[SciPy-dev] the wikis

[Fernando Perez]

Joe Harrington schrieb:
> I am cross-posting this to counter some misconceptions about the ASP
> wikis, including the Topical one.
> 
> First, I am *thrilled* to see the new Topical page put up by Fernando!
> The amount and quality of the content is just amazing.  The
> page-of-pages idea wasn't making anyone happy, so it's good to see it
> go.

Thanks for the kind comments, I appreciate it (likewise from others who 
expressed this).  Most of that is cut/paste from all the original projects, 
but it did take quite a bit more time than I had originally planned.  But 
since it seems to be triggering community activity, it was all worth it :)

> Second, several people have expressed hesitation in editing the wiki,
> since they didn't put it up.  Folks, it's a *WIKI*!  You're *supposed*
> to edit it!  Add, add, add content!  All you need is a scipy.org
> account, which you can make for yourself following the link in the
> title bar.  There is history, so if someone makes a change that isn't
> popular, we can roll back the change and no harm done.  If you want to
> make major changes to the structure or content posted by others, you
> can and probably should ask on these lists.  But do ask!  If it's a
> good idea, others will agree with you.

I was one of the guilty hesitant ones initially.  I guess it's just a change 
of thinking mode, and old habits and reflexes die hard :)  But we seem to be 
getting into the swing of it, so I'm sure momentum will pick up.

Another topic discussed at the ASP BOF/mailings was a bit of a site 
'refreshing', beyond the default Plone look.  I don't really mind the visuals 
too much, and I certainly don't expect anyone to put a lot of time into this. 
  But the current site, at least for me, has a real usability problem: the 
three column layout means that the center column, where the main contents 
lives, is always very small! And that has incredibly annoying effects.

For example, when I browse the mailing list archives, messages are bunched up 
inside these little boxes and I have to scroll left and right on _every line_ 
to read them!  This happens even if I maximize my browser to full screen. 
Note that I work on a 1600x1200 monitor, but I have X11 correctly calibrated 
to use quite a few pixels for font rendering, so in terms of characters, I can 
fit roughly 130 characters wide in the default fixed-width font I have for 
mozilla.  After the left and right navbars have eaten up 2/3rds of my screen, 
there is simply not enough space left in the center to show much at all.  If 
the above is not clear, I can provide a screenshot of the problem.  This same 
issue makes it very unpleasant to edit the wiki, as the edit box, is also very 
small, in the middle of the screen.

Hopefully at some point this can be addressed without it requiring too much time.

Best,

f