Module talk:Sidebar/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Sidebar start/end/heading

We might look at template:sidebar start/template:sidebar end/template:sidebar heading with an eye to either making them semi-compatible with this, or replacing the few instances where they are used with uses of this template. (And deleting those templates). Zodon (talk) 08:26, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

• I think I'd vote for replacing then deleting/orphaning them. Shall I go ahead and try? Sardanaphalus (talk) 13:10, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Use of icons in this template

There's some talk about the appropriate use of icons in sidebars such as this one, here. SharkD (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

TABLE vs DIV

Is there a particular need for the TABLE element in this template, or can it safely be replaced with nested DIV elements? SharkD (talk) 01:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge

Here's another template that could be merged with this one: {{Country history}}. SharkD (talk) 02:04, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Don't see why it would need merging - could just use sidebar as a meta-template for it (instead of infobox). Zodon (talk) 07:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Because they're both meta-templates. There's no reason to have two layers of indirection here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, why not simply switch it to use this template? I don't see any need for a merge, either. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 19:00, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference between that and merging? SharkD (talk) 19:20, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

There's a big difference: merging implies that you intend to redirect that template here, which isn't appropriate considering its relatively specialized nature. You might have misunderstood me (reading my comment, it's not so clear); I meant to ask why it couldn't simply be switched from calling {{infobox}} to calling {{sidebar}}. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 22:05, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's what I meant. Maybe 'merging' is specifically not the proper term, but then it's hard to imagine doing something different with something as complex as a template. SharkD (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay, good to see we're actually on the same page. =) Even for templates, merging means exactly that - merging any useful content or functionality and then redirecting. {{Country history}} would be described as a template wrapper, I think, and the act of switching the metatemplate it uses definitely wouldn't be called merging. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 19:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to strip all scaling/positional formatting from the existing template so that I can sort of "start from scratch". Here is what I have so far; however, I can't seem to remove the last bit of padding surrounding the list items. I was wondering if anyone could take a look and see what's keeping it from happening. SharkD (talk) 00:27, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Images in sidebars

There's a discussion going on here regarding whether item-specific images, such as photographs or screenshots, or icons should appear in sidebars. SharkD (talk) 02:40, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

difference from {{infobox}}?

I'm having a hard time seeing why we have both a sidebar and an infobox template. they seem to do almost exactly the same thing. can someone explain? otherwise, it might be time to merge the two (if that can be done without excessive headaches...) --Ludwigs2 21:03, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

They're meant to serve different purposes - infobox templates are primarily key-value for comparative purposes, while sidebars are meant to be list-o-links style things. There's never really been a consensus on exactly how we should treat them, and there are several different designs out there - I'm guilty of starting {{navbox vertical}} for this reason recently. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

ah, ok. is there any centralized discussion about this anywhere. if not, maybe we should pick a place and start one. =}

incidentally, I wrote a template (for a different infobox I was working on) that might be useful here as well: {{do list}} - it creates a text list from the parameters (with a option for changing the delimiter) but controls linebreaks so they don't occur in the middle of phrases. --Ludwigs2 13:08, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Was at Wikipedia:Series templates. Historical - needs to be revived and coordinate with Wikipedia:Template standardisation. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I hate to break it to you, but you're not the first person to try this. See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2009 March 29#Template:Vertbox. SharkD (talk) 07:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Wasn't it me who pointed {{sidebar}} out to you when you first wrote that template? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:57, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I can't remember. An admin would have to take a look at the deleted page in order to see. SharkD (talk) 10:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Text making template bigger

{{Sidebar with collapsible lists}} seems to grow and shrink sideways depending on the text contained within. Anyone know how to fix this? Example: {{VG Role-playing}}. SharkD (talk) 07:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Always at top

I've been toying with the idea of suggesting that sidebars always appear at the top of articles. However, I'm hesitant because sidebars don't all share the same styling, and few sidebars use the collapsed version of the template, meaning they're simply too big. SharkD (talk) 11:04, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

They don't always apply to whole articles, though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:06, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Not to mention the technical difficulties of forcing them to always appear at the top. And what about where an infobox and a sidebar is used on the same article; which one should win out? This type of stuff needs to be decided case-by-case, and if a sidebar needs to appear at the top of an article, it's far easier and simpler to just put its template call at the top of the article's source than to try and force a technical solution from within the template. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 18:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That's what I meant: place the template at the top of the page source. Also, I'd think that the infobox would come first since it is more important/relevant. Images, however, I think should come after since should always apply to a specific section (I think it's sloppy when this isn't the case). SharkD (talk) 06:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That's not what the Manual of Style says (point 1). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:21, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

No kidding. Hence the proposal. SharkD (talk) 08:26, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The small v-d-e links at the bottom

The small v and d links at the bottom of this template don't seem to work when the template appears in an article. I think it's because they try to link to Template:ArticleName rather than Template:TemplateName. I noticed this while browsing the articles on Watergate, i.e. that use the "Watergate" template. 212.84.108.77 (talk) 17:02, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Long links?

