Articles available in this site

[N Sam]

From another thread, i gathered the knowledge that https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/UserInput is available. I know BeginnerFAQ is also available under https://coderanch.com/how-to/java. But when i want to see all available articles for beginners, I typed https://coderanch.com/how-to/java but nothing shows up there. How do i navigate to gems like these 2 articles ?

[Jesper de Jong]

On the left side of the page https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/UserInput there are navigation links, for example "FrontPage", "List of all FAQs" etc.

[Robert D. Smith]

Jesper de Jong wrote:On the left side of the page https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/UserInput there are navigation links, for example "FrontPage", "List of all FAQs" etc.

Here's the rub, though; not all of the available documents can be reached via the links on the left side. Case in point -- the link you listed is not listed. Part IV of the User Input guide can be found in the Recently Updated section, but the only way to get to Part I is backstepping through the other parts first. The same for documents such as the coding standard, and many others. If not for people like Campbell, Winston, and others constantly posting links to these pages, most would go unread. Since I can't remember the exact links, I tend to search through the old forum posts to refind them.

As a matter of fact, I have been contemplating leaving a post in the Java Ranch forum asking if the list(s) could be updated/if I could help update them.

Regards,
Robert

[Winston Gutkowski]

Robert D. Smith wrote:Part IV of the User Input guide can be found in the Recently Updated section, but the only way to get to Part I is backstepping through the other parts first...

Part IV? Weird, as I've only done three (I'm the author) and the last one isn't finished yet.

Winston

[Ulf Dittmer]

A good question, and one that's dear to my heart, as I'm always looking for ways to make the wiki content more accessible and useful. Each of you just got a cow for bringing it up :-) I could see two approaches to this problem.

One is to create a new wiki page that has links to all of the "missing" pages. The benefit of this is that each link could be accompanied by a short description of what the page contains, and what its intended audience is. A link to this page could then be added in various places, possibly including the "Useful Pages" section on each wiki page.

The other is to create a category for these pages. A category is basically a collection of wiki pages that have some common theme or subject. You can find a list of all currently used categories by clicking the "Content categories" link at the left of each wiki page. Creating a new category is as simple as including a wiki word like "CategoryFoobar" in each page that relates to "Foobar". It's then possible to find all these pages via the https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryFoobar link - which is what the wiki search hits when entering "CategoryFoobar" in the search box. For example, all pages we consider to be FAQs for one of the forums have the "CategoryFaq" word at the bottom, and the https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryFaq search link is what's behind the "List of all FAQs" link at the left of each page. Again, we'd have a page (or rather, a link) to all such pages that could be used in whatever place we want to link to these pages. The benefit of this approach is that making a page part of a category is as simple as adding "CategoryFoobar" to it - no explicit editing of some other page is necessary like it is with the first approach. (Each page can also be part of multiple categories if that makes sense.)

[Robert D. Smith]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:

Robert D. Smith wrote:Part IV of the User Input guide can be found in the Recently Updated section, but the only way to get to Part I is backstepping through the other parts first...

Part IV? Weird, as I've only done three (I'm the author) and the last one isn't finished yet.

Winston

All I can say is oops. It is actually listed as, I'm certain you are aware, UserInputPartDeux. But I believe my point is still valid in that one must open the second document to find the link to PartUn (and that is about as far as my French goes, outside of asking directions to the bathroom). Great article, by the way.

Ulf Dittmer wrote: The benefit of this approach is that making a page part of a category is as simple as adding "CategoryFoobar" to it - no explicit editing of some other page is necessary like it is with the first approach. (Each page can also be part of multiple categories if that makes sense.)

I like this approach, for what it's worth.

I'd like to add that content accessibility is also near and dear to me. I know there is a ton of information available here. I have the Front Page up in separate tab, but I have no idea how I got there. Going through the history, I finish at the User Input article, which I got to as a link in a forum post. I finally found the direct link, after several minutes of searching and looking at links. I wouldn't expect a link to something called the Front Page to be found two links down from the main page.

Information that is unreachable is information that doesn't exist. While I'm not looking to get into any major projects, my offer to help still stands.

Thanks for all the hard work that you and the other moderators and such put into this board. The community is great, as are the resources.

