[Xerte] Wiki

Thu Apr 30 09:46:17 BST 2009

Thanks for doing that Mark.

It looks like we might need some notes for screen reader users and some
guidance for contributors so that they are aware of basic good practice
in terms of layout and headings.

This may be a daft question but can I check that WikiMedia and WikiPedia
are the same underlying engine?

A

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mark
Tomlinson
Sent: 29 April 2009 14:02
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

And in addition, I contacted a blind admin of Wikipedia for his thoughts
on it:  His response is here:

"Hi Mark,

MediaWiki is on the whole very accessible for screen reader users, as
long as the pages are laid out sensibly (i.e. with headings separating
each section). The biggest problem I can think of is the position of the
section edit buttons; since they're placed before the section title in
the HTML, a screen reader will read a section as "edit <sectionname>". I
have a script in my monobook.js file, which moves them to a better
location for screen readers, which you can copy to your Monobook.js file
for all users. If you need to turn CAPTCHAs on for account creation,
make sure they're accessible to all users. Reading diffs can be tricky
for screen reader users; I've found that the best way for me to read a
complex diff is to go into the HTML source code and search for class
names like "diffchange". Apart from that, I can't think of anything
else. I've been using Wikipedia for quite a while now so it's
second-nature to me, so I could have missed some things. Also, I only
have experience with using JAWS for Windows with MediaWiki, so I'm not
sure how well other screen readers would handle it."

I'll look at the issue he mentioned to see if I can solve it (edit
buttons), but on the whole I think we could hold our head up high on the
accessibility front for people using JAWS at least.

Mark

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair
McNaught
Sent: 29 April 2009 09:30
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Useful info Mark - many thanks.

I can look into this but not able to for a couple of days..

That still leaves the issues about audience and trusted contributors to
be considered..

A

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mark
Tomlinson
Sent: 29 April 2009 09:05
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Apparently Mediawiki is :  "almost accessible for blind users"

http://blind.wikia.com/wiki/Mediawiki_and_Accessibility

The main issue I believe centres around the use of Captcha.  The one I
integrated does not use the visual verification method, but asks the
user to solve a simple maths problem.  I would assume that a screen
reader could read this, but I have not tested it.

Mark

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair
McNaught
Sent: 28 April 2009 21:09
To: Julian Tenney; ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk; Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Hi all

Just catching up with this thread.

I agree that a collaborative area for creating support materials is a
great idea but I think we ought to exercise some caution before making
any single place the centre of the universe J

My main concerns are

1)      Vandalism /spamming etc. We love Xerte but if I was a commercial
developer making a tidy income from selling overpriced underfeatured
software I might not love the threat Xerte provided to my income. I
suggest that some sort of 'trusted status' should be applied for access
to the main support materials.

2)      Horses for courses - MediaWiki is fine and dandy for coders but
if we wanted to set up an area where teaching practitioners could share
ideas, applications, examples, simple questions etc we'd need a much
simpler system. I'm an experienced Tiddlywiki user but looking at the
help pages on formatting and conventions made me think... I can't be
bothered... I haven't got time to remember some obscure code convention
for placing an image on the page or italicising text.

3)      Accessibility - it would be embarrassing if the much vaunted (by
us at any rate) accessibility features of Xerte were documented on an
inaccessible wiki page. I've not yet had a chance to get a screenreader
user to test the page but I certainly wouldn't want to push this out
before having done so. There are 14 tests for assessing the
accessibility of web2 services (see www.web2access.org.uk) and I'd want
to be sure we could meet most of them before putting my name to a Xerte
centre of the universe.

Certainly the wiki could be invaluable at putting together the
specifications for training and support materials - and it may well be
appropriate for hosting the materials themselves but I think there needs
to be rather more debate on the matter and this might be the sort of
thing that is thrashed out in relation to the XPERT project meeting in
May.

