User talk:Flanakin

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WELCOME TO RODOVID! Thank you for participating in the project. We hope that you like it. Rodovid is a genealogical database of free content that uses MediaWiki, which would have established a number of principles defined by the community. Please take time to explore the following before starting to edit in Rodovid. General help is here. Most users will need it in the beginning. Rodovid rules. Please try to follow them! Genealogical records. How to create/modify records. Things which aren't welcomed here. Typical mistakes. Test area Try to create/modify records on Engine. Talk about general questions Ask general questions here.

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NOTES FOR BEGINNERS: Single or empty records are not allowed here. Please delete such a record by pressing the delete tab or mark it for deletion using the template: {{delete|reason}} Clan field - it's the surname in singular if it doesn't change by gender (English or Western European languages, for instance). If the name is in a language, such as Russian or Ukranian, where it depends on sex, put it in the plural (for ex., Petrov/Petrova - Petrovs) Place field must have each administrative unit separated by commas (for ex., London, England, UK) Upload photos via special pages. They could be used in different places If you record was changed check whether it was correction or vandalism. If vandalism - immediately tell us about it.

Hello Michael! How do you like the website? How does it feel working with the system? --Stanley 23:45, 16 January 2007 (EET)

I like it. I looked at several family tree wikis before ultimately deciding on this one, so that should say something about it :-) Off the top of my head, the only complaint I might have would be that sometimes looking up parents is odd. By that, I mean the "Find" button doesn't seem to work. I'm a developer, so I look at things like that. All-in-all, I like everything, tho. Are you an admin or a user? --Michael Flanakin 17:05, 16 January 2007 (EDT)

I am actually an admin, even more. :) This website is the creation of User:Baya, aka Yaroslav. Yaroslav, Anna (designer,) and I have combined efforts to make this website a better one. Before new year we changed the Front gate. Yaroslav is about to complete a new engine. Anna has created the new design for internal pages. We are going to post everything in the coming weeks. As to the Find button, if you get nothing as a result, then there is no record for the last name you typed in in Rodovid's database. :) This is a baby website but it will continue to grow at a higher speed in the coming months. Would you like to participate? It is an open project. --Stanley 00:18, 17 January 2007 (EET)

I will say I'm interested in the idea of participating, but I have to admit that I have very little time. Actually, the time I've been spending adding info probably should've been spent working :-P I did notice the change to the front page. It looks good. I'm definitely interested in seeing what else is coming up. Let me know what your plans are and what type of help you might be looking for. --Michael Flanakin 18:25, 16 January 2007 (EDT)

Everybody has little time. :) Kidding...:) Yes, everyone's time is worth money. This project aims to become a major free portal on the web for creating family trees and storing information on people. As to help, I am not a developer myself, it is all Yaroslav's playground (and he is good at it.) I am a linguist and translator by profession. English is not my native tongue. Therefore, I work with content on this website. Yaroslav now works on the new engine, Anna is polishing the design, and I am going to rearrange Help pages and the Main page. I want to add some nice features like famous people in the database; however, the records in the database are for the large part not marked as famous people (musicians, writers, etc.) There is a category feature and title feature but they are not perfect. Then comes the idea of having several templates for pages for Users and individuals (now they are blanks, and only people with some knowledge of wiki markup can expand them.) There can be even more ideas. What would be of interest to you? So far, Rodovid has been a hobby for most of its users. --Stanley 01:49, 17 January 2007 (EET)

I have development and design experience. Honestly, I really have a range of experience, so I'm flexible. I've thought of a few things here and there that might be interesting, but don't know how many I could name off the top of my head. Typically, ideas come to me when I'm adding/editing content ...obviously. Based on that, the first thing I'd suggest is getting a page setup to track feature requests. Of course, since it's a wiki, that should be fairly easy. The only special thing there needs to be is a link in the toolbox. With a "bugs" or "feature requests" page, users could add their own requests and comments. The only problem is the free-form nature of the wiki might be more of a hindrance. If you guys set something like that up, it might even better promote people volunteering to help out in certain areas. I know it might be better/easier for me to volunteer to help on individual features than just an open invite type of situation. Let me know your thoughts. --Flanakin 03:40, 17 January 2007 (EET)

