<p>I want to suggest more shortcuts for the boards:
 - Portability Development and Suggestions: PDS
 - About Portability Wikia: About
 - Off-Topic: OT
</p>

<p>Hullo! </p><p>Last year we created a new feature called Help:Flags, which has been live on Portability Wikia for a while. As I'm sure some of you have noticed, we've been quiet about development on this front for a while. It's time for an update. </p> <dl><dt>A visit to Shady Pines retirement home </dt></dl><p>The brief summary is: we're planning to retire Flags in the near future. While the feature had some aspects we really liked, it simply hasn't been as beneficial as we hoped, especially now that Template Types has been launched sitewide. </p><p>After careful consideration over whether it makes sense to spend time to build out the feature further or to simplify article editing by removing it, we feel the latter makes the most sense. </p><p>However, we do not think this was wasted time - we learned a lot while creating this feature, and it's quite possible we'll use some of the code in other features in the future. </p> <dl><dt>How we'll retire it </dt></dl><p>In essence, we will run a bot that will switch Flags back into being a normal part of your article wikitext. We want to make this process as smooth as possible - ideally, viewers should see little difference, and editors will go back to editing notices just as they did in the past. </p><p>We will provide an update when we have more specific timing for this switchover, and feel free to continue using flags in the meantime. </p><p>I want to thank everyone for helping try out this feature - we really appreciated all the feedback, suggestions and bug reports we received while it was available. If you have more thoughts and feedback about the feature, we'd still love to hear it - for example, was there some aspect that you really appreciated? Just let us know either below or via Special:Contact/feedback! </p>

<p>Our engineers have put together a list of all points we currently have that users can implement to make their community portable.  </p><p>It's brief, but comprehensive, and we've added infos on what you can do/use instead wherever possible: Portability_Checklist. We don't have great alternate solutions for everything yet, but hopefully this is still a useful tool.  </p><p>If you guys feel this list is not beginner-friendly enough, unrealistic, or lacking in any other way, let us know! </p>

<p>Hey guys, </p><p>It's my impression that the navigation has once again gone a bit messy with the latest content additions.   </p><p>For example, Infoboxes is included twice in Info&Guides. Guides for Flags or Curated Content are one level below Infoboxes, under "Help", even though those are all portable features with near equal importance. Themes is found both under Design and Community, and discussion topics includes both Infoboxes and Portable infoboxes, although that's really one topic, not two. </p><p>We also have quite a lot of links under "Infoboxes", some of which could be consolidated into one (Best practices and Tips & Tricks, for instance). I'm worried that so many links, including links to relatively small and specific pages (like Typs of Infoboxes), might take attention away from the biggest and most widely relevant pages, like the How-to on making infoboxes portable. </p><p>I have a few thoughts on how we can re-arrange topics so the most important ones are the easiest to find - but you might have better ideas. Plus, some of that nav restructuring may require changing and consolidating whole pages. Before I just barge in and start changing things, I'd like to hear your thoughts. So far I'm thinking: </p>

• I'd like to take the "Portable Infoboxes:" out of the Infobox subnavigation menu, and generally distinguish less between the two. Since this is the Portability Hub, it should be clear that infoboxes that are portable are the standard we're working towards. (Hopefully, some time soon, "infobox" will mean portable infobox per default anyway) So if we talk about infoboxes here, we probably refer to portable ones, and if not, we'll call them classic infoboxes.

• Some navigation headings are pretty generic or misleading. E.g. just "Syntax" will mean nothing to a lot of visitors. "Help" on an entire hub that's all about help isn't very explicit either. And if I see "Guidelines" under Community, I'm expecting something like Community rules and policies, not Themes. 

• I'd like to take bugs out of the Infobox navigation menu. Bugs shouldn't be a permanent fixture, and I'd rather not give visitors the impression bugs are a big part of the whole infobox issue right now. Talking about bugs is still great under Forums, but not in the "Info & Guides" area. 

• Some of our info is very technical, definitely intended for advanced, tech-savvy users. Some is very basic intro stuff for new Wikians. Right now, it's all mixed together, in the navigation as well as in articles, making it hard for visitors to find the level of information they need. We risk boring half of our visitors and overwhelming the other half. I'd love to distinguish more clearly in the navigation between basic guide pages for beginners and advanced technical information for the more deeply invested. 

