Tutorials

I just saw the new Tutorials subforum under Website Design. I've got a couple of questions:

1. Will there be a tutorials section for other forums, specifically the Programming forum?

2. Is there any special format that we should follow when posting tutorials? I've been meaning to write a few of my own, but I'm a bit of a neat freak when it comes to maintaining consistency with the rest of the site, so if there's a predefined format to follow, that'd be great, otherwise I'll just model them after the few that I've seen posted so far.

Also just want to add that I've been looking forward to seeing this ever since it was mentioned in the list of things to add to the site. Nice to see that it's finally coming along.

Me.. too. I have not noticed it, but I will check it out... I have one more question to add to that list...

3. Would there be a certain group that would write tutorials?

Yes there will, I will be adding more soon. There will be more than one for the programming forum by language most likely.



Yes there will be. The title will be something like this:

TUTORIAL: Name of Tutorial

and then inside there should be an introduction, sub headings, and a conclusion of some sorts. Every heading should be bold, underlined, and size large. So it would look something like this:

Introduction

The introduction here ... blah blah blah ... blah blah.

Sub Heading 1

Information here, can use any bbcodes such as code tags, lists, images, etc. Images should be done using the attach feature of ozzu to make sure that the tutorials always work in the future.

Sub Heading 2

More info here ...

Conclusion

The conclusion here ...

I will eventually have a guide somewhere for making tutorials, and a format to follow. This basically will be it though.



Anybody can submit a tutorial. They should be close to the guidelines that will be given. Each tutorial submitted will only show up once approved by a moderator. That should keep all of the junk out.

... A tutorial on how to make a tutorial Just find that a little amusing.

Great! Many people have being looking forward for a tutorial section This forum is taking a big leap on a leap year

[EDIT] A little suggestions on the tutorials... maybe make a rating system and disable reply for everyone except the forum administrator, moderators, and the thread starter. Just my 2 cents on it.

[EDIT #2] Oh, and about the attachment thing... On the tutorials it said that you cannot attach stuff... how are we to attach things on it? How do we attach images?

Maybe you're already a step ahead, but perhaps it would be a good idea to put the style guidelines in a page that appears before creating the thread, much like how the rules for website reviews/job opportunities are set up?

I need to fix the permissions, I will do that tomorrow.

Now I like the idea of people being able to ask questions within the tutorials myself.

I believe phpBB3 has a setting that can allow people to lock their own threads in certain forums, maybe that could be enabled for the tutorials forums so that each individual tutorial author could decide whether people can reply to a tutorial, or whether only they should be able to reply to it, perhaps with followups. (part #1, part #1, etc)

I agree.

I also like your second suggestion about the authors being able to choose to lock their own threads.

Permissions should be fixed for the tutorial forums now, attachments should work.

I have about 4 or 5 C++ tutorials queued up that I plan on writing in the next few days, so a subcategory for C++ would be appreciated.

Done.

One other thing that is no one's fault but left me mad. This thing logged me out as I was typing a tutorial!!! I could type more and more and I forgot that this thing logs me out every once in awhile and I previewed my forum and it said I need to log in...

Well I did, but I lost my hours of work on it!!! Kind of frustrating... I know it's no one's fault, I just have to say that to release my frustration...

How come it logs you out? Did you check the box on the login to stay automatically logged in?

Since you are having issues with that what I would recommend is before you hit the submit button to copy your entire post to your clipboard (ctrl-insert is what I use). That way if for some reason something bad happens you can easily paste it back in.

The other thing you could do is click the "Save" button on the posting page every so often so that you do not lose any work.

I would still be curious on why that happened to you though. Any additional information would be great.

One other question, did you spend over 3600 seconds (1 hour) writing the post? A posting session I believe will expire after that amount of time. You shouldn't have to re-login though.

Thanks.