Author Topic: Creating An Article Index: How YOU can help (Read 3162 times)

Scotty · « **Reply #30 on:** 16 January 2025, 19:27:44 »

Since they mix-and-match what was in the factional sub-TROs I'm also going to try to handle TRO 3150.

Scotty · « **Reply #31 on:** 16 January 2025, 21:00:17 »

TRO 3145 and TRO 3150 are complete and fired off.

ColBosch · « **Reply #32 on:** 16 January 2025, 21:41:12 »

So what's left, just 3060 and 3067? As a reminder, I'm doing 3075 and I'll have it to Hellbie tomorrow.

Scotty · « **Reply #33 on:** 16 January 2025, 22:07:29 »

Recognition Guides, Turning Points, sourcebooks, and XTROs? There are a million little things that could slip through the cracks, but that's all the big ones.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #34 on:** 17 January 2025, 12:31:44 »

OK, got part of this set last night while watching late hockey and painting a miniature. When the game ended, I shut down my tablet, put the brushes away, shut down the work computer where I was compiling the first-draft index, and went to bed.

...I then sat bolt upright an hour later after realizing that I hadn't actually saved what I'd been working on. Never make an index at 1:30 in the morning.

Soooo... busy tonight, Alpha Strike event tomorrow, Sunday I'll begin (re)compiling what you all have sent in and getting a first(ish) draft organized. I'm using Excel to help with that this time so I don't foul up closing a browser window by accident again. Which I should have done before, but again, late-night Hellbie isn't all that bright, particularly after a couple of drinks, a bad hockey game, and painting an Orca and a Schrek.

For YOU guys, moving forward this weekend:

We still need, I believe, TRO: 3060 and 3067 done. The latter I believe covers the Mechs from the assorted Field Manual series (Hellfire, Templar, Sha Yu, etc.), so we won't need to do anything about those. We'll have the XTROs and Rec Guides- I didn't include those in the first list so as not to be too overwhelming/demanding, I figured with the main TRO series as the first draft I could add in the smaller publications later, but (unexpectedly!) we're just about at the point where we can start working on that stuff too. If you know of other sources that might have Mechs- not variants of stuff from elsewhere, but actual designs not seen anywhere else- that need to be added to the index, please let me know that as well. (For example, the way the Field Manuals were before '67, the Cougar's appearance in Coventry prior to '60, etc.)

And again, thank you for the work you guys have put in on this. I owe a round of drinks at the next convention I get out to.

Once the Mech index is finalized and ready to go, I'll probably give it a rest for a bit, then start on vehicles, which should be a bit less-daunting overall, and we'll hit up battle armor and aerospace as well after that. Cool?

ColBosch · « **Reply #35 on:** 17 January 2025, 14:55:34 »

I'll go ahead and claim 3067 as well, and I'll have it and 3075 sent to you by Sunday morning.

Gorgon · « **Reply #36 on:** 17 January 2025, 15:55:44 »

Sounds like a good plan for moving forward, Hellbie.

A quick read of the Sourcebooks listed by the MUL gives me at least the following sources we'll have to go over (in addition to the RecGuides):

XTRO: Primitives I - V
OTP: Hanseatic Crusades
IP2 (That's where the Rim Worlds stuff is, IIRC)
TRO: Golden Century
Wars of Reaving / Supplemental

I think that should be most of it.

In other news, 3058 is done, I'll plunge right in and get started on the RecGuides. Let's see how many I can get through tonight. I'll keep you posted.

EDIT: I just remembered that the two compilation volumes of the RecGuides do exist. That'll make it a breeze to check for the new stuff only.

EDIT 2: That went faster then expected. RecGuides Vol.2 (the new stuff at least) is done. Moving on to TRO:3060

Gorgon · « **Reply #37 on:** 17 January 2025, 16:49:23 »

TRO: 3060 is done. I think that's all the big books claimed or done.

Gorgon · « **Reply #38 on:** 17 January 2025, 18:56:34 »

FYI I've begun to compile a list of all new Mechs from the various XTROs and TRO Prototypes that are not covered in any of the TROs we covered so far.

Gorgon · « **Reply #39 on:** 18 January 2025, 14:57:56 »

TRO: Prototypes, TRO: Golden Century and all XTROs are done.

That should mean all TROs completed or being worked on. Unless I've missed something, but I went over the sarna list for TROs and RecGuides three or four times by now. I have not included any IndustrialMechs, armed or unarmed, only BattleMechs. If we want to include those as well, I'll go over the XTROs again and we'll have to do TRO: Irregulars, too.

I think that basically leaves various other source books to go over for various Mechs that never where compiled into a bigger / later TRO. Stuff like Wars of Reaving or OTP: Hanseatic Crusade.

ColBosch · « **Reply #40 on:** 19 January 2025, 03:46:32 »

3067 and 3075 are done and sent.

