WikiWorks

This page focuses around the work to do to improve this wiki site. You can write your suggestions here, and, even more important, you can see here how you can help us!

If there is need to "talk" about something, we can use the Discussion of this page, the talk pages of each page, or our forum. In fact, we have a thread dedicated to improving the Wiki.

Well, update this page as needed! Add an entry, remove an entry, and in general, improve this Wiki! If you need help, you can use the talk page, or the forum!
After you create/fix something as suggested in the lists here, it is a good idea to move the implemented suggestion to WikiWorks/Archive. If you create a page, but you feel it is only a "stub", you can move its line from the list of pages that should be created to the list of pages that should be expanded.

Before writing, PLEASE take a look to the "Notes" section below. It is very advisable.

Pages which should be created

A list of pages that could be useful for readers, and that, for now, do not exist.

• Voting (or votes) - A page that explains how voting works (note: we already have Custom votes page).
• Manual/Paths or something similar (e.g. Manual/Folders), placing info about paths used by the game and the variables that hold them, and the order the engine uses to look into them. Some infos from "Pak load order" thread may be useful.
  • Related: Manual/Game folders or similar: taking a look to "Pak load order" thread, it would be useful to write down how the egine loads stuff from different folders (homepath, basepath, etc).
• Manual/Configuration files - A page that would talk about configuration files, q3config.cfg, q3config_server.cfg, autoexec.cfg, additional config files... the differences between them, the "exec" command, etc. Note: there are some infos about the various "set" commands here, but they may be a bit better explained. And here there is some info about the location of the configuration files.
• Development/Creating bots - A page that explains how to create a new bot: the various files needed and how to write them (example: its chat text lines), the differences from the syntax for standard Q3A bots... Graion Dilach should be able to do it.
• Creating mods or How to create a mod - At the moment there isn't a lot of info for who wants to create a "real" mod: we have just few external links in Mod#External links (and they are focused on quake3 and ioquake3). It would be useful a real page with infos for who wants to create a "real" mod (for server admins, we already have some tips in Manual/Using mods#Notes for Server Administrators... but for developers?).
• Arenas.txt and .arena files - Some documentation about "arenas.txt" and ".arena" files... it looks like there is almost no documentation about this topic on the net...
• Mapping manual - OpenArena's own guide for map creation. There are tons of Radiant tutorials, so the manual should focus more on the "how to do X" rather than the punctual issues with the map editors, as they mostly follow the same procedures, from QuArK to the last GTK/NetRadiant editors. Also, that would allow articles spreaded out there with punctual things to be organized into a single place.

Pages which should be expanded or updated

A list of pages that already exist but should be expanded, updated, fixed... Please explain, is short, what is needed. The list can include images that should be replaced/updated because of they refer to very old releases of the game.

• Manual/Demos - Further expanding needed. For example, the "advanced" section needs info about how to export a demo to a sequence of images.
• List of missing textures - should be updated with the new textures found in the missing textures packages and the Aftershock mod. (Udi will do that)
• List of missing textures and shaders of Q3 and TA maps - should be removed. It's outdated and both OA and Aftershock makes replacement textures on a per map basis, so with every missing texture package there's a full support for a new map.
• OAX - The page about OpenArena eXpanded has got a "Coding tutorials" section that is totally to be done yet.
• Manual/Techniques - What about circle jump? Is that "Genesis - The Beginning of" video using VQ3 or CPM physics? Are there some more "CPM" techniques that should be added?
• Manual/Using mods - It may be nice to mention the existence of server-side only mods (mods that can work without the need for the client to download pk3 files): how they work, some examples...
• Talking about OpenArena over VPN (probably in Manual/Multiplayer/Advanced page)... taking a look to this thread: more useful things have been mentioned there!
• Multithreaded map compiling - Sections about NetRadiant and GTKRadiant have to be written.
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List of images needed

A list of images needed, and in which pages.

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Pages which could be renamed

A list of pages that maybe should be moved to another title (renamed). Remember: a "move" action created a redirect with the old name that point to the new name.

• Mapping (Fuse it with Mapping information for special gametypes and rename it Mapping tips?)
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Useful pages

This is different from the other sections in this page. This is simply a list of pages that may be useful when working on this wiki site. Mainly service pages.

• Special:SpecialPages - A list of useful special pages. Take a look!
• Special:WantedPages
• Special:LonelyPages - Pages that do not have incoming links
• Special:DeadendPages - Pages that do not have outgoing links
• Special:WantedFiles
• Special:UnusedFiles
• Special:DoubleRedirects - Double redirects (that should be fixed)
• Special:BrokenRedirects
• Special:WhatLinksHere
• Special:WikiActivity and Special:RecentChanges - Follow the changes to this site!
• Special:Insights/popularpages - Lists the most viewed pages of the past week(s).
• Special:PrefixIndex - List pages in this wiki, filtering by initial letters if you wish.
• Bugs - This page should always be (manually) synchronized with the bug-tracking topics in the forum, to act as an "index" of open and closed bugs in the current version of OpenArena.
• Category:Candidates for deletion - Please note that only an Administrator of this wiki (User:Leileilol and User:The Gig) can actually delete pages; standard users can only place {{delete}} template in them, for ask for their deletion. Obviously, before doing that, please check page history (some pages could have better previous versions).

Useful templates

To insert a template in a page, use {{TemplateName}}, or {{TemplateName|parameter1=text1|parameter2=text2}}, e.g. {{GPL}}. Check each template page for infos about it.

