User talk:Malvineous

Been whined at by Lemm and assorted people, apparently the term 'sprite' applies to graphics only and the terms I should have been using for all the 'sprite' patch stuff is 'actor'; is there any way to systematically change the term 'sprite' in patch page titles (and maybe text) to 'actor'? If not, leave it, but if so, it might be something to think about. --Levellass 02:41, 17 July 2011 (GMT)

It is possible to do a bulk search and replace across pages, but the pages themselves will need to be renamed manually. User:DHeadshot has access to do this, perhaps you can ask him? If he renames pages when logged in as a bot, it's possible to avoid creating those redirect pages too. -- Malvineous 03:00, 17 July 2011 (GMT)

More talk...

The older conversations on this page have been archived to keep the content current. To read the previous content on this page, please see:

2010-08: revision 15924
2008-04: revision 9028

Needs pictures error

This page Keen 1 640x480 Redux has itself listed under 'needs pictures' despite having pictures. This appears to be because the pictures on the page are resized. Is there any way aside from using fullsized pictures (Which ruins the page) to fix this? -Levellass (talk) 02:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out! I don't want to automatically resize all images in the infobox, because that makes it too easy to upload 640x400 images by accident as screenshots. So as a compromise I added an ImageScale option to the infobox, which will scale the image and takes care of the 'Needs pictures' category. Hopefully people won't abuse this and upload 320x200 screenshots scaled up to 640x400! -- Malvineous (talk) 03:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Deletion for stupid redirect

The page http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Patch:Keen_sstanding_(Vorticons) is obviously misspelled and needs to be deleted. The correct redirect link has already been created so nothing of value will be lost. -Levellass (talk) 07:55, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

You're an admin so you should have no trouble deleting the page! The delete link might be hidden under the 'More' drop down, next to the Read/Edit/History tabs at the top of the page. Let me know if you can't find it or it doesn't work for some reason. -- Malvineous (talk) 08:12, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Jeez, have I been such an butt in the past?

Hey Malv. I've not been on in ages, and I was looking at some of my past edits. I have just realized I was acting a total ass, and you should have banned me for what I did. Your patience (and Shadow Master's) with me, legendary as it is, was stretched to the limit, and I'm sorry for what I did to this wiki, with that fiasco wih KeenRush, and me smarting off to you over the preview button and all. I was going through a rather hard period im my life then, and it shows--looking at the comments and such, it looks as if they were written by someone else. Again, I'd like to apologize for any discord I've caused this place. -Xt er r a1 17:02, 19 November 2011 (GMT)

Hey Xt - no worries, I figured it was something you would grow out of eventually ;-) -- Malvineous 23:50, 19 November 2011 (GMT)

And I was looking at the Viva talkpage yesterday. "Xterra-ism". :-) At least I've gotten SOMETHING besides a Nissan SUV named after me. Again, I must compliment you on your patience with me. -Xt er r a1 18:07, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Abandoned mods / level packs

Hello Malvineous. As I mentioned on Talk:Vorticon Mods, I still have a few abandoned mods/level packs by different people that are not available for download anymore (at least according to the wiki). Various mods and packs have been directly uploaded to shikadi.net/wiki/, thus I sent one mod to Tulip who contributed a lot to the Vorticons Mods page. He replied two weeks ago, but since then no download has been added for "Mars Kingdoms", so I assume he is just too busy for editing. As you run this wiki, I wonder if I can also send them to you? --Grandy02 09:48, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Sure, just e-mail them to malvineous@shikadi.net and I will upload them to shikadi.net/wiki/ if you'd be willing to add the necessary links to the article pages! -- Malvineous 10:27, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Great, I'll send them this day! :-) --Grandy02 11:46, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Sent. The names of the zip files are those of the original downloads (if I remember correctly), rename them as you please. The mail includes demos of Redemption, Lord of the Rings (two demos), and Mars Kingdoms. There is also a beta of Bp's "mod" Marooned on Mars Forever, but I think it seems more like a level pack (no changed graphics, no patches and only minimal edits of the story text). What do you think? --Grandy02 16:01, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Not really sure, whatever you think is best would be fine. And thanks, I've put them into http://www.shikadi.net/wiki/files/Mods/abandoned/ so you can link to them directly there. -- Malvineous 22:24, 20 November 2011 (GMT)

Thanks a lot! I added Bp's work to level packs, as I think that changed titles in the story text do not really make it a mod. Anyway, I noticed that the various download links for dosclassics.com are not working anymore. I haven't been able to access the site for quite a while. Do you know anything? Does the site even exist anymore? --Grandy02 14:09, 21 November 2011 (GMT)

I haven't heard anything but as of a year ago it seemed to be online only for "nostalgic reasons" so I guess it's finally offline now. You could try contacting Xtraverse (xtraverse@hotmail.com) and see if he still has a copy of the site... -- Malvineous 00:17, 22 November 2011 (GMT)

Okay, I sent him a mail. I wonder, if he doesn't want to put the site online anymore, would it be possible to archive the site at shikadi.net just like CC314? --Grandy02 17:35, 23 November 2011 (GMT)

Certainly I'm happy to do that, if Xtra is willing to send the files across or upload them to my server. -- Malvineous 22:56, 23 November 2011 (GMT)

Yeah, it would be great to keep that fine piece of Keen community history. By the way, the hotmail account seems to be inactive (I got "mailbox unavailable" as a response), so now I'm hoping that he'll answer the mail I sent to his @spatang.com address... --Grandy02 14:41, 24 November 2011 (GMT)

Hi again. I sent you another abandoned mod, "Trouble on Xion 2" (Keen 4 this time). On a side note, the zip file for Trapped Keen includes the KEEN3.EXE, which should probably be removed. Also, no answer from Xtraverse yet. --Grandy02 11:22, 26 November 2011 (GMT)

Thanks, uploaded. Thanks also for pointing out keen3.exe, I have removed it from the zip. -- Malvineous 01:50, 27 November 2011 (GMT)

Darn, I guess I should have been more vigilant in copying the levels and mods over to the keenwiki server... -- Flaose 04:01, 30 November 2011 (GMT)

Meh, you couldn't get the official Keen3 game out of it anyway thanks to the modifications, so it's more a courtesy to id than anything else :-) -- Malvineous 11:18, 30 November 2011 (GMT)

PCKF Archive

Thanks again! On a side note, could you delete Norp3 title.png, please? But now something completely different: Maybe you have noticed that the old PCKF (its ezBoard incarnation) is not available in the Wayback Archive anymore since the Archive's new version was introduced. Due to the attack on ezBoard back in 2005, this means that basically all pre-2005 topics of the PCKF are lost now. I have basically not followed the community this year, do you know if there have been any reactions on this incident? The thing is, I saved a bunch of topics before the old Archive was taken down, and I'd like to send them over to someone who wants to turn that mess into something more comfortable on the web. But maybe I'm just late to the party and there already have been efforts to save the old PCKF. Has anything been said? --Grandy02 15:55, 27 November 2011 (GMT)

Done. And I'm not sure about the PCKF - after all those old topics were lost it seemed a bit hit and miss to save it. Plus it was all in HTML so it's difficult to convert - there was some discussion about importing all the topics into the current PCKF. I've also spent hardly any time at the PCKF for a long while, so I'm not sure what the mood is. I think many people who had topics then are no longer active, it seems to be quite a different group of people there now! -- Malvineous 07:16, 28 November 2011 (GMT)

Okay, I see. I might create a topic on this issue in the PCKF this week (after a quick look, there still are quite a few of the "old ones", though). But if nobody has archived anything, would you mind to host certain topics I saved (of course, not every "W00t! 3000 Posts!!!111!1!" thing)? I might select interesting topics bit by bit - but first I have to know if that is even possible. --Grandy02 17:01, 28 November 2011 (GMT)

Sure, but in that case it'll be easier to give you some webspace so you can manage it all yourself, if you're prepared to do so! -- Malvineous 23:21, 28 November 2011 (GMT)

Thanks for your offer! I'll create a topic in the PCKF first this weekend and see what others did (if anything), then I'll get back to you. --Grandy02 14:27, 29 November 2011 (GMT)

I had talked with tulip per mail the last few days. According to him, there was nothing on the forum about archiving the ezBoard, and as he is one of the most active members, that has to be the truth. I created a thread nonetheless, but I don't expect much. So I'd greatly appreciate if you really gave me some webspace. :-) --Grandy02 18:27, 6 December 2011 (GMT)

Hello. I neither have mail nor FTP access right now, so could you write your answer on my last mail at this place (in case you already responded)? Also, could you do me a really big favour and make a little edit to the index.htm of the PCKF Archive? Actually, I finally wanted to post, but today I noticed that the page is incorretly displayed in certain browsers due to a little error on my side. Please change

<span class="logotext">PCKF Archive</a>

to

<span class="logotext">PCKF Archive</span>

and it should be fixed. Thanks in advance! :-) --Grandy02 20:05, 22 January 2012 (GMT)

Done. There was a suspected intrusion on my web host, so my provider reset everyone's passwords as a precaution. Your new password is in your e-mail. -- Malvineous 22:39, 22 January 2012 (GMT)

Thank you! :-D --Grandy02 21:06, 29 January 2012 (GMT)

DOS Classics is back!

