Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Well, if I'm going to be doing the new Maemo School videos and tutorials only about the new device(s), I might as well donate the old Internet Tablet School text to the wiki.

Please don't start copying any content yet though, I want to make sure a few problems are going to be sorted out before transferring anything.

Some of the content may be slightly out of date (for example putting a Diablo tablet into host mode is a lot more difficult than Chinook), but if it's wikified then anyone will be able to update it, so presumably this shouldn't be too big a problem. Presumably people will keep the target audience in mind when doing updates?

The thing that's most needed on the wiki is a separate tutorial index page. The current wiki index is alphabetical which doesn't really make it easy for beginners to browse (try browsing for how to send an e-mail for example). An index by theme, with articles manually ordered by importance (important basic stuff at the top of each theme) would be much more suited to beginners.

It would also be nice if there was some kind of prominent link on the site to the beginner's stuff because beginners are going to be less likely to explore the nooks and crannies of maemo.org.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

No replies at all?

In previous threads some people said they wanted tutorials done as text added to the wiki. At least a few people said they'd help with wikifying the existing Internet Tablet School texts if I wanted to donate them.

Now that I'm trying to donate the ITS's existing texts to the wiki, there's total silence.

Should I just drop the whole idea? (That's not meant to sound diva-esque, it's a straightforward question.)

Like I said in the other thread, if someone else wants to do some better tutorials that's great. I'm offering these tutorials because no one else seems to want to do any.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

You must have patience
The volunteers will come soon
(Was just reading this)

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

because iam a french noob and cause i have a time to give
because internet tablet school and maemo wiki help me a lot in user view
i can give a time to shell all text school in the wiki (if you give me update you want on your content and if you give me a good categorized chart like you said upthere


but use me if you dont have a better man for that

:)

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

(bangs head on table)

When I did tablet school, people suggested I should put its content on maemo.org.

When I posted about putting tablet school content onto maemo.org there were immediate replies from several people vehemently saying "it's got to be in the wiki, it will only work if it's in the wiki, I'll help you put it in the wiki".

Now that I'm offering to put tablet school content on maemo.org through the wiki and asking for their help, they don't reply.

Well, I got one reply by PM but it basically said do it yourself if you want, but the wiki already has most of the topics covered.

(bangs head on table)

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

I've been out of town for several days, so I'm just getting back online. Give me a couple of days to get back in the swing. And, I can help as well.

Tim

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Okay, maybe I spoke too soon! Thanks for the offer!

Can anyone address the index issue though? As it stands it's too difficult for beginners to find what they want from an alphabetical index. It needs to be organised by theme if it's to be made easy to browse.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Similar to Tim, not checked tmo for over 24 hours (a bit odd in and of itself, admittedly), but 3 messages in just under 24 hours is a bit quick to moan about a lack of help.

The main concrete thing you need at the moment, I think, is a new index page? I'd suggest making sure each page includes, at the footer:

And it's probably worth creating the pages under a "School" namespace (possibly by OS as well): "http://wiki.maemo.org/School/Diablo/Enabling_USB_host"

Finally, Iet's have some guidelines for title: in your example above I could have called it "How_to_enable_USB_host_on_diablo" but I went for the consistent "<verb>_<noun>" structure in an active tense. It's an approach ("how to" is superfluous either way, I think) but I think some consistency would be good before too much content gets cross-linked.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Chill, please.

That's not remotely what I said. I don't have unlimited free time at the moment, and I have several more immediate obligations to address with the time that I do have. If you want to start moving the texts to the wiki then I can do a little cleanup cleanup after you do so. The index stuff, etc. can wait until later.

Make that:
I'd prefer for them to be in the main "namespace" (namespaces look like "School:<article title>" actually), personally, but it's up to the group (and they can always be moved later).

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Well, it was more that I saw some of the pro-wiki people posting in lots of other threads but not this one.

And then the PM saying that most of the ITS content was already covered by the current wiki content...

Anyway. :-)



I really don't know what that means... sorry.

Ahhh, hang on, you mean like a sub-directory of a website?

