PDA

View Full Version : Articles, Journal and all around



Petr Schreiber
03-01-2011, 14:36
Dear friends,

as we have this new forum system already in blood, what about taking full advantage of the possibilities and have a look at the article section?

You can find it in the top part section of forum. When clicking the "Articles" button, you can view the articles we have here, and also create new ones. How? Just by looking to the right top part, select "Article" and hitting the Go button.

Right after that you have the possibility to create article immediately using very comfortable WYSIWYG editor, very similar to the one you have while editting posts, but with more editing possibilities, such as:


subscripts
superscripts
page breaks, preview break
easy table creation


... and much more.

What is most important - this can be very good way to share knowledge of general use. Forum is great for discussions, but we cannot expect newcomers to browse almost 4000 threads we have here to find some information. Having nicely written, brief yet explanative text on single topic can become invaluable source of knowledge.

But for this, it is necessary to come up with some logical category structure for the articles, otherwise the info could be as non-trivial to find as sometimes can be in forums (by nature of forum).

From my side, I would propose the following article categories:


About language - info on the ThinBASIC as a such
SDK Development - tips and hints for module developers
<Name> Module - articles related to specific modules, I would like to repost all articles on TBGL to section "TBGL Module" and also add tutorials for the beginners (lesson bassed, from basics to advanced). Each module with active developer would have such a section. So this would mean having "UI Module", "TBAI Module", "TBGL Module" and such sections
General purpose algorithms - info on commonly used approaches, such as allocators, state space search, sorting algorithms and such
Uses of ThinBASIC - presentation of projects where you used thinBASIC. More or less motivation for others to see what can be done, not necessarily full of code :)

Each of the sections would have one introductory article explaining what user can find here.

Regarding ThinBASIC Journal - I would like to announce that I would like to see TBJ to become something like info brochure about ThinBASIC, which would go out only at time of new stable release. That is similar model as for the first 2 issues. The change is how the contents are generated - they would be the relevant articles published between two Journals in Articles section.

The Journal as was had one great disadvantage - authors had to wait (and readers too) until ThinBASIC is out so they can read the articles. I still feel bad for Matthew and Mike, as I have more than year old articles for Journal #3 from them. With articles published immediately using the Articles system we get much better communication between authors and readers.

Let me know what do you think about it :)


Petr

ErosOlmi
03-01-2011, 16:11
Ciao Petr.

I can only be happy about your idea.
As soon as we have decided the category list I will create them.

Please consider that at the moment only admins and moderators can directly publish articles. All registered users can create articles but cannot publish them directly without a moderation performed by admins or moderators. This is done for security reasons.

I will create a new User Group for users able to create and directly publishing articles.

Eros

ErosOlmi
03-01-2011, 18:51
Petr,

I've created your Section suggestions.
I've added some categories (for better classifications). Categories are characteristics of the articles so I can create any and more can be assigned at the same article.
Also create a special user group for those trusted users allowed to automatically publish articles without any filter.

Let me know
Eros

Petr Schreiber
03-01-2011, 19:03
Thats great Eros!,

and also smart idea with Modules having sub items, I like it!

Going to eat what does not manage to escape from fridge and then I will look at it in more detail and will try to recreate some articles from TBGL website, following the long planned pattern of "everything under one roof".


Petr

ErosOlmi
03-01-2011, 23:19
I see you already post great articles.
Let me know if you need any new category.

JosephE
04-01-2011, 07:04
This is a wonderful thing. :) :D

Petr Schreiber
04-01-2011, 13:57
I am also reposting all old articles so we have everything on one place. The old articles need rewrite - some for technical reasons (ThinBASIC has gone long way since posting) or from language point of view: the article about creating UFO was terrible :p, so I tweaked it a little, should be visible now.

The good thing is that the articles can be edited infinitely, so everybody always see the up to date version.


Petr

Charles Pegge
05-01-2011, 00:33
I am in awe of your articles Petr, where do you find the time?

Charles



Time-Turners
A Time Turner may be used for short-term time travel. Hermione receives a Time-Turner from McGonagall in Prisoner of Azkaban, so she could attend more classes than time would normally allow. Hermione is ordered to keep it a secret from everyone, including Harry and Ron, although they do notice the suspicious impossibility of her schedule, and several bizarre disappearances and reappearances. Hermione lets Harry and Ron in on the secret near the end of the book, when she and Harry use the Time-Turner to save Sirius and Buckbeak. Feeling the strain from her heavy course load, she finally returns the device to McGonagall.

Petr Schreiber
05-01-2011, 10:34
Hi Charles,

most of the posted articles are from past year, written in month interval, which I found ideal for getting the idea, writing the script and producing the article. I observed if I do some action in discrete time intervals, it is more painless.

The article now published as MovieFX: Combining photo with 3D object was originally published under slightly different name and contained multiple mistakes. So I think maybe better to not hurry and take even 2 months so the article is worth it. Or let the dust settle down on article for 1 week, then re read and decide whether to publish or not.
The mentioned one I had to re-text completely, as it could not be clear to anyone besides me because of too brief explanations.

Articles are good way to backup knowledge even for their authors, some facts were like new for me when I reread them before publication :D


Petr