Good news: Xtraverse replied and put DOS Classics back online! Oh, and by the way, he already created a little PCKF archive of sorts in the past - well, those topics can be quite... entertaining. ;-) --Grandy02 17:37, 30 November 2011 (GMT)

Great news, good to have the site back. -- Malvineous 22:43, 30 November 2011 (GMT)

In a second message, he thanks you for your offer to host DOS Classics, but he intends to keep up the site for "the long haul." DOS Classics was just offline due to a DNS error he forgot to fix. Anyway, yeah, it's great to have it back, I learned lots of Keen stuff at that place, and it got me into modding. --Grandy02 20:06, 1 December 2011 (GMT)

Another apology

Hey Malv. Recently, I made a couple of unnecessary double-edits on accident. Sorry if this irks you.-Xt er r a1 04:29, 24 November 2011 (GMT)

Source of creatures' names

Hello. I'm new here but I hope to be a good contributor :) What I'd like to know is where the names of the creatures from Keen Dreams and Keen 6 were found because Keen Dreams doesn't seem to list them all while Keen 6 doesn't even contain a help section and some of the names mentioned in Keen 6 user manual are different from the names listed here. Can you help? Levellass hasn't answered yet. Saluton 05:46, 4 February 2013 (GMT)

Hi Saluton and welcome to the wiki! Things do move a little more slowly here so you might have to give people a week or two to respond :-) As far as I'm aware all the names are correct - if you can tell me which ones are wrong and let me know where the correct name is we will certainly fix it! Most of the names came from official sources like the manuals, while one or two were supplied by Tom Hall himself. I believe there are a few which have been named by fans lacking a more official source, but it should mention this on those creature pages. -- Malvineous 08:17, 4 February 2013 (GMT)

Sorry, I was wrong, the names in Keen 6 user manual and here do match, but I couldn't find a user manual for Keen Dreams. Where should I look? In any case, it's only better for all the wiki articles to refer to sources. :) Saluton 09:22, 4 February 2013 (GMT)

The rule so far is that the creature names come from the help text for Keens 1-5+Dreams and from the manual for Keen 6. Anything different and it's mentioned in the article. If you have a look at Keen Dreams Creatures it will tell you that the names come from the help text in version 1.0 of the game. This information was removed from later versions. -- Malvineous 10:49, 4 February 2013 (GMT)

OK, I was wrong here, too :( but citations would still be useful. On another point, wouldn't it be better to combine those articles on creatures so that there's only one article per game? There can hardly be any information on most of the creatures anyway, apart from what they look like, how they move, and what they do. Most articles will forever be two- or three-paragraph stubs. Saluton 14:59, 5 February 2013 (GMT)

I guess citations could be useful - they are already there on most if not all the Dreams pages, but there is a lot of more important work needed on all the mod pages so this is a fairly low priority for us. Combining the creatures onto a single page has already been done - each episode has a summary page for the creatures. But we decided long ago it was still worth having a dedicated page for each creature as that gives us more room for additional details, like which levels the creature appears in, bugs in its behaviour, tricks for avoiding it, and so on. It also makes it easier to link to creatures - otherwise we'd have dozens of redirect pages anyway. But likewise we also decided that mods should not have individual pages for each creature, as there would be thousands of unnecessary pages then. -- Malvineous 19:45, 5 February 2013 (GMT)

I see, thanks. Why is there no page on Bobby Prince? Was anything decided on that? Saluton 06:11, 7 February 2013 (GMT)

No, there has been no decision there. If you have some information about Bobby Prince related to Commander Keen, by all means go ahead and create a page for him. But if you're looking for things to do, there are lots of mods that don't have pages created yet, and each page needs infoboxes, screenshots, level lists, etc. This is where most of the work is being done at the moment. Have a look at Episode Null for what we're aiming for on each mod's page. -- Malvineous 22:03, 8 February 2013 (GMT)

I don't think pages on the creators of Keen should only contain information related to Keen. To my mind, a proper encyclopedic article about a person should give a complete view of their biography even if it's in a Keen encyclopedia, but anyway, we'll see about that when I have enough time to actually edit articles. Thanks for this discussion :) Saluton 07:46, 11 February 2013 (GMT)

Of course you can include non Keen-related information, but since it's a Commander Keen encyclopaedia it makes sense to give a greater focus on things related to Commander Keen. Otherwise you may as well just link to the Wikipedia article instead! -- Malvineous 23:01, 15 February 2013 (GMT)

I would suggest just linking to the Wikipedia article of Bobby Prince and other creators of Keen when needed. There's no reason to repeat something that is stated better elsewhere. -- Flaose 15:48, 20 February 2013 (GMT)

Goodbye, Galaxy!

Why is there no punctuation in the title Goodbye Galaxy? Saluton 14:47, 11 February 2013 (GMT)

Very good point. I've renamed the page - thanks! -- Malvineous 23:01, 15 February 2013 (GMT)

Moving of pages and their location on alphabetical lists

I notice when a page is moved, it remains in the same place as the old page would when listed in a category. This could be confusing, is there any way to circumvent it? -Always so much to do! 09:22, 16 February 2013 (GMT)

It shouldn't - do you have any examples? Keep in mind the category pages are cached so it can take a few page views before they all get updated after a rename. Certainly by 24 hours later they should all be correct and up to date. -- Malvineous 21:27, 16 February 2013 (GMT)

Delete some pages

Category:Incompatible Patches is an invalid category, it seems that such pages should always have a small 'p' in patches due to the way the wiki works. This page is thus extra and should be deleted post haste. -Always so much to do!

The following pages can also be deleted, having no other pages linking to them and being the subject of double redirects; Moving Platform, Patch:Keens Left and Patches:Game start, results of poor syntax -Always so much to do!

Done! -- Malvineous 14:48, 20 March 2013 (GMT)

Many thanks, that clears things up a bit, I dislike superfluous pages. -Always so much to do! 19:28, 20 March 2013 (GMT)

Bleah, found yet another duplicated page, (Mind the original was very old and in need of updating.) Could you please remove Patch:Light Switch, it has stuff on it, but nothing that isn't on the original page now. (Also there's only one page that links directly to the light switch page, so it was easy to make sure there's no links to the duplicate page.)

