User talk:Pikachurin/Archives/26 August 2009

Template:Nation infobox
Thanks for fixing his template up, I've been thinking of doing it for some time but never could figure out how to fix it and yet make it simple enough to work, while not negatively affecting current pages using it. You've done a great job! ~ Michael von Preußen


 * I did not actually update the infobox, I only added links to it. I think Nat.tang actually did the update.


 * — Pikachurin - (Talk) (Contribs) 20:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Map
Well, my nation has very specific borders - Germany, Denmark, etc..., so I just took a blank world map from wikipedia and colored in the areas I wanted, then outlined the new border with a 1px-wide white line. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * This sorta falls under here. I made the map on Provinces and territories of Disparu clickable and reorganized it a bit.  Hope you don't mind ;) ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)

SVG Images
The reason I created an SVG version of that, as well as the SVG version of your flag, is that the PNG versions were causing scaling problems on high resolution monitors. One of the clearest examples of this was with the GPD logo on Green Party of Disparu - note that now it is smoother, whereas with the PNG version (see this old version) it has ragged, pixelated, edges.

Sorry, I probably should have checked with you first to make sure it was alright with you, but I figured it couldn't hurt. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)


 * By "scaling problems," I refer to the way in which the images pixelate when they are shrunk or enlarged. In the example of the GPD logo, the original PNG version looked excellent, but when it was enlarged for the political party infobox, the edges became ragged instead of smooth:


 * GPDLogo.png]] compared with [[File:GPDLogo.png


 * Right, so my point is that that occurs because PNG encodes images as a series of dots, whereas SVG remembers the exact chapes, not just the position of dots. See this diagram for another example:  ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * The best program to make them with is called Inkscape. It takes a little getting used to, but it's pretty good.  You can get a free download here. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)

RE: EternaStar.com
I've fixed it up for you. Generally I use a width of 24em for infoboxes I make, but sometimes (this being one of them) the infobox requires a shorter width and I just default it to auto (like I've done this time) or make an option to set it oneself. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)

Featured Articles
Failing any opposition thusfar, I will be listing my nation as a "Featured Article". I'd encourage you to do the same, as your article is definately of a high enough quality to qualify as such. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)

Re: Inkscape Problems
Assuming you used the 'trace bitmap' feature, did you delete the original picure, which is retained behind the trace, before saving it? ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * Well that's why it's not working. SVG processes images as shapes, and considers what you've done is to insert just a local bitmap image into an SVG image.  For example, the file you recently uploaded, File:DisparuCommonsFormat.svg, shows up blank because it can't find the image you inserted into it (in this case, the image at on your computer)


 * The method to do this is as follows:


 * 1) Open the PNG file in Inkscape.
 * 2) Select the image by clicking on it.
 * 3) Go Path &rarr; Trace bitmap.
 * 4) In the popup, select the radio button for 'Colors', and in the 'Scans' box, insert the number of colors you estimate to be in the image. If it doesn't work right, you may need to redo it with more or less colors.  The maximum number of colors is 256.
 * 5) Generally, deselect the 'Smooth' checkbox. If it has a solid background, which you wish to make transparent, select 'Remove Background'.
 * 6) Depending on the image, you may wish to go to the 'Options' tab and deselect one or more of the options. Again, this is mostly if the first scan doesn't work.
 * 7) Select 'OK'. If the image is large, or if you've selected a high scan number, it may take a while.  I don't recommend doing this if you have other, high-memory programs running, as this will put a load on your system.
 * 8) If the trace worked good (that is, if the result looks like the initial picture), close the popup, and clic outside the page to deselect everything. Use the TAB key to cycle through the objects until you get to the original image (now in the background), and hit the delete key.
 * 9) Save the image as a plain SVG (NOT Inkscape SVG).


 * That's the general way to convert. Like I say, it won't walways work, and you may need to experiment on your own to get it to work properly. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)

Re: Disparu Government Websites
You are a very lucky person :P

".dp" works excellent as a ccTLD for Disparu... I once thought of doing an article for a ccTLD for Großgermania. My plans lasted all of 5 minutes, because I quickly found all possibly relevant ccTLDs were gone... ".gg" (Guernsey), ".vg" (British Virgin Islands).

