Contributor Guide

From JuggleWiki

JuggleWiki is open to anyone with a juggling pattern or other juggling-related material to contribute. This guide tells you what you need to know to get started; please read everything before you attempt to create or edit pages.

The program for the Juggling Lab Animator used at this website is free. To experiment with patterns offline, you should DOWNLOAD the program. At http://jugglinglab.sourceforge.net/ you can also read user's guides and help files from a computer engineering point of view (that were not updated and are often outdated).

Please also see illustrated help at:

[edit] Copyright, and wiki philosophy

All content submitted to JuggleWiki is subject to the GNU Free Documentation License, the same license used at Wikipedia. If you would be upset to see your work taken somewhere else, it's probably best not to submit it here. You are also promising that you wrote it originally, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource that is properly cited. DO NOT SUBMIT COPYRIGHTED WORK without permission as cited. By submitting content, you are implicitly agreeing to this license.

A key part of the Wiki philosophy is that its content gets better when more people are involved in its creation. As a contributor to JuggleWiki you need to be comfortable with the idea that your work may be edited, reorganized, rewritten, added to, or otherwise changed. It is acceptable for you to "undo" changes (see "history" tab at top of pages), if you believe by your knowledge that later edits made the page content worse. What is not acceptable is "marking your territory" in some way, for example by continually reverting all changes, or using "do not edit this" markers within your writing. For the same general purposes, be thoughtful when editing other people's work: It may be the way it is for good reason.

[edit] Content guidelines

As a basic guideline, the content that goes in JuggleWiki should be:

Juggling-related, including animations, articles, tutorials.
Potentially interesting or useful to a reasonable number of people, including non-jugglers and new jugglers.
Reference-oriented and objective.
Written well and organized, with citations and links to sources where relevant.

This is JuggleWiki, not WikiPedia, but keep the latter in mind, please. If you add content, try to do so in an objective tone. For example, if you're writing about different styles of juggling clubs, it is not objective to say that European-style clubs are "better" than American ones. However, it would be objective to say that the majority of performers use European clubs if in fact this is true and you document that statement with a verifiable reference note.

[edit] Things to avoid

JuggleWiki is NOT:

a place to promote commercial messages for performers or for products (but see Vendors)
a personal home page or your blog (but see Personal pages)
a forum or newsgroup
a way to vent your opinions or your side of a controversy
a place for material that may be subject to copyright restrictions

For these types of content, there are other places on the web, or you can make one.

Check out rec.juggling or the forums offered by Anthony Gatto and the WJF; and don't miss anything at Internet Juggling Database (the earlier host for JuggleWiki) and the previous Juggling Information Service.

[edit] User accounts

To edit pages, JuggleWiki requires that users have an account with this wiki and be logged in. This is mostly a preventive measure to keep automated spambots from vandalizing the wiki. Use the "create account" link at the upper right of any page to start the process.

During account creation you are required to enter a valid email address. Your address will not be displayed on the Wiki to others, and will be used only in ways that you specify (e.g., if you want to receive email updates when the Wiki changes).

After you create your account, you must confirm your email address. Log in and select the "my preferences" link at the top right of the page. Toward the bottom of the preferences page in the "E-mail" section, click the link "Confirm your e-mail address". The Wiki will send you a confirmation email. After you receive it and reply, you will have full editing rights whenever you are logged in.

[edit] Basic wiki markup

JuggleWiki runs on the MediaWiki software, using the same markup as other MediaWiki-powered sites like Wikipedia. The MediaWiki editing documentation describes how to format text, create headers, insert links, add images, and other wiki markup.

JuggleWiki supports MediaWiki's use of TeX formatting to properly display inline mathematics, if you need it.

[edit] Juggling animations: <juggle>

The animation capability within JuggleWiki is provided by the MediaWiki tag extension <juggle>. Each instance of the <juggle> tag in your markup creates a single embedded animation, and is ended by </juggle>. Actual rendering is done by a Java applet called Juggling Lab.

As an example, including this markup in a page:

pattern=3

</juggle>

creates a basic, default-values animation of 3 Ball Cascade. Please see Tips On Running Juggling Lab for more information about viewing animations.

[edit] Animating siteswap patterns

The "pattern=3" part of the above code is where the action is. The program uses only siteswap notations for patterns. You can replace the "3" with any valid siteswap pattern code you'd like, using Juggling Lab's extended siteswap notation documented here.

Other settings are available to allow more control over details of the pattern. Following is a complete list, adapted from the Juggling Lab settings documentation; see also illustrated Animating with JugglingLab:

pattern

siteswap notation to animate. Required, no default, and this entry alone will make an animation.

