Wiki Front Page

Helping keep Puppy well documented
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How do you rate the front page of the Wiki?

Insanely Cool
2
29%
Very Good
1
14%
Great
0
No votes
Okay
2
29%
Below Par
1
14%
Puppy Dog's Dinner
0
No votes
<no opinion>
1
14%
 
Total votes: 7

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darkcity
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Wiki Front Page

#1 Post by darkcity »

What do people think to the front page of the Wiki? Any ideas for improvements?

noryb009
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#2 Post by noryb009 »

It looks pretty good!

bugman

#3 Post by bugman »

which one?

http://linux.wikia.com/wiki/Puppy_Linux

or

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage

very different kettles of fish . . .

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darkcity
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#4 Post by darkcity »

Nice one, wikia help me get some dates for-

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyTimeLine

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Lobster
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#5 Post by Lobster »

Even though we can look like any of these sites :)
http://wikkawiki.org/WikkaFeaturedSites

No effort on styling has ever been done :cry:

The only person having the power to modify the styling or upgrade to the latest wikka wiki software is raffy
You should contact him once you have decided which improvement you wish to implement.

Good luck. 8)
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

raffy
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front page

#6 Post by raffy »

Well, I guess the question is only about the front page. (The styling that is controlled from the host admin is for the whole wikka structure.)

The front page can be styled with HTML, as puppian has long ago showed (but this should be avoided in most pages to keep updating by multiple users easy).
Nice find, bugman! I can see that Darrelljon has worked really hard on it. Congratulations, Darrelljon !!!
Puppy user since Oct 2004. Want FreeOffice? [url=http://puppylinux.info/topic/freeoffice-2012-sfs]Get the sfs (English only)[/url].

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Lobster
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#7 Post by Lobster »

The front page can be styled with HTML, as puppian has long ago showed (but this should be avoided in most pages to keep updating by multiple users easy).


Absolutely. :)
HTML looks much better
but if upgrading in a hurry or with limited time
it is awkward.
A simple way of creating interest is an animated image
(you can see a walking man which I have just added as an example)
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HomePage

Another way of creating something unique
is by using a theme throughout the wiki
http://docs.wikkawiki.org/WikkaThemes

There are not multiple updaters of the front page
It is mostly me, so it is what I find convenient. :oops:

The Drupal site did have much more interaction with users
I was in contact with Tom (the main developer) most days by phone
The whole system was meant to call in the data from the wiki
(so the wiki could still be worked on independently)
Tom never did or could not implement it in this way - ah well . . . :roll:
In fact it was implemented as a CMS only
completely dependent on Toms PHP programming skills
Toms exit strategy was very sudden
He did not have the time for the support required. :cry:

For a while we had a great Drupal system :)
I stopped development of the old wiki for aprox 9 months
to give the CMS a chance to grow. Which it did.
I even contributed as did many others.

Now I mention all this because working out how
a front page should be styled to look wonderful
is the easy part
Installing Drupal or mediawiki or any software is easy.
Maintenance is the hard part. Day to day work is the hard part.

For example I implemented
the wikka wiki system for my tmxxine site
and even hosted many Puppy pages on it
but when the hosting company (I still use them - 'servage') altered the
SQL database to include spam mostly to p o r n sites
I just abandoned most of it (managed to move the important stuff to the Puppy wiki) :)

So raffy may be reluctant to update themes or the current version of the wiki software because it is working and he does not have to remove spam bot comments etc. Perfectly understandable :)

Coolpup has been working on the old wiki (and the Drupal site)
and the new wiki

I am very much less active on the wiki.
So I welcome darkcitys efforts and suggestions and in particular
his efforts over the last couple of months

Maybe we should develop a totally commercially hosted Puppy?
http://www.qwiki.com/

No? :lol:
thanks guys, keep up the good work
Puppy Raspup 8.2Final 8)
Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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darkcity
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#8 Post by darkcity »

thanks for the background info. the only CMS I've used is Wordpress. Though I'm going to be helping with a Joomla site soon.

I like the philosophy of wiki - but a lot of the software engines are a bit dated.

Regarding time spans, was the old wiki before the drupal. If so, would it be more useful shifting stuff from the drupal or the old wiki [to the new wiki]?

bugman

#9 Post by bugman »

darkcity wrote:thanks for the background info. the only CMS I've used is Wordpress. Though I'm going to be helping with a Joomla site soon.
good luck, i gave up with both and wound up writing my own html and css, flat files for speed, a little php for the backend, and tinymce for the client editor

of course there are things that sql offer that you might need, but diy can use it too . . .

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#10 Post by Lobster »

Thanks bugman, as official scapegoat
(a hard job but someone has to do it) Bugman can be blamed for
all difficulties . . . :wink:
The advice about simplicity is sound and understandable . . .
darkcity wrote:thanks for the background info. the only CMS I've used is Wordpress. Though I'm going to be helping with a Joomla site soon.
My Wordpress blog got p o r n i f r i e d (in the comments section)
at the moment I am occasionally using tumblr
http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/
as it has tablet and smartphone support 8)
Regarding time spans, was the old wiki before the drupal. If so, would it be more useful shifting stuff from the drupal or the old wiki [to the new wiki]?
The Drupal site came after the old wiki
Warren kindly hosted and ran early tests etc, Prithish I seem to remember helped with some of the coding.
From what I remember once files had been added to Drupal
Coolpup did a lot of updating. I did some new content but not much. We had a lot more people contributing.
It was great. It was popular.
I did download and set up Drupal. Powerful but complex.
Too much PHP coding and maintenance, adaption required for me . . .
So for example I seem to remember we had some spam comments
and Tom (it may have been with Prithish) had to immediately sort out intercepting code.
Quite a commitment when you are also coding sites for a living . . .

In ye olde days, before even the old wikki
Barry hosted everything, forum, wiki, web pages, Puppy files etc.
and when the wiki got attacked (again probably spambots from what I remember)
Barry just looked for new software and we started again (not so many pages then but even so pages had to be added to the new software)
Now we tend to have to restrict comments to registered users
- before it was totally open . . .

Hope that helps 8)

Puppy Linux
May contain code
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Puppy Links Page http://www.smokey01.com/bruceb/puppy.html :D

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#11 Post by Lobster »

The biggest problem is the hosting :?
At the moment I am getting this:
The wiki is currently unavailable.

Error: Unable to connect to the MySQL database.
That happens about once a month

So I can not make a simple edit (notifying that Puppy Lucid 256 is in Beta)

It is not uncommon to visit the wiki and have to refresh the page
(the first time it does not link)

I always get the impression that the wiki is given second class hosting
Is that the situation? How can wiki hosting be improved?
Last edited by Lobster on Sat 30 Jul 2011, 04:36, edited 1 time in total.
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darkcity
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#12 Post by darkcity »

I get this occasionally. It's a shame, coz if you want to point someone in the direction of help, the help needs to be available. Raffy is the guy who knows about hosting. :idea:

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darkcity
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#13 Post by darkcity »

How about indenting the Puppy release links to make them distinct from the general wiki index.

Also links in caps like GRAPHICS could be confusing.

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