Difference between revisions of "Vogons Wiki:Adding a device"

Latest revision as of 10:53, 27 March 2016

To add a device to the wiki, simply create a new page for it. By adding the appropriate infoboxes to the page, it will be automatically categorised, and will appear on various lists of devices throughout the wiki.

Create a device page

Create a new article for the device you wish to add. The title should be of the form Manufacturer Model, for example Shugart SA800-2. Spaces are fine, such as Creative Sound Blaster 16 Value, but where possible try to use a single word (no spaces) for the manufacturer, just to keep the names from being too long. Here we have used Shugart for Shugart Associates and Creative for Creative Labs. You can put the manufacturer's full name in the infobox on the page itself.

Try to use an official name where possible, and choose a name that will be the most descriptive. The idea is that if you get multiple similar devices (such as two video cards) you can create separate pages for them even though they may use the same chipset. Don't worry too much about the name, as the page can always be renamed later - however all the images will also have to be renamed so you can save a little effort by choosing a good name to begin with.

If the device name contains a forward slash, you must use the Unicode slash character (∕) instead of a normal forward slash (/). This is because filenames cannot contain forward slashes, so using a Unicode slash character will look the same, but will allow the slash in the product name to be used in the filenames storing the device photos. This is used for example in Intel Advanced∕EV. You can copy and paste the Unicode slash as needed here: ∕

Copy an existing similar device

Find a device that is similar to the one you wish to add, edit the page, and copy all the wikicode to your new page. This will give you all the infoboxes prefilled, so you will only have to change them as needed.

If you need more information or you aren't sure how to add a new item to the infobox, have a look at all the available infoboxes. Each one provides a list of parameters you can include. If you aren't sure how to add a particular piece of information, you can ask on the infobox's talk page and someone will let you know.

Check infobox

Preview the page, and make sure there are no exclamation marks appearing in the infobox. If so you will either need to correct the infobox (perhaps a typo) or the infobox might need a new option added, if the type of device you are adding has a feature that is new to the wiki. You can either fix your mistake or add the new item as needed. If you read the help for the infobox (from the previous step) you should see how to add new options to the infoboxes.

Upload images

Once you've populated the infobox, it's time to upload images. If you don't have any images handy you can upload them later, but the wiki really shines when each device has photos. First, find a similar device and click on the equivalent image you intend to upload. You will see a page for the image itself, which you can edit to see the wikicode for. This code puts the image in the appropriate categories so it is important to put the same code on and images you upload. It will look something like this:

[[Accton EN1650]] top view

[[Category:Ethernet card images]]

Copy this code, and paste it into the description for the images you want to upload, and update the device model with the name you chose earlier. The category should be correct already, assuming you picked a device photo for the same type of device you are adding! Here are some quick links to pages in each category you can use to quickly copy and paste the correct template.

Add to userpage

If you own the device, add a link to it to your user page, with the following syntax:

[[Owns device::Creative Sound Blaster AWE32]]

You can format the link however you like - in a list, in a table, etc. See User:Malvineous for one example. By using this syntax, you can run queries on devices in the wiki and choose to restrict the results to devices you already own. See Running queries for details on how to do this.

Notes

After you have added a new device or changed its infobox, there is some time lag before the device lists on the rest of the wiki will update. You can manually trigger an update by editing a page and then immediately saving it again without changing anything (leaving the edit summary blank). This special edit won't affect the page history but will simply refresh the page. If your device does not appear after doing this, the data in the infobox will need correcting.

Updating every single list of devices in this manner is not necessary - after a few minutes to an hour the wiki will have refreshed all the device lists automatically.