Help:Building Event Note Cards

Timelines and Annotation Lists Are Back (with a vengeance)

People should feel free to try their hand at making Event Note-Cards. The button mentioned in Step 2 (below) is a fast way to prime a Herocopia page with a shell of the basic templates you need to detail and link it to an event.

Doing an Event Annotation is easy and straightforward because it is template driven.

Here's the process in a nutshell:

Step 1:
Pick an event from an issue of Astro City, or do an entire issue. For the later, start by making a list of the events in an outline like format. Either way, it means reading an Astro City Comic, so there is a lot of fun to this project. In both cases, check the [| Events By Issue link] to insure that the event(s) haven't already been annotated.

Step #2:
Edit an event framework page to annotate the event. You can use this button to get it started, or you can cut and paste from an existing event.

step #3:
Edit the "EventHeader" template. This is where you add information about the event itself. The parameters should be fairly self-explanatory. I'll add more documentation later.

step #4:
An event is made of one to many event elements. You use an eventElement template for each one. I've identified two types for now (character and device). There might be more. Feel free to weigh in on your thoughts here.

step #5:
Close the framework with an EventFooter template.

There are still some glitches and ghosts in the machine. But don't worry too much about them, they are minor and/or shouldn't impact the overall process.

Caveats, Guidelines and Such

• There will be ongoing impact and changes to the site as a whole as these events note-cards firm up.
• Even if annotating material from comics recently published, please do not use Spoiler Alerts. I would prefer NOT having to maintain them for these event pages. Anyone browsing these pages, does so knowing they are risking spoilage.
• I will ask that when creating (or editing) these Event Note Cards, please source from the comic pages directly. Don't rely on memory, or secondary sources, not even Herocopia.
• If information like dates get clarification from other places like letters pages, commentary from Kurt, or others on the creative staff, please detail that in the summary section. These Event Notes Cards work very much the same as bibliography notes for a research paper.
• As current examples show, there is only ONE EVENT PER HEROCOPIA PAGE.
• Use the discussion tab on this page for questions, suggestions, ideas and comments.

Event Entries Not Showing Up On Herocopia Issue and Character Pages

The problem has to do with how wiki sites update pages with queries on them. It is not an automatic process. Pages get cached, and something has to trigger the page that it needs to be updated. Usually a change (edit) to the page will do the trick. But for pages that don't change, the cached paged is what is delivered from the server. Over time the pages will get refreshed by trigger devices within the wiki server, but if you want to check your entries, here's the steps to take...

1. Go to the events page (for the issue or the character(sometimes they don't show up either), and click the tab to edit that page.
2. Click the "show preview" button at the bottom of the page. That should trigger the server to re-generate the page which includes running the query to find all the event note cards that reference the particular issue or character.
3. Clicking the "save page" button (even if you didn't make any changes) will insure the update is stored and cached for future viewing.

Example Issue

The Flip Book is the prototype example of a fully(subject to viewpoint) annotated issue. This is a perfect choice for two very good reasons:

1. It is straight line continuity, without too many references to other time periods, and there are no flashbacks or flashforwards.
2. The issue is available for a free read to anyone that wants to register an account with Comixology (also free). So everyone can read it and be familiar with the granularity I used in delineating the events.

You can see the list of events that were defined for that issue here.

You can see an example of one of the events by clicking here.

And you can see how the event incorporates into a character page by clicking on one of the "event elements," like this one for Starwoman.

The events for this issue(Astro City: The Flip Book) incorporated into some of the many Annotation Pages that we will have available as part of the Herocopia Project. The possibilities here are massive, cool and ongoing.

• Master Event Timeline Page
• Major_Events
• Minor_Events
• Master Character Annotation Timeline (Work in progress)

Peeling Back the Cover on Templates:

Start with the major output page - a Chronological Timeline (it will be pretty printed later) of all the events from Astro City comical books that have been annotated to date.

TestEvents

The page is completely auto-generated using the following query. You can see it live and in person by tapping on the edit tab on that page.

    == Character Compendium of Astro City  ==

    {{#ask:[[Category:TestEvents2]]
     | ?eventDate
     | ?name
     | ?elementType
     | ?issue
     | sort = eventDate
     | order = ascending 

    }}

The data is entered on event pages using some hand-built templates.

Like so:

    {{Test:Event2
    |title      =  {{PAGENAME}}
    |summary    =
    * <bullet form>

    |date        = 20??/mm/dd 
    |type        = flashback
    |comicTitle = {{AC}} No. 14
    |issue        = {{AC}} No. 14
    |page        = 11
    |panel        = 1
    }}
    {{Test:EventCharElem
    |link  =
    |element = Ms. Ellie
    }}
    {{Test:EventCharElem
    |link  =
    |element = Arthur
    }}
    {{Test:EventDeviceElem
    |link  = no
    |element = Robo-Dog  
    }}
    {{Test:EventEndMarker2}}

This built the following page and also primed page property data that feeds the auto-generated page above.

Ms._Ellie_in_her_workshop_repairing_the_robot_that_would_become_Arthur

These functions, and others, will have significant impact (just like the info-boxes did), in how the Herocopia Project will evolve going forward.

As always, thanks for your participation, help and patience.--Infobroker (talk) 19:07, 22 December 2014 (PST)

Archive Links

Help:Building_Event_Note_Cards/Archives1