I have spent a week or so mulling over this note, deciding whether to throw a rock into the pond or not. I am going to throw it.
(@zo0ok and @tmo26 and @all: Please note that I respect all the work that has gone to getting us where we are, and that I think there's a way to leverage it to make things even better.)
But I think we're missing an opportunity. As I read the tmo26's response at https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p276557, I realized that I have had the wrong mental model about how things work today. If I understand correctly, this is the procedure for adding a new device to the ToH:
1) Create a new page that only holds the dataentry
2) Create a new detail page from the template at http://wiki.openwrt.org/meta/template_device. Fill it in with the information about your router: tech specs, installation and debricking procedure, pictures, etc. Use datatable's to get specs from the dataentry for the router
3) Create a new row in the ToH page, and fill in the columns for their new router. Make the first column of the ToH link to the new detail page. Manually fill in all the other columns with info about the router.
This seems confusing/problematic in several ways:
- The dataentry page (#1 above) exists solely to hold the dataentry. It serves no other purpose.
- The dataentry page is separated from the details page, so they may not stay in sync, and they'll certainly be hard to keep track of.
- We haven't stated (at least, I haven't seen) any rules for where (in the file system/wiki) it should be located. Even with guidance, they'll wind up all over the place. It's bad enough that people can put the details page anywhere they want, but a separate dataentry page will compound the problem.
- Information in the ToH needs to be manually entered - duplicated from the info in the dataentry. This violates the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle - since they will inevitably get out of sync.
- zo0ok runs a manual process that produces the very cool variant of the ToH, but it isn't available to people using the site.
I see an alternate way to do this. I realize what I am proposing isn't how things work today, but please hear me out. I have two observations/desires:
1) I really would like the dataentry to be part of the details page. This keeps the router's details together with the dataentry, so they can be edited in a single operation. And the dataentry formatting on the detail page is both functional and beautiful (see, for example, http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/d-link/dir-505 )
2) It would be great to build the ToH page from the information contained in each dataentry. This means no manual duplication/errors, and I think it would be simpler for people to update/add to the ToH. It would be especially cool if we could add a some CSS/formatting to zo0ok's automatically generated page to make it the default ToH.
Is this possible? Am I way off track here? Thanks.
(Last edited by richbhanover on 26 May 2015, 21:56)