The OS thing could be a problem as some of the tutorials only work with Chinook (mostly the ones that depend on host mode as there's no easy way to put Diablo tablets into host mode AFAIK).

Also, beginners probably won't know what their OS version is because it's not really mentioned anywhere in the interface. They are much more likely to just know the model number of their tablet, and whether they have updated the firmware.

The approach perhaps ought to be that people find tutorials by tablet model, and are told to update to the latest firmware in order to make the tutorial work. That way they wouldn't have to know anything about firmware versions, merely make sure they have updated the firmware recently.

Of course it would mean the tutorials would all have to be checked (and possibly updated) to make sure they work with Diablo.


Clarity might be more important than consistency. Some tutorial titles lend themselves to "how to" but others don't. Couldn't titles be done on a case-by-case basis?

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Yes. "Namespace" is the wrong term, as GeneralAntilles pointed out. I can't remember what the right one is - but "sub-directory" seems to be pretty understandable :-)

Isn't the OS categorisation a good thing if they only work on certain OSes? Anyway, as for USB host on Diablo - I start "USB" from my "Settings" application menu and click "Host".

If I had the appropriate cable, I wouldn't even need to do that - but I use the as-shipped cable and a gender-bender.

Oh, indeed - but I'm not imagining people having to guess the URLs ;-)

Sounds sensible. Could even have nice large images of each of the tablets to click on.

[quote]Of course it would mean the tutorials would all have to be checked (and possibly updated) to make sure they work with Diablo.

Aye, not too much of a problem if they're only text.

Depends if the index is going to be maintained by hand (allowing different titles on the index from the page itself) or auto-generated as much as possible.

I favour the latter (reduces work), and so would try strenuously to avoid a "how to" prefix unless absolutely necessary. After all, it's a tutorial - it's going to be a "how to".

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

True, there is a contradiction in what I said. :-)

I suppose what I should have said was:

If people only know their device model number and are aware of when they last updated firmware, then perhaps the best approach is to organise tutorials by device number and instruct them to update to the latest firmware.

The tutorials would then have to be kept up to date to work on the latest firmware.


What do you have installed that gives you a host option?



Yes, that sounds like a good idea.



It wouldn't be that hard to maintain by hand, especially if very few people are actually writing these beginners tutorials.

And it would be much easier for beginners to navigate a themed index with basic lessons listed above complex ones. That's how school textbooks organise themselves, for exactly the same reason.


The index would still be better with manual sorting because the more complex stuff doesn't necessarily come later in the alphabet.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

True. Similar to the forum split here, taking into account devices which couldn't be upgraded further (i.e. somewhere to put fremantle tutorials without removing the diablo ones)

Hopefully, a mini-team like the Bug Squad, tmo taggers, Wiki Action Group could come together to do that. (I'd hope you'd want to still be involved in that)

http://tabletblog.com/2008/03/n810-native-usb-host.html

With the proper OTG cable, it Just Works; but since a gender-changer was cheaper...

Yup, I'm convinced. You could do it automatically with leading prefices, but the index also gives a single point of quality control.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

You mean USB Control?

That isn't available for Diablo though...

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

So it appears. It works fine though, so I wonder why it's not in diablo Extras.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

It doesn't install through the Downloads site either, just tried to make sure.

Is there any way for it to be made available through Diablo Extras? If it works on Diablo then it ought to be...

I know there are workarounds but I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible, people ought to be able to install this with one click just like other Diablo apps.

It would be quite nice to make this happen because a number of the most popular tutorials (keyboard, memory stick, HDD) depend on USB Control being easy to install. Once it's installed, it's really really easy to use USB accessories through a gender-bender.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Urho Konttori has uploaded a version of USBControl to extras-devel for testing.

Needs a `Section' tweak for v1.1 before promotion to Extras but otherwise looks fine.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Hmm... how long do you reckon it will take before it's promoted?

It would save a LOT of bother regarding the USB tutorials if USB Control was available in Extras, they wouldn't really need to be rewritten at all.

