layout see User:LoonWoof/Category_Hierarchy for a partial list of shtuf I've found in the game. Though, I haven't studied the images in too much detail, so I didn't pick up on the fact that there are probably obsolete images hanging around.
 * &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 17:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was mostly commenting on the obsolete images part. Apparently my brain is good at compartmentalizing, and all those other image types have long been shunted into "Things that I can look up instead of remembering." lol
 * &mdash;Red Agliator (talk) 17:23, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: Image Policy
Bravo! I like it! A lot! I agree with everything you said, even the parts regarding my latest image upload (Kinokojin). (Brat!) I was very tired by that point last night and had been meaning to create a page for them ever since capturing the screenshot last week. Normally, I would have done all the things you mention in the article. I didn't clear the UI overlay intentionally because I wanted the indentifying tooltip to show the name. (I'm not sure how often breaking that standard would be beneficial.) I kept trying to think of how best to make the filename more descriptive, but my mind was fogged up and I finally decided to put the decision off until later: "Kinokojin rear view.png"? Ugh! "Kinokojin view of behind.png" (I mean from behind!) All of which caused me to just drop a simple reminder into one of my pages rather than "go live" with it. Could you please suggest a better name for the image? And thanks again for getting the Image Policy started. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 15:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

In fact, I'm really, really hoping you'll take the page over, and change things the way you think they should be. I don't have the brainwidth to focus on image policy/convention AND semantic stuff. (And I'd rather do semantic stuff.) And since you're doing the uploads, and asking lots of questions about policies, it'd be clever for you to create them instead ;)

Oh, it's like that, huh? =) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, I thought I should finally state my preference clearly! Not that you have to take it over. My arguments in favor: you need the info, and if you wait for me, you'll be waiting until after I've finished the semantic stuff. (Hah! *grin*)
 * &mdash;Red Agliator (talk) 17:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Re: chance for a few page standardizations
As I think I mentioned somewhere around here, but I'm not sure whether you stumbled upon it,  defaults to right justification ("float: right"? whatever.) so there is no need to specify. However, explicitly setting the alignment provides future editors with clues on how the image is truly intended to be displayed. (So now what was the point of this post?) Oh, yeah... Feedback. Yeah, I mean, no, I can't think of any changes that need/should be made to the image tags. Carry on, soldier! &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 17:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

re: Property: has seed icon
I was/am working on User:LoonWoof/Sandbox/Fruit Seeds and since there aren't item pages for each of the fruit seeds (and it seems that we probably won't ever need them) there wasn't any way to run a query to retrieve those images (that i could figure out). I read through all of the Categories and Properties and couldn't find anything that seemed to work either, so after thinking about it and checking the Apple page and seeing that it had an image of Apple Seeds that didn't have a property I thought I would give it one. So for other than generating a gallery for the Fruit Seeds page I can't think of another use for this property, but it seemed the simplest way to accomplish what I'm trying to do. Considering that I'm having trouble getting the gallery to work, did I mess up with creating a new property? Perhaps you could look at my markup and see if there's any obvious reason why it's not working? &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 01:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

References to "Main picture"
I just noticed that Template:Prettified_Row_Format_for_ask mentions using "main picture". You might want to look at these search results. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 23:40, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * done! The copy and paste examples will now work.
 * &mdash;Red Agliator (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

re: I'm marking some pages for proposed deletion
Cool. I've marked some of my own user pages as Category:Proposed deletion. We'll see how well this "procedure" works out. =) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 02:44, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Newly Uploaded Images
I uploaded 50+ images in two batches today. Most (all?) of the first batch were on the list of Wanted Files; the second batch are "natural" shots of plants and other items as I found them in the world; they include several varieties of Hostas, Trees, Mushrooms, &c., plus an image of a Paisley Fern. So hopefully there are some images now available for some of the pages you have been working on lately. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 02:29, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Description for has seed icon property
Let me know whether you plan to do this, or whether you want me to do this. Okay, I took care of this, but since it's my first bit of documentation for a new Property I would appreciate feedback on the content. While writing it up I kept thinking about how this is likely to change in the future ("seed" objects for things other than beneficial farmable foods, i.e. not beneficial and/or not a food). But, of course, that can/will be taken care of later. =) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 02:24, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Request for Discussion
From Talk:Fern I have found more plants (Lotus Teeth and Corpse Pitcher) that give the exact same resources as the various Ferns and Hostas. They are neither ferns nor hostas, so one option is to combine those plants, the ferns, and the hostas into a single "Broad-Leaf Plant" page. Does anybody see any downsides?

