ChoralWiki:Operation and implementation issues/Archive 2
This page archives topics from the Bulletin board forum Operation and implementation issues
Archive 2
New template "CompCatTxt"
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I've just finished categorising all Dowland score pages under Category:John Dowland compositions and created the category. As there are likely to be many of these categories in created in the future, I think it's necessary to have a set text for the category - a template seemed the best way to go about this so I created Template:CompCatTxt. The template currently has 2 required variables, 1=Composer's first and any middle names 2=Composer's surname. I did this for the category sort key. I considered making a third variable for some alternative text for the second sentance of the template's text, eg. For an alternative list ordered by {{{3}}}, see [[{{{1}}} {{{2}}}]]. The alternaitve text would be "genre" or "publication date" etc. What does everyone else think about a third variable? By the way, the ItemPost template doesn't seem to be able to handle this code which is why I haven't used it... |
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The problem with Template:ItemPost occurs when you type an equal sign ("=") inside the template... something like
For then, the template thinks that everything before the = is a parameter (even if not declared in the template definition) and that everything after it is what is being passed to the parameter. I enclosed both of Rob's = signs within nowikis, and put his post (above) inside the ItemPost template which now works properly. I had run into this problem ("bug") before but forgot to mention it until now. |
Nomination for adminship
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I'd like to formally nominate Carlos for adminship. Carlos has put a lot of work into CPDL over the past 4-5 months including welcoming newcomers, providing texts and translations, correcting mistakes and doing some admin related tasks including merging and moving pages. He has shown a clear undertanding of the wiki framework of the site, he has good musical knowledge and a couple of languages other than English up his sleeve. He has also adapted to the weird and wonderful (and mostly undocumented) practices here. I believe he has earned the community's trust and should be made an admin (sysop) for these reasons. Please state your opinions below and we will come to a consensus on whether or not to make Carlos an admin in due course. |
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Wow, thank you guys, this nomination is quite an honor for me! Whatever be the community's decision, I'll continue to gladly contribute to this wonderful site! |
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Rob already knows my feelings are definitely and strongly in favor of Carlos/Carlos becoming an admin here at CPDL. I had raised the matter with Rob in an earlier exchange of emails, and since then Carlos has continued his excellent service and more than earned our trust that he will prove to be a capable sysop. I would hope that we can reach a consensus before the end of this month. |
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I vote to elect Carlos to position of Admin/SysOp for CPDL. Welcome Carlos ! |
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I have just made Carlos (User:Carlos) a Sysop, since there have been no objections or reservations expressed to his nomination. Please join with me in congratulating Carlos for a continuiung job well-done. We look forward to his contintued devotion and service to CPDL as an Administrator. Aside to Carlos: Now you can delete pages instead of having to request their deletion!! *smiles* |
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Thank you, Chuck and all! I was editing a page and all of a sudden a lot of new "options" appeared, lol. Later will have to ask you what some of those are meant for. ;-) PS: Next round of beer is on me!! |
Moving to the new BBS system
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We have a workable BBS system at http://choralia.altervista.org/phpbb/ Which I think we should transition to. The current system does not encourage new users, and even though we "Techies" can make use of it I don't think it is a good permanant solution. Certainly the current pink announcement box could send users to the above resource. Currently to find "new posts" I have to find edits in the "Recent Changes" list, and go to the modified page. With the very slow load times we are now experienceing this process takes a lot of time, and I find I "read" new posts much less frequently than I used to. Consequently I don't help new users much because to the inadaquacy of the current system. What do other CPDL users and admins think ? |
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I agree with you, John; in fact this forum is not very much newbie-friendly, and as it shares the same platform with CPDL, in case of a server failure we'd lose contact with each other. But would we have to create a new account to access this new BBS? |
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You sign up just the way to signed up to use the "forum" BBS. It's also much faster than trying to read messages here, and you can tell which posts are new and unread. It makes sense to use it ASAP. |
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I agree, of course. I just wonder if someone has admin access rights onto the "traditional" phpBB2 forum, so that he can possibly add a link or even re-direct the phpBB2 forum to the new phpBB3 forum. I think this would facilitate the migration of the users. |
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The phpBB3 forum has been deleted. Its home page (http://choralia.altervista.org/phpbb/) now re-directs to the Wiki-based BB, for consistency with the similar link recently modified on the "old" phpBB2 forum. |
Add brass to accompaniment cat?
