Help for a newbie

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Lora Friedenthal

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Aug 30, 2013, 10:07:46 PM8/30/13
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Ok, so I don't know what I'm doing. I think what I want to do is make rules that specify formatting, but I don't get how.

I made a Pointer card so I could list out all the characters that need a biography.
For order's sake, biographies should have some basic fields that should be filled in for each one.
I was thinking this meant that I should change the rules on the Characters card so that everything listed on it would get the formatting, but that's not right.

Then I thought maybe I need a new type of card called biography, but I don't understand where the formatting would go, because when I make a new card type called biography, it asks me to add new biography cards, rather that asking what the card should contain.

How do I start?

-Lora

Gerry Gleason

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Aug 31, 2013, 8:12:23 AM8/31/13
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For the kind of formatting you need, there are two "rules" that are important, *stricture and *default. Which one you want to use depends on whether you want to have a specific template for a set of cards that stays put, or whether you want to set the initial format and still be able to edit each card.

You can attach these rules to different sets, and Cardtype is one of the primary ones you might use, so if you want all the "biography" typed cards to have the same format, you would create the rule: biography+*type+*structure and when you put a relative inclusion in that card, for example {{+college}}, then all biography cards would have my_biography+college cards formatted in the biography.

The rules are all accessed through the "advanced" tab of the gear menu, so once you create the cardtype and some cards with that type, you will find the set (biography+*type in the example) on the rules page for the cardtype and cards with that type.

Hope that was somewhat clear.

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Lora Friedenthal

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Aug 31, 2013, 12:09:26 PM8/31/13
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Okay... So now I have a card that ONLY has specific fields, like Age, Parents, Season 1, Season 2... But you can't add any information outside of one of these +age +parent inclusions. There will be information that doesn't fall into an easy category. Or that needs to go  in in addition to what's been specified in the Biography cardtype. How do I add either standalone text or new fields on the fly?

-Lora

Gerry Gleason

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Aug 31, 2013, 5:31:58 PM8/31/13
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If you need to do that, you would need to use the *default rule, not *structure. The *default rule just sets the initial content, which can include fields using {{+fieldname}}, but you can also change the content after that and add more {{+another_field}} inclusions at any point.

You want the *structure rules when you want to have all the + cards edited together in a multi-field form, and when the format isn't variable with each card. You can always change the structure to add new fields or change some of the fixed content. As long as you don't change the names of the + cards the content stays in place just fine.

--
Gerry Gleason


On Saturday, August 31, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Lora Friedenthal wrote:

> Okay... So now I have a card that ONLY has specific fields, like Age, Parents, Season 1, Season 2... But you can't add any information outside of one of these +age +parent inclusions. There will be information that doesn't fall into an easy category. Or that needs to go in in addition to what's been specified in the Biography cardtype. How do I add either standalone text or new fields on the fly?
>
> -Lora

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Lora Friedenthal

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Aug 31, 2013, 9:02:30 PM8/31/13
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Ok, so here's what I did. I went to my Biography card, Advanced > Rules > All Biography Cards > Structure and deleted everything in there. Then I clicked on default, changed the type to Biography, and entered the same items that had been in Structure into the text box:

 

 

 

 

Biography

 


Because I want to provide people with a basic outline to fill in. Then I hit submit. It appears to save it.

Then I went to add a new card, selected Biography as the type, but none of the things I had entered appeared. What am I missing?

-Lora

Gerry Gleason

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Sep 1, 2013, 12:31:06 PM9/1/13
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I think you want a combination of the two different behaviors. You get the "multi-edit" form where you can input each plus card to a multi-field form with the *structure rules, that's because you can't edit the card itself because it is supplied by the rule.

We have discussed adding an additional menu item to edit the plus cards of a regular card (no *structure rule), but we don't have it now.

