Wiki Tips and Guidelines (XSISDK)
Guidelines for adding content to the XSI SDK portion of the Wiki
Please feel free to edit the pages to add your wisdom - each contribution helps build a more comprehensive “knowledge base” of practical information about the XSI SDK.
Uploading Examples
You can upload files by putting them in a .zip file. The Wiki interface makes it appear as if it only supports images, but you can use the upload file page to upload zip files. Use this syntax to refer to a zip file:
[[Media:NetviewPrimer.zip|Netview Primer]]
Discussion versus Articles
Everyone is welcome to contribute to the content of the articles on the wiki. However the best way to comment about an articleis on the discussion page. That way each article can be a very clean and to give a good summary of multiple people's contribution and wisdom, without the long winding trails that often results from mailing list discussions. Each article has an associated discussion page.
Example content for discussion pages: Mention of content that you aren't sure about, e.g. "Maybe you can do this, I think it would work but I haven't tried....". Suggestions for more content that is missing. To give background about why the article was written. To mention things that could be useful in future versions of XSI, etc.
You can tag any content with your name, but normally it is the discussion page that would have the most structure in terms of who is writing the content.
Naming Convention
Each XSISDK topic should include " (XSISDK)" at the end of the name, to distinguish it from other information on the Softimage Wiki. To create a link that does not show this postfix, use a syntax like
[[Title (XSISDK)|Title]].
Category
At the bottom of each XSISDK related topic make sure to include a category link, [[Category:XSISDK]], as well as other related categories. This helps make sure the topic will show up in the alphabetical category list.
Code Snippets
For short code snippets the easiest way to turn off wiki formatting is to make sure each line starts with at least 1 space character. For longer snippets use the <pre></pre> tags
Finding Content
The Search feature of the wiki is a great way to find content. We also want to create small topics associated with each "term" that is commonly used in XSI or in scripting/programming. These topics may point into other larger articles rather than having a lot of content but they will find a fast access point for looking up information.
Not all XSI SDK information is hosted on the Wiki, so please be sure to also look in other resources.
Guidelines
- Users should be cautious about any script, netview or compiled plug-in offered on the Internet including this wiki. It is best to read and understand any such code before it is executed on your machine.
- The wiki isn’t necessarily a place to argue about the “best” way to do something -
those passionate discussions are best performed (for the enjoyment of all) on the public mailing lists. For example, this is not the place to solve the endless war over which scripting language is the best for working with XSI. Instead each topic should attempt to give a well-balanced practical summary of pros and cons.
- This site will only contain information relating to the currently available version of XSI, and previous versions. If a tip only apply to an older versions than the current version that information should be clearly mentioned. Softimage will never use this wiki to communicate information about unannounced/unreleased projects.
- Information about 3rd party tools should be kept brief (1 line) and not include advertisement images. A link to the 3rd party website is the best way to expose all the necessary information.
- Do not post any copyright material – all posted material will be considered public domain. Softimage may incorporate small examples, tips and and other content posted by users into the published XSI SDK documentation and may not be able to give full credit to the original source.
Linking to the Official SDK Documentation
In this initial Wiki release the SDK Documentation is not stored in the Wiki format, but it is offered as HTML content. You can easily add hyperlinks to it so that you never need to duplicate any of its content.
- The syntax to link to an Scripting object is like this:
[http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/sdkdocs/Material.htm Material]
- The syntax to link to a Property or method is like this:
[http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/sdkdocs/Material_Shaders.htm Material.Shaders]
- The syntax to link to a C++ object is like this:
[http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/sdkdocs/sicppsdk/html/classXSI_1_1ActionSource.html ActionSource]
Articles and other content can also be linked. You can find the location of any topic by browsing to it from the Table of Contents (http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/sdkdocs/_TOC.html).
Tip: The SDK documents match the same organization as the Compiled HTML file that is part of your XSI installation. To find the URL of any article right click in the page in the help window:
And view the properties window:
In this case the relevant information is the "/start.htm". That means that the equivalent page on the wiki is at "http://softimage.wiki.avid.com/sdkdocs" + "/start.htm"
C++ versus Cpp
The wiki doesn't allow the word C++ in a topic, presumably because "+" is not allowed inside a wiki URL. So, in some places "Cpp API", is used as an alternative to "C++ API".
Templates
To get a "look" similar to the XSI Docs, you can use this Wiki syntax:
{{Tip|A tip about something}}
{{Note|A note about something}}
{{Warning|A warning about something}}
Which looks like:
| A tip about something
|
| A note about something
|
| A warning about something
|
Search "Gotcha"
The MediaWiki search doesn't do substring matching. So if you search for "Limitation" you won't find a document called or containing the word "Limitations".
When searching be sure to try other variations of a word if you can't find something, for example "Property", "Properties", "CustomProperty".