Gorgon · « **Reply #41 on:** 20 January 2025, 06:19:25 »

Going over all sources listed by the MUL I think this should be the complete list of sources not yet covered by us:

Era Digest Age of War
OTP: Hanseatic Crusade
Wars of Reaving + Supplemental
XTRO: Gunslingers
Operation Klondike
Interstellar Players 3
Jihad Final Reckoning
TTS: Valencia
TP: Foster
Shrapnel 8
Shrapnel 9
Shrapnel 10
Reunification War

Work permitting, I might get it done today.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #42 on:** 21 January 2025, 15:19:16 »

Day job has gotten very busy this week as a result of real-world stuff that falls under Rule 4, so I probably won't get a chance to get more work done on this until later in the week. I've made some decent progress though (Excel is, as always, my friend), and I'm kind of now fixing links so that the name of the Mech becomes the link rather than having a line of ugly code there. Not hard, but time-consuming as you can imagine. Should have this ready at the latest at the end of the weekend.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #43 on:** 27 January 2025, 11:27:07 »

Progress has been slow, but is coming along. I've been on sick-wife duty (side note, taking care of a sick spouse when that spouse is a nurse? NOT EASY!), but during the times she's been asleep and I haven't been getting dragged along by the day job, I've been able to get all of TRO 2750, 3025/50 3055, and most of 3058 assembled and ready- should have '58 done today and '60/67 over the next couple of days. I'm HOPING to have this up in its beta form by the end of this coming weekend, if this week at work cooperates, and at that point I'll be asking for troubleshooting- double-checking that links work right, that kind of thing- and over time I'll be able to add in the outlying stuff (XTROs, etc.) a little at a time, along with adding in the more recent articles like the Black Python and such.

Apologies on the time taken on this, you all worked a LOT faster than I expected and my January hasn't given me a lot of spare time so far. I think I also may have underestimated just how much work goes into something like this- but, as noted in the first place, once it's built the first time, we won't have to worry about doing more than occasional updates moving forward, so the hard part is almost done.

Gorgon · « **Reply #44 on:** 27 January 2025, 18:20:11 »

Oh man sound's like your having one hell of a start to the year. It's great to hear that despite a hefty dose of real life you're making progress. Take all the time you need, I can only imagine the kind of work that goes into assembling it. As you said, this is a work that is to profit us all for years to come. I understand the urge of getting this done, but in the end it does not matter all that much if we get a new index a week or two later.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #45 on:** 27 January 2025, 21:59:08 »

Quote from: Gorgon on 27 January 2025, 18:20:11

Oh man sound's like your having one hell of a start to the year. It's great to hear that despite a hefty dose of real life you're making progress. Take all the time you need, I can only imagine the kind of work that goes into assembling it. As you said, this is a work that is to profit us all for years to come. I understand the urge of getting this done, but in the end it does not matter all that much if we get a new index a week or two later.

Honestly, the trick is that where I tried at first to just create a thread, add your links and code them so the name of the Mech lead to the article in question, etc. seemed like the way to go, and the forums current issues meant that when I tried that, it got eaten by the bug-monster. So what I'm doing instead is building everything in Excel, using that to organize all of it, and then I can start building the link page a bit at a time- so for starters it will look VERY incomplete, as a batch at a time start appearing, alphabetically, so we'll have the Axman up early but probably wait a while before the Stalker. So it's adding a layer of complexity and essentially doubling the work on my end, but it means it'll be done right and without as many crashes and repeat-edits.

And yes, 2025 is cordially invited to [REDACTED. ROM THANKS YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE AS WE GET THE ADMIN BACK TO WORK]

Oh- one more thing. For the sake of not having holes in the file all over the place, I'm only including Mechs that have articles- if it doesn't (like the Hussar, for example), I'm leaving it off. So once this goes final, if you don't see a Mech on the list, it's not out there.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #46 on:** 28 January 2025, 10:25:29 »

Quick update: The Excel index is done! It came to just shy of 300 articles to be indexed, so all of them now need to be coded so they'll appear properly (so that, as I mentioned before, the link to the article is the name of the unit). It'll take a while to get that done- I'll plug away as much as I can today, but I'm not expecting to have it up until Friday evening- with the end of the month coming up, I have to make sure my day-job stuff is ready to go. (We do a settlement day on the 15th and last day of each month, so there's a lot to do leading up to Friday morning)

Expect a very useless beta version to post later today featuring the early part of the alphabet, and as we go I'll fill in down the line until we get to 'Zeus'. From there, we'll fine-tune things to make sure the links all work right, and after that it'll just be a matter of me using the first of the month-ish to update this with whatever stuff has come out over the prior few weeks.

We have some surprising results- units like the Aquagladius that have articles, others that either have no article at all or one that was so old that it was outside the scope of the project like the Vulture. That's good- that means we have plenty of space to work on stuff in the future! And of course, with this in place, we'll be able to easily see what doesn't have articles- if you don't see it on the list, it needs a discussion page made.

Thank you again in advance to Gorgon and ColBosch for all their hard work on this, if not for their efforts I'd still be looking at TRO:2750's table of contents and trying to get myself motivated.

Gorgon · « **Reply #47 on:** 28 January 2025, 16:32:56 »

Don't mention it. You and so many others have kept this tradition going for almost a decade and a half, it's good to be part of it.

I've checked the links of the first batch, only the Commando doesn't work as intended, I've send you a PM.

ColBosch · « **Reply #48 on:** 28 January 2025, 19:12:38 »

It was a pleasure to help out! I'm also planning on running a double-check once you get the index finished to make sure I didn't miss anything.

JadeHellbringer · « **Reply #49 on:** 29 January 2025, 07:58:44 »

Quote from: Gorgon on 28 January 2025, 16:32:56

Don't mention it. You and so many others have kept this tradition going for almost a decade and a half, it's good to be part of it.

I've checked the links of the first batch, only the Commando doesn't work as intended, I've send you a PM.

Joke's on YOU, it was the COSSACK that didn't work! HAH!