Improved help.xml

[Aiwendil]

As weltall committed the patches for the new help system today I thought I made my working draft of an improved in-game help available too. This is still work in progress but as far as I see it includes already all the information of the original PS help and adds a lot more stuff (With one exception, it doesn't include any GM/dev commands at the moment. As this is meant for players I also don't intend to include those myself but if a dev/GM feels like adding them please do so).

Mostly I want to know if there is a general interest in something like this. So a few replies would be appreciated.

For now this will only work with self-compiled clients (need at least PS SVN revision 8024). But the next official client of PS should included all help system improvements needed to use this help.xml replacement.

Then I needed a skin for the images used in the help file. I chose BoNeeSkin for this...as it's CC licensed, pretty complete and easy to adjust. In the end this should work well with all skins so if anyone has interest in making it work with another skin feel free to contact me and ask how. But I wanted to express my gratitude to Bonifarzia and Neeno for their skin.

Okay...but what the hell is this even about. Mhh...lets see:





And as I said...this is still a very early draft and far from being complete. For now not even the part describing all the windows in PS is complete (and I have to admit I'm a bit afraid of the options-window. That will be really a lot to type ). All help is very welcomed if someone is up for it.

First off, I'm not a English native speaker...so there will be endless typos, bad phrasings and grammar errors. Be a spelling-nazi this one time...and poke me about my errors.

Also I would love to have a lot of general game informations stuff in the help like race descriptions or monster descriptions. But here the problems start already...I suck at writing. Everything on the PS website and the PS wiki is ABC licensed and can't be reused. So if someone feels like writing a summery about Klyros, dwarves, Clackers or whatever and doesn't copy and paste from the PS websites please send them to me so that I can included those texts in the help file.

Next problem...the spoiler part. I don't have the slightest clue who trains what and where I can mine. I would like to included all such information as well...even if I never cared about them. So if anyone could give me access to a recent spoiler page and the permission to reuse that stuff I would be grateful. (Of course even more if someone wants to include such information in the help.xml him/herself)

Also the help file is CC licensed (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) so please reuse this if you want for your own additions. Feel free to create a section with the rules of your guild and hand it out to all your guild members.


So...if you find this interesting, work with a recent trunk client and want to try it out get thethe help.xml. Install the skin as usual (just copy it in art/skins and select it in pslaunch). The help.xml must be copied to data/help.xml (replacing the old help.xml there). If you use a translation of PS you must replace help.xml in the directory of the translation you use (for example: lang/deutsch/data/help.xml)



Changes to BoNeeSkin-v2.7

• helpwindow.xml: Changed to pawsDocumentView to work with SVN trunk and enable images in the help window
• dialog.xml: Copied the latest changes from trunk to make the skin work with trunk
• chardescwindow.xml: Enabled the spellchecker for char descriptions
• questnotebook.xml: Enabled the spellchecker for quest notes
• shortcutwindow.xml: Enabled the spellchecker for the command text box (Not sure if this is really helpful as most commands aren't exactly words...but some people tend to write RP-shortcuts here so having the ability to spellcheck might be nice here too)
• guildwindow.xml: Enabled the spellchecker for the MOTD
• chat.xml: Disabled "always on top"...my chat window covers a quarter of the screen...I want to be able to still change options with it visible.
• added petition.xml and enabled the spellchecker for the text
• added a few images for the help file to the skin archive and to imagelist.xml
• added a changelog to README.txt

Last but not least I have a question. Does anyone know what license the posts in this forum are...especially http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=31960.0
Would be nice to include the rules in the helpfile...but could be a bit hard to ask Dajoji for permission. And if they are seen as PS property and ABC licensed it won't work out.

Edit:
- Added links to images hosted on an alternative provider

Edit2:
- And removed the alternative images again

[bilbous]

That looks really good to me. congratulations.

I assume that people posting here retain copyright to anything posted, granting only license to display as required. I've certainly never seen anything on the forums trying to claim rights to everything. I'd never be back if that was the case.

