Suggested LifeWiki edits

[danny]

But it would be kind of nice to have some kind of a "home page" for each still life, even if most of them won't get used or visited much (or at all). Maybe the Catagolue page for each <17-bit still life would make a good standard go-to location.

Idea (probably not practical): A lifeviewer where you can draw an object and hit a button on the side and it will display some basic information about it, at least the Catagolue page, and names for some.

[Apple Bottom]

Should we have a page for every single still life under 14 or 17 cells?

No, I don't think so.

I'm less concerned about clutter than Dave is. Wikis aren't paper, and this is just another one of your "will ${PROJECT} ever have ${FEATURE}" questions; it's not like you will actually create high-quality articles (or even low-quality stubs, for that matter) for all those still lifes. And noone else will either.

(This isn't to say I'm entirely unconcerned about clutter in principle. 5000+ still life articles would be overkill; many don't even have names and have (probably) not been used or seen anywhere outside of automatic enumerations and soup searching. So why give them entries?)

That said, I do think we've got much bigger fish to fry on the wiki. For instance, there's no pages for a whole lot of other, much more interesting patterns. The POTY page might be a good starting point, and there's quite a few red links elsewhere as well.

Idea (probably not practical): A lifeviewer where you can draw an object and hit a button on the side and it will display some basic information about it, at least the Catagolue page, and names for some.

This, on the other hand, sounds quite cool. I don't think it's altogether unreasonable either, though you'd have to talk to rowett into adding the necessary functionality to the LifeViewer codebase. Once that's done, both the wiki, the forum, and any other place that uses the LifeViewer would benefit.

[dvgrn]

That said, I do think we've got much bigger fish to fry on the wiki. For instance, there's no pages for a whole lot of other, much more interesting patterns. The POTY page might be a good starting point, and there's quite a few red links elsewhere as well.

Not to mention that the Life Lexicon now suddenly has several hundred more terms, and many of them would benefit from an entry in the LifeWiki where there's room for more detail than a Lexicon entry allows.

...you'd have to talk to rowett into adding the necessary functionality to the LifeViewer codebase. Once that's done, both the wiki, the forum, and any other place that uses the LifeViewer would benefit.

Hmm, it's true that editing functionality was theoretically somewhere on the To-Do list for LifeViewer, last time I heard. But it's a big new feature, and I don't know if it's safe to mention things like this when support for Larger than Life rules is still on the backlog (!).

[rowett]

...you'd have to talk to rowett into adding the necessary functionality to the LifeViewer codebase. Once that's done, both the wiki, the forum, and any other place that uses the LifeViewer would benefit.

Hmm, it's true that editing functionality was theoretically somewhere on the To-Do list for LifeViewer, last time I heard.

Editing functionality holds the record for having been on the To-Do list for the most days. Ironically editing was one of the first things I ripped out when I branched the code from the original LifeViewer web site to create the plugin we use here.

Plus this sounds more than editing. It's editing and then a pattern based search.

I don't know if it's safe to mention things like this when support for Larger than Life rules is still on the backlog (!).

Technically speaking Larger than Life support is WIP (work in progress) rather than a backlog item.

[Apple Bottom]

Plus this sounds more than editing. It's editing and then a pattern based search.

Not much more though -- basically just an apgcode encoder, which should be a relatively straightforward conversion of the existing Python code floating around on the forums, and then opening a link to some external site such as the LifeWiki or Catagolue's glider synthesis.

But yes, it's still work that needs to be done, and still takes time that could be spent elsewhere, on other things.

[Majestas32]

That said, I do think we've got much bigger fish to fry on the wiki. For instance, there's no pages for a whole lot of other, much more interesting patterns. The POTY page might be a good starting point, and there's quite a few red links elsewhere as well.

And interesting rules, don't forget. (While a few of them do, they're often tiny stubs)

[danny]

The pattern search wouldn't have to be embedded into lifeviewer, just the wiki.

[Apple Bottom]

The pattern search wouldn't have to be embedded into lifeviewer, just the wiki.

"just" the wiki, he says...!

It would easier to do in the LifeViewer since a fair part of the necessary machinery is already present there. Duplicating that effort would just lead to... well, duplicated effort.

It's a shame rowett's not making available the non-minified LifeViewer code so that others could hack on it, though, isn't it... *cough*

[danny]

Unrelated to previous posts, but Conduit 1 and BFx59H are the same

[Apple Bottom]

Unrelated to previous posts, but Conduit 1 and BFx59H are the same

Thanks for noticing -- merged!