Anyway, that's all. Take care, ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * Thanks! :)
 * Can't you just use the current ccTLD for Germany (.de)? Or the ccTLD of Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Liechtenstein or Luxembourg? — Pikachurin - (Talk) (Contribs) 01:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I could, but none of them really fits the name Großgermania... however, I had an idea: .gß ;) ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * Also, in full understanding you most likely couldn't care less, .gß. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (nation)
 * Thanks for adding a ccTLD infobox. Just out of curiosity, do Germans have eszetts in their keyboards? — Pikachurin - (Talk) (Contribs) 23:47, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, and yes, as a general rule they do if they are made for the German market: http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~tphillip/german-keyboard-a.jpg

RE: Vandals
CN:RV, I've already reported the guy that just did TGE. :) ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)
 * Thanks! — <font color="Goldenrod">Pikachurin - (Talk) (Contribs) 21:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

RE: Disparu Comittee
Aah, I was hoping you wouldn't mind... but ya, I made some changes to the infobox on that page, so I needed to fix that up anyway. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

ccTLD in infobox...
Done, good idea :) ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

RE: Additions to Infobox Country4
I know what you mean, but it'll take a while for me to get it in. I've been having problems as it is with multiple things as it is (such as regional languages, and the govt officials). If the field value, say, using your example, "British North America Acts" wraps to two lines, say "British North / America Acts", it will screw up the columns because it uses simple breaks, not table rows. I've tried changing them to table rows, but it's not worked out very well. Regardless, I will work on getting that in. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)
 * *sigh* ... Alright, I think I've got it working, but if you see any bugs, please report them to me. Basically, you can now use up to 5 different formation event/date pairs.  In order to solve (or, at least discourage) the aforementioned problem, I've de-bolded sub-headings, such as the government officials, the formation events, disestablishment event, and main ethnicity, making the template somewhat resemble Wikipedia's country infobox a bit more.  Again, let me know if you encounter any problems.


 * On an unrelated note, I would appreciate your input, either in favor of or against my proposal, here. Thanks! ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

Soft redirects
Please see this. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

Template:Listen


Listen works now?!? :D I've tried it before but Wikia never used to support embedded files, when did that change? If you don't know, don't worry, I'm just happy it works now :P I'm going to incorporate it into Infobox Anthem Expanded as it is on Wikipedia. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)
 * Huh, well, it's good! Do you like the way it works in the infobox? ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)
 * Not a problem, that's how I'd initially planned to do it, but the embed function didn't work back then. Speaking of whish... *goes to add a video to his military's article* :P ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

RE: Ogg format
Yes, you can create an Ogg vorbis (that being an audio ogg file) by using http://www.media-convert.com/ - the site's fairly straightforward, but let me know if you have any troubles. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)
 * Hmm, that's rater weird. Are you getting any error in particular?  If not, I could only theorize that the file is somehow corrupt or is over 100MB, neither of which seem likely.  If you can't get it to upload, upload it to http://www.hidemyass.com/upload/ and give me the link for it, and I can try to figure it out once I have the file. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)

RE: Templates
By all means, feel free!

Status was copy/pasted off of Wikipedia's, with my own edits to make it work better with Wikia's software and skin differences. Personally, I find it is a bit more work than it's worth, as there is no way to have it automatically update one's status (there was at one time, but changes in Wikipedia and Wikia's software have made it impossible to the best of my knowledge). This means that you must manually update Special:MyPage/status - if you forget to do such, it'll end up saying you're online when you really aren't.

With regards to what you called the "Archive templates," you are also free to use those, but I'm curious as to specifically which templates you meant. Archive box was only modified by me, I didn't create it. Two ones I did create are simply to facilitate easy archiving, and they'll load automatically if you include a parameter.

If you have any trouble getting them to work, just let me know! I'm always happy to help. ~ Michael von Preußen (voicemail) &bull; (<span title="Großgermania">nation)