Done. I've also made you an administrator of the wiki so you should be able to delete pages yourself in future (there's a new tab at the top of each page you will see once you log out and back in again.) -- Malvineous 00:06, 2 April 2013 (GMT)

Thanks, that should help, assuming I don;t make any more dumb mistakes like the mess you just fixed up. -Always so much to do! 09:08, 8 April 2013 (GMT)

Hahaha no worries, everyone makes mistakes :-) -- Malvineous 11:56, 8 April 2013 (GMT)

About my Cosmo Mod

Thanks for the heads-up. I didn't know there was a page at the Modding Wiki for Cosmo Mods. I'll make sure to put the mod article there next time. T-Squared (talk) 22:32, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

A bug

I tried to get my three mods in the Keen 1, Keen 2, and Keen 3 mods page. But I can't do it, because it won't do it. Sorry about the edits I've done. Quillax (talk) 23:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello Quinton. You did everything right, but those pages are not always refreshed automatically. To purge a page's cached version, add "?action=purge" to the page title in the address bar and commit, e.g. http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Keen_1_mods?action=purge. You can also read about this in the source code of the mod lists. --Grandy02 (talk) 07:59, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Mod title confusion

Hi Malv. I'm currently creating stubs for the remaining missing mods, but I'm confused about the wiki's handling of mod titles, especially those with subtitles. Sometimes the main (series) title(+episode number) is used (e.g. The Clones of Evil 1, Death to the Vorticons 3), but for others the subtitle/episode name (e.g. Vanished To Venus, Kidnapped Keen, TUIT trilogy), while in some cases the full title is given to the article (e.g. Onward: Silcar 1: Nightmare Before Teatime). Are there any rules for this? And a unique case seems to be OrbKeen1, which is given its production name rather than actual title. --Grandy02 (talk) 18:37, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure - I don't think there's a specific rule at the moment, but if you want to come up with one then by all means. I guess what you want is something unique, so MyMod1, MyMod2, MyMod3, etc. aren't very good because they are too similar. Likewise the Onward: Silcar one is probably a bit too long. I'd be happy renaming that to Nightmare Before Teatime and then applying that rule to the others. There's probably no need to have the series name in the title, as the previous/next episodes in a series are listed in the infobox on each page. What do you think? -- Malvineous (talk) 23:22, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm okay with both using the full title or only the episode's name. Sure, there would be quite a few lengthy page titles in case of the former option, so it might be better to choose the latter one. My only concern is that some mods could be more commonly known by the series name+number rather than the subtitles from what I've seen (e.g. Norp the Yorp, Shadow Keen, Marta). Do you think that would be still acceptable? --Grandy02 (talk) 11:03, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

I think so. Providing the common name(s) appear in the article itself then it will show up in a search for those names, so it shouldn't be a problem locating a mod. If it's really bad then we can always create a redirect, although personally I would try to manage without redirects first, as I'd rather not see every mod come with a dozen redirects attached as it will make it more difficult to maintain. -- Malvineous (talk) 11:49, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good. Though I think there would generally have to be one redirect for the affected pages. For example, "Brain Damage" would have "Norp the Yorp 3" so that visitors can also find the mod when typing "Norp". --Grandy02 (talk) 19:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

That's fine, although if it's only searching you're worried about, on the mod page putting something like "Brain Damage (also known as Norp the Yorp 3)" should be enough. -- Malvineous (talk) 00:44, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it would be more comfortable so that a visitor gets directly to the correct page when typing the title they are used to. So, could a rule for this be created? Also, would it affect the names of the zip files? --Grandy02 (talk) 08:10, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Can you give me an example? When I type "Norp the Yorp 3" into the search bar the mod is the first result, and if I type "Brain Damage" it's the second result. Wouldn't that be enough for people to find it using whatever name they prefer? Or you just prefer if it goes straight to the page if there's an exact match? I don't mind just as long as there's a good reason for doing it one way over the other. One thing I want to avoid is having a dozen redirects for each mod, with only things like capitalisation being the difference between some of them. -- Malvineous (talk) 09:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm only referring to going straight to the pages. I personally don't mind if I have to do one more click, just thought that some visitors wouldn't like that when entering a mod's common name a list of search results appears first. I fully understand that the number of redirects has to be kept small, never intended to add different capitalisations and stuff. If anything, I only imagined one per mod if it is relevant at all (as in case of the Norp mods). If a rule is made, would the zip files also have to be renamed? --Grandy02 (talk) 17:54, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough if there aren't huge numbers of them. Remember that redirects aren't supposed to be categorised though, they're only supposed to be used for pages that used to exist on the wiki but were deleted/merged, so that any external sites linking to the old page still work. Up to you whether you want to rename the files, but I think we should stick to one title per filename though. Most people will only see the filenames temporarily while they download mods, so there should be no need to cram too much information into the filename! -- Malvineous (talk) 22:25, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm almost done with with adding pages for the missing mods. However, I have a question related to the download links in the mod galleries. In most cases, only the download for the latest version is needed there. But what about downloads of remakes, e.g. those of Yorphius II, ShadowKeen and Crash on Gobo III? Maybe even a separate box (though not a separate article) that also includes the remake author's name? If there's one mod that definitely needs two download links, it is Doomship Dilemma, because the mods by Levellass and Szemigi are basically two different works based on the same beta. --Grandy02 (talk) 07:38, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Nice work! If the mods are that different then they probably deserve their own pages, like The Grand Intellect: Doomship Dilemma (Levellass version), Yorphius II (Deluxe) or Crash on Gobo III (remake). However I think we need to come up with some criteria to make sure we don't get a different page for every revision of a mod. I think the criteria should be:

If the remake is by the same author as the original, then it should be considered the latest version and only that version included in the list (but the older versions of course listed on the article page.) This is to encourage mod authors to make new mods instead of endlessly tinkering with existing ones. It is fine to have screenshots of the different versions and to explain why they were released, but only one infobox can go on a page (otherwise it will break the categories and mod lists.)
If a mod builds on another one (by the same or a different author), then a new article for it should not be created, and the new mod should be listed as an alternate version on the original mod's page. This is to avoid having people change a couple of graphics and get their own mod listed. The way Yorphius II is written now is perfect.
An exception to the previous rule is allowed for substantial changes, such as a complete levelpack for an existing mod. If you are unsure whether a mod-mod counts or not, then it doesn't. It should be very obviously a whole new mod based on an existing one, and not just a few changes or a couple of new levels. This means Gridlock's Dead in the Desert Levelpack should have its article deleted, and the content moved onto Dead in the Desert where it should be listed as an alternate version by a different author.

Using this criteria, Doomship Dilemma would get split into two mods/pages, Yorphius II would have an alternate version listed (unchanged to how it is now), and Crash on Gobo III would have the more recent change listed as the latest version.

What do you think, does this seem fair? -- Malvineous (talk) 09:06, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the most points, but regarding Gridlock's level pack, I'm not sure. I mean, level "packs" with just one level based on the original games also have their own articles, so I think a small level pack for a mod is as worthy. But any way, what to do with level packs in general? Most pages don't use any mod/level pack-specific templates yet (though several have the level template). Should they also use the mod infobox and thus appear in the mod lists? Or a slightly altered template and separate lists? I think there should be a way to differentiate between them. --Grandy02 (talk) 21:03, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so keen on having an entirely different list for full mods vs level packs, but what if we modify the current mod lists so that under each mod (where it currently has a download link, the number of levels, and the mod status) we include a new item that says whether the mod includes new graphics? That way full mods would say yes here, and level packs say no, but everything could be in the same mod list. This item can pull from the existing mod infobox, so current pages wouldn't have to be updated to include the new info. Would that work? -- Malvineous (talk) 23:30, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. Okay, now the only remaining issue is the sheer number of level packs that don't have a page yet (more than 40). Of course I could do it all on my own again, but the progress would be very slow, and the outdated links would continue to be in the navigation. It would be a different case if just putting infoboxes on those pages would be enough for stubs, not sure about that. --Grandy02 (talk) 17:29, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

The page only needs an infobox to appear in the list, and ideally a screenshot, but really, as much or as little as you can manage is fine. Maybe you can come up with a simple procedure explaining what to copy/paste and recruit some help from the PCKF? -- Malvineous (talk) 10:43, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll ask the PCKF members to help with screenshots and red links once I'm done with the few missing "blue links". --Grandy02 (talk) 18:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Sounds good! Thanks for all your effort cleaning up the mod lists, it's great to have someone willing to put the time in to do this properly! -- Malvineous (talk) 22:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

File name problems

I moved Commander Keen & the Morticore to The Morticore, and I have encountered a problem. The files are now broken, because the mod title has changed. I don't want to upload a duplicate of the file, so is there anything else I can do? Quillax (talk) 16:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

I've "moved" the files. --Grandy02 (talk) 16:30, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Translation mods

