Wiki/Report of Meeting 2023-03-23

Report of Meeting 2023-03-23

Present: Ed Gottsman, Dave Lambert, Devon McCormick, Raul Miller, and Bob Therriault

1. Ed led off the meeting with a demo of the most recent iteration of the J Wiki browser that he has developed in jQt. This one includes forum content, which will eventually lead to searchable forum posts with quick access hovering similar to the J wiki access. Worth a look to see the full functionality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPmRWEyk8gs
2. Next up was Devon McCormick showing some of the categorization he had done based on his https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG/2021-01-12 categorization. He had questions about how specific categories should be and whether there should be a style guide for terms such as 'Array Thinking' or 'ArrayThinking' or 'Array-thinking'. Devon was concerned about being too specific with his choice of categories. Bob felt that user assigned categories are valuable because they could later be incorporated into the category tree categories. In the meantime, user defined categories would be useful to binding together pages that share different aspects of a category. Raul felt that at some point in the future we might need to provide support for categories so that users might be given choices in categories in addition to developing their own to encourage some aggregation. Bob also mentioned that categories can be changed and migrate the linked pages to create new category pages. There is more work, but you do not lose initial categorization even if categories are changed. Devon has also created instant links to his NYCJUG meetings https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/NYCJUG#2022
3. Ed opened a discussion about searching the forums using the grid structure that he had developed. Bob felt that it would work, Ed was open to exploring other options. Ed asked about cached versus live access on his browser tool -– whether there is a preference to being able to edit live pages or whether cached pages would suffice. Bob felt that he could do editing on a live browser and would not need live pages in the wiki viewer.
4. Ed wondered about whether NYCJUG could be further categorized. This could be done by year, but the topics such as 'Beginners Regatta' might not be useful because they occur in every meeting. The user contributed categories are opportunities to 'pave cow paths' so that the community can develop direction for the formation of the more formal category tree structure. Raul mentioned that the special page for Needed Categories that identified categories that show up on pages, but have not had a page created yet. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Special:WantedCategories
5. Bob gave a quick demo of his 'Contributing to the J Wiki' page. https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Category:Contibuting_to_the_J_Wiki_W.2 Feedback was that examples should be expanded. Bob wondered about whether there should be a longer table of contents or click to a new page. A compelling case was made to have a longer table of contents for quicker access. Bob thought that a collapsible table of contents might be possible, but Ed pointed out that scrolling is a lot quicker than clicking and opening hidden information. Another option would be to widen the page by using additional levels of headings. This seemed like the best approach to minimize the amount of scrolling.
6. Ed wondered if videos might be an approach. Bob thought that the length of videos meant that many would not sit for two minutes to find information that might be a line of text. The approach might be to minimize the length of videos, so that a 30 second video specific to the skills would be useful. Video without voice-over might be appropriate. Bob said that he had done svg animations that are tiny to convey ideas. They may be revisited, as they are small and fit the web format of the wiki.

For access to previous meeting reports https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/Wiki_Development If you would like to participate in the development of the J wiki please contact us on the general forum and we will get you an invitation to the next J wiki meeting held on Thursdays at 23:00 (UTC) Next meeting is March 30th, 2023.