Template talk:Schematic

This template looks like I good idea, and looks good so far. I do have some suggestions: Good work, in any case! --Mental Mouse 23:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't use specific real blocks for "input", "output", "solid" and "mobile" (you also might want "transparent").  Create new sprites, and/or make them settable by parameters.  I know I find the gold and lazuli blocks quite distracting, and lapis especially is easily confused for water, which has potential uses in mechanisms.
 * More expanded names as aliases -- for example, "green-wool" or at least "wool-green".
 * A few missing things: bottom slab (both views), and for redstone dust you probably want a side view for looking along a wire, L-junctions to left and right, and at optionally a T- or cross-junction.  Also tracks and minecarts, but I assume you'll get to those eventually.


 * Thanks! Starting to get close to production quality, I think!
 * Although I'm using the sprites of real blocks, I'm deliberately using functional identifiers: e.g., "SB" for "stationary block" instead of GB for "gold block" or something. That way if the community decides to use some other sprite, all that has to change is the sprite position number that SB points to. Everyone has their own opinions on what blocks should be used in circuits -- I'm currently using the blocks from the style guide I've been expanding from initial work in the Redstone Circuits talk pages. Gold blocks were chosen because they most closely matched the typical yellow squares used in schematics, allowing screenshots to look more like the schematics of the same structure. Lapis Lazuli is my personal choice for moving blocks because they're very easily distinguishable from other blocks used in the circuit, etc.
 * Definite possibility. Writing up identifiers is surprisingly tiresome work, though … I've just concentrated on getting done the ones that I'll need to finally tackle the circuit pages (and I finished my short list today! yay!).
 * I can think of at least one mechanism that uses bottom slabs (chicken cookers) -- so you're right, I probably have to add them. And for side-views, I'm mostly limiting the ambitiousness to being able to represent 1-wide structures from the side -- once it starts getting more complicated, it should probably just be displayed as multiple overhead layers (and while dust would require only 11 more sprites, repeaters would require another 64, etc.). All of the side-view schematics I've seen display dust this way, so it's probably okay. But we'll see!
 * &mdash;Munin295 &middot; Grid_Book_and_Quill.png Grid_Stone_Pickaxe.png &middot; 00:59, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Good point on the side views. For the solid (Moving, I/O) blocks  I would really prefer seeing a plain yellow square (that is, not resembling a particular block) rather than those distinctive gold blocks, and likewise non-block indicators for the other special roles.  (If nothing else, you're tying up two of the more popular wool colors, and people may want to use those for the diagrams).   Also, it occurs to me that non-generic blocks can be moved too.  Perhaps, along with using "darker" for "covered by a block not shown", we could use "lighter" for "block is mobile"?  For that matter, is it possible to make the "SB" etc. assignments overrideable by parameters?  That would squelch a lot of arguments up front!   --Mental Mouse 03:19, 22 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, we disagree on those two points.
 * I think it makes sense for schematics and screenshots to be alike as possible to reduce the number of conventions that have to be learned, so using Minecraft textures in schematics seems right to me, if it can be done without losing clarity (for example, I tried using redstone dust textures for the dust side views and it did not look good, so I went with the standard schematic convention). Except for a little shadow in one of the corners and some stronger edging, blocks of gold are really pretty close to plain yellow anyway:  . As for tying up two of the more popular wool colors, well, they're probably popular for the same reasons I chose them: they provide good contrast to redstone both when powered and unpowered (and green/red is an easy-to-remember metaphor for start/stop) -- it doesn't make sense to deliberately choose two worse colors for something that's going to be used in many many wiki schematics.
 * As for parameters, I don't think it's a good idea to encourage individualization of schematics in the main articles -- some people using blue wool for inputs, some people using stone bricks for structure blocks, etc. We don't want people to have to learn dozens of different styles, they should only have to learn one set of conventions to be able to look at any schematic on the wiki and quickly figure out what's going on in it. Authors would probably have more leeway in tutorials though, but I don't know if we need parameters even for that -- it's probably simpler for someone to just write  if they want blue wool as input A, rather than predefining   or something. (is that what you meant?)
 * I've got two more features to add to Schematic (captions and floats) and I need to make a test page to see how many schematic cells I can get on a page before I start hitting server limits (I'm hoping for 1,000+), then I'm going to ask one of the admins to add the CSS to the main wiki style sheet, and then I plan to request comments (at Community Portal talk, I think). Whether the sprite sheet is too Minecraft-y and whether it should be more schematic-ish is actually already on the list of questions I plan to ask, so maybe we can get a larger discussion about it.
 * Though I disagree, I do appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks!
 * &mdash;Munin295 &middot; Grid_Book_and_Quill.png Grid_Stone_Pickaxe.png &middot; 05:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)