Announcing Tildes Shepherd, a WebExtension with interactive guided tours for Tildes
Hello everyone! A few days ago I mentioned I was working on a new WebExtension for Tildes.
Since the tidal wave of users has flooded the Spectrian plains of Tildes, I came up with this idea for having interactive guided tours of the interface to explain how Tildes works and why certain things are the way they are. Well, a basic version with two (count 'em, two!) tours is here! An introduction tour as an example of what to expect and some extra info. And a homepage tour going over everything you can find there.
Firefox users, you can install Tildes Shepherd today! Chromium-based browser users, you will have to wait a while or switch to Firefox, sorry. ;)
As you will see in the introduction tour after installing the extension, if you have any questions or feedback, you can message @Community or comment in this topic. It's very likely I made some mistakes in what's already there so even if it's just a typo, let me know!
As far as other tours goes, I have some planned and am open to anyone creating their own. Even if you have no programming knowledge whatsoever, if you can come up with a tour by taking screenshots and drawing over it in your favorite image editor I'd be more than happy to turn that into code for you. The most time-consuming part of creating tours so far has been finding out all the information and then condensing it into something readable, the coding aspect has been pretty easy.
If you're new to Tildes and like what you see, please consider donating! A fundraiser was started by @talklittle and a number of goals have already been reached, with 2 more goals remaining at 500 donors. So if you want that to happen, donate! Thank you! <3
Bravo!
I don't have time to check it out right now, but I'm certainly going to this evening. I'd be happy to contribute code-wise to this.
Is there an easy way to see the screenshot tours non-programming users might send in?
Edit: Just to say that that the fundraiser and pledges were an excellent idea. I've started contributing monthly after seeing @talklittle's topic and your response.
I'm thinking I will create issues for them on GitLab with all the information and screenshots included.
This is very cool! I have firefox and have been going through the steps and stuff. Would you be okay with an in-depth edit of the information you have? I'm a technical writer and editor by trade and would love to give some advice and best practices for this sort of information presentation. If you're not comfortable with that, I will just stick to missing words, spelling/grammar edits, and the like!
I would love that! I feel I am very rambly when trying to explain stuff, so anything to make it more concise I happily welcome.
I finally had a chance to check this out, and goddamn, @Bauke! This is exactly what Tildes needs, IMO. I wish it was integrated into the site itself though, as this would make for a great way to onboard every new user, and could really help cut down on repeat questions. @Deimos you should check this extension out, it's really neat idea, and well executed.
I just gave it a quick install and looked around, very good extension that fits into Tildes very smoothly! My only piece of feedback is that on the home page tour, when it goes over the different sections of a post, spacing was pretty tight and I only barely was able to fit all the information in on my screen. Perhaps make that one part a bit wider and less tall? I love it though!
Yeah, it can be a bit tight. So far I've only been testing on a 1920x1080 monitor and assuming there is enough space for everything (the extension makes a lot of assumptions at the moment, it's not great). Eventually though I'll figure out how to get it all spaced properly.
Keep up the great work!
How long do I have to wait?
And how will I find this extension? Will it just be in the Chrome store (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/tildes?_category=extensions)? Or will I have to look somewhere else?
(I went looking for another extension, Tildes ReExtended, yesterday, and... it took me forever to not find it. I think I finally discovered something to indicate it had been removed from the Chrome store, but I'm not tech-savvy enough to be able to confirm or deny that for myself.)
So, I'm confused about how to find this new extension.
A little while, I can't really say how long.
You'll have to install it manually from a ZIP file, it's not going to be available through the Chrome Web Store. I have no patience for dealing with Google on anything anymore, so this is how it has to be. Sorry. The same is true for Tildes ReExtended.
Where do I find this .zip file if it's not going to be in the Chrome Web Store? (That's where I normally go for browser extensions for Chrome.)
And where do I find the .zip file for Tildes ReExtended? When I was searching yesterday, I looked all over the GitLab page that's linked in the wiki, and I couldn't find anything that looked like an 'Install' or 'Download' button (I saw a link which said "Download source code", but I don't want the source code, I want the final program). That's why I started searching the Chrome Store. Where was I supposed to look?
I have some plans to make everything easy to find and just a single click on a website somewhere, but that's all a bit far out at the moment.
For Tildes ReExtended right now it's in the releases page (it's the
tildes_reextended-1.1.2.zipfile). Though, I don't actually know if you can install it anymore since TRX still uses Manifest V2 and I can't remember if Chromium has already dropped support for that... So, you may simply be shit out of luck.Or switch to Firefox, where it's all easily available, but that's your prerogative.
I would ask how I was supposed to find this "Releases" page, but there are some things I don't need to know, and I don't want to waste your time any more than I already have.
I was just curious to see what these extensions do, and how they work. It's not crucial. I can live without them.
But thanks for taking the time to explain to a Luddite duffer like me.
That's probably a good idea, to help out people who aren't technologically literate (like me!).
Thanks anyway! Sorry for taking up your time.
It's all good! I have plans and some day they will come to fruition, until then it's going to be a mess. :P
For what its worth, I have no issue playing defense when it comes to the Chromium support. I can just point at Google and blame them for all of it, because it's the honest truth.
I've also seen Algernon_Asimov around long enough on Tildes to know they don't mean it in a bad way. ;)
And the extra activity keeps bumping the topic, which is nice too. :P
Thank you!
But you made the previous commenter delete their comment, so the loquacious defence I just finished writing is now homeless! :(
However... I'll show you this bit, because I think it's relevant:
They were honest questions, from someone who's not as technologically literate as many of you, because I wanted to try these new extensions. How am I supposed to celebrate Bauke's accomplishment if I can't even see it?
And that is what I wanted to do. As the person who wrote the instructions about using Tildes (Bauke's not the only person around here who has freely donated their time toward Tildes!), I wanted to see Bauke's attempt to do the same thing in a different format. Maybe there was feedback I could give, to help them improve it (because I have a professional background in creating training materials). Maybe I could learn something from it, to improve my text documentation. And maybe I would be impressed, and be able to tell Bauke what a great job they'd done with this training material (from one professional to another).
But, until I can install it, I can't do any of that. So, it's natural to ask when it will be available to install.
For context, in case other people end up reading this... the person who deleted their comment criticised me for not celebrating Bauke's accomplishment (among other things), and pointed out that Bauke has donated their time for free to create these extensions.