User talk:Alcahata

Helper Qiana

Hey, thanks for uploading a screenshot for Helper Qiana! Unfortunately, you didn't need to do that, as we already have an image of that model -- File:Sylvari female 1.jpg. In the future, you might want to check the Shared Model project to see if an NPC's image has already been uploaded. I've replaced the picture of Qiana, but don't worry -- it won't negate your credit for On Wiki of Gold. :) --Idris (talk) 18:42, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, the project page you linked looks really useful. Maybe it could be mentioned somewhere in Guild_Wars_2_Wiki:NPC_formatting#Screenshots to prevent other newbies from making the same mistake? It seems relevant to most NPC articles. By the way, do you know any other places I should look at other than the stuff from Category:Formatting_guidelines? --Alcahata (talk) 21:36, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Good idea! I've added a link to NPC formatting. As for guides, I recommend Guild Wars 2 Wiki:Practices and processes -- it links to most of the other guides we have here on the wiki. :) --Idris (talk) 22:02, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Updates

Just wanted to say thanks for updating all of those thief details, as well as both moving and recategorizing the new icons! Your wiki-fu is impressive. G R E E N E R 18:13, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Widget:Custom CSS

Heya. here is my suggestion. Example on User:Chieftain Alex/sandbox6. Can you think of any examples that you can still break the widget for? -Chieftain Alex 13:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so first of all I need to admit that I don't really have any clue how CSS/javascript work, I needed a tutorial to even produce that Ahai example. That means I don't really know what your solution is actually doing. But I tried a few things and my current assessment is: That solution does seem to successfully kill any javascript. But it's also killing things it shoudn't: for example every newline gets escaped to \n which doesn't seem to work very well with many current occurrences of {{Custom CSS}}, see for example User:Alcahata/sandbox2 (missing the thief background image after switching to the widget) --Alcahata (talk) 14:04, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

After some googleing I think that you're right and the escape modifier is the way to go. That's what it was made for after all. I'd probably try |escape:'html' though, that should still escape any </style> and <script> shenanigans and break no CSS. Well, assuming the characters & " ' < > * aren't used in CSS. Not sure if they are, again I have no clue about that lol.--Alcahata (talk) 15:36, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Thanks for trying a few things. I guess that was why User:poke chose to use regex_replace instead of escape in the first place (Smarty syntax link).

I've found an alternative to regex_replace/escape in the form of strip_tags -- I think this might work. -Chieftain Alex 15:38, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

A quick look at MediaWiki:Common.css should give you an idea of what symbols are used in CSS -- so asterisks, greater than and apostrophes are used (target everything, target child elements, and two word font names. -Chieftain Alex 15:40, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the info and the links. And yeah, strip_tags seems to be exactly what's needed here. Also, the entire three pages I tested this on looked fine in the preview. So it definitely won't break anything. That's how it works, right?

But seriously, it's looking fine to me and I don't see what this version could break. But as we learned in your reply above, that doesn't really mean anything :D --Alcahata (talk) 16:18, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Well the good news is since it should be predominantly a userspace template, we'll change it and only revert it if someone finds a bug. --Chieftain Alex 20:21, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Working on my to-do list

Hey Alcahata, good job on working on my to-do list! I have some suggestions/improvements (regarding infobox parameter naming & property handling) for your implementation I'll get to some time around saturday/sunday, but so far I like what templates and styles you created! —Nefastu 22:23, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Nefastu, my apologies for somewhat hijacking your project. I'm glad you generally like what I came up with so far. Originally I hadn't planned to do that much as my knowledge about CSS and javascript is somewhat limited — that javascript code on sandbox3 is still looking suspiciously similar to this tutorial. I was actually about to ask you for your opinion as I've hit a point where I don't really know how to proceed. It seems you already saw my biggest problems. But don't limit yourself to these if you have anything else. I welcome any suggestions (or edits) to improve the project.

Also if you think these are good enough as a starting point, feel free to move them over to the pages linked in your project site. I mainly started here because I didn't know if there would come anything useable from this when I started and I also didn't want to completely hijack that project and edit around in your userspace. I'm looking forward to your suggestions when you have more time on the weekend! --Alcahata (talk) 07:47, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I'd like to read your opinion and/or feedback on the current state of the project! Maybe you can suggest a better button placement/styling for the game mode buttons on /history pages? —Nefastu 21:24, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Looking good so far! In the end I'd be happy with everything that gets rid of the duplicate pages for just a different cooldown between the gamemodes and the giant overhead updating every single one of them. But I really like what you've done here, especially the highlighting of changing facts is awesome.

