Category talk:Heroes equipment

Seeing as how the Equipment for alphabet parts have been deleted, would it be possible to at least include the item icons in the heroes equipment pages? I used to visit these pages often and I am sure many others did as well.--CrimSoNAnnihilator (talk) 10:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Example: Abaddon's equipment icons used to be listed at http://dota2.gamepedia.com/index.php?title=Hero_equipment_A_through_C&action=edit&redlink=1. Could his icons now instead just show here? http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Category:Abaddon_equipment


 * As far as I know (and I don't know too much about this), it would not be possible to add icons of each item. The Category system is built into the Wiki itself and is used for hundreds of other non-icon related topics. I think a new type of page would need to be set up. This change was just done yesterday, so things are still being figured out. Kroocsiogsi should be able to answer your question better, as he performed the deletion and has been here a long time. In the mean time, every hero page has a list of their equipment in the exact same format as before.


 * Example: Abaddon.
 * --PimpadelicX (talk) 07:53, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I would reiterate what PimpadelicX's question. Specifically, does Abaddon fulfil your needs? Alternatively, going to any one of Abaddon's equipment pages and using the navigation template at the bottom of the page? If not, could you expand on your use case more? For instance, why do you prefer to see equipment from heroes with names that begin from A to C? Is it just a convenient way to get to a specific hero? What if we added links on the Equipment page to a gallery for every individual hero? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 08:27, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for responding. After checking your link I've found what I was looking for at Abaddon. It's a shame that I will need to check every hero this way from now on as I found the original equipment pages very useful. I do understand though that their are technical limits to what would be feasible and am more than happy to use these single equipment pages as replacements.


 * As a possible workaround for this issue, could it be possible that the links could all be placed on a single page and when the user expands one of these links, it would load the data?


 * Example: All heroes from Abaddon to Wraith King are listed on one page as expandable sections. These sections would initially contain nothing, but when the user expands a link, the data would populate for that section only. This would allow all heroes to be on the same page, while at the same time minimize the initial size and only retrieve the data that was requested.--CrimSoNAnnihilator (talk) 10:29, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * An interesting proposition, but I don't think the Wiki can do that at the moment. Perhaps there is an SMW extension that could be implemented, but for now the best thing we could do is make a table linking to each hero equipment page in a similar manner to the front page. Another idea would be to link to the templates themselves saving the user load time, but I think it'd be best to keep the templates out of the public eye. Either way, your suggestion or my table would be nothing but a good thing in my eye, assuming it works correctly.
 * --PimpadelicX (talk) 13:55, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * This is a good idea. CategoryTree, which provides the current category tree on Equipment, lazyloads like this. I don't know if it's technically possible to implement, but it's worth looking into. PimpadelicX, can you explain a little more why you think linking to the templates would be a bad idea? It doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Are you thinking that they would be more prone to vandalism? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 18:04, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * What do you think of the change I just made to Category:Abaddon equipment? Does it solve anything do you think? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 20:45, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Honestly, if people had to open a new page to see a hero's equipment, then I don't see much difference between that and just going to the hero's article. If readers want a single page to list all the equipment, then the lazyloading suggestion above sounds nice. If that's not feasible, then I guess we could make a big chart that linked individually to the equipment templates. Not as convenient as before, but it's something. - Lemoncream (talk) 20:50, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I do think it looks better, but I'm not sure it's what people want. I agree with Lemoncream; I think the users want a single area for them all to be, and since having them all on one page is impossible, having them all listed with pictures is the next best thing. I just don't think people like using the Categories because it's cumbersome and it's plain-text. They don't want to read text to identify cosmetic items or heroes, people identify things visually. And in order to get to the pictures, they need to search in the search box for the hero. I propose the big chart similar to the homepage, with pictures linking to the hero's equipment section of their pages. If there's any way the Equipment table could be un-collapsed upon loading the page, that would make the transition so much better. --PimpadelicX (talk) 21:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Something along those lines could be done easily, yes. Why link to, say, Abaddon instead of to Template:Equipment Abaddon or to Category:Abaddon equipment? --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 21:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer to avoid linking the public to templates, and linking directly to the page would save you the time of adding the EquipmentNav at the top of every category. Any of them work in principle, so I doubt people will care once it's setup. People just want pictures and a hub to access them.
 * I should mention that I have to leave soon so I can't help too much, but I think the new chart can be fixed by creating a template almost identical to Template:HeroNav/item, and instead of linking to Abaddon, it would link to Abaddon#Equipment or Category:Abaddon equipment. A copy of Template:HeroNav should work fine once the new item function is changed. I propose calling the new template Template:HeroEquipmentNav, then adding it to the Equipment page. I'll be back by midnight CST, let me know what you come up with.
 * --PimpadelicX (talk) 21:21, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Right, but I still think the main draw was having it all on one page. As a side note, there are people now entering the IRC chat and asking where the listings have gone. Some of them don't seem to realize the hero pages have an equipment section, presumably because they never thought to click "show" and expand the template. In other words, these listings may have been more popular than we thought and a similar replacement may be necessary... - Lemoncream (talk) 21:23, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * But it hasn't been on one page for a long time. It was most recently on four pages, and I think now it would need to be on six pages. Certainly we need a solution if people are missing the feature, but it needs to be a different solution. Template:HeroEquipmentNav doesn't sound like a terrible idea if it were just on Equipment. (Is it via Equipment that people were accustomed to accessing these pages?) It would need some maintenance. --Kroocsiogsi (talk) 21:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure why the pages are so popular, I personally never visit the Equipment page, and look at the templates on their own hero pages. Either way, if we can't fit it on one page then I guess we'll just go with the a big table linking to the templates. - Lemoncream (talk) 22:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)


 * So I created the HeroEquipmentNav and so far it works like a charm. I decided to link the users to the Template:Equipment_X as it was the simplest option. Hopefully users will be content with this model. The Dire Strength heroes are slightly misaligned, but that isn't a huge concern at the moment. Perhaps later I will add another section underneath linking to other categories such as Couriers, HUDs, Announcers, etc, but this solves the main problem. --PimpadelicX (talk) 05:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I actually like how it is now. The only immediate function I'm missing is the fact that I would like to be able to see it in alphabetical order. What I did after yesterday was to copy the source code of Category:Heroes_equipment and simply changed all the links from Category:Abaddon_equipment to Abaddon. After reading here now, I'll simply for now go and change it to Template:Equipment_Abaddon. As for lazy loading, I think it would be a nice feature to implement if it's possible, but where it's at now adheres to what I want. Thanks for looking into this. Even if it's left as it is now, it's solved my issue. --CrimSoNAnnihilator (talk) 08:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)