AutoIt/Wiki broken?

[Zvend]

I hope this is the right section, caused i clicked through every subforum and still might be wrong.
Anways going through https://www.autoitscript.com/wiki where it shows code snippets seems broken.
Every code snippet is not formatted or incorrect formatted.

Tried to register for the wiki but didn't find anything. 

Im using chrome Version 113.0.5672.93 (Official Build) (64-bit)
but i have tested it with a few other browsers, also used 2 seperate PCs and checked it on my mobile phone.
My friend has the same issue.

Here an example of what i am talking about:




Thank you in advance!

[Danp2]

Pretty sure this is a known issue, but I don't know when they plan to fix it. See prior thread regarding forum upgrade for more details.

[Zvend]

2 minutes ago, Danp2 said:

Pretty sure this is a known issue, but I don't know when they plan to fix it. See prior thread regarding forum upgrade for more details.

probably thats why i couldnt find it :]

[Danp2]

I guess that you haven't yet been granted access to the Chat section.

[Zvend]

Yea i jsut read up, i need 20 posts on this forum. I almost never have a question than reporting bugs. Im kind of good in googling, debugging and experimenting.
Will probably take another year to get 20 posts.

[Danp2]

I bet @Jos can fix that for you. 🙂

[Jos]

5 minutes ago, Danp2 said:

I bet @Jos can fix that for you. 🙂

Maybe I could in case I would have admin access, but @Jon is the only person that has "God mode" to the systems, forum and Wiki.  

[Danp2]

Oh... sorry if I misspoke. To be clear, I was referring to granting him access to the Chat forum, not fixing the wiki. 😉

[Jos]

Oh ...  that we can do....   as that is merely putting the member into another group.    

Move done so should work now. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Jos

[argumentum]

hmm, just went to https://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/Arrays and see nothing wrong 

Edit: https://www.autoitscript.com/wiki/AutoIt_Snippets is messed up.
 @Zvend, thanks for bringing it up  

Edited May 16, 2023 by argumentum

[Zvend]

3 hours ago, Jos said:

Oh ...  that we can do....   as that is merely putting the member into another group.    

Move done so should work now. 

oh thank your very much! I hope i still hit the correct subforum.

Another related thing to "wiki" and AutoIt in general:
I wish there would be more updates for the Wiki with better explanations and also correct naming conventions or UDF Headers.
I think the wiki could be a much better place than it is right now. Def. missing the part about bad practises about some insights in AutoIt.
E.g. about DllStructs. They sometimes do behave odd when they dont have a fixed address previously called malloc.
I sadly deleted my example yesterday, cause it frustrated me. I had to pass the same struct a few times through different functions
and even ByRef didnt work. I stored a BYTE[10000] and have set the value to the binary data of a file. It was a local Struct.
But at some point the data changed but the pointer didnt. And the funny thing i didnt edit the data, i only read from it and created
sub structs with the ptr of the main struct + an offset. How can i know if AutoIt allocates more memory
than I actually wanted it to make (example the substructs).

Long story short, I wish there would be one place in the wiki with neat tricks. Would sneak into the code to understand it myself but its sadly not
open source anymore. Which would be cool to have the community code for AutoIt features and enhance the project more, since
it feels like the interest of adding more features fall asleep.

I wish AutoIt had some features about better memory management.

[water]

Please define "better". What is missing? Can you please give an example?

11 hours ago, Zvend said:

and also correct naming conventions or UDF Headers.

That is already available. Just search the wiki.

[Zvend]

1 hour ago, water said:

Please define "better". What is missing? Can you please give an example?

That is already available. Just search the wiki.

Sure!
I pick the examples of the UDF Headers.

1)
"Non standard libraries can be used if necessary, but this should be documented and linked to so users can download it as well."
How do I document it? How should I link it? What should I link? (Direct Download link?, repo?, ..?)


2)
The next thing that is unclear are Constants. Yes it seems pretty clear looking at this:

Quote

Any global constant values are defined in this section. This should be constants only designated for use within the library itself. Constants that may be needed by the user should be defined in a separate file, named UDFConstants.au3 where UDF is the name of the parent file. For example File.au3 uses constants defined in FileConstants.au3. The exception to that rule is control UDFs which miss out the prepended 'GUI' when naming constant files, so GUIButton.au3 uses constants from ButtonConstants.au3. The template for this section is:

I understand I shall declare them in a different file, when they are optional.
But this causes a conflict in my head with: "Not use any magic numbers. Ever. None. At all. No excuses."
When I make constants optional, how do I use their values in my code without creating magic numbers and without making them a dependency by including them?

3)
The whole file header is confusing.
Example: 
In Other Sections it says "Other sections, in order of appearance, are as follows."
Okey but then it tells you under Listing: "It MUST be the second defined header item after #Index"

(4)) The wiki is unformatted and I don't have mood to parse the example, cause I already saw it doesn't cover every thing to take care of in an UDF that might has to deal with every case. Making it hard to present a correct UDF.