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I've just come across this score Psalm 100 - Jauchzet dem Herrn (Johann Pachelbel) and I wondered if we should add "Brass ensemble" to the accompaniment list & add appropriate templates etc? |
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Good idea! I just created and added Brass accompaniment to Accompaniment and made the template {{BrassAcc}} (with optional sortkey parameter 9) to facilitate listing and adding the new category to the Instruments fields of relevant works. The default form in which this template appears is "Brass ensemble". Sorry it took so long, but I have been inundated of late. |
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Thanks, Chuck. I've updated the page in question. |
New template for formatting of credits in Translations section
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I was trying to find a simple way to format the credits line in the translations section and came up with this little template By. I used it as a test in Ay mi Dios (Pedro de Cristo), please have a look inside and say if you like the results. A few examples on how to use it can be found on the template's page. I bring it now to public appreciation for opinions whether to use it or not. Thanks |
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I think this is a good idea but I think it would be better if it were integrated into Template:Translation and we had "user" as the default option, not the exception. Also, I think it's worth discussing 2 broader issues to do with translations on CPDL:
What does everyone think? |
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Hi Rob, your suggestion of integrating it with the Translation template is nice indeed. As for having "User" as the default, that was my initial idea, but I decided to invert its logic because I thought that perhaps text comments would be more common than usernames. Now the broader issues: 1. I have thought about this a few times, without coming to a conclusion. I even started removing my credits from a few pages, but then turned back. I think the main reason for having the credits is for us to be able to contact the translators and discuss with them any detail of their translation. On the other side, I've also made minor changes to other's translations (usually in punctuation, but sometimes even changing a word for another I consider to better represent the meaning) without contacting them, and wouldn't mind having my own translations being modified by others (if for better! :). 2. That's another point I was going to discuss with Chuck in near future; I too noticed that the translations weren't being listed on Category:Texts-translations, and was going to propose him the creation of Category:Translations (by language) just as there is for Category:Texts (by language). I definitely think translations should have their own category. |
Uniform sort keys for categorization templates on sheet music pages
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I've begun converting (typically optional) sort key parameters for categorization templates on sheet music pages to a uniform parameter 9. Previously, such sort key parameters had various numbers (usually 2, 3 or 4). I reckon that it is much easier to remember just one choice that works for all such templates than to have to remember all the variations (or check the template code/documentation itself). |
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Excellent initiative, Chuck! I saw how confusing adding sort keys can be when I was editing ¿Qué pasa ó redor de min? (Adrian Cuello): for Composer, Pcat and Text templates it was the 3rd parameter; for Lang and Language, the 9th; for Acap the 2nd and so on. :) Having just one parameter number to remember will tremendously simplify things. Thanks! |
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Glad you like it. I'll get to all the other templates that go on sheet music pages as soon as I can. Fortunately, it is not difficult to identify those relatively few instances where the old sort key was used and change them manually. |
New add works form
Some comments moved here from User talk:Bobnotts#Add New Works form
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Hi Robert, I'm still working working on the form and the results, and I'm a bit puzzled how to 'render' part of larger work. Should it come directly under the title? e.g. Also I don't know what to do with the second composer entry, you requested. Yours, Arie |
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I also noticed that the template {{Acap}} renders as: [EDIT - bobnotts: Template:acap now behaves in the same way as other accompaniment templates and should be used in preference to Template:a cappella] |
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Hi Arie. Thanks for all the work you've done so far. I agree that the "a cappella" template should operate in the same way as the other instrument templates. However, as both {{Acap}} and {{A cappella}} are used on over 500 pages, we don't want to change either template. I propose to create a new template for the purpose, "acappella", which the add works form would use. The new template would be the same as the existing "acap" template except that it wouldn't include "Instruments:" as you suggest. As for the second composer entry, I'm sorry for not making myself clear. Some works listed on CPDL have more than one composer (albiet a very small number, eg. Psalm 65 (Thomas Attwood Walmisley and W. A. C. Cruickshank)). In the case of a submitted work having more than one composer, we would need to have a separate (optional) field on the add works form. The output would be {{Composer|2|Thomas Attwood Walmisley|W. A. C. Cruickshank}} As for movements of a larger work, see Ye People, Rend Your Hearts (No. 3 from 'Elijah') (Felix Mendelssohn) which I believe is a good example of the appropriate output. I hope this helps! |
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Hi Robert. Thanks for the reply. It seems that I partially solved my own problem. As for the {{Acap}} template, I had to check the choice of accompaniment anyway, so you can leave it as is. Second composer is clear, shouldn't give too much of a problem to implement that. Another thing though is the implementation of the larger work. Key is that it must be filled in exactly, otherwise the link back will not work. I will think about this overnight. Can you (or any of the other admins) access the original PHP-script? This would be helpful in order to figure out how the CPDL-number is issued. Thanks in advance. Current state of the form is at Add a new work. Feel free to try it and comment on it or if you have any wishes, please let me know. |
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Thanks for this, Arie. As I see it, the form shouldn't automatically add a CPDL no. - this would be added by the admin who reviews the works page and then removes {{AwaitingReview}}. So there is no need to get the old form - could we have "nnnnn" in place of where the number should be? There's quite a few things I've picked up on - I hope it's not too much work for you!