[Aiwendil]

Yeah..of course not bilbous...didn't expect everything in this forum to become ABC as well. But this particualr post was made by Dajoji while he was member of the PS team and kind of serves an offical purpose. That's what makes me a bit...uneasy to just copy it.

[bilbous]

Oh I did not see any differentiation in your post as to which you had written and which you might have borrowed. It would well to attribute such things as the text in the pictures that were written by others (if that is a correct assumption.) In that case I believe it would all be covered as fair use.

Of course I am just talking though my hat having no legal expertise.

[Aiwendil]

Aww..so far no differentiation is necessary as all the text is pure, original, poor quality Aiwendil writing. But it has already some thanks to people helping me and of course I will make it clear if someone else wrote a text for the help. (But you reminded me that I forgot to include a thanks for Neeno and Bonifarzia in the help file as well...will add that now)

Guess for now I just try to send Dajoji a PM and see if he replies...and then poke poor Illysia with her superior writing skills to write me an essay about the difficulties of being an Enkidukai and why there are no good fur-shampoos available.

[bilbous]

Schaeminaire soap won't do? 

[Talad]

Looks very good!

Any piece that goes in game should go under AB License, that allows you to reuse any existing material, including the current help file. Makes no sense to rewrite it completely, but it should be expanded with the images and more up to date information.

About license in the forums, any rule/document/setting material posted by PlaneShift members is under AB license, all other posts are owned by the posters.

[Aiwendil]

Thanks.

For the licensing: In this case it's more important for me to allow players/guilds/groups to adjust my work to their needs and redistribute it again than having it included in the official client...that's why CC.

[Talad]

Sounds easier to me to just use AB from the start, if you guys are working for improving the in game help, consider it approved.

[Talad]

Just to be clear, no spoilers will be allowed, so the map you have posted up there should not be included (I've removed it now).

The main part to improve is surely a better explanation of the game mechanics, how to start crafting, how to build a characters, how to RP. There is quite a bit that can be added and improved in the help. Let us know which parts you want to work on.

[Aiwendil]

Okay, sorry, no more screenshot of the spoiler section then.

Going to finish the descriptions of all in-game windows for now. A RP guide is already included (though maybe needs a some rework as I wrote this specifically for the outlaws some years ago). Also the sections for the config files of PS is mostly done already. The command section should have almost all available commands but still needs some formatting work (And a recheck with the sourcecode so that I really didn't forget any command)

When finished with the windows I thought about a combat and a magic section next. Also I got the permission to use some content for the spoiler section so that will get some work soon too.

And of course I will included stuff other people send me.

[Talad]

Also I got the permission to use some content for the spoiler section so that will get some work soon too.

Which parts and who gave you the permission?

[Aiwendil]

???

Just some PS related website that collects infos about PS and how to play. I would never dare to use material without the approval of the authors so I asked them and got the permission to use their stuff.

[Talad]

Ok, but consider that if you want to make your help changes part of the game, we then need a review with ps devs.

Anyway I suggest you to proceed to collect the information as you are already doing, and then we can have a review when you are at a good point of completion. My suggestion is just to avoid collecting a lot of spoiler info, because that will then be cut off in the in game help.

[Bonifarzia]

First of all, this looks very promising, Aiwendil. I hope all of the effort you have put into this will be of good use for the community. I am glad I have had a glance at your previews before they turned into the red gibberish with polish "picture censored" tags (google translate), just as they did on flyspray (task5450).

Second, it is a pity that this has not caught my attention any earlier, as I was to lazy to hop on IRC for quite a long time. I think it is much the same with Neeno, who is the only person who deserves your thanks for basing some of your work on the BoNeeSkin, as he has done all the recent enhancements. We actually think that you could fork your modifications into a separate skin project, but your approach is also fine. Yet, maybe a slight name change that emphasizes the new help features is better than following our (random) versioning, just to avoid confusion.

Considering spoilers... well, that is something quite incompatible with official content, but you don't need anybody to tell you about that - you know the policies. When I first saw your maps preview, I even thought you made up a minimap in the spirit of the inventory doll. Anyways, I think such things are much less needed than the polish up of the help system you already achieved. And your work deserves more than just yet another discussion about spoilers.

Good luck with your project!