"pattern=534" would animate a 4-ball asynchronous pattern;

"pattern=(6x,4)(4,6x)" would animate a 5-ball synchronous pattern;

"pattern={34}23" would animate a simple 4-ball multiplex pattern;

"pattern=<3p|3p>" would show a passing pattern called '6 Ball 1-count';

"pattern=5B" will show the basic 5-ball bounce Cascade.

tps: "throws per second". Default is calculated from the whole pattern, so that '3' and '531', both with three balls, will show '3' as slower than '531' with the 3's higher than those in '531'; higher values will make tosses faster and lower; difficult to change effectively, can be balanced somewhat by gravity parameter, see below.

dratio: "dwell ratio", fraction of beats between throws that a ball is shown as being held; values range from 0.0 to 1.0, default 0.65.

hands: hand positions at moment of toss and catch noted as relative centimeters, format described in hands documentation; other positions also supported.

body: view to figure's body as rotation only around the vertical axis, not format described in body documentation; default is directly facing; you can drag the figure for all three axes in an active animation.

colors: prop color is defined either by name or by its hue components on the RGB 0-255 scale. Default is red. For "colors={blue}" or "colors={0,0,255}", the animator will use all blue. If you define colors, they will be assigned to each prop in that order regardless of number of props. For example, "colors={red}{0,165,0}" means that ball 1 is red, ball 2 is a medium green, ball 3 is red, ball 4 is green, and so on. Recognized color names are: black, blue, cyan, gray, green, magenta, orange, pink, red, yellow. Using "colors=mixed" will apply a pre-defined assortment (and may not be what you wanted).

propdiam: diameter, only if prop is balls, in centimeters relative to stick figure; default is 10.

prop: names recognized in JuggleWiki are ball and ring; default is ball; rings rarely used (for good reasons, see at Animating with JugglingLab).

gravity: acceleration calculation, default is 980.0; higher numbers allow props to go higher, lower values may be lower; difficult to change effectively.

bouncefrac: fraction of a ball's dropped height that it returns to; values are numbers greater than 0.0; default is 0.9 for 90% rebound. Lower fractions will carry the toss down farther and loop the hold higher; whole numbers will make the ball rise increasingly fast but not higher.

These settings string together, following the "<juggle>" command in any order, like this:

pattern=5B

tps=3.8

hands=(40)(30).

colors={red}{red}{green}{red}{blue}

propdiam=15

bouncefrac=0.8

</juggle>

See pattern with balls of normal size at 5-ball Cascade Bounce.

[edit] Animating with JML code

The Juggling Lab animation software actually uses JML so that its first step is to convert your siteswap code into JML notation. Using the same <juggle> tags, you can feed a JML pattern directly to the JuggleWiki animator.

JML is not very human-readable. It is contrary to the Wiki policy of openness, because not even the pattern siteswap code used can be read as regular markup can be.

For example, using the JugglingLab animator for the default '3 Ball Cascade' shown above (in three lines of code) you would "Save JML As" from the File menu of the animation window with a chosen name with ".jml" extension. Open that file with your simplest text editor (e.g. Notepad) and Copy the code starting from "<jml version="1.1">" to the bottom:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <!DOCTYPE jml SYSTEM "file://jml.dtd"> <jml version="1.1"> <pattern> <title>3 Ball Cascade</title> <prop type="ball"/> <setup jugglers="1" paths="3" props="1,1,1"/> <symmetry type="delay" pperm="(1,3,2)" delay="0.6896"/> <symmetry type="switchdelay" jperm="(1,1*)" pperm="(1,2,3)"/> <event x="12" y="0" z="0" t="0" hand="1:right"> <throw path="1" type="toss"/> </event> <event x="30" y="0" z="0" t="0.2413" hand="1:right"> <catch path="3"/> </event> </pattern> </jml>

In a JuggleWiki Edit window, Paste that text between <juggle> and </juggle> tags as in other examples above. It will produce exactly the same simple animation as above.

That turns out to be a lot of trouble, and a huge amount of code in the JuggleWiki file, just to avoid typing in the few commands as you see in your off-line animator -- without which you could not do any of this. For JuggleWiki, the main excuse would be to show a movement variation that cannot be shown with regular program variables (dwell for one node, for instance, or separating multiplex catch positions). For your private use, the .jml file can be selected from the File drop-down in the Input window to instantly show the identical animation as saved (but none of the variables used will be shown).