Unless I'm misunderstanding and you just are not getting the *default rule filled in on createing a new Biography card. That should work. You can try clearing the cache, but that should not be needed for this case. Is your Wagn at least semi-public so we can take a look at what happens?

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Gerry Gleason


On Saturday, August 31, 2013 at 8:02 PM, Lora Friedenthal wrote:

> Ok, so here's what I did. I went to my Biography card, Advanced > Rules > All Biography Cards > Structure and deleted everything in there. Then I clicked on default, changed the type to Biography, and entered the same items that had been in Structure into the text box:
>
> {{+parents|labeled (http://teenwolfwiki.416.cldstr.com/wagn/Biography+parents+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor)}}
>
>
>
>
> {{+other relatives|labeled (http://teenwolfwiki.416.cldstr.com/wagn/Biography+other_relatives+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor)}}
>
>
>
>
> Biography
>
>
> {{+Season 1|view: titled (http://teenwolfwiki.416.cldstr.com/wagn/Biography+Season_1+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor)}}
> {{+Season 2|view: titled (http://teenwolfwiki.416.cldstr.com/wagn/Biography+Season_2+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor)}}
> {{+Season 3|view: titled (http://teenwolfwiki.416.cldstr.com/wagn/Biography+Season_3+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor)}}
>
> Because I want to provide people with a basic outline to fill in. Then I hit submit. It appears to save it.
>
> Then I went to add a new card, selected Biography as the type, but none of the things I had entered appeared. What am I missing?
>
> -Lora
>
>
>
> On Saturday, August 31, 2013 5:31:58 PM UTC-4, Gerry wrote:
> > If you need to do that, you would need to use the *default rule, not *structure. The *default rule just sets the initial content, which can include fields using {{+fieldname}}, but you can also change the content after that and add more {{+another_field}} inclusions at any point.
> >
> > You want the *structure rules when you want to have all the + cards edited together in a multi-field form, and when the format isn't variable with each card. You can always change the structure to add new fields or change some of the fixed content. As long as you don't change the names of the + cards the content stays in place just fine.
> >
> > --
> > Gerry Gleason
> >
> >
> > On Saturday, August 31, 2013 at 11:09 AM, Lora Friedenthal wrote:
> >
> > > Okay... So now I have a card that ONLY has specific fields, like Age, Parents, Season 1, Season 2... But you can't add any information outside of one of these +age +parent inclusions. There will be information that doesn't fall into an easy category. Or that needs to go in in addition to what's been specified in the Biography cardtype. How do I add either standalone text or new fields on the fly?
> > >
> > > -Lora
> >
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Lora Friedenthal

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Sep 1, 2013, 1:07:36 PM9/1/13
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It should be? 



That's the specific page where I tried to implement what you described.

-Lora

Ethan McCutchen

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Sep 1, 2013, 8:50:37 PM9/1/13
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The issue is that the inclusions look like this:

{{<a href="/wagn/Biography+other_relatives+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor">+other relatives|labeled</a>}}

(in the underlying HTML) when they should look like this:

{{+other relatives|labeled}}

The problem is tracked in this ticket and should be addressed in the 1.12 release.

To fix it you'll need to use the HTML button on the wysiwyg editor and get rid of all the link syntax.


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Lora Friedenthal

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Sep 1, 2013, 9:05:22 PM9/1/13
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When is that release due out?

I typed everything in by hand originally. Then copied and pasted from the structure box where it shouldn't have been to the default box where it should be. I guess the copying introduced the problem?

-Lora

Ethan McCutchen

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Sep 1, 2013, 11:10:51 PM9/1/13
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1.12 should be out some time in the next couple of weeks.

Lora Friedenthal

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Sep 1, 2013, 11:12:12 PM9/1/13
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Also, I noticed that there's a difference between when I Add a new Biography card from the Biography card page and when I add a new card via another method and specify that the type is Biography. Is that expected or part of what's getting fixed?

