Help:Rules

Overview

Similar to the contents of the RLE namespace (RLE:{pname}), the Rule namespace is not primarily designed for human readability. Instead it provides a repository where rule names and definitions can be stored and maintained. One potential use is LifeViewer-based emulation for rule-table- and rule-tree-based rules, to allow patterns posted to the conwaylife.com forums to be simulated without copying and pasting into Golly.

To display a rule in the correct format, choose the action=edit view or action=raw view, e.g.,

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?title=Rule:DoubleB3S23&action=edit

or

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?title=Rule:DoubleB3S23&action=raw

for the DoubleB3S23 rule. The "edit" view can be reached from the main Rule:DoubleB3S23 page by clicking the Edit button. You'll see workable version in a textbox, no matter whether you are logged in to the LifeWiki or not. The standard article view is simply the default MediaWiki way of displaying text: pound signs are converted to numbers, single newlines are converted to spaces (as usual for browser-based rendering of text), and so on. Generally a copy of a read-only view of either Rule or RLE text will be unusable by CA simulation software. The correct way to extract the data is to select and copy the entire contents of the "wpTextbox1" textarea.

Rule tables and rule trees

To record a rule in the Rule namespace repository, simply type Rule:{name} into the LifeWiki search bar, where {name} is the name of the rule, also found on the first line of the rule file. Rule:DoubleB3S23 is an example -- no curly braces needed. Paste the exact text from the .rule file in question into the text box, add a comment, and save the new page. Optionally, click on the Talk page for the rule and add a source URL or any other information about the rule that might be useful.

Shared rule files

For groups of related rules that all share the same color scheme and/or icons, it's possible to create a shared set of colors and/or icons, used by all rules in the family. The presence of shared colors or icons can be signaled by a hyphen in a set of rule names after the same initial prefix, the "family name" -- along with the presence of an article called Rule:{family-name}-shared. An example can be seen in Rule:Worm-shared (don't forget to click the Edit button).