Hi, I've two questions regarding mods that act as translations of the original games, more specifically the Hungarian translations by Szemigi. First, would each one of those mods have its own page just like other skin mods? Texts and text graphics are changed. And second, how to localise the downloads? The zip files contain installers for Windows. Should the zip archives include the actual game files or the installer executables? --Grandy02 (talk) 19:15, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, they're not really "mods" in the gameplay sense so they kind of belong on the main episode pages instead. Do you think we could put them somewhere there? Maybe we need to expand each episode's page to contain a bit more info as well as things like this. As for the download, technically we can't distribute modified versions of the game so it should be the usual patch files that sit on top of the original game. You don't need an installer for this so hopefully that can be removed, especially since it won't work for anyone running a Mac, Linux, or a real DOS PC. -- Malvineous (talk) 21:54, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I was thinking the same, it would require an additional emulator for non-Windows users, so I'd zip the extracted files for the localised downloads. Maybe we could have a page named "Translations"? "Keen 1 Translations" and so on would have too little content each, so one page for all translations would be enough, and each episode page would have a link to it. What do you think? --Grandy02 (talk) 15:03, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me, feel free to go ahead and create it! -- Malvineous (talk) 11:27, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

The translations are essentially skin mods, too, aren't they? What about a collective page for skin mods (that could also include the translations then)? I've to agree that it's hard to draw the line, and things like "play in CGA" or "play as Vorticon (Keen's sprites simply replaced by Vorticon's)" probably don't need their own pages. But I wouldn't like a complete exclusion of them, either. Not to mention that the wiki provides the downloads for all of them since more than two years. --Grandy02 (talk) 10:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm still not so keen on listing skin mods. To me they are not much different to changing the sounds or music and leaving the game otherwise unchanged. It's like an incomplete mod, and incomplete mods should not be listed here unless they are abandoned and enough progress has been made that playing them is significantly different to the original game. I guess it hinges on whether the KeenWiki is supposed to be a database of every single mod, no matter how insignificant, or whether it should be an index of the better more complete mods. I am of the opinion that you need to change more than one or two things in order for the mod to feature here. If a skin mod is good enough, then someone over at the PCKF will surely use it in a full mod and then there's no problem listing it here. For the completists, who want every single little change preserved, maybe other sites like moddb.com would be a better match? Translations are a special case as they make the original games accessible to a wider audience - in my opinion they aren't really mods, as the content is the same as the original game, just in another language. -- Malvineous (talk) 03:13, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I've created a list with all the skin mods + translations. Do you think the SGA mods would count as "translations", even though the language remains English? Regarding the skin mods, a few words have been exchanged in the PCKF topic. Personally, I wouldn't mind if they had pages. Technically, the abandoned mods without changed levels are a similar case. But I wouldn't create pages for the "Military" mods, for example, as only some sprites have been changed and nothing else, but in those cases I'd keep download links somewhere due to their "historical" value (made during the early years of Keen modding). Not sure about Cybernetic Dreams, though, as quite a few graphics have been edited, while there is nothing else like patching or text edits. --Grandy02 (talk) 21:24, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Translation mods definitely deserve a place, but I think they should be separate to mods and listed close to the official games, since the idea is that they are the same as the official games but open them up to a wider audience. An SGA translation mod is interesting, but if it's changing the English parts to SGA then it's more of a curiosity than something I think anyone would choose to play.

For skin mods, I think we need something similar to Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Skin mods may be worth listing if they are historically significant (such as one of the first ever mods) but beyond that I personally feel that unless there are new levels, the mod doesn't add anything new to the original games. Playing the original games is fun - but playing them with a different sprite here or there is boring - you aren't going to make any new discoveries. I see skin mods as being lazy, and when people complain about having to make even just one new level, that just reinforces the idea that they are being lazy and want a mod page with the least amount of effort possible.

How about asking the people over at Keen:Modding what they think? If you can get the modders themselves to cast a vote about whether we should include skin mods or not, then I am willing to go with their decision. -- Malvineous (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Galaxy Mods - adding additional topic

Hey Malvineous, quick question to that Galaxy Mod page: What about adding a new topic like Notable Demos. This section would comprise round about 12 alpha-mods and it might give a bit more clarity. I can take care of it, as soon as you give me your "OK" for doing so. -- Nisaba (talk) 21:21, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure exactly what you are proposing, but you are welcome to make a start and then get some opinions about whether people like what you're doing or not. It's a community wiki so it's not up to me :-) However do bear in mind that per the note at the top of Galaxy Mods, that page will be deleted once all the mods are moved off it. If you're going to start classifying mods as notable though, make sure the criteria you are using are very clear, otherwise everyone will want to add their own mods to the list! -- Malvineous (talk) 09:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

What happened to the voting system?

I noticed that the voting system that is found inside the CK mod info boxes appears to be disabled. Is this because of some nasty bug happened or was this done on purpose? Quillax (talk) 05:45, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

It seems that the extension was not updated and/or it's source is not longer available. @Malvineous: But there is an alternative extension available. The installation seems pretty straight forward. See: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:VoteNY -- Nisaba (talk) 20:10, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Possible username change?

Hey there, Malvineous. I was wondering if you admins have the power to rename user names or not. If so, then I would appreciate it if you could change my username into "Quillax", my current name in the PCKF and K:M. Quillax (talk) 02:33, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we can do so easily, but if you are able to find some SQL that can do it for MediaWiki then I'm happy to run that. -- Malvineous (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Since it seems that users can be merged nowadays, I just requested an account for "Quillax". Could you please merge that with my account, and make Quillax the current name? I feel like it's about time I share the same username with the Keen forums. Quillax (talk) 17:12, 29 March 2024 (GMT)

I'm able to log into the Quillax account! Like I said earlier, could you please merge my old account (Quinton) into my new account (Quillax)? It would be nice! I could've tried it, but it seems that I can't merge myself. Quillax (talk) 03:26, 30 March 2024 (GMT)

I think that's done now. I guess you'll need to update your name on all the mod pages now so they show up on your user page. -- Malvineous (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2024 (GMT)

Weird thing with adding new external links

I was updating the download link and adding a new one to my site in The Sunnylands. During the security thing, however, the images are only displayed as "V1 SHUTDOWN ON 2018-03-31" and no sounds are played when doing the audio challenge. I thought things broke at first, but I typed the text in the image and it was working fine. I feel like I should let you know about this, though, just in case. Quillax (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Oh, it seems like anything will work in the security thing. I think it might be good to fix it if possible. Quillax (talk) 14:52, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up! I'm glad it's not stopping people from adding links. I am (slowly) working towards moving the wiki onto a new server so I'll probably remove it when that happens. The requirement for people to fill out a biography when they register has so far kept out 100% of the spam, so hopefully that keeps up and we won't need the external link captcha any longer. -- Malvineous (talk) 01:42, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

My Mortimer skin for Keen 5 and 6 got deleted

Hey, Nisaba from PCKF removed my Mortimer skin for Keen 5 and 6 and I cannot recover these anymore. These contained the EXE files, but this should have been updated, so these won't have the EXEs anymore. --Szemigi (talk) 13:45, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

If it was a skin mod (only graphics changed) then it's against the Guidelines so that might be why. You'll have to change more than just the graphics to justify including it here. Knowing how many popular mods you make though, I'm sure you'll have no trouble making some new levels for it! Then we can include it here. -- Malvineous (talk) 13:49, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Strange, because Mortimer McMire Keen 5 and 6 skin changes has only sprite and some other graphic edits. What about Keen 1-3 skins then?--Szemigi (talk) 14:23, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

My personal preference is to delete them, but some in the community want to keep them, so we're still a bit undecided. If you have some good ideas let me know. I just want to avoid the KeenWiki becoming a dumping ground for fan art, when there are much better sites for that type of thing (e.g. DeviantArt) -- Malvineous (talk) 22:54, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

EXE files in Keen 2,3,5,6 mods

Hey, I saw that some of the Keen 2,3,5,6 mods contain the EXE files. What to do? Because I have mods as well that has EXE and I should update them sometimes. --Szemigi (talk) 14:36, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

We are trying to update these mods to delete the .EXE files where we can. If you are updating your mods it is best to set it up so that the player unzips the mod over the top of a working copy of the game, so that the .EXE is not distributed on the wiki. That would be very helpful if you have mods like this that you can update! -- Malvineous (talk) 22:54, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

Semantic questions

Hey there, Malvineous. I've been updating mod pages to fit in the latest style, but I thought I'd ask you a few questions. First, I'd like to mention the ending and title screen levels in the Vorticon mods. I've been including them since your adding a mod tutorial requested so, but what I'm wondering about is if they should be considered required or not. I've been setting them to "Yes", since I figured that one has to go through them to beat the game, but I just want to make sure. Also, should the items in the title screens be counted for points or no? That is something I'm not so sure about.

