Forum:New tooltip extension in php proposal

Forums: Village pump → New tooltip extension in php proposal

So... Cataclysm is coming. We're going to have to change all ~31,500 item tooltips anyway.

Why not take advantage of this to kill {{Tooltip}} and roll our own extension written in php? One less interpreted language to deal with and it'll still work with things like {{Item}}.

Things to keep in mind:

• We only will have 11(ish) stats to keep track of instead of the 20+ we have now:
  • character sheet five: agility/intellect/spirit/stamina/strength
  • Bonuses still on gear: armor/block (shields only)/crit/haste/hit/mastery
• I intend to have those attributes/bonuses explicitly listed and not defined as |attrib=+125 stam<br/>+250 int
• Syntax on wiki-pages will be slightly more humane than what we're having to do now.

On-article syntax I've been thinking about would be something along the lines of:

<item name="kd3's awesome item"
 id=12345 <!-- will be mandatory in the tooltip itself, even though we're not going to display it like we do for quests -->
 icon="inv weapon thunderfury" 
 q=e <!-- "quality: epic". type as much or as little as you like as long as you're not being ambiguous -->
 b=p <!-- example: e-equip, p-pickup, u-use, a-account. you could also use the keywords bop/boe/bta/bou  -->
 unique <!-- just the presence of the keyword is enough. if it's special--Unique (50), u=50 will work -->
 armor=123
 type=2h sword <!-- cloth head? back? gun? ->
 block=9001
 sta=22 <!-- explicitly defined! item doesn't have any stamina? don't add it -->
 int=22
 str=22
 agi=22
 spr=22
 hit=150
 haste=300
 crit=450
 mastery=9001
 equip="Something special not covered by hit/haste/crit/mastery"
 use="A use line too"
 read
 open
 lock=450
/>

The parser needs to do the grunt work, not secondary users like {{item}} or the javascript tooltips and especially not random users trying to add tooltips to the wiki. Chances are this is going to require changes to item/itembox/etc, but not if it can be helped. I dunno about the auto-categorization issue either.

Thoughts? I have yet to write any code; that's going to start soonish. --k_d³ 01:40, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

This would probably be best done using Semantic MediaWiki, otherwise I'm pretty sure it would require some fancy template work to make it work with {{loot}} et al. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 01:43, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

If we could get it to work that way it'd be better. The question is, will crucially kill us in our sleep for enabling SMW on wikia's biggest wiki? --k_d³ 01:47, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

Though if we do go the SMW route I'd probably shelve the tooltip extension option and reconfig {{Tooltip}} to handle the semantic metadata instead.

Saner on-article syntax is key whatever route we choose. --k_d³ 02:49, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

One thing about that is I'm not sure you could do the multiple "equip" thing that way... --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 02:52, December 2, 2009 (UTC)

It should be doable. Just need to get started working on the parser. Proof of concept code is up at User:Kaydeethree/tooltip. --k_d³ 00:00, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

Looks fine. --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 00:25, December 3, 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether shifting some part of this implementation to PHP is a good idea -- the extension would probably not be editable by most users/admins, so the turnaround time for any updates it would require is a concern. From here, the XML tag syntax isn't much better than MW's template syntax; we could probably just as easily clean up the tooltip template to look about the same. [Performance-wise, it's worth investigating how template output can be cached.]

If we're going the full-blown PHP extension route, it might be more interesting to have things like <tooltip item="12345"/> and let the software be responsible for maintaining a cache of item stats. There is a potential issue with PTR or uncommon items, but perhaps that can be addressed in some fashion. -- foxlit (talk) 03:26, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

The more simple the on-wiki syntax the extension is able to parse the better. I'm still in the "let's get something written; ease of use be damned" phase. Feel free to tweak my code, though I should probably put it on github or gcode to be easier. Without even me trying to, my little testwiki's already caching what output I'm creating, so I expect explicitly putting mostly-formatted tooltips in the message cache and then pulling from the cache for js tooltips/etc will only help keep crap from hitting the database.

We still need to define the items on-wiki somewhere (so we can handle ptr/beta stuff), but yah, my intent for doing this is to get items directly in the database so we can reference stuff by its id/name and not have to overload {{tooltip}} yet again. Probably by (ab)using SMW if crucially doesn't kill us for suggesting it -- I'd rather not have to define "yet another wow item schema"... That is, if he'd ever get on irc when I am.

Want to display an itemlink for {{item}}? <itemlink id=foo> or <itemlink name="bar">. Want to get an icon for {{costitem}} or {{itembox}}? <icon id=foo>. And so on.

Re updates to the code -- how often do we have to change {{tooltip}}? Every few minor content patches with big changes centered around expansions? (Guess why I'm trying to do this now...) If the turnaround time is under a day or two I don't see much pain to be had. --k_d³ 04:37, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

Up to v0.5. The parser for key-mode is nearly done. Still need to write code for unique[-eq], set pieces and locked. Still thinking about how to handle the native language case (think: copy/pasting a tooltip from the armory/wowhead/curse in to our edit box and having it work properly). I'll probably come up with an answer when I wake up. (Yay sleep!)

Also trying to decide how I want to put items in the database. Ideas? Please poke crucially/uberfuzzy if you see them on IRC. The techs need to be in on this too. --k_d³ 08:57, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

Stroke of genius when I woke up (I love when I do that). <item>[insert copy/paste from armory]<item> or <item name=foo .../>. The latter is mostly done, will work on the former when I get off work. --k_d³ 19:28, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

What about icons? --PcjWowpedia wiki manager (TDrop me a line!•C207,729 contributions and counting) 19:41, December 5, 2009 (UTC)

Obviously I'm going to have to make a few concessions to get non-displayable info parsed: icon, quality, qbegin to name a few. I'm in the middle of writing the parser for this syntax now, see /tooltip for what I've got so far. --k_d³ 08:34, December 6, 2009 (UTC)

I take it the auto-cat is out the window now? Sssssssssssssssssssssssss For Pony! (^Sssss/_Slithered) 09:02, December 6, 2009 (UTC)