When I got the outputted code, there were the following problems:
That probably seems like a very long list! Sorry for that but it's best to get it right first time. Thanks again. Rob |
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Hi Robert. Thanks for the elaborate input. As you say, it's better to get thing right the first time. Some fields are hidden or disabled until the user makes a choice that enables the field. That is on the instrument field. This will only be activated in case of Wind, mixed ensemble or Orchestra. I thought in other cases this would not give any extra information. The Keyboard version checkbox gives a different value according to the choice made. In case of A cappella, it's {{KbdRed}}, in case of an ensemble it will be {{KbdVer}}. In all other cases it will be ignored but then it not visible anyway. Maybe that's bot clear form the form. The icon shouldn't have gone wrong, but apparently there's still a problem with evaluation of the URL. I did use the {{ScoreInfo}}> template, but then I saw that in case of one page it says 'one pages'. That's all. Maybe you can change the rendering of the template to page(s), for the rare occasion there is only one page of sheet music. As for the rest, I am working top-down, and construction of the correct links is the major challenge, so I didn't do the easy bits yet. I've been tinkering a bit last evening, and did some cosmetic work on the lay-out of the form. I've tried to make groups of fields which are more or less related to each other, and made the form less wide, making it easier to read. Not sure you like it, but I think it's an improvement. As far as now, I've only tested it with Firefox (on Mac) and Safari (on Mac). I'll be glad if someone else could check it with browsers they use, like Internet Explorer, Opera and what other flavours there are (like Linux based browsers). So I'll be working on items you pointed out, and hopefully you will see the result soon. Anyway, the form will be updated with any change I make. P.S. I thought maybe make two textboxes for the lyricist: one for the lyricist, and one for the the origin of the lyrics. So you would be able to not only give the the name of the lyricist, let's say J.R.R. Tolkien, but also the source: Lord of the Rings. P.S.2 I could run a script before the form will be submitted, in which case the user would be notified, if any compulsory fields have no appropriate value, like the dash in drop-down lists. It might require an external Javascript (depending on the length of the script), in which case there will be another extension necessary. You will already need the HTMLETS-extension for the form. |
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The fact that Template:acap and Template:a cappella include both Instruments: and a linebreak was a problem from the start. I wanted not to have the linebreak (and perhaps also the Instruments: part), but the winds were blowing in the opposite direction at the time. I would suggest that something shorter than "acappella" be used for the template name - editors like shorter names - maybe "acapp" would do just as well. If it meets with approval, I'll implement it. NB. I corrected a typo: "Instructions" should have been "Instruments". -- Chucktalk Giffen♫ 00:55, 13 May 2008 (PDT) |
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Excuse my intrusion here, but I saw something strange in the list of languages Robert requested to be added to the dropdown list: Quenya is in fact a language, but a constructed one created by JRR Tolkien and spoken only in his Middle-earth fantasy land. I know how fanatic the LotRings fans can be, but don't believe they'll ever compose a piece for choir in such language :))). If we're talking of the country Kenya, they speak Swahili there (not Kenyan! ;). By the way, the list of languages is continuously growing on CPDL, it would be a good idea to have a simple way of adding new ones to the list in the future. You all are doing a great work on this "new works" form, I can't wait to see it online! Regards
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Indeed, there is a work at CPDL in Quenya. That's why I created the categories for it in the first place. :) Actually, there are several Quenyan compositions, as well as compositions in some of the other Middle-Earth languages, but none hosted here. |
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Thanks for the reply, Arie. For a view of the new form from IE 7 on Windows XP, click here. You can see that the boxes don't span the width of the window. Firefox in Windows produces a similar result - I guess it's just a question of screen resolutions. I've just taken a look at Template:ScoreInfo and it seems to work just fine - see the sandbox for an example. As for the cosmetic changes, I like the separating boxes. It's also better when it fits into the width of the browser window. Do you think it would be a good idea to merge "Title, opus etc", "Composer, etc.." and "Composition information" into one box, titled "Work information"? I'm not sure that the blue highlight boxes of "Title of work:", "Opus number:" etc is necessary. A few more points that I've noticed:
In the output code:
'''Instruments''': {{WindAcc|Wind accompaniment: Flute, Oboe, Horn and Bassoon}}
Good work! |
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Hi Robert.
In all: the form is growing and best of all getting very complete. I will have not much time this week, so it may take until next weekend for some major updates. Sorry for that. |
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To all: a new version of the Add new work form is on-line, incorporating as I believe most of the requested features, considering the above remarks. To be tested by you what works best: at the accompaniment information: when you choose for Wind Ensemble, the receiving script puts in Wind accompaniment in the template, whereas in the case of Mixed Ensemble this is put in the text box below, so may change it according to your will. Just try it. Well the link: Add a new work |