Another thing I want to bring up is hazards. In my mods, I put them into the actors list with their replacements stated. However though, I now feel like listing the tile hazards as replacing something is kinda dumb, as it's really easy for one to add more tile hazards and they don't have much differences between each other (especially in Vorticons mods). I think it's alright if it replaces a hazard that has something to do with a sprite, though, such as the Underwater Mine. I think it'd be nice to either have the ModActorImage template updated to have something for if it's a tile hazard or not or a new template (something like ModHazardImage?).

Finally, I want to bring up something that has to do with the regular Sqeeks and levels from therealdopefish's levelpacks. Both have been used in more than one mod, with the former replacing different creatures (although they act nearly identical) and the latter using different level numbers. I'm not sure how to explain it but if you were to look Flames on Earth and The Sqeek Battle for the former and therealdopefish's two levelpacks for the latter, I think you'll be able to see that there is a problem. It'd be nice if it can be fixed, although I think therealdopefish's levelpacks are a lot like each other, with one just having extra levels, so those two could probably just be merged. Quillax (talk) 20:09, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Hey, very good questions! I'm a bit out of the loop at the moment so not sure which levelpacks you mean, but (although I haven't tested it), in theory you should be able to put multiple {{LevelImage}} templates on a level page to have the same level appear in multiple mods. If this doesn't work let me know and I'll fix it.

With the hazards my opinion is that they are just tiles so they should not be listed (otherwise we'd be listing every single tile that's changed) however exceptions can be made if one of the hazard replacements is particularly notable for whatever reason. Otherwise I'd leave them out. The mod pages are after all just meant to be a summary of the important bits rather than a list of every single change. If you think it would be better to have a ModHazardImage then by all means go ahead and create one - just copy the existing one and modify as needed, that's perfectly fine.

The 'required' attribute was meant to indicate whether the level must be *played* in order to finish the game so I guess by that logic the title and ending levels can be set to false for most mods, unless somehow the player ends up in them intentionally and cannot finish the game otherwise. Interesting point though, I had not considered the non-level levels! I would still count it for points though, just for curiosity's sake, but at the same time I wouldn't give it a high priority so it's fine if it's left blank. However I am now wondering whether these should be included at all, since if there's no way to play the level without cheating, isn't not really a level... -- Malvineous (talk) 21:58, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

ModActorImage request

Hi Malv, could you take a look at Template talk:ModActorImage, please? I think the template needs a "Link" parameter just like the one used by ItemImage. --Grandy02 (talk) 17:57, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, I didn't get a notification for some reason and I'm a bit behind on all this stuff at the moment! I replied on the Talk page but essentially to avoid the wiki becoming a dumping ground for all sorts of random fan art, there are some restrictions on what can be uploaded. Generally speaking it's one page per mod, and all the actor info, story, etc. should be on that single page. We found early on that having a separate article for each mod actor was too much work because they would never be completed fully, so by keeping everything on the one page it makes it easier to maintain. -- Malvineous (talk) 04:24, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

No problem, thanks for your reply. I answered on the talk page. --Grandy02 (talk) 18:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

New version of a file doesn't work

Some minutes ago, I uploaded a new version of The Ultra Omegamatic in-game image with new tiles, but it is the same as the first version of the image, how I can change it?--DarkAle (talk) 18:54, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

You have to clear the cache of your browser in order to see the changes take effect.

-- Nisaba (talk) 23:50, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

All the fangames use the new infobox

Hi, I would like to tell you I checked all the fangames infobox and all of them use the new infobox, so there is a thing to remove in the list of "To do things". Soon I'll check the unused images--DarkAle (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Nice job! Feel free to remove it from the list if you're satisfied it's done! (And feel free to add anything else you think is important.) -- Malvineous (talk) 01:34, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I now finished to check the unused images: some of them are present in their articles but it says they're unused, the others have been hidden so an administrator can delete them except for the 1st level of The Prisoner's Dilemma. It can be utilised when it'll be released--DarkAle (talk) 10:59, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I also uploaded some fangames images to fix the broken links, but I've done an error moving a file and uploading another image for Keen: Next because I didn't know both the files have the same name. The rest of the fangames that need pictures are unplayable on my PC so I can't do some screenshots of them--DarkAle (talk) 20:09, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I just finished putting all the files into categories. The remaining are 12: An image of Bobby Prince, some images of my mod in development that need to be deleted, some levels of Keen 3 Part 2 which are the same as the originals and which I think should be deleted and some screenshots of some other Mod. Keen Aqua 3 I think--DarkAle (talk) 07:41, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

That's great, thanks so much for all your effort! I've made you an administrator of the wiki so you should now have access to delete files if you want to tidy up that last little bit. Sometimes the wiki software can be a little slow to realise an image is in use if you have only just added it to a page, but if you use the statistics API and look at the "jobs" value then once it has reached zero everything should be up to date. If this is zero but you still have an image listed as unused when it's definitely in use, let me know and I'll investigate. Remember that filenames on the wiki are case sensitive so it's possible it's a duplicate if the case is different. -- Malvineous (talk) 00:19, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Obviously I'll have to get used to it. Because I don't know how certain functions work so by mistake I reversed your edits but quiet I fixed everything--DarkAle (talk) 08:01, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I also deleted all the unused images and the duplicates. The remaining images are from unreleased mods(They can be utilized when the mods will be finished) and levels that are present in their articles(even if it says they're unused) . So this work is finished

I refreshed the wiki link database as it looked like the unused images shouldn't have been there, and sure enough now it has realised which ones were in use and most of them have gone from the list. There are still a few unused images so hopefully those can easily be sorted. -- Malvineous (talk) 09:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Good. So I can sort the rest--DarkAle (talk) 10:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Creatures and Hazards

Hi Malv, since some years, the creatures and hazards of the original games appear on the main page of a game rather than on separate pages (though certain pages like Keen 1 Hazards, Keen 6 Hazards and Keen GBC Creatures were not changed to redirects). While the template EpisodeInfo still contains separate links for creatures and hazards, both of them appear under the heading "Actors". Personally, I'd prefer to have separate sections for them (Nisaba agreed). What do you think? I guess that would not only require a new template, but also some new properties? Or would there be another way to split them on the game page? --Grandy02 (talk) 21:07, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't help but read. It would be a very nice idea to create separate pages for each hazard. It would help readers to know more about these--DarkAle (talk) 08:34, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I was referring to separate sections on a game's main page rather than separate pages for the various hazards. Most of them are just deadly tiles, though I wouldn't mind if pages were made for ice cannon, laser cannon, jack, underwater mine, etc., since these stand out. --Grandy02 (talk) 15:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Both are cool ideas. So let's wait Malvineous's reply--DarkAle (talk) 18:00, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I just dropped by to let you guys know that I second Grandy02 suggestions.

-- Nisaba (talk) 19:49, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Are you saying you just want the creatures under the "Actors" heading split into two headings, "Creatures" and "Hazards"? I'm fine with that (I think those pages could do with a revamp in general) but do we need to agree on the criteria for what goes where? e.g. if you say hazards are anything that is a tile then what about a Pat Pat, isn't it a creature? Maybe hazards are things that are environmental, but then the Ice Cannon doesn't really qualify...