Regards,
Robert
(Oh, and thank you for the cow. That should be number five, so I'm off to raise a ruckus in the Rattlesnake Pit. Should be entertaining.)

[N Sam]

Thanks for the cow, Ulf. I can bring in a new user's perspective to all of you (who are old hands). I love the site, but like Robert mentioned there is lot of info that is not visible. I like the creation of a new category under "Useful Pages", and this new link could be titled "Articles" or some such. As a beginner to the site, i would like some sort of grouping of various articles / FAQs (perhaps grouping based on Beginner/Advanced/Intermediate levels). This "Articles" could be the top of the tree of pages. Also, i suggest a link to this "Articles" page under "Big moose salon" categories (when i go to forums). Thanks to all of you for keeping up the site. As it stands, pages like "content categories" are not user friendly. A brief description needs to be attached, like Ulf suggested.

[Ulf Dittmer]

The good thing about the wiki is - it's a wiki! So if anyone feels there's something that can be improved in terms of content - they can improve it. Just log in with your Saloon credentials and start adding to it.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Robert D. Smith wrote:All I can say is oops. It is actually listed as, I'm certain you are aware, UserInputPartDeux...

Yeah. I liked the 'Hot Shots!' movies.

Great article, by the way.

Glad you liked it. I've been a bit preoccupied recently, but I promise to get #3 done soon to complete the set.

Winston

[Charles D. Ward]

I thought it was just me being dumb that couldn't find most of the JavaRanch articles people usually link to in the forums. I have most of them saved as PDF files on my HDD or bookmarked in Firefox because I can never find them again browsing by myself.
Good to hear the -almost nonexistant- accesibility to some of these great articles is being addressed, because "Main is a Pain", "User input" and several others have been of tremendous help for me (and MANY others) being a newbie and all.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:One is to create a new wiki page that has links to all of the "missing" pages.

Ulf, would you like me to add a WWW (Wide World of Winston) category? I know that the general rule is not to publicise the authors, since it's a "community" effort, but since I know my pages...

Let me know what you think.

Winston

[Ulf Dittmer]

Sure, I think it makes sense to collect them in some form, and I don't have a strong preference either way. CategoryArticle would also work, as that sets them apart from the FAQ or certification categories.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:Sure, I think it makes sense to collect them in some form, and I don't have a strong preference either way. CategoryArticle would also work, as that sets them apart from the FAQ or certification categories.

Ah. Small problem: I can't update either the "List of all FAQs" page, or the "Content categories" one - no doubt for good reason.

I don't know what you want to call it, but "CategoryWWOW" has a nice ring to it.

If you could provide me with such a link in "Content categories" to an editable page with "Wide World of Winston" in the first line, I'll be happy to take it from there...

Or would you prefer that I edit the "Category FAQ" page?

Winston

[Ulf Dittmer]

I can't update either the "List of all FAQs" page, or the "Content categories" obe

Those are search result pages (check out their URLs), that's why they're not editable.

I created https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston, which -by virtue of having "CategoryCategory" in it- is also listed on the "Content categories" page. So you can now add "CategoryWinston" to all articles (generally you'd do that at the bottom of the page), and they'll automatically be included in https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryWinston.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:I created https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston, which -by virtue of having "CategoryCategory" in it- is also listed on the "Content categories" page. So you can now add "CategoryWinston" to all articles (generally you'd do that at the bottom of the page), and they'll automatically be included in https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryWinston.

Oh, that's how it works. Sorry, this wiki stuff is still fairly new - I've only just recently got me head around all the page formatting stuff.

Thanks anyway.

Winston

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:I created https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston ...

And I've now updated it.

So you can now add "CategoryWinston" to all articles (generally you'd do that at the bottom of the page), and they'll automatically be included...

That part doesn't seem to work (I did try, but I suspect I'm doing something wrong again), so I just added them as a list.

Thanks Ulf.

Winston

[Robert D. Smith]

Speaking of CategoryCategories, have you noticed that selecting a link, ie: CategoryCodeSamples, takes you to a page where you must hit another link labeled CategoryCodeSamples? My html/xml/web page design skills are non-existent (rather like my Java skills), so I have no idea whether this is something that can be "fixed." I realise that it is only "one" more link to select, but it just seems to me to be bad UI design. Also, I know that there is a description block, and some pages contain additional links, but these could also be moved, reducing some redundancy, and making the page(s) look a bit more professional. I know, easy for me to say since I have no idea the effort involved in making the changes.