• Resources is a great collection of links, but the first part is basically a duplicate of the navigation. I think we don't need a page linked prominently in the main navigation that's re-iterating what content we have on the hub. The links to other wikias and external content are an excellent addition to the hub, but I'm tempted to suggest we split up that link collection and add those links directly to the relevant pages. 

• The space we free up in the navigation by removing resources could be used to feature our other portability tools - including the new template types - more prominently. 

<p>
What do you think? </p>

<p>Hi there! Just as heads up, we may be seeing more visitors, soon. Andrew will be posting a staff blog (scheduled for next Tues) that will talk about this community, among other topics.  </p>

<p>Hi there! </p><p>As we work to build this community into a resource for a wider audience, I'd like to collect some community testimonials to add to the main page. The goal of the testimonials is to help others understand the importance of portability, and motivate the broader community to get involved in the efforts.  </p><p>Can you tell me -- in a sentence or two -- why portability is important for you and your community? </p><p>Thank you in advance (and thank you to FishTank, Dessamator and Fandyllic for being the first ones!) </p><p>Michael <small>(profile)•(talk)</small> 00:00, November 11, 2015 (UTC) </p>

<p>Currently most themes' articles only have an infobox. It would be better decide on some content that should always be in these pages. Some ideas include: </p>

• Basic intro description
• Authors notes

• Extra instructions or ideas on use (changing colors, etc)

<p>One concept that we can adopt from devwiki is the script install which could be changed to give instructions on how to put the style sheet in one's wikia. </p>

<p>To facilitate the wikia Adoption-like process of a request based system, I propose we act on discussions we've had and register a custom namespace. Our term for the process that we are going for (in guiding transitions and design for wikias) is mentoring, and the 'Mentoring:' namespace is the logical choice. Understand that this is largely an irreversible decision. I think it's the right one. What say ye? </p>

<p>I've created some javascript to automatically load themes. Here's how it works: </p>

1. If the page is a sub page of Themes , e.g. Themes/Chalkboard it will automatically load a style sheet stored in Themes/Chalkboard/theme.css.
2. Or if it detects something like:

<div dir="ltr" class="mw-geshi mw-content-ltr"><div class="html5 source-html5">

<span class="sc2"><<span class="kw2">div</span> <span class="kw3">id</span><span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"load_css"</span> data-theme-source<span class="sy0">=</span><span class="st0">"Themes/Chalkboard/chalkboard.css"</span><<span class="sy0">/</span><span class="kw2">div</span>></span>

</div></div> <p>It will add a button to load a theme, e.g. : </p> <aside class="portable-infobox pi-background pi-theme-chalkboard pi-layout-default"><h2 class="pi-item pi-item-spacing pi-title" data-source="title">Chalkboard</h2> <section class="pi-item pi-group pi-border-color"><h2 class="pi-item pi-header pi-secondary-font pi-item-spacing pi-secondary-background">Design</h2> <div class="pi-item pi-data pi-item-spacing pi-border-color" data-source="family"> <h3 class="pi-data-label pi-secondary-font">Families</h3> <div class="pi-data-value pi-font">School</div> </div> </section><section class="pi-item pi-group pi-border-color"><h2 class="pi-item pi-header pi-secondary-font pi-item-spacing pi-secondary-background">Technical</h2> <div class="pi-item pi-data pi-item-spacing pi-border-color" data-source="type"> <h3 class="pi-data-label pi-secondary-font">Theme type</h3> <div class="pi-data-value pi-font">Portable Infobox</div> </div> <div class="pi-item pi-data pi-item-spacing pi-border-color" data-source="code"> <h3 class="pi-data-label pi-secondary-font">Resources</h3> <div class="pi-data-value pi-font">CSS</div> </div> <div class="pi-item pi-data pi-item-spacing pi-border-color" data-source="authors"> <h3 class="pi-data-label pi-secondary-font">Authors</h3> <div class="pi-data-value pi-font">User:Robcamstone</div> </div> </section></aside><div id="load_css" data-theme-source="Themes/Chalkboard/chalkboard.css"> </div> <p>
Currently this is awaiting JS review, so it is not yet live (and you won't see the button unless you're testing the JS). This can be tested by enabling the "test mode" in Special:jspages. </p><p>The data-source-theme above is a page containing the theme, and will only load the proper theme if it is the exact css "class". Some points: </p>

• The css class must be lower case
• If the css class contains a space, it will be converted to "-", see Help:Infoboxes/CSS.