-Lora

Ethan McCutchen

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Sep 1, 2013, 11:14:04 PM9/1/13
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That one is tracked in this ticket :).

Gerry Gleason

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Sep 2, 2013, 9:33:32 AM9/2/13
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Had to get a hint from Ethan about this one. The problem is that your *default card has HTML link syntax inside the inclusion brackets (the {{ }}), so Wagn is totally confused when it parses the inclusions.

When you edit the *default rule, use the 'html' button in tinymce to see what the card actually is and fix what's inside the {{ }} I've had this sort of thing happen to me as well and it is confusing. We may need some new code to either detect this or filter it out.

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Gerry Gleason


On Sunday, September 1, 2013 at 10:14 PM, Ethan McCutchen wrote:

> That one is tracked in this ticket (http://wagn.org/use_*default_when_changing_type_of_blank_card) :).
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 1, 2013 at 9:12 PM, Lora Friedenthal <fyra...@gmail.com (mailto:fyra...@gmail.com)> wrote:
> > Also, I noticed that there's a difference between when I Add a new Biography card from the Biography card page and when I add a new card via another method and specify that the type is Biography. Is that expected or part of what's getting fixed?
> >
> > -Lora
> >
> >
> > On Sunday, September 1, 2013 9:05:22 PM UTC-4, Lora Friedenthal wrote:
> > > When is that release due out?
> > >
> > > I typed everything in by hand originally. Then copied and pasted from the structure box where it shouldn't have been to the default box where it should be. I guess the copying introduced the problem?
> > >
> > > -Lora
> > >
> > > On Sunday, September 1, 2013 8:50:37 PM UTC-4, Ethan McCutchen wrote:
> > > > The issue is that the inclusions look like this:
> > > >
> > > > {{<a href="/wagn/Biography+other_relatives+*type_plus_right?view=template_editor">+other relatives|labeled</a>}}
> > > >
> > > > (in the underlying HTML) when they should look like this:
> > > >
> > > > {{+other relatives|labeled}}
> > > >
> > > > The problem is tracked in this ticket (http://wagn.org/strip_html_tags_from_inclusion_syntax) and should be addressed in the 1.12 release.
> > > > One of the Wagneers, Wagn.org (http://Wagn.org)
> > > >
> > > > Wagn. How pioneers roll.
> > > >
> > > > s: ethan.mccutchen
> > > > t: @intogreater
> > >
> >
> > --
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>
>
>
>
> --
> Ethan McCutchen
> One of the Wagneers, Wagn.org (http://Wagn.org)
>
> Wagn. How pioneers roll.
>
> s: ethan.mccutchen
> t: @intogreater
>
>
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Gerry Gleason

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Sep 2, 2013, 10:10:21 AM9/2/13
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I also edited the Test Bio card I created on your Wagn to fix this syntax, so you can use that to compare. Then just delete it, of course.

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On Monday, September 2, 2013 at 8:33 AM, Gerry Gleason wrote:

> Had to get a hint from Ethan about this one. The problem is that your *default card has HTML link syntax inside the inclusion brackets (the {{ }}), so Wagn is totally confused when it parses the inclusions.
>
> When you edit the *default rule, use the 'html' button in tinymce to see what the card actually is and fix what's inside the {{ }} I've had this sort of thing happen to me as well and it is confusing. We may need some new code to either detect this or filter it out.
>
> --
> Gerry Gleason

Lora Friedenthal

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Sep 2, 2013, 10:36:16 AM9/2/13
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Thanks! I also ran into another bug you already have a ticket for, which is that in order to make a new card use the default settings, I have to generate it from the parent card and not just make a new card from anywhere and select Biography as the type.

I seem to be running afoul of a lot of known issues. :P But at least if it's that I know I'm not misunderstanding how this is supposed to work.

I really hope autosave makes it into the queue soon. Because man is it frustrating to lose an entry.