(5)) How can I include my UDF in my local Help File? I want to see if it parses correctly and in general building the Help File yourself would be cool. I googled a lot about it and all I found were some custom approaches of creating an Help File which then lacks not having the default AutoIt entries.

This is just a recent example I have. There are more but I currently don't have the time to review it to exclude false statements from me.
As a general rule, you really have to dig deep to find stuff that is actually useful to know, which is sad in my opinion but easy changable.

[water]

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

1)
"Non standard libraries can be used if necessary, but this should be documented and linked to so users can download it as well."
How do I document it? How should I link it? What should I link? (Direct Download link?, repo?, ..?)

Usually you start a thread in the Example Scripts forum (Example: Active Directory UDF) where you describe your UDF. Post #1 usually holds a link to the latest version of your UDF. I have stored all my UDFs in the Files section of the forum, others store their work on GitHub etc. etc.
 

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

2)
The next thing that is unclear are Constants.

Two things to consider:

• The number of constants. If there are only a few I simply define them in the UDF file itself.
• Magic numbers. It does not matter where this constants are defined. Just create this constants so they can be used in the UDF and your script.

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

I understand I shall declare them in a different file, when they are optional.

No, you should define them in a separate file when they are used by the scripter. When the constants are used internally in the UDF then you can define them in the UDF file.
But his are no iron rules. I do not think it makes sense to create an additonal file for just a few constants.
 

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

(4)) The wiki is unformatted and I don't have mood to parse the example, cause I already saw it doesn't cover every thing to take care of in an UDF that might has to deal with every case. Making it hard to present a correct UDF.

This problem is caused by the latest update of the forum software. I hope it can be solved in the near future.
 

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

(5)) How can I include my UDF in my local Help File?

You can't. The help file that comes with AutoIt consists of the AutoIt and hte SciTE help.
But you can have a look at the Simple Library Docs Generator to create a CHM file and at Advanced.Help to call this help file when the cursor is on a line calling a function of your UDF.

Hope I could answer some of your questions.

[Werty]

The whole autoit docs source is available as download here...

https://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/files/archive/autoit/ (autoit-docs-v3.3.16.1-src)

(docs/autoit/english/html/index.htm)

That's the online version of the help file, that can be viewed locally offline when downloaded, then you could change it to your needs adding your own udf.

Not as cool as the CHM helpfile, but still useful.

[Zvend]

On 5/19/2023 at 5:21 PM, water said:

Usually you start a thread in the Example Scripts forum (Example: Active Directory UDF) where you describe your UDF. Post #1 usually holds a link to the latest version of your UDF. I have stored all my UDFs in the Files section of the forum, others store their work on GitHub etc. etc.
 

Two things to consider:

• The number of constants. If there are only a few I simply define them in the UDF file itself.
• Magic numbers. It does not matter where this constants are defined. Just create this constants so they can be used in the UDF and your script.

No, you should define them in a separate file when they are used by the scripter. When the constants are used internally in the UDF then you can define them in the UDF file.
But his are no iron rules. I do not think it makes sense to create an additonal file for just a few constants.
 

This problem is caused by the latest update of the forum software. I hope it can be solved in the near future.
 

You can't. The help file that comes with AutoIt consists of the AutoIt and hte SciTE help.
But you can have a look at the Simple Library Docs Generator to create a CHM file and at Advanced.Help to call this help file when the cursor is on a line calling a function of your UDF.

Hope I could answer some of your questions.

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my question. Some of the infos were quite useful but my main complaint is, that nothing (or the most of it) of that is really clear stated on the wiki.
You left some my questions open or indirectly replied to them.

2)

Quote

When I make constants optional, how do I use their values in my code without creating magic numbers and without making them a dependency by including them?

Lets suppose i have 100 constants and i define them in an optional file, like the wiki told me to.
How do i use the constants in my UDF without including the constant file itself and to not declare the constant twice?
The only logical result for me is to use magic numbers, which may make the code unreadable.

4)

i was more speaking about that the wiki does not cover enough in my opinion

[water]

On 5/17/2023 at 2:12 PM, Zvend said:

When I make constants optional, how do I use their values in my code without creating magic numbers and without making them a dependency by including them?

A magic number is the opposite of a Constant. If you want to avoid magic numbers you have to use Constants. It does not matter where you define them. In your script or in a separate file which you include (that is meant by "optional file").
There is no such thing like an optional Constant.
 

On 6/7/2023 at 10:53 AM, Zvend said:

nothing (or the most of it) of that is really clear stated on the wiki.

The wiki is managed by volunteers. It is a source of information like the forum. Your first source is the official help file provided with AutoIt. In the wiki you find in depth information about a lot - but not all - subjects. If you do not find the needed information in the wiki then you get help in the forum. This might then lead to an update in the wiki - if someone finds some spare time and the wiki works

Edited June 9, 2023 by water