Category talk:Function Types

should we add more categories? Inventory Functions, Statistics Functions, etc? --Illyism 20 January 2009

I don't think we should have as many categories as we do. I never use them (for functions) myself because I know they may not be complete or accurate and that may cause me to miss the function I was looking for. I know we don't like categories as pages here, but the sentiment for function categories may differ.

What I would like to see is a page for functions like the Settings page which has links to all the functions categorized with section headers or broken off into sub pages. Perhaps also include a brief description of the function on that page, but without duplicating the information on the function page.

--SnakeChomp 18:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I started to work on a page like that. The ultimate goal was to use those sub-categories as tabs in a show/hide box, but I have to learn some more about the template set ups and bots before I can continue.

--Haama 19:05, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

That is not what I meant, excuse me if I didn't make myself clear; It was just a question if we needed more categories to sort script functions in. For example: Inventory Functions or OBSE Functions

Anyhow, your idea sounds interesting, Haama, But I believe you need the #if extension to use it properly.

--Illyism 19:47, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I knew what you meant, and I don't want to add the new categories you suggest. Instead of adding categories I would like to see a page such as the one Haama showed us. In such a page, the categories are really the section headers, for instance, the Say function would belong to the "Actor/Dialog" category. According to the wiki it wouldn't belong to such a category, but according to people reading the page it does. A page like this is infinitely easier to use than the category page to find related functions.

--SnakeChomp 19:59, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

You definitely have a point with the Say example, but incompleteness of the categories also counts if everything is listed on a single page. Then you'd have different headers instead of categories, but you still can't be sure the functions are categorized correctly. One page listing all function sounds useful, but I expect it to be quite long if we also include the FOSE functions.

I'm not opposed to more function categories. They won't be in our way when making a single page with all functions.

--Qazaaq 20:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Even if the function was categorized incorrectly, at least it would still be somewhere on the page for somebody to notice and fix. It may take longer for someone to notice a mis categorized function when real categories are used because not all the members of all the categories are shown on a single page. Its impossible to assure that everything is always correctly categorized, so being correctly categorized is not a feature of having a single page for functions, but the single page is superior in terms of navigating and finding what function you need when you don't really have an idea what that function is.

One of the things we can do with Haama's page is to use template insertions (or whatever its called, {{:SubPage}} is the syntax I think?) to include the contents of subpages into the sections on the main page instead of having the functions listed directly on the main page. That way, we can display all the members of the function's category on the function page itself by also including the same template page in a navigation box. Things would be added/removed from the categories by editing the subpages being used as templates. It could be located at the bottom of the page like wikipedia often does with its navigation system or in a box on the top right of the page or something fancy like that.

--SnakeChomp 20:57, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that there should both be a manually-created page as SnakeChomp says, and categories for automatic sorting. Categories are useful for all kinds of reasons, especially if Bethesda OK's my WikiBot (need to bug them about that some more). Categories really ought to be primarily behind-the-scenes, rather than pages we expect people to look through. They should be for our benefit, not the users'.

DragoonWraith · talk · 22:00, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

An excellent point about the display limit of categories. I like the idea of subpages, as that allow us to list individual "categories". It's true what DW says about the Wikibots though, those things work with Wiki categories, so we can't dismiss them. Discarding them from regular use is possible if we have a good alternative, like the function page you describe.

Whether or not we're going to use Wiki categories or just headers on a page, the question still stands: do we need more of them? I think it wouldn't hurt.

--Qazaaq 18:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes - more categories now, and a move over to a manually-created page soon, with sub-pages and/or headers for different categories.

DragoonWraith · talk · 21:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)