-Lora


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Ethan McCutchen

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Sep 2, 2013, 11:55:03 AM9/2/13
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Both of those issues have (semi) workarounds:
  • you can create links anywhere you want to create new Biography cards.  something like [[/new/Biography]] or [[/new/Biography|add a Biography]].  Those will show the default layout.  I would recommend that you do something like this for most (non-Wagneer) editors, because using the type dropdown is already pushing non-Wagneers to understand more infrastructure than they should have to.
  • fwiw, auto-save already works on existing cards, just not on new (not-yet-created) cards.  You can access the saved revision via view > history.  As for the queue, the ticket upon which this functionality hinges is, perhaps, confusingly named " support revisions for unsaved cards" and is attached to the Wagn 1.13 release, currently slotted for November (see http://wagn.org/roadmap).


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Ethan McCutchen
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s: ethan.mccutchen
t: @intogreater

Ethan McCutchen

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Sep 2, 2013, 12:31:56 PM9/2/13
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I know this is backtracking, but if you're expecting to have a community of collaborators, then using inclusions in *default rules can be a problematic practice, because it leads to editors having to see a bunch of wagneer syntax (when they edit a biography card).  We generally work very hard to make it so that editor interface doesn't get in readers' way and wagneers' interface (like inclusion syntax) doesn't get in editors' way.

There are a couple of other ways around this:
  1. you can add a catch-all field to the *structure rule in order to cover idiosyncratic fields
  2. you can add custom *structure rules for just the cards that need custom structure.
(note that this implicitly addresses the type dropdown issue, because *structure rules do always get applied when the type is changed).

As an aside, I'd ask that we move all further discussion of these issues to tickets.  If we use the mailing lists for site support, it can get really noisy for folks who really just want to be part of discussions that impact the whole community.  And by using tickets we add to the knowledge base of the community in a much more reusable way.

Thanks!!

-ethan

Lora Friedenthal

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Sep 2, 2013, 8:04:46 PM9/2/13
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Ok. Where would you like me to continue this? 


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Gerry Gleason

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Sep 2, 2013, 8:23:55 PM9/2/13
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I think Ethan is saying that you should just go to http://wagn.org/Support_Ticket and create tickets for this type of question. That way it doesn't fill up this list, and also creates a trail that others can find if they have similar issues. The mailing list archive isn't so easy to search.

I've never understood inclusions in *default rules are not considered a best practice, but I think I get it.

You can have variants on a *structure and just create additional cardtypes. Some of the variants may have more or less 'fields' (plus card inclusions), but you can still change a particular card's type between them without loss of data. Tickets at wagn.org work this way, there are a number of cardtypes for tickets, and cards are changed between them as appropriate.

--
Gerry Gleason


On Monday, September 2, 2013 at 7:04 PM, Lora Friedenthal wrote:

> Ok. Where would you like me to continue this?
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Ethan McCutchen <ethan.m...@gmail.com (mailto:ethan.m...@gmail.com)> wrote:
> > I know this is backtracking, but if you're expecting to have a community of collaborators, then using inclusions in *default rules can be a problematic practice, because it leads to editors having to see a bunch of wagneer syntax (when they edit a biography card). We generally work very hard to make it so that editor interface doesn't get in readers' way and wagneers' interface (like inclusion syntax) doesn't get in editors' way.
> >
> > There are a couple of other ways around this:
> > you can add a catch-all field to the *structure rule in order to cover idiosyncratic fields
> > you can add custom *structure rules for just the cards that need custom structure.
> >
> > (note that this implicitly addresses the type dropdown issue, because *structure rules do always get applied when the type is changed).
> >
> > As an aside, I'd ask that we move all further discussion of these issues to tickets. If we use the mailing lists for site support, it can get really noisy for folks who really just want to be part of discussions that impact the whole community. And by using tickets we add to the knowledge base of the community in a much more reusable way.
> >
> > Thanks!!
> >
> > -ethan

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