User talk:McClaw

Links to Icons on Tables

Great idea on adding the link tags to all the icons on the tables for all the crafting surfaces. Cdrras (talk) 09:56, 26 February 2013 (MST)

I thought it was needed, and I found out how from the MediaWiki "How To" guide. It's always nice to be able to reference what you find. Also placeholders for crafting surface versions. --McClaw (talk) 09:59, 26 February 2013 (MST)

Admin

You ought to consider throwing your name in to be an Admin. Unfortunately, I am not a Bureaucrat so I can't promote you, but since you are a major contributor, I believe it would benefit you to have the additional privileges. It makes things a lot easier at times. I think MintYogi is the only Bureaucrat (and I'm assuming what would be his Admin account), so if you are interested, I would throw your name into the section on the Main Page talk page and hopefully we will promote you whenever he is on again. Just a thought! Cdrras (talk) 10:11, 26 February 2013 (MST)

Cycling Gem Pickaxe Big

Gonna make it? Or is the page fine as it is now? --Abcboy (talk) 14:33, 30 April 2013 (MDT)

I can tolerate the page the way it is. Besides, I got my images from the pictures that show up in front of the Tool Bench when crafting. I haven't been able to get useful ones for the gem pickaxes off the portal. --McClaw (talk) 14:37, 30 April 2013 (MDT)

Another category

Category:Large item icons is sad. You haven't been putting images in it. --Abcboy (talk) 15:09, 25 October 2013 (MDT)

Heh. I've considered myself luck to remember putting any of them in categories! --McClaw (talk) 20:33, 25 October 2013 (MDT)

Tools

See here. It really is a mess. --Abcboy (talk) 23:54, 6 January 2014 (MST)

Also, have you looked at Help:Contents recently? I made some changes.

Also, some issues with levels. Levels are probably written at least three times in an article. Infobox, text thingy in Where Found, and in every Craft box. A flywheel is said to be crafted at a "Workbench Level 3", "workbench (of level 3)", and "Workbench Lvl 3" in each of those places. Other articles have things like "Lvl. 2 Press", "level 2 press", and "Lvl. 2 Press". Even bench naming is inconsistent. Should it be "Metalwork Bench (either)" in any of those places or just "Metalwork Bench" with its electric counterpart implied?

Should Tool be in Category:Tool (and more)? If so, how should it be put in? We can make it placed first by alphabetizing it with *. --Abcboy (talk) 08:13, 7 January 2014 (MST)

The "Tool" article probably should be in the category. --McClaw (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2014 (MST)

I've found a way to create the dyed item images without screenshotting each individually. See here. It takes me some time to do them still. --Abcboy (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2014 (MST)

They look good. I should dig out the images I stashed for things like that. --McClaw (talk) 07:46, 8 January 2014 (MST)

Look at the source for Template:Pigment. There's walls of code to automate a bunch of stuff. Those swatches on the pigment lists are all automated. --Abcboy (talk) 19:23, 8 January 2014 (MST)

Death

There are three ways I can think of to handle death:

• Have an article on "Death" and on the "Death Bar" (anything else better?)
• Have an article on "Death Bar" and redirect death there
• Have an article on "Death Star" an redirect both there
• Have an article on "Death" and redirect "Death Bar" there

I personally think option 1 is best, although there may be some repeated information. --Abcboy (talk) 21:56, 4 April 2014 (MDT)

Repeated information shouldn't be a big problem, so long as it isn't excessive. Better a short paragraph than having to move to a new page for something simple. --McClaw (talk) 09:04, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

Okay. --Abcboy (talk) 10:26, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

Who put death star? Quest130 (talk) 15:35, 7 December 2014 (MST)

Japanese wiki

I'm not a lawyer. But, this is our license. Go read it.

Here is the issue. They are practically copying our articles in whole. They're allowed to adapt, yes, but I see no attribution. Could that be an issue? I would prefer to bring it up with MintYogi, but he's practically never here, unfortunately. --Abcboy (talk) 10:26, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

It might fall under "Share." Is there a wiki-wide attribution? And you're right that the local admin is the one that should make an official complaint (if needed); even as mods we probably don't have the authority to do more than comment. --McClaw (talk) 11:27, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

Not seeing any attribution anywhere on any page. (Unfortunately, I can't read Japanese. Google can somewhat.) --Abcboy (talk) 12:41, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

Okay, they've since added that they are a translated version of this wiki on their main page. "Welcome to The Blockheads Japan Wiki! This wiki is English wiki [linking here] translated.