• Template:Stub - Use this in short pages, that require to be expanded. Check required parameters.
• Template:GPL - Use this template in description pages (e.g. "File:filename.ext" pages) of images taken from OpenArena
• Template:Fairuse - If you need to use an image that includes something that is not released under a free license (e.g. many mods are available for free, but they do not have a "free" ("open") license), you can use this. In this particular case, it is advisable to not use high-resolution images and to do not modify them. If you can, please mention copyright holder (e.g. author of the mod).
• Category:Copyright tags - Place the correct license template in file description pages.
• Template:SeeAlso - When you need a reference to another page in the classic "See Also" format, there's this template.
• Template:Hidden - Allows to create a box which starts closed and that the user can open or close at will, showing or hiding its content.

Notes

• Leave a short comment with each entry, to explain what that page should contain, what is outdated, what's wrong, etc.
  • Optionally, it is possible to mention the date of when a certain entry has been written, and (if applicable) it is possible to mention the person (e.g. who previously said that in the forum) that will care about doing that job. Example:<<[[Requested_page_name]] - A page that explains how to setup ..... - Date: January 2011 - UserX will do it.>>
• About WYSIWYG and source editing: Wikia uses a WYSIWYG editor, but it can cause somehow "dirty" (confused) code (including messes like editing an hyperlink but in reality modifying only the text shown and not the real link!)... probably it is good, when you begin editing a page, to click on the "source code" button (on the right), to see and edit directly the "source" text, in MediaWiki format. To get used with MediaWiki code, maybe you could train working with the famous Wikipedia Wiki site: its help section should contain info about the MediaWiki markup: in particular, take a look to their "Wiki markup" help page. Anyway, you can find the Wikia help section here.
  • If you are a registered Wikia user, you can completely disable the WYSIWYG editor from your Preferences. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and select "source editor" from the dropdown list, it is very advisable to do so.
• Before asking for/creating a new article, please use the search function and check if it already exists. Try to search using different terms. If the page already exists, but has got a different name, you can create a "redirect" (a page that points to another one -even to a specific section-), creating a new page and writing only #REDIRECT[[Destination page]] there. It is possible to make a redirect to a specific section of a page (#REDIRECT[[Destination page#Destination section]]); except for the first letter of the page name, it's all case-sensitive (including the first letter of the section name). Double redirects (redirects that point to other redirects instead of the real pages) do not work and need a manual click to reach the destination page (thus if you find them, please fix them).
• About page titles: page names can contain spaces. Wikia is case sensitive (except for the first letter; case sensitive is ignored when performing a search, but is important when writing a link), but it is possible to create redirects that allow to reach the same page using different names. Please use uppercase and lowercase letters correctly: there is no need to make every word with uppercase!
• When uploading an image, please specify its license. While OpenArena is under GPLv2 license, text in Wikia uses CC-BY-SA license instead. Images in Wikia can use various "free" licenses: Public Domain, CC-BY-SA, GFDL, GPL... Images and screenshots that come from OpenArena should be licensed under GPLv2. Screenshots that include non-free licensed material (like those including a stuff from a "closed-source" mod) should be labeled as "fair use" (in this case, probably it is better to do not modify the images after taking the screenshot and to use "low" resolution, e.g. 640x480). Please try to use the "description page" of an image to explain what it contains, who is its author and what's its license. See Category:Copyright tags for pre-compiled license templates to be included in file description pages.
• Creating a page, do not forget the "wikilinks": links to other pages of this site (e.g. [[Pagename]], [[Pagename#Sectionname]], [[Pagename|Text shown]]). And do not forget to place wikilinks into related pages, that point to the newly created article: if you do not place some links in other pages, people would only be able to find the page using a manual search! Special:Whatlinkshere may be useful.
• It's advisable to register on Wikia, then log in and act as a registered user. This way, for example, it will be simpler to understand who made a certain modify and contact him to ask explaination.
• Sometimes it may be useful to "force" MediaWiki to purge the cache of a page in case it does not yet show the updated version of a template (or of a category): this can be done by adding ?action=purge at the end of the URL in your browser address bar.

Appendix: Basic MediaWiki markup

This is just a small "recap" of basic MediaWiki markup, it does not predend to be a complete help. For more infos you can take a look to Wikipedia markup help, considering its basic markup is similar to Wikia.

'' for italic ''
''' for bold '''
''''' for italic + bold '''''
<br /> for new line (a single carriage return does nothing; two carriage returns make a separate paragraph)
: at the beginning of a line makes the text begin more at right (more :: for more indentation) - just placing "spaces" at the beginning of a line would do nothing.
* makes a line of a list
** for a sub-list
<nowiki> text </nowiki> makes it ignore markup on the "text" part.
[http://www.openarena.ws Official site] creates an external link showing "official site"
[[Manual]] creates an internal link (Wikilink) to the "Manual" page - Please remember they are CASE SENSITIVE (except for the very first character only).
[[Manual/Graphic options]] creates an internal link to the "Manual/Graphic options" page
[[Manual/Graphic options#GLSL effects]] creates an internal link to the "GLSL effects" section of that page (if source link and destination section are IN THE SAME PAGE, one can also simply write [[#Section]], in the example [[#GLSL effects]])
[[Manual|Byebye]] creates an internal link showing "byebye" as text
==Section A title==
===Sub secton===
====Sub-sub section====
==Section N title==
To write text in "courier" style (I usually use it when I mention console commands), you can use <tt>text</tt> or <code>text</code>. I don't remember the difference now, however I usually use <tt> text </tt>.
To paste sections of programs source code, the <code> tag would continue to use various mediawiki features (e.g. ignoring a single carriage return)... so I use <pre> text < /pre> (WITHOUT the space between "<" and "/") instead. I think that means "pre-formatted": that text will IGNORE most mediawiki conventions: you can use spaces at the beginning of the line -I suggest to use them instead of TABs-, a single carriage return will go to a new line, etc.).