Updates to the Helio Wiki
Contents
[show]
This is, rather obviously, a list of things that either need to be or should be (IMO) changed or updated.
Send User:Forge the Hybrid a message at Fanon or HelioWiki if you'd like to contact him directly.
Feedback is appreciated and will be kept in mind when putting the following changes into action.
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave your opinions!
Original google docs here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2OoGqCBNwgzesEDB9lyPW72JTEpWoh-HYvWGeAZ0rs/edit?usp=sharing
Navbar
The Navbar is in need of some changes to be current.
Coding tools tabCSS Patterns: this is the most important page I feel, second only in theory to the Free Patterns page. It should probably stay where it is.Custom Code: Maybe move it to the bottom, since it has mouse over effects and it's the only one that does. These should be organized by importance I think.Custom Comments: Third most important. Cool, but not as necessary as quotes or infoboxes.Custom Infobox: Most important thing in this section. Almost every single coded page has one, and it should be easily findable for a new coder.Custom HTML Infobox: Least important. More of a novelty I think, I haven't seen anyone use it, ever. Should be at the bottom.Custom Quotes: Second most important thing.Custom TOC: Fourth most important. Kind of feel the same about it as a I do the HTML infoboxes, but to a lesser extent.Free Formats: This is definitely the first/second most important page. I'd place the CSS patterns a notch above it, and I'd say it should be right below it in the dropdown.Installed Fonts: This is important-ish, although most people leave the font as the default one. This should be #3 in the list, after free formats and css patterns.Misc. Code: this is NS's thing to do something with, but I feel like their formats should go under free formats, be moved to the bottom, or put into a collapsible window. imo (Misc. Code) should be that, not something as intricate as a complete format. But again, it's NS's.
Experiments tabChatskins: This is, in my opinion, no longer an experiment. It should be moved to a seperate tab, but more on that later.Experimental Pages: This links to a category page, made for WiP OCs that will be moved to Fanon on completion. Good idea in theory, but honestly there isn't a good reason for it seeing as everyone that goes to Helio Wiki and makes edits there are doing it for the Fanon.New Templates: This is also a category, and it appears to be made for holding templates that did not come default from wikia, and despite the number of non-wikia templates, only has a few entries.
Navbar Changes
Coding Tools tab:
Rearrange the order:CSS patternsInstalled FontsMiscellaneous CodeCustom CodeCustom InfoboxCustom QuotesCustom CommentsCustom TOC
Experiments tab:
Should be removed
Unnamed tab:
Add the following:Free FormatsChatskins
Categories
Making changes to the categories; organizing and consolidating them
Category:Experimental Pages Remove or cut down on pages with it; the pages with this category truly should be experimental.
Category:Coded pages All coded pages in Category:Experimental Pages should be moved to this category, unless they actually are experimental. This category seems overkill to me, as next to all pages are coded. Should be renamed from (Coded pages) to (Coded Pages) to fit with Experimental Pages and it being a title.
Category:New Templates I'm thinking this one should just be removed. It's pretty unnecessary. There are many templates that fit into Helio's description for this category, and yet so few in it. Safe for removal.
Category:Characters Should be merged with Characters (Fanmade) since all characters here are fanmade.
Category:Characters (Fanmade) See above Category.
Category Changes
Category:Experimental PagesRemove or cut down on pages with it; see below.
Category:Coded pagesAll coded pages in Category:Experimental Pages should be moved to this category, unless they actually are experimental.
Category:New TemplatesRemoval.
Category:CharactersMerge with below category.
Category:Characters (Fanmade)Merge with above category and then delete this one.
Other
For things small enough they don't need a whole section, but big enough I want opinions
CSS Patterns
This page should be more organized. I'll get to work on a organized version on one of my sandbox pages once I have time.I plan on putting content in tabbers, renaming things to better suit them etc.
Free Formats
I recently redid this page, I'm still looking for feedback.
Help Page
The Helio wiki should have a help page for general coding issues that beginners have.
Help:RulesA consolidated version of what Fanon has, only what's applicable to Helio Wiki.MAKE SURE TO MENTION ADDING (Category:Candidate for Deletion) if you're done with a page, or else replace content with something about deleting the page.
Help:CodingThis one is obvious, either a subpage or a header on the wiki with faq and solutions to common coding problems (forgot to close a div tag, no (") so their styles don't work, and so on).
Discussions
Maybe something small promoting the use discussions, so we can test it out nicely, get some real feedback to send to FANDOMSuggest users ask their questions on discussions in the welcome message or at the top the help page.
Short Page cleanup
We have a bunch of short pages on the Helio Wiki that haven't been edited in a few months or years.Maybe get the JS thing Wongs uses to do the short page cleanup on Fanon; if not, we can do it by hand.
Fonts
We have bunch of fonts, most of which we have hosted on the wiki, a few of which we get from Google Fonts.To minimize the size of the css file, we can get most of our fonts from google. 14 out of 18 are available. My question is would we rather keep it the way it is, or switch to mostly using google fonts as a way to shrink css file size?The fonts avalible on google are Architects Daughter, Coming Soon, Covered By Your Grace, Handlee, Indie Flower, Lora, Rock Salt, Seaweed Script, Shadows Into Light, Swanky and Moo Moo, Tangerine, Ubuntu, Waiting for the Sunrise, and Walter Turncoat. See them hereMy opinions about switching to google are mixed: On the one hand, it will shrink our css file and allow us to remove the files from our wiki, but on the other hand, we are now relying on google to deliver our fonts, and if they go down, so do our fonts.Maybe ask Fanon admins/'crats if they'd like to use google fonts so they have more font availability over there? (it only takes 1-2 lines of code to get all 14 fonts, so size isn't an issue, and if they did that we'd have more fonts to play with.)
Main Page
I think our main page could use a bit of modernization.On the side bar we have Wiki Content, Useful Links, and Wiki Code.Wiki Content: This is pretty redundant considering everything here is also in the Navbar. Removal or reconsideration of what goes here.Useful Links: The first two links are most useful, the WikiText link is kind of useful but I have no idea who uses it; I try to use only html tags and avoid wikitext when it's not too much trouble. (for example, I'm using wikitext bullet points so I don't have to mess around with confusing ul and li tags) And for the System Messages, that could be removed. It's not very necessary.Wiki Code: Could be organized better; all the css together, then js, then the list of mediawiki pages.
New Wiki Theme
Maybe the most questionable thing on this list.Helio said back in Sept. 2016 that people were free to fiddle with the theme, and I don't think anything's changed since then. Maybe we could hold a contest either on HelioWiki (or on Fanon) to give the HelioWiki a fresh appearance.You can highlight forum posts even after discussions have been enabled so we could host it on the helio wiki, although I'd bet we get 8-9 voters tops.Maybe admins just decide then?
