User talk:MikeyD

2015-06-28
(conversation with Astrangeaeon moved to its own talk page)

I knew you were the right man for the job!
Thanks for patching that up, it works great now!

Persistent Variables
I may have found an easier way to fake variables, using the function. The idea is to construct your text using a placeholder everywhere you want the variable to appear, then use to replace all instances of it with the actual value. Multiple variables are also possible if you nest 's. For example:

[vartest1] [vartest2] 1,
 * vartest1

1,⚑ saw the movie. ⚑ laughed. ⚑ cried. ⚑ was moved.
 * vartext1

1,
 * vartest2

1,"Hi ⚑," said ⚡. "Oh, hi ⚡!" said ⚑.
 * vartext2

Source: 1,
 * vartest1

1,⚑ saw the movie. ⚑ laughed. ⚑ cried. ⚑ was moved.
 * vartext1

1,
 * vartest2

1,"Hi ⚑," said ⚡. "Oh, hi ⚡!" said ⚑. - Serpentine Cougar (talk) 09:15, 12 November 2015 (PST)
 * vartext2

Perhaps this is gauche...
Perhaps responding to someone else’s comment on a different user’s talk board is gauche, but that persistent variable coding looks very, very promising!

Stop the presses! … Serpentine Cougar HAS DONE IT!!
Holy crap guys … this could be (likely is) a MAJOR breakthrough.

I haven’t replied until now because … well, the browser I was in this morning didn’t know my Abulafia password (and I sure don’t remember it!) … but also because my mind was reeling with the possibilities that this advance (if it turns out to be legit—and right now I can find no obvious problems with the approach) will enable, once Abu users have wrapped their brains around it. I know I just spent the last year or so focusing on workarounds for just this sort of thing, having resigned to its being impossible … so some mental retraining will be necessary before I can start to take proper advantage (I imagine it’s similar with you all). But … initial signs are good that … this just might change the whole Abulafia ballgame.

Wow, talk about a justification for RTFMing some of the more arcane features of mediawiki syntax … it’s not gauche at all that you guys are doing stuff on my page. (Heck, if I’d’a known you were coming, I’d have tidied up!) On the contrary, I feel honored to have anyone read this mess, much less respond to it … so you can start to appreciate how stoked I’d be to see a solution for one of Abulafia’s biggest drawbacks debut on my page, of all places.

After downgrading my computer recently, I lost all emoji ability, but I remember there was one of a little guy bowing down. So please, mentally insert that emoji here, as we all observe a moment of silence to celebrate Serpentine Cougar’s baadasssss achievement.

… Now, for anyone who’s still here … can I offer you tea? I … I think there might also be generic pop-tarts … let me check …


 * Oh, thanks! And please add any tips you have offline that I missed.



For the variables, I think your code would work, if I understand what you mean. If you put either [hello] or [goodbye] where is you'll get the name instead of the flag, which is what you want. The reason it works is because the call is high on the chain of table calls (like in ;main for example), so it replaces all flags in any subtables that have been used to construct the entry.


 * When I figured it out, I was only working off of the examples on your Sandbox page. I was focused more on how works rather than what all it could be applied to. Is there a good example of a table that needs some he/she fixing? I should find one and try to get it working there as a proof of concept. My first thought is to use one gender's pronouns in all the subtables, but then for names of the other gender, replace he and she, her and him, etc. So that would mean a few nested 's. - Serpentine Cougar (talk) 18:57, 13 November 2015 (PST)

No-breaks
Nobreak only works within Cols because of what it does - everything in nobreak will stay in the same column. If you aren't using Cols (or the CSS styles that Cols uses) there is no point to using nobreak.

In my opinion, nobreak is best used when the content put into columns is rather long, like a paragraph or a section on a page. The reason I created it was because I got annoyed with seeing a column starting in the middle of a sentence and having to scroll down to find where it started (yeah, lazy, I know). But if a page generates a bunch of names or short phrases (each no more than 2 lines or so), there's not much point to using nobreak because they aren't long enough to cross over into the next column. And it's not like pages are unusable without nobreak - some just (arguably) look better with it. So nobreak does not need to be used everywhere.

Unfortunately I don't see how it could be integrated into the Cols template. Cols creates a div, and nobreak creates divs to be placed within that div. There could be any number of these, which is a bit difficult to put in a template, at least as I understand it.

As to gendered pronouns, it seems like if the main table only calls a few subtables, it might be easier to just separate a table into separate male/female ones. #replace is most useful when there are subtables that call subtables that call subtables....

I look forward to seeing what you do with #replace! - Serpentine Cougar (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2015 (PST)

2015-11-20
I'm not sure it works. I previewed a page where I took out the nobreak template, and it didn't look right. The "column-break-inside:avoid" div has to be inside the "column-count" div; I don't think they can be the same div. - Serpentine Cougar (talk)


 * I’m using Firefox right now, and even before I merged nobreak into Cols, it wasn’t always working right for me. Not that it’s any fault of yours; in researching the topic, I found that the column-break-* properties are CSS3 which may not yet be fully implemented and/or debugged. As one page put it: “Unfortunately this is an area of severe incompatibilities and immense amounts of keywords.”


 * I did note a slightly different syntax for column-nonbreaking in IE than that specified in nobreak, and have just added that extra definition to Cols. It may make a difference. I do see what you mean about nobreak possibly needing to be in a subordinate div to work; however, it seems to me any sub-div ought to inherit the same properties (unless it had CSS set to override the inherit). Also, I think a sub-div could be set up within Cols if that’s what it takes. But …


 * Anyhow, right now I’m already straining my brain on this pronoun-gender pandora’s box so, given the near-impossibility of cleanly resolving this nobreak thing at present … I’m inclined to just leave it for the moment – unless it messes up existing nobreak installs, in which case I’ll comment it out and come back to it later.


 * --MikeyD (talk) 16:28, 20 November 2015 (PST)

Fantasy Lives
Thanks for making tables and charts I could borrow from.

the main backstory generator  page is at CC-Fantasy-Lives

I've gotten my Casting-style background tables prepared to the point

I want to call for help and beta-testing. my email is Egyptoid @ gmail - com

or my user discussion page User_talk:Egyptoid

please run it a few times, and tell me about what stinks.

also I ask what should the final layout look like ?

some of the errors are minor, and come from trying to parse grammar

across 4 sub-charts, like: the sorcerer summoned the an water elemental that fallen into a volcano

previous authors have tried to adhere to the book, I have just used the Casting book as a skeleton,

and tried to improvise and expand with the wide capabilities of Abulafia.

please let me know if you like it not, and why.