Wiki Updates?

[BTAxis]

Also, I think we should stick with the "complete" tree as given on the wiki and in contrib/techtree.odg. Maintaining two versions is confusing and needlessly labor-intensive. The complete tree is technically a design document, and its state is fluid, but it can function as documentation as well.

[BTAxis]

Well, have a look at the manual sources (they're in src/docs/tex) and tell us what you think.

[Doctor J]

"The PDF Manual" does not exist.  It's certainly not on the SourceForge download page.  Prior practice shows that it's not even included in production binaries.  I'll look into installing LaTex, but it seems quicker to me to edit an existing drawing...  And why should i spend time making something that'll never be seen again?  I agree there's extra work involved in maintaining two versions, but drawing in contrib/ is not user friendly.  It's too big to print, and too big to comfortably view on screen.  Plus there's a lot of distractions, like techs that aren't in the current game.  Oh, and even concerning stuff that is in the game, that drawing sometimes disagrees with the scripts.  I started making this as a response to frequent questions of "How come i can't research ..."

[BTAxis]

If the tech tree doesn't agree with the scripts, that's because it reflects the current development version, not the release version. It shouldn't really be included with the release versions anyway, until the game is complete.

Still, I dislike the multi-page tree. It's hard to read, and it's not clear what everything means, despite the legend (which is only shown on the first page). I find it confusing, and I helped MAKE the tech tree.

As for the PDF manual not existing, that's true. Unfortunately, the manual is not being maintained, and the current sources are out of date. Including it would mean including conflicting information, so it's better not to. If someone would maintain it, that'd be different, but it's a rather big task.

[Doctor J]

Actually, the last time i did an svn up, the drawing in trunk/contrib/ disagreed in a few places with the research.ufo file in trunk/base/ufos/.  Of course i wasn't trying to compare it to what exists in 2.2.

We'll probably just have to agree to disagree as to which drawing is easier to view.  In a sense, i was trying to duplicate the tech viewer in Civilization.  The idea being to make it simple to find what's needed to get to a specific technology.  I tried to divide it into functional groups, but the over-riding consideration was to make things large enough to view without a magnifying glass and not go into an excessive number of pages.  Besides, they're both multi-page drawings.  Mine prints on three sheets, the other on 16.

I'm open to suggestions if you have any ideas to make things clearer.

[BTAxis]

Actually, the last time i did an svn up, the drawing in trunk/contrib/ disagreed in a few places with the research.ufo file in trunk/base/ufos/.  Of course i wasn't trying to compare it to what exists in 2.2.

In these cases, the scripts are wrong.

Mine prints on three sheets, the other on 16.

Mmm, you can resize it to fit on one page, of course, but then you'd have to use a magnifier. That will only get worse, as it's going to get bigger. I think it's pretty vital to have it all on one sheet, though, to avoid having to page back and forth.

[Doctor J]

Well, have a look at the manual sources (they're in src/docs/tex) and tell us what you think.

Is there an actual requirement that we use TeX, or just a requirement to produce a manual in .pdf format?  If the latter, i could probably do it in OpenOffice and export as PDF... Whaddya think?

[BTAxis]

This is a question for someone like mattn.

[Mattn]

tex looks better