=) I don't see any downsides to this. As this appears to me to be part of the larger "group pages" subject that I've been champing on a while now &mdash; and you seem to have completed all your Primary Projects &mdash; would you have the inclination and time in the near future to discuss the subject and explore its options? This subject seems to have a bearing as well on some of the pages that you have proposed to be deleted (Stone Age and Scavenging). Please read User:LoonWoof/Notes to Self. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 00:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Grouped objects/items Sure. In the interests of keeping the conversation manageable, we should see if we can narrow down the focus a bit. For example, my main concern with whether or not to group objects has to do with SMW properties: what they yield when broken, where they can be found, and what text (page title) shows up in the various ask queries. If I had to guess, it'd be that your focus on group pages is often from the point of view of images / collections of images. (But that's all by inference from the discussions we've had.) Maybe you could figure out which factors tend make you want group pages, and which factors tend to make you want to split apart group pages, and we can go from there?

ok, I can see how it seems like I'm focusing on the images/galleries. Really all I'm proposing (I think) is that "group pages" consist of primarily an overview of the commonalities of the group members with images of the members (I guess I'm very visually oriented) that are links to pages with more detailed information regarding each of the members of the group (if more detailed information is needed because of significant differences among the members themselves). (Perhaps this proposal would result in "group pages" that are too simplified.) As I'm currently envisioning the pages I don't think any SMW properties beyond "Has inventory icon" or "Has image in world" would be necessary (at least in most cases); they would be used primarily on the member pages since that is where the details would be located. I think User:LoonWoof/Sandbox/Bronze Age (a proposal for an updated Technology page) shows what I'm getting at. In this case, current pages such as Scavenging, Stone Age and Bronze Age would be turned into re-directs such as Technology, Technology and Technology. (After viewing all these Tech pages while composing this lengthy post [don't argue with me! it is lengthy.], and seeing how skethcy they are, I'm tempted to go ahead and make these changes "live" &mdash; but you know the inner-linkages/page-relationships here better than I do and I want to make sure that I don't cause problems.)

Now, these pages may or may not correspond to some of the Categories in use. For instance, if we had a general Food article (we do) that explains about the ways and means of collecting, growing, cooking, storing, eating, packaging, trading, selling, stealing, bronzing (any and all) foods (it doesn't) &mdash; then any page that uses Category:Food would have a link on this "group" page to its "item" page (via auto-gen naturally).

Perhaps, or even probably, I'm biting off too much here. It started with the Fruit Seeds page, which I'm having difficulty putting together in a sandbox, but which I still feel should be done. Then I combined the Stone and Bronze Age "gallery" pages that I did a while back into a single Technology page and now I see how much better that is than the current Tech page(s). And now I've gone and seen how the Food page can be improved in much the same way... Shall we (I?) just take each of these page sets and work at them each as a single project and see how things develop? Starting with the Technology page? &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 03:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Grouped objects/items
I'm not comfortable treating all group pages as the same. There are many different reasons for the various group pages, and how a particular type of change affects one set of groupings will not be the same as how it affects other groupings.

