Module talk:WikiProject banner/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

new implementation of WikiProject banner nesting

Recent code updates have made it possible to significantly improve the handling of WikiProject banner nesting, deprecating the |nested=yes system. See Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell#New implementation of WikiProject banners for more details. Happy‑melon 19:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Food and drink

Template:WikiProject Food and drink is expanding oddly at Talk:Candy pumpkin in that it takes up about six inches, most of which lacks text. If you have some free time, please take a look. Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 21:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What browser, etc etc etc etc? Happy‑melon 08:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I tested that page, and it seems fine in all three of my browsers. The hide/show button inside the food and drink box works as it should for me and causes no empty space.

Suntag: Have you tried to purge the page and bypass your browser cache? Since someone might have fixed the error since you saw it, since we don't see it.

And as Happy-melon said: If you still see the problem, then you need to tell a lot more about what browser, plug-ins, user-scripts, gadgets, operating system, screen resolution and so on you are using.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I just checked this and its the same for me. Windows Vista, IE 7.0.6001.18000, 1440x900 pixels, I've done everything possible to clear my cache, my gadgets include HotCat, reftools, The JavaScript Standard Library, a compatibility library for browsers that lack full support for JavaScript 1.6. This includes Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari., using the Monobook skin. My subpages include Huggle.css, [[User:Stepshep/monobook.css|Lupin settings in my monobook.css], and in my monobook.js a code that transforms sigs to date time format, extra edit buttons, both the Lupin scripts, something for WP:US, rollback summary, pyrospirit metadata, watchlist notifier, toolbox for article stats and DOI adder, and extended use tabs. Screenshot coming. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Pic §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I can confirm the problem on my end, using IE7. Operating system and display size is irrelevant (I'm using WinXP, 1280x1024). Clearing cache, logging on and off, etc. doesn't fix the problem. ~Amatulić (talk) 22:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to note this started happening to me when this template was converted to the new ombox tmbox stuff. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 01:26, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Hey, it seems to be working there! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:59, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

They're back

Not sure how long this has been going on for but at Template:OH-Project, the box that says we're missing categories is back. I have the subpage that is supposed to make that not appear in palce. Any ideas? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 18:19, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

NA-Class was recently included as the 'catch-all' option on the 'short scale', so it became a compulsory category for the short scale. If, as OH-project is, the long scale is used, NA shouldn't be required; I've corected the parser functions to correct this, so  Fixed Happy‑melon 00:13, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 02:24, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Case sensitivity

Is there anyway to allow for an uppercase Y in the =yes part of the code? For example, the first banner here has England=yes and the second has England=Yes, not showing the sub-project banner.

—Borgarde^talk 08:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, |tf 3={{lc:{{{England|{{{england|}}}}}}}}. —Ms2ger (talk) 14:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

That allows for "England" or "england" but not "Yes" or "yes", though doesn't it? Paulbrock (talk) 22:23, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The "E" and "e" are already supported, will that allow for the "Y"es and "y"es? —Borgarde^talk 02:48, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Sweet, that works. I tested in in the sandbox, I will update the code shortly. Thanks Ms2ger. —Borgarde^talk 02:51, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah I see, the key is the lc which converts the parameter value to lower case I guess... all a bit beyond my simple coding. Paulbrock (talk) 03:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Can the colour of the banner be altered?

Is it possible for me to change the vanilla-like colour of the banner for the purposes of 'my' Wikiproject, or do they all have to be the same? And if I can, what code etc do I use to do it? Sticky Parkin 20:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, the talk page message box styles were standardised in 2005. See the guideline Wikipedia:Talk page templates. And that style has several times since then been re-confirmed in several big discussions. So, since it makes me curios: Why do you want to deviate from the standard colours?

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:19, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Embedded alert template isn't showing its show/hide link

See {{WikiProject Louisville}} template (using WPBannerMeta) where I set BOTTOM_TEXT to {{WikiProject Louisville alerts}}, which uses {{hidden}} for showing/hiding the alerts. The alert box's show/hide link won't show with normal usage of {{WikiProject Louisville}}, except when it's nested. Is this a bug in WPBannerMeta or a bug in {{WikiProject Louisville alerts}} or a bug in {{hidden}}? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

It works for me, both nested and unnested. What browser are you using? Happy‑melon 00:19, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I am using Firefox 3, and I just tested it against IE 7. It looks like it's not a matter of browser, but of skin. I'm using Cologne Blue, where the bug is appearing, but with the default skin, it works fine. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone know what is causing this problem? Is it a skin issue or an issue with this template (or other templates I refer to)? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 22:18, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not sure; I can replicate the problem by changing to cologneblue skin, so it's clearly skin-related. Happy‑melon 23:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

