Universe and Language Management: Planning
Anthologica Universe Atlas / Forums / Site Help and Bug Reports / Universe and Language Management: Planning

? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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This is a big topic, so I want to lay out a big long thread here and get input for what people think will be useful and what should be prioritized.

This post will hold the overall plan.

Glossary


a template is a type of page on the site. A forum post is one type of page; they use a template called "Linear Post". Blog comments are another type, dictionary words are a third, user profiles are a fourth, and so on.
Many of the site's special pages are scripts or static pages, which have code (or, respectively, don't) but use the so-called default template, which doesn't provide any special formatting. The front page is an example of a script.
The real name of the page created when you make a "Wiki" in a Universe is called a "Root Wiki Page". The "Documents" are actually using the template "Wiki Page".
You can see all of Atlas's Octavia macro code here. (Warning: ugly!)

Yet-To-Be-Created Templates


Language Family. This will be functionally identical to what's currently called a Wiki, but won't let you put Dictionaries in it directly. Instead, you'll put Languages in it. Implemented
Language. This will be based on a Wiki too, but live inside of a language family instead of directly in the Universe. It will contain dictionaries and documents. Implemented
Sound Change. This will be a very simple page belonging to a Dictionary that stores the sound changes and triggers used for auto-inflection and auto-addition to descendant dictionaries.
Biography. Basic profile for a character from a conworld.
Event. Recurring, historical, etc. Will go on a Calendar. Including tags for different perspectives.
Calendar. Like any other daily planner, but with custom date format and offset. Will also provide a real-time clock you can sync with the present if desired. (Challenge: leap years. Oh god.)

New Template Interactions


Wiki Pages (i.e., "Documents") will be recursively nestable. (i.e., they'll have children consisting of more of themselves) Implemented
Root Wiki Pages (i.e., "Wikis") may be recursively nestable. (Opinions?) Not necessary; renamed to "Chapters"
Every Universe, Wiki Page and Root Wiki Page will have a discussion page—not sure if I should use Linear Post (forum post) or Generic Comment (blog comment, recursive) for this. Partly Implemented: only on articles so far.
Dictionaries of mother languages will automatically translate and add new words to their daughter languages (according to Sound Change pages) when they are first added to the parent dictionary (a suppressible behaviour)
Dictionary Entries will display an inflection table (defined with Sound Change pages)
implication: Sound Changes will have two types, diachronic and inflectional, and the inflectional types will need to be tagged with lexical categories, order of application, scheme name (e.g. "first declension", "strong verb"—should use Dictionary Categories for this), and display titles; the diachronics will just need a target dictionary name to output to.
inflected forms (i.e. inflectional Sound Change products) will be manually overridable within each Dictionary Entry, to create irregular words such as via suppletion.

More Features for Existing Templates


New fields on Dictionary Entries: "usage", "attested", "etymology". These seem like the most popular free-text fields that could be useful, and should be easy to support with the parser. Suggested by Zontas: "related terms" (will implement as 'one per line -> bulleted list', as with categories) Implemented
Universes will be created with a group applied by default, so that administrative intervention is not required to collaborate. Implemented (Although with a twist: you have to click a button, but it propagates across all documents, so everything's still good)
Expose more per-page permission controls—e.g. "lock editing by other group members on this Document" Implemented—full permissions widget. Maybe too far?
Edit history for Documents. Implemented
Custom alphabetical sort order for dictionaries (? including support for non-single-character graphemes)

Questions? Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions? Cough 'em up!
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
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The "related terms" sounds like it could possibly be useful for listing descendant forms in a protolanguage as well. Whee!

I like the default group for Universes, as well as the permission controls. It's not a problem now, but I could see the unrestricted writing to other universes (and Lexicons via the Importer...which to digress I keep wanting to call the Mass Uploader, not sure why) eventually becoming an issue, possibly.

Events? YÆHOO!!! I already had a timeline for my alt-earth from way back when...It's been (shoddily) kept in textfiles, shoddily because I kept the BC/AD dates on one side and the AVC dates on the other, so I could be sure I was numbering them right, and well...that and tabs don't work well together. And I just had an amazing revelation of "why didn't I just use a table?" for which I have absolutely no answer!

*looks around nervously*

Talk amongst yourselves.
? Jipí der saz ûf eime steine
posts: 291
, Transition Metal message
quoting Rhetorica:
Calendar. Like any other daily planner, but with custom date format and offset. Will also provide a real-time clock you can sync with the present if desired. (Challenge: leap years. Oh god.)

Funfunfun
? Torco Learner of Stuff
posts: 220
, Conversational Speaker message
hyperlinked maps... I mean imagine this: you have a map of a city in your conworld, and then you click on the square, and BOOM! a wiki page with a drawing springs, reading "whatever whatever square: here is where the revolution of whatever whatever happened in year whatever before whatever. By now it has been turned into a peregrination site where whatever go and pray to the whatever god for health and good fortune"

also, I miss having buttons I can press to format text...

oh fuck posts can have content structure and TOCs? WHY ARE NOT ALL BOARDS THIS BOARD!!!
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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Pfft. 2D maps? Not on my watch!
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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Rolled out the Lablog-style Recursive Wiki Pages, which bring edit previews, edit history, file attachments, discussion, and child pages. Still some rough edges—they don't respect floatpics, making floatpics totally useless. (Not sure if a chapter can even find its floatpic without knowing its group?)

Also added Lects/Languages and Language Families. No more shoe-horning everything into wikis/chapters!
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
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HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
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Minor blip - re-parenting a document seems to not be entirely turned on, I can move all my dictionaries just fine, and the Modern Tzuman page, but not Modern Tzuman 2,3,4 and Proto-Southern (document, the dictionary was movable).
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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Didn't think anyone would try that yet! I guess since nothing's exploded yet, I'll convert over the other old documents.
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
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Heh, I was going to try reparenting several days ago just to see what it'd do, but thought 'ehhh that might break things, I'll leave it be for now'. Then language family support, and BAM actual reason to try.
? Nesescosac Verborum qaghatun
posts: 31
, Foreigner message
I noticed the subfamily feature, but there's as of yet no way to put languages in subfamilies.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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quoting Nesescosac:
I noticed the subfamily feature, but there's as of yet no way to put languages in subfamilies.

...in fact what you created was a Language. The "create subfamily" page did the wrong thing! I've fixed it and corrected "Lo" to be a Language Family, as it should've been.

EDIT: Fixed another language family bug; they weren't displaying dictionaries.
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
posts: 932
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Would redirects be problematic? For example, from the main Proto-Southern page I just moved all of the Tzuman language pages two subfamilies down, leaving a blank language page. I figured it might be useful to have a list of what's buried down in the subfamilies on the main page. If redirects wouldn't fly this could easily just be done as hyperlinks in the description, of course.
? Takarda posts: 1
, Foreigner message
In dictionary, editing the name of a category doesn't propagate downwards into editing the entries of the linked words, so you end up with a new category that has no entries.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
posts: 1292
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Fair point. Nessari brought that up a week or two ago, but I forgot to implement it. I think I can do it now without too much fuss.
? Nessari ?????? ?????? ????????
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Whoa, I did? I thought I forgot to, wow!