I have finally found a good use of Wikia Blogs, and that is to post operational news for this wiki. Here you can find what the administrators (and staffers/developers) are up to, focusing on modifications made to the way the wiki operates - for example, downtime notifications, software upgrades, new features, and the like.
A major change has occurred and a new feature has been introduced. You may have already noticed it - Wikitroid now has a custom made Metroid-themed skin. Special thanks to JoePlay, the Wikia staffer who did the heavy lifting and coding. However, it may be necessary to clear your browser's cache (sometimes called a "hard-refresh") to see the changes. Generally, this involves pressing <Ctrl>+<F5> on your keyboard, but here are more detailed instructions for different browsers:
- Internet Explorer: hold down the <Ctrl> key and click the Refresh or Reload button, or press <Ctrl>+<F5>.
- Firefox: hold down the <Shift> key while clicking Reload; alternatively press <Ctrl>+<F5> or (<Ctrl>+<Shift>)+<R>.
- Opera users have to clear their caches through Tools→Preferences
- Konqueror and Safari users can just click the Reload button.
- Google Chrome: press <Ctrl>+<F5> or <Shift>+<F5>
Even though the new skin is up, it isn't quite finished. But you can help finish it! You can suggest changes to be made in the comments below. If you find that the new skin is causing templates to improperly display, please let us know in the comments section below (remember to link to the page in question). In addition, we are looking for two high-resolution images to add to the left and right of the Main Page. Again, in the comments section, you can suggest these pairs. They must be high resolution, and links to the images (rather than just image subjects) would be preferable. An example pairing might be Samus on the left, and Ridley on the right. Note also that the Main Page has been fixed at 1024 pixel width, so don't worry if the Main Page is rendering "thin" leaving the left and right sides of the page blank. The two images will fill these spots.
The new feature added is AJAX Recent Changes. After performing a hard-refresh of your browser (as described above), you should see a checkbox in Special:RecentChanges labeled AJAX. If you have a compatible browser (all newer browsers should work), checking this box will make Recent Changes silently refresh every 60 seconds without reloading the entire page. Simple, yet incredibly useful.
Please direct questions and comments to the, erm, comments section below.
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Happy new year,
FastLizard4{ADMIN} (Talk•Contribs•Logs)
UPDATE: 12:01, January 2, 2010 (UTC)[]
The skin change has, of course, resulted in some display problems (for example, invisible text). Please report any such problems you find to the comments section below. --FastLizard4{ADMIN} (Talk•Contribs•Logs) 12:01, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
UPDATE: 03:14, January 5, 2010 (UTC)[]
A problem related to a broken compatibility fix for WikED and the RTE has been resolved (by commenting out the WikED code entirely), thus allowing AJAX RC to work. You may need to perform another hard-refresh (see here) to see the changes. --FastLizard4{ADMIN} (Talk•Contribs•Logs) 03:14, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
UPDATE: 00:16, February 4, 2010 (UTC)[]
Some changes have been made to the CSS file that is used for the Monobook skin, and templates should now render much more readably for people using the Monobook skin (i.e., the templates will once again have white backgrounds). Special thanks to Greenpickle for the CSS. If you use Monobook and notice any problems, you can report them below in the comments section. Please remember that you may need to hard-refresh your browser (see here) to see the changes. Again, this only applies to people who use the Monobook skin. --FastLizard4{ADMIN} (Talk•Contribs•Logs) 00:16, February 4, 2010 (UTC)
UPDATE: 01:37, March 10, 2010 (UTC)[]
This time thanks to our newest administrator, RAN1, all the remaining infoboxes on the wiki should now be using the new color scheme for those of us using the new skin. You should probably hard-refresh your browser to ensure you are using the most recent version of the stylesheet. As always, if you notice any problems, please report them in the comments section below.
Hard-refreshing[]
Hard-refreshing, as opposed to simply refreshing your browser, forces your browser to erase all cached data about a certain website and read in the most current information. This is particularly useful for forcing the most recent changes to skins to appear. The specific instructions for each browser are:
- Internet Explorer: hold down the <Ctrl> key and click the Refresh or Reload button, or press <Ctrl>+<F5>.
- Firefox: hold down the <Shift> key while clicking Reload; alternatively press <Ctrl>+<F5> or (<Ctrl>+<Shift>)+<R>.
- Opera users have to clear their caches through Tools→Preferences
- Konqueror and Safari users can just click the Reload button.
- Google Chrome: press <Ctrl>+<F5> or <Shift>+<F5>