Editing Appropedia:Helge's Wiki Ideas

Maybe useful for Appropedia:

* Set "text-decoration" of links to "underline" (I believe this enhances usability)

* Consider moving discussions to the bottom of articles. See the bottom of [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Helge.at/Wording this page] for an example (see source code).
::''I think that this is a very good idea, especially for the social networking component of Appropedia.  Is there a way to have the discussions show up below all other page content such as Categories?''  --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 02:48, 2 November 2006 (PST)
::: I fear that some template and script hacking would be necessary to achieve this. Clearly beyond my abilities, unfortunately. --[[User:Helge.at|Helge]] 07:06, 2 November 2006 (PST)

== implemented ==

* [http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Helge.at/Wording Wording changes], for better usability (can easily be changed with sysop privileges)
::''Thank you. We had already personalized some messages, but these really add to the usability.  This is especially important for Appropedia, which will probably attract many non-tech focused users.''  --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 02:48, 2 November 2006 (PST)
* Beautiful URLs in the form <code>www.appropedia.org/ArticleName</code>
** Set the path in LocalSettings.php to <code>$wgArticlePath      = "/$1";</code>
** Place the following code into a file named .htaccess in the root of the server (add more folders in the first line if needed to exclude from being rewritten. use a folder "nowiki" for random future content you don't want to be rewritten.):
<pre>
RewriteEngine on

# Don't rewrite requests for files in MediaWiki subdirectories,
# MediaWiki PHP files, HTTP error documents, favicon.ico, or robots.txt
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(stylesheets|images|skins|extensions)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/(redirect|texvc|index).php
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/error/(40(1|3|4)|500).html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/favicon.ico
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/robots.txt
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/nowiki
# include these last two lines if you use the analog stats
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/failed_auth.html$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/stats

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?title=$1 [QSA]
</pre>
::''Your solution is better than most of the ones I have tried, especially with the added exclude from being written lines, but I am still having a problem with pages breaking at an ampersand.  See [http://www.buildcapacity.org/Testing_the_short_url_fix_%26_with_the_ampersand this page] at our test wiki buildcapacity.org for an example.''  --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 02:48, 2 November 2006 (PST) 
::: I have no idea how to fix this, my knowledge of rewrite rules and regexp is very limited. On my wikis I simply use "and" instead of the ampersand ;-) --[[User:Helge.at|Helge]] 07:06, 2 November 2006 (PST) 
:::: This is really a reply to Lonny's question, but since the conversation is here, I'll put a pointer to my comment here.  See [[Appropedia_talk:Technical_questions#Short_URLs]] for some stuff I found regarding ampersands in page titles.  --[[User:Curtbeckmann|CurtB]] 13:29, 2 November 2006 (PST)
:::::Short URLs are now implemented here.  Thank you for the push. --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 16:40, 20 November 2006 (PST)
:::::: Nice! --[[User:Helge.at|Helge]] 18:13, 20 November 2006 (PST)

* Replace the title "Main Page" (on top of the page plus in the browser title) by something that makes more sense. Do that by "moving" (=redirecting) [[Main Page]] to a new name. See http://web.archive.org/web/20091012171749/http://www.osafa.org:80/english/Main_Page for a demonstration.
::''Another great idea. I just changed it to "Welcome to Appropedia", which also solves the clumsiness of the previous double headings.'' --[[User:Lonny|Lonny]] 02:48, 2 November 2006 (PST)
{{catneeded}}