There has been a change to our alert that doesn't really fix the problem but instead just spills out the alert text when the banner isn't nested. The alert text needs to be hidden with a show link whether the banner is nested or not. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

That edit was to make the text visible to users without javascript (previously it was inaccessible). I'm honestly not sure why it doesn't work in cologneblue; I have asked at the village pump, maybe someone will have an answer there. Happy‑melon 23:44, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your work on this! There's a problem with this latest approach though. I have JavaScript enabled, and the alert text in an unnested project template is all showing, when it should be rolled up with a Show link. I understand the need to show all the text to those with JavaScript disabled, but that shouldn't be the standard behavior. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:05, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have Javascript enabled too, and it looks fine. Another skin issue? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:10, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Stevie, I know, this is the problem I'm trying to get my head around. The issue is entirely unrelated to the recent edit to {{hidden}}, as evidenced by the way it still recurs after I converted it to use CollapsibleTables instead. If you try viewing any other page using any other skin, you can see that the uncollapsed-by-default appearance is not the standard behavior. I'm doing my best to resolve this issue; just be patient (but keep prodding me if it seems I've forgotten!). Happy‑melon 00:15, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

If there's no requirement for the project banner to be based off WPBannerMeta, I may move it back to its prior design, until this issue can be resolved. It was doing all right before being standardized anyway. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:07, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

This should now be fixed. Does it work for you? Happy‑melon 17:38, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's working now. Thanks! What was changed to make it work? Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:34, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

The CollapsibleTables code itself had a subtle error which affected the cologneblue skin only (it was looking for an id that doesn't exist in the cologneblue skin metadata). It wasn't spotted before because, TBH, no one uses cologneblue! :D That doesn't mean we can allow such random problems to persist, however, so thanks for bringing this to our attention. Happy‑melon 22:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Shorten banner that clutters talk-pages

14-Nov-2008: Those banners were interesting the first several times, but now those ads to "participate" are getting old. Let's shorten those banner-boxes halfway by reducing the wording 60% (but leave images and other stuff the same for now). Perhaps try:

Compare that short box with the 36-word original wording:

[ Guitar images added at 19:19, 14 Nov 2008. -Wikid77 ]

The shorter box is still tall enough to allow a side image. Also, the shorter box says "or" as in "or see a list of open tasks" indicating a reader doesn't have to join to see the tasks.

Why the short form works: Psychological studies have shown that keeping a sentence under 6 phrases (only 4 prepositions) is much easier to read. The short wording has 5 sub-phrases, but the long wording has 12. That's why the extra irritation. The long form is not like "I will not talk in class" repeated 8 times, it's like a whole essay repeated each time. Each essay gives the impression the reader must stop and read: very aggravating.

Those banners (each advertising "would like to participate...") are stacked 3, 4, or 8 deep in talk-pages. The current repeated, windy, rote wording might make Wikipedia seem foolishly repetitive to readers, but the problem has been mainly to find short wording with similar meaning. The WikiProjects aren't foolish, it's just that it takes time to improve all the various areas of Wikipedia. Now is a good time to shorten those myriad banners. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:34, 14 Nov 2008

I have edited the examples above to use the correct widths and styles for talkpage message boxes, which significantly reduces the height of both. I don't think that the shorter wording thereby makes full use of the space available. I will not make the WP:POINTy gesture of sticking {{fact}} tags on the statements above, but some links to these "psychological studies" would be helpful for verification. While some of the project banners I have seen contain content that is entirely gratuitous in length, I don't think that this is something that can be very effectively mandated from 'on high': banner wordings are very much project-specific. Happy‑melon 17:46, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I substituted the actual guitar image (above), showing the comparison using a real WikiProject image. The "psychological studies" can be traced with efforts of "Plain English" (search Google). -Wikid77 (talk) 19:19, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Although I accept that this is the image used by WikiProject musical instruments, it's a rather contrived example to use an image that is not square. Happy‑melon 17:02, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

This is not the appropriate venue to bring about changes such as this. The appropriate place would be at WT:COUNCIL and all WikiProjects would have to be notified. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 17:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

• 14-Nov-2008: Thanks for the advice; I figured people in each area should be consulted, so now to the next group. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:19, 14 Nov 2008

