On 12/6/19 10:59 AM, jr wrote:
...
>> Interpolation with respect to media... Not completely sure what you
>> mean, but, there are directions on my wiki page at:
> 
> in a 'density {}' loaded from df3.
> 
Ah, OK. Depending on how you're using the df3 in media it might be worth 
giving my wiki page:

  http://wiki.povray.org/content/User:Wfpokorny/DensityFile

a read. There are issues with the df3 interpolation which can make using 
it tricky.


> right, had a quick look at your wiki page.  so generally, first git clone
> POV-Ray master, then the checkout/pull sequence near bottom (with name of
> branch)?  I found an ebook/pdf (by S Chacon), am resigned to having to read it.
> ...in the coming days.  :-)
> 

Yeah, you got the idea. Intent was to set it up so folks building 
POV-Ray themselves could roll their own derivatives of POV-Ray chosing 
what branches they want to merge into the current master for their 
version. Might be they have three branches of their own, might want to 
use 2 of mine, 3 of SuperCoder12StrandedOnMarsEatingPotatoes etc.

> 
>> ...
>> (1) - The inability to add new links to discussion and documentation
>> made the wiki much less useful - and I've more or less just been letting
>> my pages sit as is for long time.
> 
> I've been toying with the idea of trying to get a wiki page, for the df3-tools
> mainly.  but the site seems quite static, not really encouraging contribution (I
> feel).
> 
...
Don't have time for real hobby coding this morning before being tied up 
for some days. Why not some rambling thoughts about the wiki...

---
Over the last month or more, Maurice has been substantially improving the

http://wiki.povray.org/content/HowTo:Use_POV-Ray_with_Blender

page which can be found off of the

http://wiki.povray.org/content/HowTo:Contents

page. This evidence not everything is stale on the wiki. Folks do make 
updates.

But, I agree the wiki is kinda stale. Writing wikis not too bad for 
simple one page an image two sorts of things. For more, I find it 
cumbersome.

In addition to trouble creating links to other pages:

To write more than one page, as with the density file pattern stuff, I 
found the coding and previewing via the web cumbersome.  I ended up 
using a linux tool called Zim to first code, review, organize and refine 
the pages locally(1). The wiki encoding though was slightly different 
than that of POV-Ray's wiki implementation. It was a pain to transfer 
everything to the POV-Ray wiki(2). I got some of this wrong due cut and 
pasting, formatting differences, etc.

(1) - Zim a neat tool. Though it's spell checker broke for time while I 
was using it due a Ubuntu release...

(2) - Now that everything on the POV-Ray wiki, major revisions can no 
longer easily be done locally within Zim...

I found myself revising / changing images, but there is no way to delete 
old ones yourself, so you end up being overly careful using images. With 
some I replaced the image with much simpler "delete me" ones hoping some 
admin would see this and do it. Suppose behavior might be due a wiki 
being able to back up to old versions, but if I'm creating the first 
release of some documentation I don't want all the old versions to exist 
but just the 'released' one.

Once personal wiki's are up. They are sitting out there not very 
visible. Is there even a page which lists user wikis? Maintained pages 
sit on a wiki where lots of stuff has fallen out of date and needs 
revision. People see that general staleness and shy away both from 
reading the wiki entries - and from updating old ones.

Normal users cannot update the stuff they don't own. A few super users 
can - spam concerns again I guess. This forces normal users into a "can 
I get the attention of a super user;" then into a sort of type this, 
then this, kinda of loop with them; on seeing some wrong or wanting some 
change. This loop too is cumbersome. It gets to there being nobody being 
paid to stay on top of the wiki and documentation always. Someone always 
finding and refining issues as their job. We have similar issues with 
the core documentation/build and release systems too as mentioned 
elsewhere.

With user wikis there is always the problem that we might not completely 
understand what we are trying to document ;-). What to do when well 
intention-ed, but wrong pages get posted? Wikipedia has this problem 
too. What they've done with subjects like Math is gather/(pay?) experts 
as arbiters for what's written - much better end result, but still you 
occasionally run across mistakes and biases in what's written.

We have a single physical web site. When it goes down or my local 
network connection does, I'd like to have local copy of the wiki, 
library and the newsgroup postings as I do for the documentation. Or at 
least have snapshots of these available on the cloud - github or 
wherever.

A few expert folk maintain their own web sites for what might go on a 
wiki, but that an investment. Plus, knowing where all these web sites 
are today means maintaining a list of links to them yourself.

Back to the Zim tool, its github wiki page at:

https://github.com/jaap-karssenberg/zim-wiki/wiki

is an interesting model for putting a wiki on github. The wiki link on 
the Zim web site links to the github wiki above.

Bill P.

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