Wikibooks:Reading room/Assistance
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Welcome to the Assistance reading room where Wikibookians help each other solve problems encountered while contributing to books or otherwise taking part in the Wikibooks community. Please title your request and sign your name and date (by adding four tildes thus: ~~~~. General References: Newest Books
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[edit] *.swf files
Hi all. For the Wings 3D User Manual I would want to add some *.swf files with instructions, that are easy to follow even by newbies. These flash files are created with Wink, look a little bit like a video, but in essence are some carefully choosen screenshots with the added value of text explanations/bubbles, navigation buttons and the video impression achived by animating the cursor movement. Here a selfmade sample of what I plan to do (be sure to have read the following, before you click ... you have to trust me and the Wink author and the vendor of the Flash player).
One problem with *.swf is, that it may contain ActionScript, a derivative of ECMA aka JavaScript and thus may be a security risk principally. On the other hand, the needed player runs in sort of a "sandbox" and can by default only write to a very limited area on the users file system (it's cookies somewhere). But then again, even that limited feature is known to be exploited, e.g. by YouTube to keep record of the users sound volume settings (regardless of the domain, where the video is played) ... and who knows, what else is possible with just that limited access?
Other problems:
- *.swf is NOT accepted by Commons, because it is a proprietary format (though widespread)
- Wink is free, but is not Open Source
Nevertheless I think, such tutorial sequences would help the Wings3D book a lot. Wings3D itself IS Open Source and my tut's will be licensed under the GFDL (the above one/link IS GFDL, though not noted in the file itself).
Any hint/suggestion is very welcome -- Deerwood (talk) 03:18, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- Like Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks only supports uploading free formats. So no .swf files can't be uploaded and Wikibooks has no control over that. --darklama 03:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
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- Thanks Darklama for your quick answer. I spent several hours tonight to find a working converter from *.swf to *.svg for the Wink output without success so far, search phrase 'convert swf to svg', from the most prominent links then: the one free online service isn't alive any more and 'Flash Exploit' seems to be unable to do that. Illustrator might be able to do it, but is ruled out because it's not free at all (and I don't have it). If onyone has another hint for a converter or some other way (including some scripting solution) to produce *.svg I would like to hear about it. -- Deerwood (talk) 03:56, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] bookshelves
how do i get a book on a bookshelf (Unlingvä)--Finaloffer (talk) 20:26, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
- The quick answer is you don't any more. The longer answer is you should make sure books are categorized and cataloged instead. --darklama 20:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
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- Why shouldn't bookshelves be edited as long as they are linked from the Main Page? --Martin Kraus (talk) 07:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- With bookshelves, each bookshelf must be edited. With subject pages, editing the book is all that is required in most cases. Some bookshelves have already been turned into redirects to subject pages. More are likely to follow as more books currently listed on bookshelves are listed on subject pages. By following the new system and not editing bookshelves, bookshelves can be more quickly phased out or replaced. The links on the main page will likely be updated once people can use subjects to find all the books they use to be able to find on bookshelves. The less people use the bookshelves to list new books the sooner they can be phased out or replaced IMO. --darklama 11:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. My opinion is: as long as a page is linked from the main page, it should be kept up to date. Well, thinking about it: any page that is not marked obsolete should be kept up to date. --Martin Kraus (talk) 11:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think keeping the page updated is helpful at this point. I could go mark all the bookshelves as obsolete. --darklama 12:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- Maybe you should first change the links on the main page. Any page linked from the main page cannot reasonably considered obsolete, can it? --Martin Kraus (talk) 12:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- I don't think keeping the page updated is helpful at this point. I could go mark all the bookshelves as obsolete. --darklama 12:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. My opinion is: as long as a page is linked from the main page, it should be kept up to date. Well, thinking about it: any page that is not marked obsolete should be kept up to date. --Martin Kraus (talk) 11:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- With bookshelves, each bookshelf must be edited. With subject pages, editing the book is all that is required in most cases. Some bookshelves have already been turned into redirects to subject pages. More are likely to follow as more books currently listed on bookshelves are listed on subject pages. By following the new system and not editing bookshelves, bookshelves can be more quickly phased out or replaced. The links on the main page will likely be updated once people can use subjects to find all the books they use to be able to find on bookshelves. The less people use the bookshelves to list new books the sooner they can be phased out or replaced IMO. --darklama 11:16, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- Why shouldn't bookshelves be edited as long as they are linked from the Main Page? --Martin Kraus (talk) 07:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- The friendly answer is: some bookshelves are protected; thus, you must log in to edit them (I'm not sure, you might even have to be an editor for some). Which book do you want to include in which bookshelf? --Martin Kraus (talk) 07:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
- The even friendlier answer is: I just added it. (Previously I didn't see that you had specified the book.) --Martin Kraus (talk) 11:25, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] ETD Guide
Hi!
I am writing with regard to
ETD Guide The Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ETD_Guide
This falls under the aegis of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, NDLTD, www.ndltd.org. One version of the Guide was developed with NDLTD and UNESCO financial support. Some of the students working with me revised this and put it into Wikibooks. I serve as Executive Director for NDLTD.
Now I see that there is a post that we don't conform to Wikibooks' naming policy.
Can someone explain that?
I've created an account
etdfox0714
My email is
fox@vt.edu
Edfox0714 (talk) 20:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)Ed Fox, 9 June 2009
- The naming convention (which has been superceded by the Naming Policy) states that book titles should be spelled out rather than abbreviated. I'm guessing that's the issue. The Naming Policy is silent on this matter, so IMO, you can do what you want with that post. --Jomegat (talk) 23:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Very confused while trying to upload image
I've spent bits of several days trying to figure out how to upload and make use of an image in a wikibook I'm starting (specifically, Visualizing Computation).
I have learned to use Inkscape and discovered and dealt with some obscure issues (such as why you don't want to have a non-integer canvas size), and now am just trying to install the image on the wikimedia commons and use it in on wikibooks.
I have uploaded an image to wikimedia commons and tried to refer to it from the appropriate wikibooks page, but I seem to be getting the old version of the file (which has the same name, but lives on wikibooks instead of the commons).
Can someone please (a) take a look at the wikibooks page and tell me if the reference is being done in the right way, and also (b) delete the Power_log_med.svg file from wikibooks so that my reference will reach the one on wikimedia commons (telling me how to do (b) is even better, but my understanding is that this requires administrator access).
(note that I'm planning to add Visualizing Computation to the list of new books once I've got at least one good page made).
Thanks, Davew haverford (talk) 19:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
(Upon re-checking, I've noticed that I do seem to be getting the current version of the image, but it looks oddly pixellated on my screen; I'd still be happy to have the wikibooks version of the image deleted, and be interested in advice about how to improve the image visual quality, which as I understand it should never be poor with an SVG. Davew haverford (talk) 19:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC))
(p.p.s. the image looks fine on my Mac running Firefox, but pixellated on Ubuntu Linux running Firefox. This may be a platform-dependent rendering issue. I'm going to stop worrying about technology and focus on uploading good content when I get back to this on Monday. Davew haverford (talk) 01:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC))
- Doesn't look to me like there's a local image by the same name. What you see at File:Power log med.svg is the file from Commons. — Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Welcome message
I just tried adding the {{welcome}} template to a new users page. Unfortunately the first line of what it produced was "Welcome, {{subst:PAGENAME}}!". There is a high probability I made a mistake, but I am not sure what I did wrong. Why didn't the users name appear? Thenub314 (talk) 14:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