Nested title not centered like in other project banners

This is a very minor issue, but still a little nit I noticed. Project banners based off of WPBannerMeta have their titles left-aligned when nested instead of being centered like the titles of other project banners. Could this title be centered, or can we be given an option to align the title? Thanks! Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Browser/OS please? Happy‑melon 16:41, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that matters, but it's Firefox 3.0.3 and Windows Vista (all updates applied). Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 17:11, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh believe me, all rendering/display problems are browser-related :D. Even though it's the banner that needs to be altered, it's the browser that's revealing the problem, and if I can't see it on my browser (obviously if I could I'd already have tried to fix it :D) it makes it much harder to reproduce and hence fix. Can you tell me, please, what you see at User:Happy-melon/sandbox5?? Happy‑melon 17:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The first two nested project titles are centered, and the third appears left-aligned. Beyond browser rendering differences, I wonder if this could be a skin issue again (arghh, I love Cologne Blue!).  :) Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:00, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

In IE7, the first project title appears more centered than when viewing with Firefox, but it still sits significantly to the left of the first two. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Hi. This discussion also seems related. If you have the Justify Paragraphs option ticked, it aligns the banner name to the left.--Rockfang (talk) 17:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

When I unchecked "Justify Paragraphs", the nested title centered itself. Of course, I want to leave this checked, as that's how I like to read the pages. So, I continue to consider this a very minor bug. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 00:29, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, it is minor. I still hope someone is able to fix it though. :) Rockfang (talk) 02:54, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to suggest it wasn't worth fixing. The left alignment is kind of an eyesore.  :) Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 03:06, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Bizzarre though it sounds, I intend to be able to fix this when I get a response here. In the meantime can I just check that everyone sees the header below centered, even if it does linewrap unexpectedly? Happy‑melon 08:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

WikiProject Musical Instruments

(Rated Start-Class)

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

It's a lot more centered than before, but it still leans to the left just a tad. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 16:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Same here.--Rockfang (talk) 17:36, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

How bizzarre. Any chance you could post a screenshot? Happy‑melon 16:34, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

And say if the second one looks any different to the first? Happy‑melon 16:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's a screenshot from me Image:WPOH Banner.png (yep bad name). The top of the banners are way to big. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 17:37, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The first and second look identical. I'm a little too busy to post a screenshot right now, but should have time over the weekend. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 19:59, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's a screenshot of the above that I just took: Image:NestedBannerMetaExample.jpg. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 18:50, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Aha! I see what you're concerned about. The space between the WikiProject link and the "rated X class" bracket is in the centre of the banner. It's only because the text on the left "WikiProject Musical Instruments" is longer than the text on the right "Rated Start-Class") that it appears to be off-centre. If I lined up a number of different banners with different texts, the 'centreline' of the headers would become more obvious. Now, if we can work out why the show/hide button and the actual header text appear on separate lines, we'll be in business. I suspect I know what's going on there, but not how to fix it; no combination of attributes I've managed to apply can make the subtable centre in the cell without using width=100%; those two floating spans screw everything up. Does anyone have any bright ideas? Because at the moment I'm reduced to saying that the only way to both centre the titles and align their midpoints (which will beautify pages like Talk:Duduk no end) is to get yet another modification to the CollapsibleTables code for a way to manually position the show/hide button. Again, it's functionality that could be useful elsewhere, but it seems a very brute-force solution. Then again, the set of nested tables and cross-styled divs that this template currently uses isn't particularly elegant itself.... Any clever ideas? Happy‑melon 20:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Padding at the bottom of banner

Module:WikiProject banner/doc
This page is a soft redirect.

On my systems (Windows XP-SP3 using Firefox 3.04) project banners created with the Wikibannermeta template, such as the one above, have no padding at the bottom causing the colored assement blocks to directly touch the banner border. This is IMHO ugly. Is this behavior intentional or is it a glitch? (TimothyRias (talk) 15:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC))

 Fixed Happy‑melon 16:03, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, looks much better. (TimothyRias (talk) 07:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC))

Default class

Hi, I am quite new to the banner meta and have a couple of questions. The first is: if the class parameter is undefined or nonsense, how is the article categorised? (It seems to be depend on the namespace.)

Secondly, there are a lot of unneeded classes. (Ones like "Merge-Class" don't seem to be in widespread use yet.) I created them all as suggested but am now slightly regretting it, as the categories have become somewhat cluttered. So the question is: is it possible to opt-out of some of these classes? Opting-out would mean that the classes would act as if they were undefined and the banner would not prompt you to create the categories.

A suggestion for the future: create a template for the documentation page of the project template?

