Brian wrote:
On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 12:30 PM, Trevor Parscal wrote:
- The topic is supposed to be on Template Editing which is, at least in the way it's being proposed, a little less of a stale topic - so where is all the energy on that front? We have an XML format to design and complex problems to sort out. Help is really needed. Let's all take a look at the link provided at the beginning of this thread http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template_forms
- Trevor
I do think that sufficient energy has been directed at this topic. People have complained that xml is harder to edit that wikitext and that it is too complicated, among other things.
I think this is an important point.
XML is hard to edit. That's the reason wikitext was created, to "fix" the issues with the, even easier, html. Now, it is being proposed to add a XML processing on top of wikitext to describe templates.
Those descriptions will have to be edited by the same user base that edit all other pages. Even if they are power users, it's not easy to write correct XML on the wiki textarea. We would need to create an editor for the language being created so a template editor can be made.
Look at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_participation/Task_force_applica... It is a form definition, but the fields were defined like * Name [SMALL TEXT FIELD] * Email [SMALL TEXT FIELD]
It doesn't have a formal definition and is thus ambiguous, but it's an example on how to make an user-friendly forms.
I advocate for a simpler syntax for form definition (but we shouldn't on the way reinvent wikitext).
What about creating a <documentation> tag extension, with the elements defined as a list? It would implicitely be <noinclude> If there're several instances, they are equivalent as one instance whose content is the concatenation of all of them (so parameters can be documented inline).
For the example template, we could have: <documentation> *Author: Person who made the work. Anonymous works not allowed.
*License: License under which the work can be used. The license must be determined by the copyright holder, if in doubt, ask on the [[WP:Village Pump|]]. </documentation>
We have two parameters: Author and License, with a short description suitable as a caption, and a longer description available. Both fields can allow wikitext (except list items for obvious reasons).
The syntax is simple to understand, and even with no special software, it can be consulted by anyone.
Now we add parameters and form typing: <documentation> *Author:[TEXT] Person who made the work. Anonymous works not allowed.
*License:{GFDL|CC-BY-SA}[Dropdown] License under which the work can be used. The license must be determined by the copyright holder, if in doubt, ask on the [[WP:Village Pump|]]. *Restrictions:[TEXTAREA] Additional restrictions imposed by the author. </documentation>
As expected, it gets a bit uglier, but it's still straightforward.