There is an existing property for 'harms keen' that could be used to split the sections but it sounds like this isn't what you are after. If you need to add a new property then that's no problem, let's just agree on how to classify it first. Perhaps it's worth asking on the PCKF or K:M for opinions there? I don't think too many active community members keep an eye on these talk pages. Either way we'll need to create a page for each hazard so we can use the Semantic MediaWiki query tools to populate the lists. -- Malvineous (talk) 11:14, 28 July 2021 (GMT)

Splitting into two headings (possibly as subheadings of "Actors") sounds good. What about an additional parameter for the "ActorImage" template that allows to distinguish between the two? The Pat Pat is indeed a tricky one, technically it's just a deadly tile, maybe an exception could be made for that one. I'd list everything as "hazards" what has been referred to as such on the "Hazards" pages (including Ice Cannon, Jack, Dart Gun, Laser Cannon etc.). Not sure about the "Stranded Fish" (or whatever it is), though. --Grandy02 (talk) 16:03, 7 November 2021 (GMT)

HTTPS & New URL

I see the URL for the KeenWiki has changed and the site is now HTTPS - when did that change and, out of interest, were you contacted by a user called "mr_pants" requesting it? It's just that I was contacted via IRC this morning under the mistaken assumption that I had control of that part of the wiki. -- DHeadshot (talk) 16:39, 11 May 2021 (GMT)

No, nobody has contacted me about it. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time, starting the process over two years ago and only finishing a couple of months back. -- Malvineous (talk) 23:30, 12 May 2021 (GMT)

Camoto: Dangerous Dave - graphic problems

Hey! Today I translated (only hexadecimally unfortunately) Dangerous Dave 1 to Hungarian. I wanted to translate the graphic signs like "DAVES:" "GO THRU THE DOOR", etc. as well, but when I exported original VGA (!) graphic stuff and then I modificated it and re-imported it, the graphics were screwed up when I started new game. (Even the blazing Dangerous Dave sign had little glitch as well). Help me! Szemigi (talk) 20:48, 3 June 2021 (GMT)

This is a known problem that was only very recently fixed. I'm not working on the old Camoto version any longer, but you can try the incomplete development version of the new Camoto version that runs in a web browser. It can't do as many things as the old Camoto yet but it can modify the Dave graphics without corrupting them. See https://camoto.shikadi.net -- Malvineous (talk) 23:36, 3 June 2021 (GMT)

Adding a Demo/Beta release date to infoboxes?

Right now, it seems half the time the first release date is the release of a demo/beta (such as with Atroxian Realm), and half the time it's the first full release (such as with Operation Ocflore). It's inconsistent.

In my opinion, the best way to fix this would be to add a Demo/Beta Release date to the info box and rename the Release date to Official Release Date. Pandakeen (talk) 18:43, 7 August 2021 (GMT)

Fair point. I'm less keen on the demo/beta release date because mods shouldn't have pages made for them until they are finished (as this acts as motivation to finish the mod instead of abandoning it shortly after the demo has been done) so I'd be fine with only having the date of the full release and not worrying about any demos or betas. -- Malvineous (talk) 00:56, 9 August 2021 (GMT)

I'll go ahead and correct the dates, then. Pandakeen (talk) 13:27, 20 October 2021 (GMT)

Thanks for the admin access!

Hey Malv, thanks for giving me access to administrator tools, including mass-editing! A few days ago, I fixed tons of download links to reflect the KeenWiki server change. It took me a while to figure out how to use the mass-editing tool, but once I got it down it was a breeze. The download links seem to be working now. I also upgraded them so that they use HTTPS instead of HTTP -- hope that doesn't do any harm!

When I first took care of the fan-game download links, I made a slight mistake. It messed up the "List of fan-games" page, but thankfully, I got that fixed. The individual fan-game pages seem to be alright, so I didn't bother with those, but I thought I'd point out the mistake just in case something else did get messed up. Quillax (talk) 07:10, 8 November 2021 (GMT)

All good, I wasn't sure if you got my e-mail or not! As long as you can fix any problems you create then it's no issue :) -- Malvineous (talk) 12:23, 8 November 2021 (GMT)

Is Keen 1 Randomiser a mod or a tool?

I've been thinking of making an article about Multimania's Keen 1 Randomiser, but I can't decide if it's a mod or a tool. On one hand, the index page of Multimania's website describes it as a tool and it looks like it could be used with mods, or at least the simple ones. On the other hand, however, it seems to be made more for playing rather than creation. What do you think? Quillax (talk) 07:10, 8 November 2021 (GMT)

In my opinion if it's a patch you run as part of the game then it's a mod, and if it's a program you run that produces a mod you then run as a second step (and can distribute independently), that's a tool. However if the difference is that slight then it won't hurt to list it in both categories. -- Malvineous (talk) 12:23, 8 November 2021 (GMT)

Well, you can run a program (RANDKEEN.EXE) that will generate the randomized levels and patch file, which could be independently distributed. On the other hand, however, you can run a batch file (RNDKEEN1.BAT) that will run RANDKEEN.EXE and then runs the game with the produced levels and patch file. Since the Random Maze Generator is considered a tool, I'm slightly leaning towards the tool category. Quillax (talk) 06:36, 16 November 2021 (GMT)

It certainly is a borderline one. Is its primary purpose for people to play (like a mod), or to make levels for other modders to incorporate into their own levels (like a tool)? How many mods have made use of it as a tool? If there aren't too many that suggests it's a mod first, but also listed in tools second. -- Malvineous (talk) 07:00, 16 November 2021 (GMT)

I just created an article about it, and it's classified as a tool. I saw your message after uploading the first image and while creating the article. I'm sure it's made for people to play, and I haven't seen any mods make use of it (at least not yet). I made it a tool, though, since I feel like it makes more sense and classifying it as a mod might make the article look awkward. Feel free to change it, though. Quillax (talk) 08:44, 16 November 2021 (GMT)

Mirror Keen in Second Dome of Darkness

Hello. In the Second Dome of Darkness you can see a mirror Keen with the SGA sign "ICU". Is it really fake? Szemigi (talk) 13:45, 16 January 2022 (GMT)

I think so. If you look at the level map there's nothing there - you can open the game in a level editor to confirm it for yourself. You can also extract the Keen 6 sprites and look through them to see if you can find any of the sprites you can see in the video. You can use the F10+T cheat in the game to view all the sprites loaded for the level and look for a mirror Keen sprite there. If it was real, I'm sure there would be more than a single video of it. I suppose the question now is, will someone make a Keen 6 mod to turn it into reality :) It looks like the video was of a Keen mod. I suppose if there is a background tile that animates quickly with enough frames it would be easy enough to do. You are a very experienced modder, I'm sure you would be able to work out how it was done and solve the mystery! -- Malvineous (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2022 (GMT)

Well, I'm planning Keen 6 v2.0, which will be a Keen 6 mod based on v1.5, so I'll try everything. :) Szemigi (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2022 (GMT)

Patch wiki issues

So I've just come back and noticed the patch wiki is broken. All the patches are an ugly red color, the [] and {} highlights are broken, the titles of patches that used to be present have been totally erased, the whole thing's a mess. What happened? What's this weird 'syntaxhighlight lang="asm"' stuff? If this is permanent it'll require a massive overhaul of all patch pages to remove the brackets and the descriptions that used the fact that brqackets highlighted stuff different colors. -Levellass (talk) 23:31, 30 January 2023 (GMT)

I've had a look at a few pages (e.g. Patch:A 2 Enter and Patch:Deadly tiles) and they seem to be displaying fine. Which pages are you seeing that are broken? The version of MediaWiki that powers the KeenWiki had to be upgraded a year or so ago to get the latest security patches, and the new version wasn't compatible with the old syntax highlighting feature we were using for the patches. Instead there was a "syntaxhighlight" extension (used for highlighting code) and after investigating a few options, the assembly language (asm) option gave the least-worst highlighting for CKPatch code, so we went with that. We did a bulk replace across all wiki pages so all patches should be wrapped in asm syntaxhighlight tags now instead, and the old patch titles should now have been moved to headings shown above the patch instead. Unfortunately there wasn't a lot we could do but I'm open to suggestions if you have any better ideas! -- Malvineous (talk) 00:32, 31 January 2023 (GMT)

Are you not seeing lines like '%patch $825D {$BCEBW}' with the curly brackets? Those can't be copied into a patch file and were previously used for highlighting. If there's no way to revert they should be cut out of all the patches, along with the square brackets. A lot of text mentions the old highlight colors, which are now complete nonsense. If you're NOT seeing those brackets I can get a screenshot, as this might be a browser issue. -Levellass (talk) 10:59, 3 February 2023 (GMT)

Ohh sorry you're right, I misunderstood and thought you meant you were seeing "syntaxhighlight asm" instead of the actual patch. I do see the curly braces and never noticed they weren't supposed to be there. Hmm. Not so keen on removing them especially if the text references them, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to correct. I guess the old CKPatch extension will need to be updated to work with the latest Mediawiki release. Don't suppose anyone has any PHP skills and would be willing to update it? If it can be updated then we can go back to using it again like before. -- Malvineous (talk) 13:20, 3 February 2023 (GMT)