This wiki has been retouched and is maintained by volunteers." Issue resolved. --Abcboy (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2014 (MDT)

Column and stairs

I have all the images ready to make one of the animated icons. What order should the images be in though? Trading portal order? Alphabetical? --Abcboy (talk) 16:35, 5 April 2014 (MDT)

Hm. Lots of options. I'd probably put them in order as: wood / brick / (stonemason's bench) / (metalwork bench). --McClaw (talk) 19:14, 5 April 2014‎

I've uploaded one of them the rest will have to wait since I'm out of town. --Abcboy (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2014 (MDT)

New Craft template

Here's some examples of it in use. Opinions? The primary issue in implementing it is that it requires two additional parameters: level and bench2, while bench has to be changed to be compatible. Here's an example of the code changes:

Currently:

...
|Output=Crowbar
|Bench=Tool Bench Lvl. 5/Train Yard
|Name1=Steel Ingot
...

This has to change to:

...
|Output=Crowbar
|Level=5
|Bench=Tool Bench
|Bench2=Train Yard
|Name1=Steel Ingot
...

Fortunately, this also fixes the inconsistencies created with the different ways we've been using the bench parameter. Instead of "Metalwork Bench (either)", "Lvl. 2 Metalwork Bench or Electric Metalwork Bench", or "Tool Bench Lvl. 5/Train Yard", this standardizes it into the format "Lvl. # (Bench) or (Bench)". And, if that ever needs to be changed, we only have to change the template, instead of the 180+ pages that use the template. --Abcboy (talk) 21:44, 17 July 2014 (MDT)

The closest thing I can see to a problem is when there's some difference (such as rush cost) between two benches, and that's easily handled by listing two different crafting tables. --McClaw (talk) 07:21, 18 July 2014 (MDT)

Changing plural in categories/page titles

Currently, pages like Items and Blocks are in the plural while the corresponding categories, like Category:Item and Category:Block are in the singular. On Wikipedia and most other wikis, this is reversed, with page titles in the singular and category names in the plural.

The most common issue here is that if you link to "Items" as "item" you have to type [[Items|item]], which is very counter-intuitive. I'm in support of changing it around. Thoughts? --Abcboy (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2014 (MDT)

I have no objections to either way of doing it, so long as we keep it consistent. I will observe, though, that the "Items" page is mostly a list of items and the "Item" category is applied to individual item pages. --McClaw (talk) 08:00, 29 August 2014 (MDT)

Most things are already in the singular, such as all the items. (What Wikipedia does) I prefer categories to in the plural, because the category of items contains items. Some things shouldn't be changed, like Category:Rail, a category of rail-related things. Or as Wikipedia calls it, topic and set categories.

Also, what would you think of a template that makes it easier to link to Wikipedia, something like {{wp|Apple}}? It could be used in pages so we don't have to keep typing a link manually each time. --Abcboy (talk) 10:18, 29 August 2014 (MDT)

There are arguments both ways for plural/singular, and as I said I have no preference so long as we're consistent and try to make a simple distinction between them. A Wikipedia-link template would be helpful for those rare times it's needed; keeping track of its use would be a good idea if it's implemented. --McClaw (talk) 09:38, 30 August 2014 (MDT)

Animated images

GIF files support only 256 colors, don't support partial transparency, but are supported on almost any browser. APNG files support all colors and partial transparency, but aren't supported in Chrome, IE, or Safari 7 and older. MNG files aren't supported by anybody. Partial transparency lets us display images on any background, as shown to the right. What should we do? Should we keep trying to use GIF even with the loss of quality? --Abcboy (talk) 12:39, 29 November 2014 (MST)

First, I suggest creating a category for animated images and tagging those so they're all in one place. Second, I believe all our animated images are done to conserve space by cycling through tools made with multiple materials. We could create static generic versions (blank black/white? rainbow?), place multiple images, or continue using animated images with associated loss of background and possible quality. Your conversion to a standard background is nice, but could be a problem with images that don't contrast enough. *sigh* I'd say convert to generic/silhouette images in PNG and make sure all versions are given as examples elsewhere in the article. --McClaw (talk) 09:57, 30 November 2014 (MST)

The new standard background is a transparent color. The Item Infobox pages have a gradient applied so that the transparency shows through to the gradient. The reason partial transparency is good is so images like raw resin and epoxy can be displayed correctly instead of on a white background. It also might just be better to make the main image a collage of all of the types. --Abcboy (talk) 10:51, 30 November 2014 (MST)

Considering the items we've done animated images for aren't things that can be placed on blocks or back walls, I agree about the collage idea for main images. The icons might work better with white blank space as "generic" versions or a rainbow gradient, but might still stand as animated GIFs. --McClaw (talk) 11:15, 30 November 2014 (MST)

Main Page cleanup

Could you add the following benches to the "Crafting Surfaces" section: Electric Press, Electric Sluice, Refinery, Compost Bin? Also, please put the Builder's Bench between the Armor Bench and the Campfire, so as to have it in an alphabetically correct place. Please revise the 1.7.4 release date for Android to 2019-02-06. Thanks -JarlPenguin (talk) 11:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)