Revision as of 10:36, 23 March 2024

Page Updated:   2024-03-23

The Roll20 Community Wiki(wiki.roll20.net) is intended to serve as a community resource for help and documentation of the platform, as well as tips and tricks for best using Roll20 with your tabletop games. We welcome community contributions and would love for you to help us create the best resource we can for your fellow Roll20 users!

See the Roll20 Help Center for Official Documentation.(that may or may not have more/better info than the Community Wiki) If the Official documentation have errors/mistakes, remember to Contact Roll20.

Contribute

If you want to contribute to the wiki, see Help:Contents for more info.

• Check Category:Stubs and Category:Tagged for Cleanup for pages that can really need help with updating.
• Andreas J. is also maintaining a list of wiki update suggestions & ideas.
• Special:Recent Changes - pages recently updated

As of January 16, 2015, there are:
* 484 wanted pages, the vast majority of which are from links in default wikimedia content, or automatically generated from templates (eg, /sandbox and /testcases subpages of a template with {{tl|documentation}})
* 179 long pages
* 179 short pages
* 83 uncategorized files
* 80 dead-end pages
* 28 unused files (several caused by the deletion of [[Script:Custom Power Cards]])
* 27 orphaned pages
* 9 unused templates, one of which is marked as a candidate for deletion, 5 are used in the article deletion process, and 2 are caused by errors
* 7 wanted categories
* 4 uncategorized pages, three of which I do not have permissions to edit and therefore cannot categorize
* 3 unused categories, although two ought to be empty, and the third is the target of a soft redirect which contains pages I can't edit
* 1 uncategorized category ([[:Category:Docs]]), which I do not have permissions to edit and therefore cannot categorize
* 1 broken redirects, although the target should be re-created eventually
* 0 wanted templates
* 0 uncategorized templates
* 0 wanted files (plus 39 links to a redirected file name)
* 0 double redirects 

Help Center vs. Community Wiki, which has better info?

This section is largely based on personal opinion of Andreas J., a Roll20 user & wiki contributor who active updated the wiki until 2022, after which he became less active.

The Help Center has the official documentation, and is generally the better source for learning about how the newer Roll20 features works or for a more surface-level understand of most features.

The Community Wiki is updated by the community, so for features Roll20 haven't changed in a long time the Wiki is likely to have:

• more detailed info on how longstanding features like macros can be used.
• addressing quirks of the system
• suggesting workarounds for commonly requested things(e.g. things like Map Pins or Library Campaign)
• providing internal & external links to Roll20 resources & tips elsewhere
• and linking to the Help Center-equivalent page for convenience

Still, in many cases it's a good idea to check both the Help Center and the Community Wiki pages for information, as it's not clean-cut which one has better info.

• The Community Wiki have greater variance on content, but due to community user updating & creating various pages & articles
  • All pages related to Building Character Sheets are vastly more complete and numerous than on the Help Center, and the community keeps adding more example and expand on it as times go by.
  • Complete Macro Guide & the related pages has better info on making macros the the Help Center pages
  • Mod:Script Index & subpages gives a better overview on some popular mods than trying to check from 1-click install, and lots of mods have documentation & example uses on wiki.
  • Community Wiki versions of some pages that also exists on the Help Center might contain more practical info or pointers, or be more up to date than the Help Center version.
    • Some core pages, like Token, lists some relevant Mods on the page
    • Wiki articles might more often addresses smaller possible bugs, pain-points, & useful workarounds of the platform; while HC likely glosses over anything except the most longstanding/large issues.
  • Legacy Dynamic Lighting has more collected info on the topic than the Help Center, and some history of (Updated) Dynamic Lighting
  • There are many aspects of Roll20 that only have pages on the Community Wiki, such as for GM and players, lists for
    Pro
    ^info and
    Plus
    ^info subscriptions,
  • community wiki pages often contains info on known issues with specific features that might not be covered on the Help Center. Such as the D&D 5E by Roll20-page having a Known Issues and a Recent Updates-section.
  • Mentions External Tools useful for Roll20, like Stylus for minor visual fixes
  • Character Sheet Development has a lot more info

• The Help Center usually have fairly comprehensive & up-to-date pages for newer features like latest Dynamic Lighting features or the UI Redesign, while pages for older existing Roll20 features might not always have been updated with info on features.
  • Marketplace Creators docs is better on the HC
  • For any Policy & legal info, see Help Center's Roll20 Policy
  • Help Center has the Official Roll20 Changelog

History

The Roll20 Wiki was unveiled in April , 2013, and had a section dedicated to Official documentation(Docs), and user submitted content (Tips, Games, & Guides-categories)

In early 2020, the Roll20 Wiki was changed into being the Community Wiki for the users, as Roll20 migrated their official documentation to the Help Center. Many Core pages on the Community Wiki links to the corresponding Help Center page.

Sometime Late 2020/Early 2021, all of the links to the Community Wiki on the main site, where updated to say "Community Wiki". Until then, any links had still called it just "Wiki", creating some confusion between the distinction between Help Center and the Community Wiki.

In Sept.-Oct. 2021, Andreas J. restructured & updated the looks of the wiki.

Since around mid-2022, the Help Center documentation have started to outpace the Community Wiki on articles regarding Roll20 features & updates created since. The wiki is still invaluable for it's many comprehensive articles like Macro Guide, Sheet documentation, Community Tricks, as well as Character Sheet Development and Mod:Development.

In late 2023, with the updated icons for the sidebar, The Toolbar Redesign, Page Folders release, the Community Wiki's articles & images related to the main UI is getting outdated, and is requiring a lot of work to getting up to speed to Roll20's current state. It's to the point that some articles should just be replaced with link to the HC article and maybe just keep the extra tips that are still relevant.

Wiki Experience tricks

Dark Mode

While the main site has Dark Mode, the community wiki didn't get one. If you install the Stylus browser plugin, you can install the Roll20 Wiki Dark Mode.

• Install | Roll20 Wiki Dark Mode by Andreas J.

Wiki Editor

The wiki is running on an older version of the wiki editor, so is lacking many features you may seen in other wikis' text editors.

Visual Studio Code with the Wikitext is a solid text editor option for wikitext.

When editing longer articles, it's a good idea to use an external text editor:

1. Syntax highlight for wikitext helps with readability & spotting mistakes

2. Updating article directly in browser has a small chance of losing your progress if the session times out. Sometimes when submitting a change from an article you been editing for a long time might reply "something went wrong, progress wasn't saved", but sometimes if you use the back-button to go back to the editor your changes are still there and you can resubmit it. Saving & writing in an external program & then copy-pasting to the wiki editor when you're finished avoid the risk of losing progress.

3. Leveraging text editor features speeds up writing process. Keyboard Shortcuts, find&replace, plugins, etc