Yeah and square brackets too. Boy I wish I had PHP skills. It sounds like some effort will be needed either to clean up the changed highlights or get the old system working to be compatible. Quite a pity. -Levellass (talk) 21:51, 7 February 2023 (GMT)

Articles for comics and animations

Hi Malv, the KeenWiki includes some pages on things that are apparently not covered by its guidelines, namely the comics Commander Keen: the comic strip (very outdated page) and Blegd and Smeeg as well as the animation Shadowlands. All pages exist since more than decade. I conversed with Nisaba a while ago, one thought of her was using a subdomain dedicated to such media, so that the main wiki would remain "clean". I suggested starting a PCKF thread to reach a consensus. What do you think about those pages? --Grandy02 (talk) 18:40, 3 March 2023 (GMT)

It's an interesting question. I suppose they should be removed from the wiki, but where would a good place be to put them? The KeenWiki is a good central resource for both the official games, as well as mods, but is there a similar central place for the rest of the fan media? Also what about the fonts at Standard Galactic Alphabet? I think they are useful there but they are also unofficial fan creations. I suppose one thing everything has in common is that it is directly related to the original game in some way (using the original game engine, graphics, or fonts). Of course if we use this classification then the List of fan-games would have to go. But if you include the fan games, you could argue it is unfair to exclude fan art. And what about the music remixes? I suppose the real question is not whether we should host them, but rather where can we put all that such that it doesn't take over the KeenWiki and leaves it a relatively clean reference? e.g. I think fan media should go somewhere that you can vote/like it, so that the better quality content is easier for people to find. -- Malvineous (talk) 04:28, 4 March 2023 (GMT)

The KeenWiki isn't edited that often, I fear that separating the fangames, which already receive less attention than mods, wouldn't help the former. I thought that in addition to the manually edited table, there could also be an automatically generated list with screenshots based on infobox data, like those for the mods, and the option to rate the games on their respective pages, too. Do you think it would be a good idea to ask the PCKF community what they think about covering fan-made media that are not mods? --Grandy02 (talk) 16:46, 10 March 2023 (GMT)

I think that fangames should stay on KeenWiki. I can't think of why they should be treated differently than mods, the only difference is how they're made. Especially considering source-code mods are a bit of a gray area; NetKeen is listed as a fangame while Atroxian Realm is listed as a Keen 4 Mod, but they're both made using reverse-engineered source code from the original games. I think other fan-made media should be kept as well. Pandakeen (talk) 22:39, 10 March 2023 (GMT)

Help with the "Beyond the norm" and "Mods" sections in official Keen game pages

Remember that "Beyond the norm" section you added to Template:EpisodeInfo, which has links to mods and modding tools? And the "Mods" section, which lists the latest mod for the respective episode? Recently, I messed around to see if I could make them disappear in the Keen GBC article (since it has no mods). Throughout my various edits, I successfully got the "Mods" section to vanish in just GBC. The "Beyond the norm" section, however, doesn't show up in any of the episodes, even though I used the exact same code for checking the episode. Since I know you're good at the technical stuff, do you think you can take a look and see what's wrong, please? Quillax (talk) 05:40, 8 August 2023 (GMT)

I think the problem is that both the table and those conditionals share the same "|" characters, and I suspect the table characters get processed before the #if parser tags do, so there's some confusion about whether the "|" belongs to the table or to the parser tags. I worked around the problem by repeating the #if and making sure it always started and finished inside the same table cell, and that seems to have done the trick! -- Malvineous (talk) 09:02, 8 August 2023 (GMT)

Unnamed actors

Could you please take a look into the discussion of the same name on Template talk:ModActorImage? A while ago, I tried making it so that if the actor's name is left blank, it would be filled by Unnamed actor, but I never got it to work. Instead, I filled the name field with Unnamed actor, but it'd be nice if that would be used when leaving the field blank. That way, the placeholder name can be changed if needed and we wouldn't have to edit lots of file pages to do it. Quillax (talk) 10:05, 8 March 2024 (GMT)

I replied over there. -- Malvineous (talk) 14:42, 8 March 2024 (GMT)

Thanks! Also, could you please look into the question in Template talk:ItemList? It's been unanswered for almost 5 years, and I'm sure you'd know how to fix it. Quillax (talk) 10:47, 9 March 2024 (GMT)

Done! -- Malvineous (talk)

Source code mods

Would it be possible to make it so that in a mod page, if one enters Source code into the Episode field, it comes out as Source code instead of Keen Source code? I tried to do it in the mod infobox, but my attempts seem to cause disaster. Also, it'd be nice if the category spawned from that is Category:Source code mods rather than the non-existent Category:Keen Source code mods. I got a page created for the source code mods, although it currently relies on the latter category rather than the former.

Note that for some source code mods, I just manually added the category. Return to the Shadowlands, for instance, is technically a source code mod, but it started life as a Keen 4 mod and is based on a recreation of the Keen 4 source code. I'm not sure how the count for total amount of mods on the main page should work. Wouldn't counting source code mods mean that RttS would be counted twice? Quillax (talk) 18:59, 14 March 2024 (GMT)

I should note that Foray in the Forest is the only source code mod that's listed as Source code in the Episode field. Quillax (talk) 03:32, 15 March 2024 (GMT)

I don't think we ever really considered source code mods as a thing. The Episode option is only supposed to be used for mods that alter a specific official episode. I actually think source code mods should be classified as fan games rather than mods though, because they aren't modifying an existing game, they are a new independent game, like any other fan game. Can we change source code mods to be fan games? -- Malvineous (talk) 05:57, 15 March 2024 (GMT)

Hm, that's an interesting question. There were some discussions on whether source code mods are truly mods or actually fangames. People seemed fine with calling Atroxian Realm a Keen 4 mod, since it started life as one, even though it ended up as a "source code mod" in the end. Now that we have Foray in the Forest, though, which wildly differs from any of the original Keen games, the term "mod" becomes absurdly broad as it is. Perhaps it's time to reevaluate this situation... I might start a PCKF discussion about this. (By the way, I left a comment in the talk page for Template:ModActorImage.) Quillax (talk) 06:09, 15 March 2024 (GMT)

Just got the PCKF discussion started. Quillax (talk) 08:17, 15 March 2024 (GMT)

I think it's worth looking at the question of categorizing source code mods from the following perspective:

Classic modding using patches for Keen Games is always based on the respective original game engine, be it the Vorticon engine, or the Galaxy engine (which is a modification of the Dreams engine).
Fangames, on the other hand, do not use any of the original engines, but are characterized by the fact that they are based on a third party engine.
Source code mods are in this regard in principle closer to patch modding than to fangames, as they are also based on the same original engine. FitF, for example, is a modification of the Keen:Dreams engine / source code. It makes heavy use of Keen:Dreams and Keen:Galaxy mechanics, but can no longer be clearly assigned to a single specific episode.

I think the confusion stems from wanting to determine which episode (1,2,3 4,5,6 or 7) was modded instead of referring to which engine (Vorticons, Dreams/Galaxy) was modified. My plea is therefore not to treat source code mods as fangames. Instead, in addition to Episodes 4,5,6 and 7, we should also add 'source code' as another option for modding the underlying original source.

-- Nisaba (talk) 11:26, 15 March 2024 (GMT)

Fangame infoboxes are up to date!

I just updated Template:Fangame Infobox to make it resemble Template:Mod Infobox more (i.e. adding LatestUpdate, LatestDownloadURL, and LatestVersion), then I updated the infobox in every fangame page. Now they have all have a main download URL, and some of the fields (CreatedWith, Levels, etc.) only reflect the latest version.

Hopefully all that work should make it smooth and easy to convert the infobox so that it uses SMW stuff, and then make a pictorial list for fangames (like Keen 1 mods). I once tried to make the pictorial list a while ago, but it wasn't working well for me, so would you like to do it, please? Note that I'd like keep the page with all the fangames in a table (not just because of all the red links); the pictorial list page is just an alternative.