[edit] Animation display controls

Four settings are available to adjust how a pattern is displayed, used inside the opening <juggle> tag itself, rather than following that tag as for the previous settings.

width: width of window in pixels, such as <juggle width="300"> if a wide hand was not included.

height: height of window in pixels, such as <juggle height="250">; will not always control "white space" above or below.

caption: text to show below the animation within its window area, such as <juggle caption="This is ′′Bernie's Bounce′′"> with formatting allowed, but will appear small by default and hard to read (please use ordinary text above or below the image).

prefs

other format instructions, within quotes and separated by semicolons as in prefs="threed=true;fps=10".

threed: if used, shows 3D solid perspective display for "threed=true", or a wireframe orthographic display if "threed=false". Default value is false, and it is rarely useful or used.
stereo: using "stero=true" will display a stereo pair of images. To see the result with a 3D effect, you must cross your eyes and keep them crossed; takes practice (and probably a headache). See Stereo Pair.
dbuffer: determines if the display will be double-buffered to minimize flicker; default is true (and 3D mode is always double-buffered).
startpaused: causes the animator to wait for a prompt from the user to begin animation. Values are true/false. Default value for program is false; but JuggleWiki does start paused, responding to cursor clicks or hover.
catchsound: determines whether catches are audible. Values are true/false; default value is false. May not function on your computer.
bouncesound: determines whether bounces at the ground are audible. Values are true/false; JuggleWiki runs silent by default. May not function on your computer.
fps: sets the number of frames per second to be drawn by the animator; default value is 30.
slowdown: defines a time factor with "slowdown=1.0" as realistic speed; default value is 2.0 for half that speed to allow pattern to be followed. Differs from bps by not changing toss height too.
border: defines thickness in pixels of a border around the animation; default value is 0 for no border, as is usual at JuggleWiki.

Here is an example with several of these parameters, showing separations by space, newline, and semicolon:

<juggle width="400" height="200" caption="A passing pattern with solid rendering and stereoscopic display" prefs="stereo=true;threed=true;slowdown=1.5"> pattern=<3p|3p> </juggle>

See at 6 Ball 1-count.

[edit] Embedded videos

Providing a normal link to a video, by simply pasting the web address for it as in text below, is much easier, and gets a viewer to what you want them to see. Putting the video in your page will require that its target image be loaded from the target address every time the page is accessed; and the actual loading, even if accidental, cannot be stopped without aborting your page. The one advantage to having it in your page is that the viewer will not be waiting to load the whole webpage from the source, just the video. For the first example, for instance, there will fifteen thumbnails showing, but only after the video is run, and only within the window for the video.

JuggleWiki uses the EmbedVideo Extension. A great tutorial can be found here

YouTube videos can be easily inserted into pages -- all you need is the video identifier key in the URL.
For example, for the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOXrhcFZfXY (only 00:35, with world record 18-ring passing)
we take the "HOXrhcFZfXY" part after the "v=" and insert the video into a JuggleWiki page with this markup:

(note: this is only a picture, clicking on it will not run the video)

To make the video larger or smaller, define one dimension as pixels (aspect ratio is automatically calculated) in the following way:

Juggling.tv videos are inserted in a similar way, but you need to dig a little to find the video identifier.
For example, for the Rastelli video at http://www.juggling.tv/vaults/view_video.php?viewkey=78b84f3d5d92f4faa000
in the box toward the bottom that is labeled "embed code", copy the text and paste it where you can read it.
Then look for a filename ending with ".flv"; for this video the identifier is "412.flv".
Insert this movie into a JuggleWiki page like this (which is confusingly similar to a size definition):

(note: this is only a picture, clicking on it will not run the video)

Google Video can be added like so:

The number after the "|" is after the "docid=" from the video URL.

[edit] Sandbox page

You should be using your copy of the JugglingLab animator to work out a pattern. You can experiment with editing accompanying text and other page format in the current Sandbox page to see what your pattern will look like on the webpage. There is no reason to ever Save at the Sandbox page, and it may be periodically wiped. Do, however, check it every now and then, some of the work that is left there is impressive and inspiring; and you may learn just the animation technique you were searching for.

If you put yours at the bottom, you will have to scroll down to it every time you want to check editing progress, but it will also be next to the Edit window for easier reference while making changes. If you use Alt-p instead of the Preview button, you won't make a mistake with the Save button, and have to wait for the page to completely load again (and lose all of your hard work if the connection fails). When you are close enough to making a page of your own, you can highlight all your code from the Edit window, use Ctrl-X to capture it, and make a new page as in next topic.

[edit] Make a New Page

Please see: NewPage.

[edit] List of Wanted Pages

Check out the Wanted Pages