Regards,
Robert

[Ulf Dittmer]

So you can now add "CategoryWinston" to all articles (generally you'd do that at the bottom of the page), and they'll automatically be included...

That part doesn't seem to work (I did try, but I suspect I'm doing something wrong again), so I just added them as a list.

You haven't added "CategoryWinston" to any pages. I have done this just now for https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/AvoidTheEqualityOperator, and you can see it on https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryWinston now (which is what is linked underneath the title "Wide World of Winston" on https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston).

Note that https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston and https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryWinston are different pages - the latter is a search result page that finds all pages including "CategoryWinston" so it shows all pages where that is included. It takes a little to time to wrap your head around this BackLink feature, which I suspect is why it doesn't get used as much as it might.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Robert D. Smith wrote:Speaking of CategoryCategories, have you noticed that selecting a link, ie: CategoryCodeSamples, takes you to a page where you must hit another link labeled CategoryCodeSamples? My html/xml/web page design skills are non-existent (rather like my Java skills), so I have no idea whether this is something that can be "fixed."

I would disagree that this is in need of fixing - it is how many (most?) wikis work, although I will admit that it is not how a typical web site works. OTOH, it provides that extra page (CategoryCodeSamples) where additional information pertaining to that category can be added - which is not possible in a search result page.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:You haven't added "CategoryWinston" to any pages.

I did, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Note that https://coderanch.com/how-to/java/CategoryWinston and https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryWinston are different pages - the latter is a search result page that finds all pages including "CategoryWinston" so it shows all pages where that is included. It takes a little to time to wrap your head around this BackLink feature, which I suspect is why it doesn't get used as much as it might.

Aaaaaah. OK. Sorry for being so thick about all this.

Anyhooey, links are all in the CategoryWinston page (which seems to be directly linked from 'Content categories' page); along with some descriptions.

Winston

[Ulf Dittmer]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:

You haven't added "CategoryWinston" to any pages.

I did, but it didn't seem to do anything.

OK, we're not talking about the same thing, then :-) What I'm talking about is adding the WikiWord "CategoryWinston" to a page. I just checked, and the only page that has that is AvoidTheEqualityOperator (to which I had added it - you can see it at the very bottom of the page). In which way did you add "CategoryWinston" to any page?

links are all in the CategoryWinston page (which seems to be directly linked from 'Content categories' page)

The reason being that I added "CategoryCategory" to it - which is the meta-category for all category pages. And since the 'Content categories' link is a search for "CategoryCategory", it lists all category home pages.

[N Sam]

I am adding the following question, so that all newcomers to the site would find this thread useful and they can locate the articles.

Am i right in saying, "all articles available at this site can be found by following links at https://coderanch.com/how-to/search?CategoryCategory" ? Are there articles that are not covered by 'ContentCategories' ?

BTW, i recommend changing the name of Java FAQ at page Moose Saloon/forums to something more generic like FAQ & Articles, so newcomers can navigate easily to the help pages.

[Ulf Dittmer]

That depends on what you mean by "articles" and what you mean by "following links". What was referred to as "articles" in this topic is only a small subset of all wiki pages. How those pages can be found was discussed at length by Winston and myself. Most (but not all) other pages are in some category or other. Categories can be found by the link you mentioned. If you then go to each category page and click on the title, you will get a page that lists all pages that are part of that particular category.

No index of all pages exists, and searching is an important part of discovering pages. These are traits exhibited more or less strongly by all wikis. Another way of discovering pages is via links between pages; that's why wikis make it easy to create links between pages via the concept of WikiWords - and why it is important to use them when writing pages.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Ulf Dittmer wrote:No index of all pages exists, and searching is an important part of discovering pages...that's why wikis make it easy to create links between pages via the concept of WikiWords - and why it is important to use them when writing pages.

Very interesting. Starting to get the hang of it (I think). Anyway, thanks for all your help, Ulf.

For those interested, the complete set can be found via the aforementioned CategoryWinston, which is now in the CategoryCategory page, which you can get to via the 'Content categories' link on the top left of many pages.

Winston