Table Of Hardware Is Exceptionally Annoying

See https://www.dokuwiki.org/plugin:data#data_entry_input

wiki render the input as wikitext (use sparingly as this type impacts performance)

At this point, I must invoke the principle of the abstraction barrier, which we all know is very important in the field of computer science. The abstraction barrier says that, even if 4.3 GHz koalas are on the back-end, that is not really "our" (people who are not generating the table) problem. The generated page is simply not sufficiently complex enough for a 22-second load-time. Something is wrong, and whatever is wrong, that which is wrong is what needs to be fixed. We, the humans using the page, are not what should be fixed (by altering our behavior buying higher-resolution monitors, or downloading CSV files, etc.) What would be unacceptable would be, instead of addressing the root-cause of the problem, is to force 1000's of people down the "That's just the way it is.." rabbit hole. If the HTML generation tool is so broken that it cannot generate a simple table in a reasonable about of time, then that tool is broken.

Whatever happens henceforth, we should start with the premises that:

  1. The page should be compact.
  2. The page should render quickly.

Then we would work backward from that, not forward from something that is clearly broken.

My apologies for not seeing this question sooner.

I would make all data that is currently present fit horizontally. I did a quick mental walk-through of whether this would be feasible, and concluded that it would be using icons. The "Device TechData" column could be replaced by an Edit/View icon placed inline with (hyperlinked) device name.

The underlying Dokuwiki plugin managing and providing the tabular data is extremely inefficient. Any changes to the table layout (such as changing links for icons) are not possible without forking and altering the plugin code, which is not feasible for a multiple number of reasons.

"We" need to build a standalone application providing data entry and output functionality for the ToH data.

The status quo on the wiki is as good as it gets using Dokuwiki's own tools. So far "we" didn't step up to do the work.

1 Like

I could probably help with that, not in the immidiate future though. I did some Web development in a previous life, but will need to be less busy to refresh.

If that is the proper direction, then yes. I cannot say one way or another, as I have no knowledge of DocuWiki, and I imagine that most users do not.

It seems to me that this should be a priority.

As SysAdmin, you know the perils of:

  1. Engineer visits site as newbie and potential contributor.
  2. Engineer discovers that Table of Hardware is atrocious to navigate.
  3. Engineer, perhaps unfairly, judges the rest of the site by experience with Table of Hardware.
  4. Engineer bolts and OpenWRT loses potential contributor.

Some will argue that any engineer who understands the Open Source model and gets turned-off by Table of Hardware does not "get it". On the contrary, all of us are generally busy with other things, and that is the reason that things like this are so important.

I think that someone, without actually doing the work, should:

  1. Acknowledge that the problem lies with the engineering of the site (You have done that. Thanks).
  2. Consider how it should be, without actually doing the work (...because you are busy too).
  3. Tell everyone else what #2 yield (Then, you will find people willing to do the work, because you have committed to getting it right).

Great, so it seems we can conclude this thread then.

  1. ToH is bad and needs to be better
  2. An application needs to be written to make it better
  3. A better ToH will lead to a huge influx of motiviated contributors

Now we just need to find someone to build it.

1 Like

Before writing the first line of code, we should define the goal of this new ToH development.
There is way more than just

to consider.

1 Like

Sounds fine. I would be all ears regarding the other things to consider.

Who chose the current system as a solution? And how long has it been used by OpenWRT?

OpenWrt--that's how it should be written.

Was wondering about that. Thanks.

make it an spreadsheat file to download? or google docs?

That's essentially what .csv files already are.

My response to this was "flagged as inappropriate" so I will repeat essentially what I said in a more "appropriate" manner:

  1. There is a problem with Table of Hardware.
  2. It affects enough people in a negative way that it should be fixed.
  3. Prematurely and unilaterally declaring that the conversation is over without allowing discussion on how it might be fixed is inappropriate.

We should focus on fixing the problem.

Sure. I am eagerly awaiting the results.

Was just wrestling with this this morning. Another issue is the free-form, patternless way of expressing values, and in particular the mixture of data types within columns, which makes sorting on those columns... interesting. Try a sort on Flash MB, for example. Not very useful for narrowing down your choices when entries look (in sorted order) like:

1024NAND
128
2, microSD
256NAND
8, 128NAND
more than 8GB NAND

MB should be a simple numeric column and left blank if N/A. The existence of replaceable storage in forms like SD should be its own column.

Sounds fine. I will let this thread run for a bit so that everyone who has an opinion gets a chance to express their wish list for How It Should Be ® ...before moving forward.

That was me, but the way - - just saying so that you don't presume it was a moderator who did that. The forum isn't international politics where certain leaders bully smaller countries. One's nationality means absolutely nothing here except the cultural diversity that enriches the discussion.

1 Like

That sounds fair, as long as the end result is that whatever is broken gets fixed, not ignored as "that's just the way things are". Thanks for the note.

1 Like