Forum:Narrated Codex entries

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Project: Narrated Codex entries

A new template to display a link entries that have been narrated in either game.

Currently developed by: User:Dammej

Developer(s) notes: Template implemented.

Status last updated: 9/12/2010

Page location: Template:CodexEntry
Page should contain: Templates linking both the codex images and the audio for them
Supporting links or images: Talk:Codex
Discussion on:

Other Notes

As a result of discussion on Talk:Codex, I've created a template (User:Dammej/Sandbox/Template:CodexEntry) to display links to the narrated audio in addition to the images. You can see several of its usages on User:Dammej/Sandbox/Codex Audio. We're not locked into this style though, so if you think there is a better way to display the codex audio for primary entries, post them here.

This proposal will also add two new CSS rules to MediaWiki:Common.css and one piece of javascript to MediaWiki:Common.js. These rules would be used to get the big play button to display correctly on Internet Explorer, and to get the Native Browser player to display correctly on both Chrome and Firefox. The javascript in particular is specific to Firefox and Chrome, forcing the native player built into those browsers to be preferred over any other player. These are workarounds for bugs that Wikia should really be dealing with, so hopefully they'll be temporary. To see what these changes would do, just copy the code from my User:Dammej/monaco.css and User:Dammej/monaco.js to your own respective customized css and js.

Note also that all of the audio links are for the entry on Tuchanka. This is not a mistake-- I'm just giving samples for how the template will look, not how each entry sounds. If/When the template looks like it'll get implemented, I'll upload the other entries. -- Dammej (talk) 21:07, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Update: The proposal has passed. The template has been moved into the template namespace.

Voting

It's been up for a week now with no comments other than Commdor's, so I'll just call it to vote under the assumption that everyone else is apathetic about it. :P

Results

With a total of 11 votes for and 1 vote against, the proposal has passed. Votes and comments are preserved below. Please refrain from further voting.

For

1. As styled in the Aeia demonstration on User:Dammej/Sandbox/Codex Audio. -- Dammej (talk) 05:50, September 5, 2010 (UTC)
2. I support this. Seems like a nice feature to have. Arbington 06:01, September 5, 2010 (UTC)
3. I can say that I forgot about this, but it turned out nice, and would be a good feature for the Codex. Lancer1289 06:03, September 5, 2010 (UTC)
4. Looks good. I like the Aeia one, but not the Tuchanka one where the audio thing is on the right-hand side. SpartHawg948 03:31, September 7, 2010 (UTC)
5. I wish I could hear it, but since I know what they are and what they sound like, I will vote yes. MEffect Fan 03:47, September 7, 2010 (UTC)
6. This is a nice feature to have. I remember spending the first half of the original Mass Effect listening to the entire spoken Codex. It definitely helps in telling the lore behind the series. Freakium 03:54, September 7, 2010 (UTC)
7. I'm for the Aeia one. --CodeMyster003 12:48, September 9, 2010 (UTC)
8. Yeah, the Aeia one is best.SoulRipper 12:50, September 9, 2010 (UTC)
9. Great idea! I also like the Aeia sty;e, although it may be useful to include a caption if possible stating that this is the audio recording of the words on the page. Bronzey 13:36, September 9, 2010 (UTC)
10. And I guess this is my formal vote. -- Commdor (Talk) 16:02, September 9, 2010 (UTC)
11. Agreed on the Aeia style. --The Illusive Man 21:17, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Against

1. Disagreed. If anything like that is implemented, then other interesting audio files should also be posted, such as unique characters dialogues. It would take too much place for host, slow done processing and will add much more data to stream, making it hard for people with slow connection to be part of wiki. Ref92 20:02, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Comments

This has my support, in any event. It would definitely be a cool feature to have all the audio for the narrated entries on this wiki. -- Commdor (Talk) 03:02, August 29, 2010 (UTC)

Ok as to the recent against vote, this is just for the Codex entries, why should we put it in for UD pages or anything else when the system we have works now? I.e. using text. Personally I think the narrated Codex Entries will be great and I see no reason to expand this unique feature. Lancer1289 20:05, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Understandable. But following that logic, Codex entries are also working well in text. I cant say I am being all radical about it. I just dont see reasons for its usage. Ref92 20:09, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that audio is only streamed to the client once it is requested to be played (clicking the big play button), rather than if the play button is included on the page. Inclusions of the play buttons themselves shouldn't significantly increase the amount of data to be sent to the client. It's ok if you're against the proposal, but lets not get any misconceptions that their inclusion would add lots of extra data to the page. -- Dammej (talk) 20:18, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Your understanding is right on target. It works the same was as places like YouTube. I mean the video there doesn't start downloading until you hit play. The same thing would work in this case, until the play button is pressed, nothing is streamed. Lancer1289 20:25, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

There is no need to extract the UD files. Adding (f.ex.) Grunt's "I AM KROGAN" in audio (IMO) is really unnecessary. Also extracting all the UD files whould take very long cause there are thousands of audio files (both ME and ME2 games) and are hidden inside the .upk and .isb files and need too much and carefull search.SoulRipper 20:32, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Lancer1289 20:40, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Well, regardless, unless there's a huge influx of votes against between now and tomorrow, this proposal is going to be sailing to an easy victory. Probably the widest margin I've seen yet. SpartHawg948 20:44, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad that Ref92 voted against. While confirming for myself that the audio was not downloaded until requested, Chrome informed me that the js I had to re-order the preferences for audio players had a syntax error. With that fixed, the js actually did the job it was supposed to: make quicktime not preferred! Hooray! -- Dammej (talk) 21:07, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

So what does this mean in simple words?SoulRipper 21:47, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry. :) I'm referencing a conversation that I had with SpartHawg toward the beginning of this project. He told me that whenever he tried to play a file on Firefox, it would lock up when Quicktime tried to play the file. This is because he doesn't have Java installed, so Quicktime was the preferred player. The code I have moves another player (which Firefox has) above Quicktime in priority, which will prevent this from happening. That explanation probably didn't help either. Argh.

Basic terms: There's a bug with how wikia plays audio currently, and I finally was able to work around it, for the benefit of all users. -- Dammej (talk) 21:52, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Hehe Im not thaaat dumb. I got it. So now the only thing left is the green button of the Internet Explorer? About that (and I dont want to drive this off topic, just a small note), when I open this page in IE, the buttons for the audio look normal(only a bit more bigger and with a little more space the one from the other) but when I open your codex sandbox, it shows green buttons. Dont know why those two show differently, the code looks similar. SoulRipper 22:08, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

It's because wikia has green buttons all over their site, while wikipedia does not. The code to make the buttons green in IE seems to overwrite the code to set the background for the codex buttons. I've already addressed that issue as noted in my proposal though (up top). If you want to get a preview ahead of time, just copy the code from User:Dammej/monaco.css to User:SoulRipper/monaco.css. That'll fix the buttons. Once the proposal goes through, it'll be changed site-wide, so people won't have to do that. -- Dammej (talk) 22:21, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

So the green buttons have to be changed by wikia itself. Anyway I only use Firefox so the green buttons are not a problem for me. Ok, no more questions. Thanks. SoulRipper 22:40, September 11, 2010 (UTC)

Nah. We can fix the green audio buttons ourselves (I thought I just said that?). The reason they're green to begin with is because all other buttons here are green. Namely the "Save page", "Preview", "Recent changes", etc buttons. A bug with how IE renders buttons causes the audio buttons to be green as well. But as I've stated several times now, we can (and will) work around that with the passage of the proposal. -- Dammej (talk) 22:45, September 11, 2010 (UTC)