I hope all this makes sense. Thanks and keep up the good work. MSGJ 09:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Not using all the 'extended' classes is certainly something I'm working on implementing. It's kind of hard due to the way the code is structured: the most obvious solution would introduce a terrifying number of expensive parser functions. It's on the todo list! Happy‑melon 16:43, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Can WPBannerMeta categorise articles by priority rather than importance? If not, are there some good reasons why the latter is better than the former because I am trying to persuade WikiProject Mathematics to convert to the meta banner. MSGJ 09:43, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I've meant to write a hook for this for ages; perhaps someone wants to have a go? "Importance" is, like most of these semantics, the standard purely because it achieved the 'snowball' effect and became by far the most popular syntax in use, thereby perpetuating itself. The difference between "priority" and "importance" is, to my mind, utterly trivial; who honestly cares?? It's what the categories contain that's important, not what they're called. Happy‑melon 12:55, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Well I wrote the hook, just by copying the importancescale page and replacing instances of importance with priority. It's at Template:WikiProject Mathematics/priorityscale. But it might be better just to pass another parameter to the importancescale page though, the default of which would be importance. MSGJ 13:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Quick and easy! It should probably be a subpage of Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks, but it will need to be protected in that case. I'll have a look at integrating the conversion more closely into the main code. Happy‑melon 13:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll write some code. Then you could check it and, if you think it's okay, make the edit? MSGJ 13:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Template:WPBannerMeta/importancescale could be replaced with the contents of User:Msgj/importancescale. The [[Template:WPBannerMeta] template would then have to pass the additional parameter

IMPORTANCE_NAME={{{IMPORTANCE_NAME|importance}}}

to the subtemplate. MSGJ 13:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I've implemented this, with a few changes; lc: and ucfirst: are not parserfunctions, so don't need a leading # character, and since it's an internal template I used a shortened parameter name and put the defaults inline. I'm not going to pass the parameter from the main template; I don't think it's popular enough to warrant that extra code (and it would have to be passed in a several different places). Rather, the hook can now become just the /importancescale call taken from the main banner with the extra parameter. Nice work though! Happy‑melon 14:48, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't work out why the Template:WPBannerMeta/templatepage doesn't appear on Template:WikiProject Mathematics. Can anyone help, thanks. MSGJ 07:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

It is to do with the "μ" in the code. Someone changed the symbol in a documentation edit which caused problems to banners being converted on those days. —Borgarde^talk 08:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Although I really can't see what you did there. MSGJ 09:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

This is happening often... I need to code up some kind of warning. Happy‑melon 17:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

missing Sortkey?

I think there is a sortkey missing from the template. I noticed that since the change to WPbannermeta the category Category:Top-importance physics articles is sorting almost all entries under T (for talk). This behavior is usually caused by not piping {{PAGENAME}} to the category links in templates. Having done some snooping, it does in fact seem that Template:WPBannerMeta/importancescale is not piping the magic word in the category declarations. This seems like a bug. (TimothyRias (talk) 15:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC))

 Fixed, although I suspect that this conceals a deeper issue with the functioning of the |listas= parameter. Happy‑melon 23:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

NA-Class

Question: I understood that NA-Class is not used when the full quality scale is used. (Because all the non-articles have classes.) However the bannermeta is complaining that Category:NA-Class AFC articles doesn't exist on the Template:WPAFC page. MSGJ 10:11, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

NA-Class is available when the full quality scale is used; setting {{WikiProject Foo|class=NA}} will always set it to NA-Class. When the full quality scale is not used, NA-Class is a 'catchall' category for all the other complicated classes; think of it as there being a scale of FA/FL/A/GA/B/C/Start/Stub/List/?/NA, with the option to subdivide NA into Template/Category/Portal/Redirect/etcetcetc. So NA-Class is always in use, so its category is always required. Happy‑melon 11:03, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't fully understand. If the full quality scale is used then there is no reason for any page to be classed as NA, is there? Indeed it is better if it not available because then people are more likely to classify it correctly. MSGJ 11:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless some projects use it, so it has to be supported. I'm not saying it makes sense! I can see the logic behind saying that template examples genuinely are "not applicable", although with the category exemption it's easier just to classify it as FA-Class and stick |category=no. Happy‑melon 14:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You could always create a page similar to Template:OH-Project/hide. (I don't think this one's documented anywhere though) §hep • ¡Talk to me! 02:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Mysterious things may be in the works... watch this space (and poke me if it doesn't seem to be being filled :D)... Happy‑melon 11:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem with image right

An example is at Talk:Biratnagar, with image_right on, the comments do not go the full length of the box, but stop at the start of the image on the right. I am using Firefox 3.0.4.. —Borgarde^talk 03:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)