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AgentSam

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Posts posted by AgentSam

  1. THE CURRENT MANUAL

    Unless I'm severely mistaken, the Online Manual isn't even a Wiki (despite being labeled as a Manual Wiki on the LEARN page).

    It's just a WordPress site with posts in different categories, and as such it has a very "open" structural organization. (It certainly isn't easy to read in a linear fashion; but the posts are searchable.)

    Most of the current WordPress based Manual posts seems to be written by Javis Jones; although author information is hidden by default on the manual pages.

    HOW I WOULD DO IT

    If I was responsible for the 3D-Coat Manual, I would write the documentation in Sphinx/RestructuredText format and keep the source in a Subversion (SVN) or Git repository.

    Subversion would allow distributed editing by multiple authors, with full version history and all the associated revision control tools of SVN.

    Sphinx/RestructuredText on the other hand would allow us to use a very simple text based source format which is easy to edit locally (eg. absolutely great for multipage text replacements), easy to built to multiple destination formats (Sphinx currently has writer modules for HTML, HTML5, CHM, Latex, PDF, ODT, ManPage, epub, and more...). Also, the entire sphinx toolset is available for Windows, Linux and OSX.

    The produced HTML output can be themed; it has great support for navigation controls, including table of contents, prev/next page, breadcrumbs, indexes, built-in search, etc.

    Sphinx is currently used to built documentation for a number of large-scale projects, including Python and Blender. (See full list at Projects using Sphinx.)

    The default Sphinx themes are not very impressive, but I have extensive knowledge in using/customizing Sphinx, and I know how to make Sphinx HTML5 output look absolutely beautiful. (One of the best base-themes to use for Sphinx projects, is the Cloud Sphinx Theme 1.7. Use it as a base, and customize according to project needs.)

    Cheers,
    AgentSam

    • Like 1
  2. This feature comparison page is equally useful:
    https://discordapp.com/features

    By their nature, these types of voice/text-chat systems are better suited for one-off realtime conversations, than for ongoing threaded discussion with persistent storage and content search.

    As an anecdote, around 20-years ago I used to spend huge amounts of time on various programmer/developer channels on IRC (text-chat only). I would have my IRC-client open all the time, and I would get an audio notice for every new message. Then I would pause working (I was a device driver developer for a certain brand of Point-Of-Sale systems at the time) and I would switch to the IRC-client to read and answer any messages on the channel; or maybe even just to greet new visitors to the channel.

    It felt good and I enjoyed my respected status on the channels - but in retrospect, it was a total waste of MY time, and barely any record of those chat-logs exist today.

    I view Discord being just more of the same. I completely understand how/why Discord enjoys great success among Gamers, but (IMHO) for grown-ups working on actual projects, it's nothing but a distraction.

    I wouldn't want to stop anyone from trying out Discord if they want to feel like they belong to a closely knit community of like-minded people (depending on what group they join), and if you have plenty of time to spare and if your work does not require you to be focused. I did that, and got past that "phase", and I don't want to be there again.

    (End of personal history affecting my current opinions...)

  3. This forum works just fine; the forum is easy to search, it's easy to track new posts, and most important of all -- everything is archived.

    So, how does Discord compare to the forums?

    - Discussions are not archived and not searchable?
    - The same questions and answer need to be repeated all the time?
    - Previous answers cannot be found?
    - Information gets losts?
    - Supports embedded Video and Images?

    I have very limited experience with Discord, but from what I can gather, using Discord would seem more like a distraction from doing actual work. (Which is not to say that Discord cannot be used productively, I'm sure it can. But in this case, as a support solution, I think there is nothing better than the forums.)

    My opinion is, that diversification of the 3D-Coat community, by introducing additional third-party supported "gathering places" (voice/text chat) will move talent and information away from the main community (which is the 3D-Coat Forums).

    There is, of course, already a 3D-Coat Facebook community and Andrew has a Twitter account. Those channels are used mostly for news/marketing, and I do not see them as competing with the Forums.

    Lastly, instead of embracing this Discord idea, I (personally) will have to reject it, because I would not have time to be on Discord.

    This is, of course, something that everyone will have to evaluate for themselves, I do not speak for others.

    Also, please correct me if I'm wrong.

  4. 7 minutes ago, ajz3d said:

    I don't want to register yet another account that I would use only once

    I feel the same way - since I usually create style overrides for myself, not for the public. But I think it's clear that many people on this forum are not quite happy with the current forum styles (the way they work and look), so I think we should consider uploading to userstyles.org, because then the styles would be super-easy to apply by even inexperienced users. (The plugin adds that "Find Styles for This Site" button.)

    10 minutes ago, ajz3d said:

    just copy/paste contents of the linked CSS from my signature

    Oh, you placed the link in your signature. No wonder I don't see it - I have those signatures disabled. (I'll take a look at your style-override after enabling signatures temporarily.)

    Cheers,
    AgentSam

    • Like 1
  5. @ajz3d:

    You earlier wrote:

    Quote

    I have uploaded a Stylish override for the Titanium 4X skin (you'll find a link in my signature). It removes some elements which I found unnecessary or cluttering, replaces almost all blue elements with 3D-Coat's teal colour, reduces the contrast of the page by converting most of the whites to 909090h, and contains some other hacks. I didn't test it on my phone yet.


    But I can't see your style submissions on https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/3dcoat

    So, where did your submissions go?

    Also, I've never submitted any of my custom styles to the UserStyles-site (I keep them local) - so I'm not sure how easy (or difficult) it would be to share them. Hmm, I will have to look into that. Any tips?

    Cheers,
    AgentSam

  6. @Ballistic_Tension:

    If you use the Stylish browser-plugin, just add the following styles, so you can toggle each element separately:
     

    TITLE: Site, 3D-COAT NEW-Forums, Index, Banner, Hide Image Gallery
    
    CODE:
    
    @-moz-document url-prefix("http://3dcoat.com/forum/") {
    
      /* Forum Index List - Banner, Hide Image Gallery Strip */
      .cWidgetContainer[data-widgetArea="header"] {
        display: none !important;
      }
    
    }
    TITLE: Site, 3D-COAT NEW-Forums, Index, Sidebar, Hide "Topics"
    
    CODE:
    
    @-moz-document url-prefix("http://3dcoat.com/forum/") {
    
      /* Forum Index List - Sidebar, Hide "Topics" section */
      #ipsLayout_sidebar {
        display: none !important;
      }
    
    }

     

    Cheers...

    • Like 1
  7. @webmaster:

    12 hours ago, webmaster said:

    You cannot unfortunately do this using bbcode no. However once an image is already embedded on the page, you can double click the image to change the sizes of them. If they are added using bbcode however you would not be able to do this unless you edit the image afterward.

    Interesting. It would never have occurred to me to double-click an image in a post that I am editing in order to resize it.

    My thanks for contacting IPB support, and for this very useful answer.

    Cheers,
    AgentSam

  8. I find it extremely disturbing that an important topic like scripting in 3D-Coat is only covered here on the russian forum.

    English is not my native language either, but I would very much like to see more scripting info in english, since I will have to use Google Translate to read these russian topics.

    Andrey Syrokomskiy, please try to keep us updated on any scripting updates in english too, ok?

    Cheers,
    AgentSam

    PS. Sorry for posting in english HERE, but I am not fluent in russian and I don't think the Google Translator would do a good translation from english to russian.

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