I think we can all agree that it is an understatement to say that the Galaxy editor is poorly documented. Triggers has some decent (but far from ideal) documentation, but there is almost no documentation for the data editor. This lack of documentation, I feel, is the number one barrier for new developers. We've all spent hours trying to figure out what individual fields mean and do. I think it's time for us to share and collect this accumulated knowledge, so that future developers don't have to jump the same hurdles.
I'm talking about a community documentation project for the galaxy editor. Tutorials are great, and definitely have a place in the commuinity and are needed. However, we need references as well. If I just want to know what one specific field or trigger is for, I'd like to have somewhere that I can look. I can add a lot of information to this documentation, but I can't add it all. Together, I think we can. I think it's easily conceivable that we could document the whole frickin' editor in just a short amount of time. Who's with me?
Step one is hosting and format. My perference is to work with the admins and host it here. My format thoughts are wiki-like format, but the individual page format needs to be laid out. After that, we can start doling out sections of the editor for individuals to document.
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Pocket Warriors - A pokemon-style game with SC2 units and full banking. New demo coming soon!
Glad to have everyone's support. It's good to see that something like this will be well-received. Can some help grab the attention of the admins so we can start talking about hosting? I'd really like to host this information here - I think it's the right place.
@BDMon: any amount of contribution is welcome. Just stating that you would use a resource like this helps lay the groundwork for getting everything started. Even a novice developer can add information to this document. There probably are some areas of the editor that you do know fairly well. Contribute to those. There will also be some areas that require documentation that aren't used very often. Someone is going to need to figure out what those do. You can help by figuring out what individual things do and feeding that information to a documentor, or grabbing and entire section and documenting it. When the time comes, you'll probably find an area that you can contribute, no matter how small the contribution. It all adds up.
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Pocket Warriors - A pokemon-style game with SC2 units and full banking. New demo coming soon!
You might want to check out www.galaxywiki.net, or at least, when it's released you'll want to check it out. Basically, it's a third party, intersite wiki just for mapping tutorials and reference. Its base is going to be SEN's old wiki, which you can see here http://www.staredit.net/starcraft2/Main_Page
On that note:
Vestras (the developer of Moonlite) had the idea to create a new data editor with a significantly better interface. However, a documentation is needed for that.
So every step taken towards a documentation is a step taken towards Data Editing 2.0.
A very small part indeed, but haphazard to say the least. I too would appreciate a central localized resource of all things pertaining to the data editor.
Thanks for the info. I like the format of staredit.net better than the wiki here. Also, the staredit also has some of the groundwork laid out. Unfortunately, it has almost no exposure, so we might need to help it with that. I think we should start working together to fill some of that information out. Please, everyone take a look at http://www.staredit.net/starcraft2/Required/Unfinished_Wikis to see what areas need contribution (frankly, every one of the triggers and data sections needs some revisions at the very least). Declare your intentions here. I think I'll look at modifying the triggers - banks and triggers - custom UI sections. My knowledge falls short with the data editor, so if you have anything to add there, please do.
I think we can all agree that it is an understatement to say that the Galaxy editor is poorly documented. Triggers has some decent (but far from ideal) documentation, but there is almost no documentation for the data editor. This lack of documentation, I feel, is the number one barrier for new developers. We've all spent hours trying to figure out what individual fields mean and do. I think it's time for us to share and collect this accumulated knowledge, so that future developers don't have to jump the same hurdles.
I'm talking about a community documentation project for the galaxy editor. Tutorials are great, and definitely have a place in the commuinity and are needed. However, we need references as well. If I just want to know what one specific field or trigger is for, I'd like to have somewhere that I can look. I can add a lot of information to this documentation, but I can't add it all. Together, I think we can. I think it's easily conceivable that we could document the whole frickin' editor in just a short amount of time. Who's with me?
Step one is hosting and format. My perference is to work with the admins and host it here. My format thoughts are wiki-like format, but the individual page format needs to be laid out. After that, we can start doling out sections of the editor for individuals to document.
@jaminv: Go
+1
Hey definitly good idea, although my knowlage will not be of much use yet i'm afraid. Still I'll be happy to help out where I can.
BD
Posting in this thread means im interested in this idea.
/\ what he says
That
Glad to have everyone's support. It's good to see that something like this will be well-received. Can some help grab the attention of the admins so we can start talking about hosting? I'd really like to host this information here - I think it's the right place.
@BDMon: any amount of contribution is welcome. Just stating that you would use a resource like this helps lay the groundwork for getting everything started. Even a novice developer can add information to this document. There probably are some areas of the editor that you do know fairly well. Contribute to those. There will also be some areas that require documentation that aren't used very often. Someone is going to need to figure out what those do. You can help by figuring out what individual things do and feeding that information to a documentor, or grabbing and entire section and documenting it. When the time comes, you'll probably find an area that you can contribute, no matter how small the contribution. It all adds up.
You might want to check out www.galaxywiki.net, or at least, when it's released you'll want to check it out. Basically, it's a third party, intersite wiki just for mapping tutorials and reference. Its base is going to be SEN's old wiki, which you can see here http://www.staredit.net/starcraft2/Main_Page
Well there is the wiki..... But its kinda barren... everybody start updating it. The wiki is for exactly what your talking about
http://wiki.sc2mapster.com/galaxy/main-page/
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/resources/tutorials/674-data-data-editor-fields/
Part of it, done long ago.
On that note:
Vestras (the developer of Moonlite) had the idea to create a new data editor with a significantly better interface. However, a documentation is needed for that.
So every step taken towards a documentation is a step taken towards Data Editing 2.0.
A very small part indeed, but haphazard to say the least. I too would appreciate a central localized resource of all things pertaining to the data editor.
Thanks for the info. I like the format of staredit.net better than the wiki here. Also, the staredit also has some of the groundwork laid out. Unfortunately, it has almost no exposure, so we might need to help it with that. I think we should start working together to fill some of that information out. Please, everyone take a look at http://www.staredit.net/starcraft2/Required/Unfinished_Wikis to see what areas need contribution (frankly, every one of the triggers and data sections needs some revisions at the very least). Declare your intentions here. I think I'll look at modifying the triggers - banks and triggers - custom UI sections. My knowledge falls short with the data editor, so if you have anything to add there, please do.
www.galaxywiki.net is up, use that rather than the staredit.net wiki, as it's replacing our wiki.