Alistair

From: Julian Tenney [mailto:Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 28 April 2009 12:22
To: ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk; Alistair McNaught
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

I think we should concentrate on making wiki.xerte.net the centre of the
known universe. We need all the documentation - from us, from the xpert
project, from other contributers to live in one place where it can
easily be updated and maintained.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of RonM
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 12:11 PM
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Apologies if this comes through twice but I sent this at 10.40 this
morning and it hasn't appeared on the list yet. L

Hi Julian

Apologies for not responding sooner - was delivering Toolkits training
all day yesterday.

When we were discussing the use of a wiki off-list recently I was
thinking that would be for developing the spec for the support material
rather than the actual support material. But as has been suggested
subsequently an installation of MediaWiki might do both
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki as an example a lot of the
moodle documentation is provided via MediaWiki
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Main_Page

Ron

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick
Lockley
Sent: 28 April 2009 10:49
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

I did quite a bit on www.installationwiki.org re toolkits guidance, and
then some spammer wrecked it and all my work got deleted.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mark
Tomlinson
Sent: 28 April 2009 10:49
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

I'll see what I can do....

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick
Lockley
Sent: 28 April 2009 10:38
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

I made an account as well, but my inner pedant says Captcha?

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mark
Tomlinson
Sent: 28 April 2009 09:44
To: 'Xerte discussion list'
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Jules

I think people can simply create their own accounts??

Anyone an expert on media wiki on the list??

Mark

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 27 April 2009 21:25
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

I think there needs to be documentation for people developing the
software, and documentation for people using the software. It could be
in the same place, or in different places as the two groups will have
quite different requirements. Googlecode happened to have a convenient
wiki which is what Pat has started to use today. Sourceforge have also
just approved my project request, so now is a good time for us to decide
google code or sourceforge once and for all. I might set up a project on
soirceforge anyway adn then we can vote or something. You can see the
google code pages already. I like the simplicity a lot - it fits well
with our FWS design principles for the software itself.

Mark - how would we add users to the wiki you set up? That (or something
similar) should probably host the bulk of the user docs, and be the one
place for info on using Xerte in its various forms. I would love it if
someone were to step forward and take on managing that space.

We have several people primed to start creating documentation and I'm
keen it doesn't become fragmented.

Alistair and Ron: would a wiki meet your needs? wiki.xerte.net in
particular.

J

________________________________

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk on behalf of Patrick Lockley
Sent: Mon 27/04/2009 19:10
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

10 repositories.

1 for those that speak binary, 1 for those that don't - or grom my take
so far on the installs of XOT, we have the sysadmin types who would want
the scope to do whatever they wanted, and the dabblers who want
something a little more light.

________________________________

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk on behalf of Dave Burnett
Sent: Mon 27/04/2009 17:22
To: Xerte list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki

Totally your call, but I'm not sure about the facility of splitting
locations...

> Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki
> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:09:40 +0100
> From: Patrick.Lockley at nottingham.ac.uk
> To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
>
> Can do both - I see the google one as the trouble shooter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
> [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Mark
> Tomlinson
> Sent: 27 April 2009 17:06
> To: 'Xerte discussion list'
> Subject: RE: [Xerte] Wiki
>
> I spoke to Julian about this a while back and I did set one up then
on:
>
> http://wiki.xerte.net
>
> I never got round to publicising it though :-(
>
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
> [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick
> Lockley
> Sent: 27 April 2009 17:01
> To: Xerte discussion list
> Subject: [Xerte] Wiki
>
> http://code.google.com/p/xerte/w/list
>
> Your wish is our command, if your wishes are based primarily on wikis
> that is :)
>
> Patrick Lockley
> IS Learning Team
> King's Meadow Campus
> Tel: 0115 84 68882
>
> My Page on Community - http://webapps.nottingham.ac.uk/elgg/cczpl
> _______________________________________________
> Xerte mailing list
> Xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
> http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/xerte
>
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> Xerte mailing list
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________________________________

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