It would also mean that pretty much all of the tutorials would work with Diablo.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

If the version in extras-devel does work, and all that is needed is a slight modification to change the section, then it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to promote it to extras.

Maybe you should contact Urho Konttori?

Additionally, anyone with upload rights can do that, but it's only polite to contact the maintainer first (I know I wouldn't want someone promoting a package of mine to extras if I didn't deem it ready).

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

I did (but didn't make it clear in my post). Gave him a prod yesterday on #maemo, and gave the feedback via email.

I'll let you know the status as it changes.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

That's great, I was going to drop him a note, thanks for doing it.

What's frustrating is that there's a USB add-on in Diablo Extras which sounds like it's going to offer host mode but doesn't. USB Control is the only easily-installable app which makes host mode easy to switch on.

Hopefully there will be some equivalent of USB Control built into Fremantle, it's jolly useful.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Maybe I'm being really stupid but where's the option in the wiki for creating new pages?

I've logged in but can't see any way of doing anything but editing what's there already.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Wait a second, is creation just a case of entering the URL I want for the page and then editing that?

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Yes, that's it.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Okay, feedback please on this:

http://wiki.maemo.org/How_To_Fix_Flash

and also, how do I add that to a particular category?

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Okay, well, as there's been no response so far but I'm in the mood to get things done, I've "been bold" and gone ahead with an index page for these tutorials:

http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_For_Beginners

I'll add them to this page manually, they can be moved or restructured later if necessary.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Okay, I've added the first couple of sections to the Maemo For Beginners page.

Can one of the Wiki regulars confirm that I'm doing more-or-less the right thing before I add any more stuff?

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Okay, sorry for the chain of posts and sorry for saying "Okay" before each one of them. :-)

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

I've no time to get into the specifics, but the general pattern is sentence, not title capitalisation.

So "How to fix flash", "Maemo for beginners" etc.

The former I'd also rename as - first reading - I thought it was related to firmware flashing.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Flash thing - fixed

Capitalisation - I used small letters when renaming the Flash article, but the wiki itself capitalised them all in the title.

The weird thing is if I copy and paste the title it isn't capitalised, but the actual page displays the title as capitalised.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

It's a CSS transform on the headers. You only need to pay attention to the URL.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Just to make clear I don't personally mind it being capitalised, it actually makes it easier to read if it's used for just the main title.

For example:

Gardening For Beginners:
How to care for flowers and trees

is easier to read than:

Gardening for beginners:
How to care for flowers and trees

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Sure, but I do. ;)

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Well, I was thinking more about the needs of the reader.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Right, here's what I'll do:

-I'll add (almost) all the tutorials into the wiki
-I'll add them to the "Maemo For Beginners" page
-I'll go through them to tidy them up

...so please don't worry if it looks like an article needs correcting at the moment, I'm going through them and will post when I've finished.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Awesome start so far! I'll be free starting next week, so let me know where you'd like some specific help.

Tim

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Right, I'm off to bed, but I'll try to get the remaining tutorials transferred tomorrow, and then tidy the whole lot up.

Can I ask that people leave the tutorials as-is while I'm doing the transfer? I know they've got mistakes and inconsistencies caused by the move, but I will get them corrected.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

I've added a few more tutorials, still haven't finished though and I haven't gone through them yet either.

Will do more tomorrow.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Aergh, work stuff has got in the way (Ovi Store is launching soon). I've just added a few more tutorials to the Wiki but it's going to take me a while to get them all in there and checked, so please don't think I've forgotten. I will get through them all eventually.

Re: Need help with putting the old Tablet School text on the wiki
 

Another update: I've been overwhelmed with stuff to do on AAS / Ovi Gaming as there are hundreds of games on the recently-launched Ovi Store and I've had to research all of them (believe me it's pretty weird trying to find screenshots of a Taiwanese grocery shop management simulator).

I will get this transfer thing done, just give me a few more days to get Ovi Gaming off the ground (By the way, anyone interested in gaming on Nokia phones should check Ovi Gaming out, and we should be covering Maemo games too if it gets Ovi Store.)