For the button placement in /history subpages, I've dumped all ideas I have into User:Alcahata/sandbox4. I'm not a big fan of putting the buttons into the infobox as the infobox tends to be the longest part already and I feel like the skill facts are going to be split more often than cooldown and initiative cost. If you want it somewhere around the infobox anyway, I'd probably go with example 2. If you're willing to try something different, my personal favorite is example 5. Sadly that isn't directly compatible with {{Quotation}} and you'd need to copy and modify the content of that template. Example 4 would be easier to implement and my second favorite. I don't really like 1, 3 and 6, but they're there anyway. Take your pick.

As for other feedback:

I still like the idea of including a split parameter in skill and trait infoboxes that add {{Game mode version}} to the page automatically, similar to how status = historical is working. The expected value would be the way it's split, exactly like the split parameter for your historical infoboxes. I feel that would only simplify the editing process and wouldn't be much to add.

And less relevant, I'd also like it if it would be possible to do something like ... | recharge = 10 | recharge-pvp = 15 | energy = 1 | energy-wvw = 2 (so basically to use recharge as default for unset recharge-gamemode parameters). That would also help with the fact that I currently have no idea whether I need to set recharge-pvp or recharge-wvw if a skill is split as pve,wvw pvp.

I'm not sure about the subobject thing yet, it sounds great for querying but I have no idea how it would be implemented. I'll need to have another look at that.

Design wise the way that the icons on the notice template are highlighted in yellow like the changing skill facts (which are awesome) looks somewhat weird, I'd remove that if possible.

Also I feel like the button for two game modes in a two-way split looks... somewhat imbalanced with both icons on the left side. I'd prefer something like the 2nd or 4th example here.

Same thing for the notice template, except it looks even worse when the text moves right when the additional icon appears to the left. I'd probably look to move the second icon to the left side or at least fix the position of the text somewhere in the middle.g at

Oh, and the distance between the buttons and the bottom border of the notice feels slightly too large.

And now I think I've listed even the most irrelevant detail that came to my mind while looking over the whole thing. As you can see, just a few minor nitpicks in the grand scheme of things. Maybe something on this list is useful to you. And in the end I wouldn't worry too much about the styling side, stuff like that can always be improved when it's working. And also this is a wiki and not a web design contest, if people (like me) don't like something, they can always try to improve it themselves.

If you want any help implementing something, just let me know. I can't guarantee it will be pretty, but usually I get it to work. Somehow. --Alcahata (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Wow, I did not expect feedback this elaborate, thank you! And a great job for all the button variants - I have to agree with you, Example 4 with button variant 2 looks best. One more idea for this: maybe a container for the buttons would be a bit better, similar to how the buttons are contained in the Game mode version notice (without text though, buttons only) — if you need a break from SAB, feel free to find a fitting design if you'd like. :D

Regarding your other feedback:

• Calling Game mode version from within the infobox template: I agree, I'll update that.
• Using recharge instead of recharge-pve: Should be a quick fix, I'll have to check if recharge-wvw or recharge-pvp is set instead. I'll probably keep recharge-pve though, and use recharge as a fallback for that.
• Icon highlighting: Maybe I can fix that to highlight the full icon - or I can just remove the highlighting from the icons instead. Not sure yet.
• Spacing towards the bottom of the notice: I'll check that, maybe it's just a whitespace issue somewhere in the template (I hope).

For setting which parameter for the example split=pve,wvw pvp, recharge-wvw or recharge-pvp: Either would be fine, as long as you don't set both. The templates will add the correct classes to the wrapping <span> tag via variables. If you'd like, I can write down a more detailed example for how this is accomplished. —Nefastu 22:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I just took a break from SAB for over 11 months! I can take another break when it's gone again. But I should be able to take a look at that container idea anyway over the weekend.

Regarding the recharge thing: I didn't want to suggest replacing recharge-pve by recharge, but using that as fallback for any game mode if recharge-xxx isn't set. (So | recharge = 1 | recharge-pve = 2 would mean 1 second recharge in pvp and wvw.) But I see now how you're doing it and I like that too. The only thing I'd change is to make it consistent for all game modes (so if the recharge is the same in pve and pvp, you could set ether recharge-pve or recharge-pvp. Right now you need to use recharge-pve. That shouldn't be too hard to change, just checking if any of the three recharge-xxx parameters is set (instead of only pve) to figure out if it's split and then adding the same check to pve that is already in place for the other gamemodes should do it.

Also I want to say I really like what you did with the icon highlighting and text positioning! --Alcahata (talk) 17:07, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

E-Mail

Hello, could you please enable the email function for your wiki account? Otherwise please email me with an up-to-date email address of yours. (This is about the anniversary sweepstake!) :) Thanks! talk 16:38, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Done. --Alcahata (talk) 10:53, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Excellent! Check your mails, please. :) talk 16:09, 17 September 2020 (UTC)