<p>I was thinking that maybe we should just rename these subpages to /theme.css instead of stuff like "star wars/star wars.css" .That will make it easier to remember, and not worry about spacing and stuff. </p> <hr><p>See Project:Themes. </p>

<p>In an effort to build a gallery of Themes to inspire Portable elements, Content Portability Wikia (formerly Infobox Wikia) is planning a contest: build Themes based on your favorite or most iconic films! We have a few films already in mind that we're working on (and will post some examples for), but we want to see what you're cooking up. Winners get special recognition badges, will have their creations featured in our Themes gallery, and other awards yet to be determined. </p><p>We intend at least two categories of awards for this particular contest: mockups (submitted images of your great designs drawn as infoboxes) and fully realized designs (functional CSS and any image files required for texture, etc.). Who knows, the winning mockups may even get design help to bring their creations to life! ☺ You'll also have plenty of time for this first drive: submissions will be open until December 31, 2015. Follow this thread for changes and any surprises along the way, and feel free to post your submissions or links to them here as well.  </p><p>For fully realized designs, we allow teams of a visionary and a coder. We ask that use of JavaScript in realized designs be kept to a minimum, so that we can truly highlight the functions of Portability. All web fonts should be invoked by CSS only. </p><p>We plan to have several such contests, but we wanted to kick off the first with a spectacle that everyone can enjoy and truly bring to life what Portability. If you're an admin or leader for a community on Wikia, and are interested in having your own contests we'd love to partner with you and provide whatever assistance we can in making portability fun and accessible for you; please contact one of our admins via Wall. </p>

<p>Hey everyone, </p><p>As promised, here's our first (rough) draft of what this hub's main page could look like. </p><p>Thoughts, suggestions? </p><p>Before you answer, please note: </p>

• The wordmark still has an issue with strange black borders around the letters. Those are not gonna be there when we upload it here.
• The international links at the bottom are for localized content that obviously hasn't been created yet, so please ignore the red links
• Take a look at the navigation: This is far from final, but a first stab at how content on this wikia could be organized
• Same applies to the Quicklinks: Those are just a first draft.

<p class="p1">Hello there!</p> <p class="p1">This message is directed at the admins of this wikia and any other editors who have been working here.</p> <p class="p1">This is an outstanding project and very much in line with what the Wikia Community Team would like to set up in the very near future -- a content portability “hub” for the community. You guys have things off to a great start here, so I wanted to see how you felt about bringing this project together with Wikia’s vision for the future, and make this the official source for all things portability-related.</p> <p class="p1">What this would mean:</p> <p class="p1">Content:</p>

• Some updates to the main page so that visitors can be directed to the proper resource areas right away. Videos, Help pages, other portability-related resources (primarily infoboxes right now)
• Related navigation updates
• Creation of a few other “guidepost” type pages to help users figure out where to find what they need
• Addition of localized versions of the main page and other guidepost pages

<p class="p1">Design:</p>

• Some custom theme work. Since it will be “official” we’ll want to use some of the brand colors, etc
• Probably a new name and wordmark -- putting the focus on the broader “portability” topic to pave the way for additional collaborative efforts like infoboxes (for example, info on curated main pages; in the future, possibly some table markup)

<p class="p1">Working with you:</p>

• We’d like to offer our team resources to help you with content and community management. You have done fabulous work already with the community and we want to partner with you to make this community special

<p class="p1">We would direct users to the wiki from anything that’s meant to promote the portability project (blog posts, forum threads, Wikia University pages)</p> <p class="p1">We should also link the Infobox Wiki from the main Techincal Support forum on Community Central.</p> <p class="p1">Let me know what you all think!</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> </p> <p class="p1">Thanks!</p>

<p>This thread is a gathering point for snippets or tools to enhance or provide non-standard uses for infoboxes.  </p>

<p>I think that the best way to document the infoboxes is assume that readers have no knowledge of technical jargon such as CSS, XML, Attributes and parameters. </p><p>The official help page is deliberately brief because it would be too complicated to explain all of that, although it should expect one to at least have knowledge of Templates.  </p>