I will set up new pages in the coming days. There is a lot of content at the engine's page and I need to get it edited and rearranged. The comments page is also a plausible idea. I think we should make a notice that this website is in beta. By the way, how long have you been here? And what was the main feature that attracted you? --Stanley 15:02, 17 January 2007 (EET)

I think I started on Rodovid around September or October 2006. That's a complete guess, tho. I remember seeing it before, but I tried a few other services first. Ultimately, after comparing the different ones, I decided on Rodovid. I can't remember the reasoning behind that, but I want to say part of it was how the tree was rendered. As far as the feature request page, I just noticed you have a Feature Request page and Bugzilla. Bugzilla is probably the best answer, here. There's probably no need to setup another page with Bugzilla. Instead, add a link so people can add their suggestions. That should suffice - I know I'd use it. --Flanakin 15:26, 17 January 2007 (EET)

Yes, Rodovid is not very user-friendly at this moment. I will do my best to rearrange the navigation bar and content on reference pages. Would you like to have a look at the raw version of the new design for the internal pages? Here is a link to it. --Stanley 15:36, 17 January 2007 (EET)

Actually, I don't know that I mind the current layout that much. Then again, I am used to it from Wikipedia. I could definitely see a nicer UI, but I don't know how much I like the one you pointed me to. I'm not saying it's horrible; it is decent, but there's something about it I don't like. Maybe it's the colors. I'm not sure. Does the wiki engine have some sort of standard templating engine? If I could take a look, I wouldn't mind giving the UI a shot. I'm pretty big on user experience and am fairly good at coming up with this stuff. The hardest part is getting the ideas together, of course. Once I have a "good" concept, I can usually pump out the template without a problem. I guess, in the end, my hopes would be to cross-pollinate my ideas with Anna's to help come up with the best UI. Or, the additional template could simply be an option in user prefs. Any way I can help out. --Flanakin 15:57, 17 January 2007 (EET)

Anna is ready to "cross-pollinate" ideas with you. As to the templates, in the preferences in right top corner of the page, there are skins, i.e. templates; however, the best skin is the Monobook, which has been used by Wikipedia and thousands of other wiki-websites with some amendments. As a developer, you know that MediaWiki and Monobook are different things. As an example, we have other projects, which are based on MediaWiki but have designs that differ from Monobook. This means that users get the same nice editing feautures as with MediaWiki but the UI is different. As an example, I can menton the website of a Ukrainian orchestra. It is not perfect but surely different from Monobook. --Stanley 17:25, 17 January 2007 (EET)

I've seen the preferences and know about using custom skins, but I was wondering if you might have any info on the requirements for a skin. For instance, can I download one of the existing ones to start off with? I can check the MediaWiki site, but figured I'd ask you first. Either way is fine. --Flanakin 18:22, 17 January 2007 (EET)

Yaroslav says you can download the MediaWiki engine (it is written in PHP) and find the Skins folder. You cam see the code there. Anna invites you to her ICQ: 150447568--Stanley 18:29, 17 January 2007 (EET)

Hi Michael, have you had an opportunity to look at the code of a MediaWiki skin file? Would you like to join efforts with Anna in creating a new design? If so, we can discuss this. --Stanley 21:26, 18 January 2007 (EET)

I've downloaded the package, but haven't looked at it, yet. My hopes are to look at it later this week. I'll be sure to get back to you when I come up with something. --Flanakin 14:59, 22 January 2007 (EET)

Hello Michael! Just let us know as soon as you are ready. --Stanley 15:57, 23 January 2007 (EET)

Help needed - HTML and Wiki syntax

Hello !

Some interesting questions about "Clan:" pages : see engine:Lineage:Test1.

Have you any idea ? --Christophe Tesson - ^talk. 12:23, 20 февраля 2021 (EET)