I understand and completely agree with this and I never meant to "treat all group pages as the same". I apologize if I haven't been clear in stating how the various topics I've been contemplating relate to each other. For instance, I see that Concepts and Categories are related but probably should not be used interchangably. Both of those "concepts" relate to "group pages" in that (as far as I understand this shtuf) group pages should(?) reflect the Category (or possibly the Concept) that is described by the group page's contents. Since "group pages" by their nature should have "members" it seems to follow that some sort of list should be included on the page. (In other words, I "picture" the preceding as mostly nested circles within a Venn diagram with Categories and Concepts overlapping [but maybe they don't].) Also, since we are documenting a game which is highly visual, it seems reasonable to me that those lists should, at least in most cases, include an image of each of the members. However, I'm sure that there will be exceptions of various kinds to this structure. I see that I was very vague about how to deal with the various groups in the wiki overall and that I should be taking things on a case-by-case basis, while trying to keep in mind how these various groups relate to and affect each other. That is the part that I have been asking question about because it seems to me that, due to all the SMW shtuf that you have put up, you would have the best understanding of how the pages relate to each other. And your recent comments about the Sort Orders on the tech pages seems to bear this out. (BTW, I looked at the "code" on the 3 tech pages and, while it seems to me that most of the code could be transferred to the Technology page, the Sort Order and Sort Key seem to be highly dependent on the page on which they're defined. (Or is there a way to have these things apply only to a section instead of a page?) Please let me know if it seems like I'm misunderstanding any of the things mentioned here.

Finally, I want to express my regret and disappointment that I didn't complete the "grunt work" yesterday in time to join you for a discussion regarding these things. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 03:25, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Important Changes: Apothecary vs. Alchemy
I noticed that some major changes occurred today with content from the Alchemy page being moved to a new page Apothecary. I found a couple videos that show potion-making (and refining) as being labeled Apothecary, while Transmutation is the function of Alchemy. I started to make changes to some other pages, but quickly realized that this is going to impact a lot of pages, most notably all of the potions (and Tooth Powder, Bone Powder, Wood Chips, Gourd Flask... oh, no... not Fruit Seeds...!). In addition, Category:Potion is listed as a subcategory of Category:Alchemy but apparently it should be under a new Category:Apothecary which in turn should be under Category:Crafting...? Help! =D (um... btw, how's the "family weekend" going?) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 03:21, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

re: Cobblestone
Here's another item/page that I'm confused by its "classification". As far as I understand, Cobblestone is not found "naturally" in the world, it is instead "created" by breaking Stone Blocks. (Perhaps my terms are off somewhat, please let me know if this is so.) If this is correct, why is Cobblestone in Category:Natural Resource? &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so basically anything that is not crafted (or a food) is a "natural" resource...? (Or am I missing another group?) &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 14:17, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * That sounds about right, though I'd have to check the list of items already in that category to be sure. It's not the best name, to be sure: I copied the names/titles people had used on the item pages before I arrived.
 * –Red Agliator (talk) 14:21, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

re: Category:Pages with broken file links
Basically the majority (by far!) of the pages listed look fine to me; after all I was using this page to determine what images to upload... And it has actually become rather hard to find those pages that DO have missing images!

Here's the list you requested: ALL the Mushroom Chunks: ALL the Potions: OK, that's enough "samples".
 * Bronze Hammer Head
 * Cactus Chunk
 * Cane Stalk (the very short page I mentioned! the image was uploaded Oct 8th, and the page was last changed Oct 5th.)
 * Cooked Meat
 * Goat
 * Hardened Wood
 * Hardened Wood Handle
 * Hardened Wood Shaft
 * Large Torch
 * Latten
 * Thornwood (another short page)
 * Blue Mushroom Chunk
 * Brown Mushroom Chunk
 * Ghost Mushroom Chunk
 * Orange Mushroom Chunk
 * Pink Mushroom Chunk
 * Purple Mushroom Chunk
 * Red Mushroom Chunk
 * Silver Mushroom Chunk
 * Durability Potion
 * Fuel Potion
 * Health Potion
 * Plant Growth Potion
 * Speed Potion

Thanks for checking into this for me. &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 15:06, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Cool. Thank you. I'll work on "null editing" all those pages this afternoon.
 * &mdash;LoonWoof (talk) 15:23, 13 October 2014 (UTC)