Here's my idea on how the boxes could look:

Keen 2.5D

By Joseph Carney (Ronnie) on 16 May 2015 (updated 7 September 2020)

Levels
6
Genre
Platform
OS
Windows, macOS, Linux
Status
Complete
NetKeen

By Lemm on 20 February 2011 (updated 26 March 2013)

Levels
136
Genre
Shooter
OS
DOS
Status
Complete
The Rule of a Yorp's Dinner

By Ilsoap on 3 November 1999 (updated 22 August 2000)

Levels
6
Genre
Platform
OS
Windows
Status
Abandonded
Commander Keen 2000

By A.R. on 24 November 1998

Levels
62
Genre
Platform
OS
Windows
Status
Complete

Some notes:

The height for screenshots should be 240 pixels, not 200. So many fangames have a resolution that's a multiple of 240 pixels tall, it's going to look weird seeing a lot of pictures cut off otherwise.
A few fangames, such as Keen 2.5D, come in multiple versions with each intended for a unique operating system. Each version has its download link, however, meaning that only one download can be shown in the box here. Would it be possible to have multiple download icons? Maybe instead of the OS field, each download icon could be replaced by an icon of the OS supported? I'm not sure how that'd be done with Template:Fangame Infobox, though, at least not without over-complicating it. What if a fangame was playable in more than one OS with the same files, such as QBASIC games (playable in DOS and Windows)?
Should the tool/engine used to make the game (CreatedWith) be listed? I feel like adding that might make the boxes too crowded, but for some people it might help (e.g. maybe they're looking for KEENGINE games). Would it be possible for some tools to be abbreviated when shown in the pictorial list (e.g. Multimedia Fusion to MMF)?

I'd love to see the fangames join the mods in the pictorial list department! Quillax (talk) 08:16, 16 March 2024 (GMT)

If you can have a go at this it would be good! You'll have to copy and update the {{#set}} statement from the top of Template:Mod Infobox and put it in Template:Fangame Infobox in order to copy all the fields into Semantic MediaWiki attributes, so that the pictorial lists can extract them again. Then you can copy Template:ModList and paste it into a new Template:FangameList and update the query as needed (e.g. querying Category:All fangames instead of the episode-specific category ModList uses). You'll get no results when you preview the page if you're querying fields that don't exist in any fangame, so you might have to sort out all those fields first. See how far you can get with this and if you get stuck let me know. Leave the template attributes in the query unchanged for now, even though they're referring to the mod list, and once you have some results showing up then you can duplicate those templates to make fangame-specific versions with the extra fields you want. -- Malvineous (talk) 05:12, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Wow, I did it! Thanks for the tutorial, Malvineous, you made it surprisingly easy for me! Take a look at List of fangames (pictorial) and tell me what you think.

Is it possible to add more vertical room for the screenshots in the boxes? I can't find a way to do that, and it bugs me to see so many fangames having their screenshots cut off. Quillax (talk) 09:59, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Nice work! Glad you got it figured out. The screenshots were intentionally limited in size to make the cards neater, otherwise they looked a bit jumbled and messy, but you can have a play around with it and see what you think. In Template:FangameListSummaryBox the image is placed inside a <div>, and if you follow the CSS hierarchy it's inside another div of type "thumb", which is itself inside an li of class "card" which from Template:ModListSummaryBegin is inside a ul of both classes "cards" and "modlist". So if you go to MediaWiki:Common.css and search the page for "cut the image" you will see a CSS style for ul.modlist li.card div.thumb div which matches that previous stack of HTML elements, and so applies certain CSS styles to the image. In this case the image itself is not styled, but rather the div around it is fixed at 320x200 with "overflow: hidden" meaning if the image is larger than the div, the div won't expand to fit it like normal, the image will just be cut off. To fix this you'll have to figure out some CSS style that achieves the goal of what you want.

To test it, copy the style and put it all on one line in Template:FangameListSummaryBox so you can use the Preview button to see what effect your changes are having. This is because modifying MediaWiki:Common.css can break the whole site so it should only be changed once you're 100% you're done, and that you'll only need the one edit because it gets cached (so the more frequently you edit it the more likely your changes are to be delayed for hours due to caching, which makes it seem like it's broken when it's just slow to update). For example you would start with Template:FangameListSummaryBox looking like this:

<li class="card"><div>
  <div class="thumb">
  <div style="margin:0px auto; width: 320px; height: 200px; overflow: hidden;">[[{{{Gameplay image...

See how I copied the content of the style block from Common.css into the "style" attribute on that inner div? I didn't repeat "margin:0px auto" as it's redundant having it in both places and can be removed from the page itself - not sure why it ended up repeated. Any CSS in the "style" attribute will override Common.css so you can use this trick to test out style changes. You can start with changing the overflow from "hidden" to "visible" which should give you a pretty obvious change if you're doing it right (the whole image will become visible), and proceed from there. You'll probably have to Google a bit to learn about CSS if you aren't familiar with it already. -- Malvineous (talk) 10:45, 17 March 2024 (GMT)

Linking to the list of replacements in the actor list item?

Could you please look into Talk:List of Yorp replacements? I was hoping to make the "replacement" part in Template:ActorListItem a link to the list of replacements for the respective actor (I just made a whole set of those lists), but couldn't figure it out. Here's the revision where I tried to do it, by using Property:List of replacements. Please note that after undoing the revision, I made some changes to make it list the mod the replacement comes from in the List of x replacements.

Speaking of listing the mods a replacement appears in, it would be nice if it could link one mod at a time rather make the whole list a link. Take a look at List of Commander Keen replacements for example, and you should see what I mean. Quillax (talk) 09:40, 29 March 2024 (GMT)

I think this should be working now. The problem was that link = none was used to turn off all the links, but instead only # - should be added to the relevant properties to turn off links only for that one property. Because this changes the query, it means all those list pages will need to be updated. To avoid code duplication, I moved the query into a template and updated List of Commander Keen replacements. Hopefully you can update the other pages to also use the template instead (since you'd otherwise have to edit them all anyway to update the query). Since it's a template from now on, it means we only need to edit that one template page if we ever need to tweak the query again.

I also wonder whether the list would be better suited to be placed on the actor page itself, rather than having a separate 'list of' page? Just because both pages are fairly short, so maybe having a single longer actor page might be better? Just a thought, up to you. (If you do decide to do this, you could adjust the template to default to {{{PAGENAME}}} to avoid the need to repeat the actor name every time you use the template.) -- Malvineous (talk) 14:19, 2 April 2024 (GMT)

Source code package has wrong download link

When trying to download the source modding package from Keen Galaxy Modding Tutorial (source code based), it downloads the package from Keen Galaxy Modding Tutorial (patch based). Can you please fix the download link? I know the page is under construction, but it would be nice if the package was actually correct if someone wanted to try using the tutorial now. SodiumtheGlitcher (talk) 02:02, 28 October 2024 (GMT)

Doesn't look like the correct file was ever uploaded. It looks like Nisaba created it, so maybe post on her talk page to ask if she can upload the right file? -- Malvineous (talk) 03:53, 28 October 2024 (GMT)

I'll note that Nisaba hasn't been around since July. Her last login in PCKF is the aforementioned month, while her last contribution in KeenWiki is June. On her user page, though, there's an "Email this user" link in the sidebar (you might need to login to see it). I think e-mail is the best way to get in contact with her, though who knows if she has even been on the computer lately. For now I think I'll remove that link in the tutorial so people don't get confused.

By the way, Malvineous, I sent you a PM on PCKF a while ago. There's a bunch of mods and such that should be uploaded to KeenWiki's FTP server. Quillax (talk) 07:40, 28 October 2024 (GMT)

If you edit a user's talk page it automatically e-mails them so from the notification perspective it should be fine. I haven't had a chance to check in on the PCKF for a while, if you are willing to package them up and follow the existing naming conventions I'm happy to give you FTP access, just send me an e-mail so I can reply with the details. -- Malvineous (talk) 08:02, 28 October 2024 (GMT)

Just a quick note: There actually is a Keen:Galaxy Source Modding Package article, however it was made so long ago (2016!) and looking at the tutorial, it doesn't look it was written with the aforementioned package in mind. I think Nisaba was planning to make her own package. Quillax (talk) 08:15, 28 October 2024 (GMT)