Mogre Main Wiki Page

Hi all,

Since I started with Mogre I thought of some improvements for the main wiki page. I was going to wait until I finished with the tutorials before I tackle it, but I couldn't bear it any longer so I came up with a suggestion for re-organizing it today. I'm putting it up here to see what everybody think.

The key principle is to break everything down to a small number of clearly separate areas. In cases where a lot of information is available - organized or disorganized - related to one topic, I would create another wiki page that gives an overview of that topic and then links to the various existing sources with some explanations, organiztion, grouping etc.

For example, currently there is an "Introduction" link which links to a forum post that mstoyke wrote, then there is a direct link to the SDK installer, then "IMPORTANT LINKS" which links to a page with a lot of links itself, starting with the main page itself again (?), then to various interesting forum threads, then to addons. After the "IMPORTANT LINKS" there is another link called "MOGRE Introduction" which gives some overview of Mogre and comparison with other wrappers, and then a link called "MOGRE Installation" with a comment saying it is outdated. So that's twice "Introduction" and twice "Installation".

While all these bits of information are useful and important, I believe there is an easier way to organize and present them. This is an illustration of what I have in mind more or less:



Every current link on the main page goes into one of the ones above. A few examples:

1. All of the guides, code snippets, articles, howtos, and so can be grouped under one section, separate from the tutorials, but otherwise just one section. The idea behind this would be that a newcomer starts with the tutorials to get to a certain base level in a linear path, and from there on can pick and choose the guides, howtos and/or articles that interest them.[/*:m]
   
2. All the links referring to the source code are moved to the "Developing Mogre" section (since it is not intended to build Mogre as part of the installation, only as part of development) - and will be detailed and explained under one page called "Mogre Source Code", which will refer to the various repositories, explain what is where, give an overview of the codebase perhaps, explain how to build the source code, and list the guidelines for contributing code / getting write access.[/*:m]
   
3. The "Installation" page will provide a link to the SDK, but prior to that will include an explanation of what the SDK would provide and how to use it. The same section will then also discuss how one can manually assemble Mogre. And so on. [/*:m]
   
4. An online code converter between C# and VB.NET, while no doubt a useful tool, is really outside the scope of the Mogre project. It can happily live in a wiki page that refers to various useful tools that can be used with Mogre ("tools").[/*:m][/list:u]
   
   I haven't actually done any of this yet, as I've said I want to see what folks here think first. Once we get some agreement I would like to move forward quickly and start since there is a lot to do here and it feels a bit frustrating working on the tutorials when everything around them also needs a lot of attention.

Hi amirabiri,

thanks for your great offer to clear up the central wiki page of Mogre !!

In the past I also wanted to clear it up, but it's a big task and needs much time and effort for all the details.
A big gap is a missing overview add-ons. I created such a page in the old wiki, but had problems with the wiki software. Also I got demotivated because there was no support. (e.g. write short descriptions for each add-on)

By the way:
Even for Ogre (C++) there is no overview for available add-ons. How newcomers (and also familiar users) should know? Really sad.



The forum topic IMPORTANT LINKS is very new.
I created it 10 days ago.

My first aim was to give an overview of some important forum links. (e.g. main topics for add-ons)
When newcomers visit the Mogre forum, this topic should be a first help for orientation.
Additionally this page should be a replacement for (medium important) sticky topics.

Then I extended the overview and added further links (e.g. to the wiki main page and add-ons).
Also I added short notes to several links.

Later I thought, the wiki would be better for such an whole overview.
On the other hand I thought, it was about time to have such an overview (especially for the add-ons).
So I said to myself: It's better to have such an overview in the forum than nothing. For the future there is always the chance to improve the Mogre information structure.


My opinion:

If you like to improve the wiki, then don't be afraid to do it.
This discussion thread is good, but don't worry if only less people say yes

Your structure offer is nice and I know you do good work!



Related to the Add-on overview I have this idea:

Put plain overview to the main page (as in your screen shot).
Additionally create a new page for a more detailed overview, which contains some notes (as in my forum overview "important links") and maybe add tiny screenshots.

For the detailed overview page I prefer to keep both for each add-on:
A link to the wiki page AND to the forum topic.
The reason is, that not all add-ons have a good wiki page. There are add-ons, where the forum topic contains the main information. Even there are add-ons, which have no wiki page or just a page stub.


Related to the forum topic "important links":

I think it's good to keep the overview of important forum topics in the forum.
The external links (e.g. the add-on overiew) I would remove when they are available in the wiki.



update:
Now I looked to your screenshot again.
I still contains a link to a more detailed add-ons page. So you had the same idea like me.

amirabiri, good idea. thumb up for that