I decided to be bold and change the documentation here to refer to {{normalwraplink}} rather than {{longlink}}, since the latter doesn't actually work. Since that page may not be as heavily watched, I'm dropping notice here in case anyone wants to discuss it. Anomie⚔ 12:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the nowrap default behavior even necessary? Could you cite some examples where deprecating it would cause problems? SharkD  Talk  00:58, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

If it is necessary, I'd prefer a means of turning it off on a per-template basis, instead of having to adjust each individual link. SharkD  Talk  01:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea. Anomie⚔ 02:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Just as a pointer, {{Navbox}} has used the "nowraplinks" class for a long time now. Other than that, I have no opinion on whether it's really necessary here. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 04:15, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and modified the template so that the behavior can be disabled if needed. It is still enabled by default. SharkD  Talk  05:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The dots between the "v", "d" and "e" links in bottom rh corner

These dots are tiny and can look like dead pixels. Can they be made larger, please? 213.246.94.47 (talk) 23:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Problem with width

Something recently caused Template:Violence against women to broaden, and it wasn't edits to the template itself. It uses this sidebar template, but reverting a recent edit to this made no difference. Can anyone think what might have caused it? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The culprit appears to be the inclusion of "width:22em". I added "width:auto" to the Template:Violence against women, which overrides this statement. Frietjes (talk) 15:30, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, Frietjes. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 21:59, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Question on "sidebar with collapsible lists" template

I've posed a question at Template talk:Sidebar with collapsible lists regarding appearance of that template. Any help would be appreciated. --Noleander (talk) 17:08, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Naming RfC

moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates#RfC re template naming

navbaroptions and tnavbaroptions

do these parameters work at all? I checked {{navbar}} and it doesn't have a {{{2}}} parameter. I had to add navbarfontstyle to get the font colouring to work in Template:Azerbaijanis. if this parameter doesn't work at all, we should just remove it. Frietjes (talk) 16:21, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

They do work but you have to pass named parameters in with {{=}} and separated with {{!}}. I also felt such was rather dubious and hard to make work. Instead of chasing {{navbar}} and exporting all its parameters into {{sidebar}} and friends, for flexibility I would rather see an option that just lets one totally override the navbar so people can call it directly (or make their own). 50.53.15.51 (talk) 11:37, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

it's better to have the parameter names for the options here, rather than in every single call to this template. that way if there are changes to {{navbar}}, we can fix them here, rather than having to track them down in every single call to this template. Frietjes (talk) 16:08, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Recent changes

Recent changes have disturbed the widths of templates {{Hinduism}} (width became smaller) and {{Vaishnavism}} (width increased suddenly). I am unsure about the exact problem or which edits caused it. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:26, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

I think Frietjes fixed it. — Edokter (talk) — 17:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem still exists. I observed when loading Hinduism, template Hinduism appears 100 % width and on completion of loading, it suddenly becomes small width. What has changed? Should I add any parameters to the Hinduism et al templates? --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:37, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

The second edit solved the problem. Thanks Frietjes. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 17:39, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

yes, I almost had it in the first edit, but missed an extra }. looks like it works now. I also improved the logic for the new float option (now works if float exists but is blank). Frietjes (talk) 17:41, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

multiple images?

is it impossible to get multiple images in a sidebar? -- 99.7.156.121 (talk) 06:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

yes, just add them both to the |image= field. Frietjes (talk) 16:46, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Floating left broken? And, how to line up horizontally?

I'm trying

1. to get 4 helpboxes (sidebars) to line up in a horizontal row.
2. to understand what I'm doing wrong!

See This sandbox edit. I do eventually want all 4 to line up, but even that (diff) simple experiment isn't working! (I assumed it would create 3 in a row, and 1 underneath. But it persists in making a right-floating column of all 4.). What obvious thing am I missing? Ta :) -- Quiddity (talk) 07:13, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Examination of the HTML source for that sandbox shows that the four boxes are tables; and each one has the CSS styling float: right; Examination of the wikicode for the templates {{MiniAWFP}} {{Infoboxwatch}} {{Dabnav}} {{Glossaries}} shows that none of them recognise a |float= parameter. That is, an examination of the template code does not reveal any instances of {{{float --Redrose64 (talk) 14:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

But, they're all using {{Helpbox}}, which is directly built with {{Sidebar}}, which includes floats!

[Stab poke prod test]. Ah! Ok, so I still have to explicitly add the "|float={{{float|right}}}" line into each of the templates. (It's been a while, but is slowly coming back to me now... the pain!) Thanks.

I solved the other part, too. I had tried embedding them all in columns of a table, but this failed. Strangely, if linebreaks are added, it works. A mystery for another day (or more coffee). -- Quiddity (talk) 23:18, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 29 August 2012

please change "{{content33style" to "{{{content33style" (note the three braces instead of two). Once this is changed Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Content33style should drop to zero.

Frietjes (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

 Fixed. — Edokter (talk) — 16:57, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Obsolete markup

• cellspacing
• cellpadding

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:20, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

There are many templates with these; {{navbox}} and {{infobox}} to name a few complicated examples. They need some CSS restructuring, including Common.css. Currently looking into it. — Edokter (talk) — 17:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

This template sure uses some convulted parameter structure for these attributes, while overriding those same settings with CSS. So I recommend removing those parameters to start with. — Edokter (talk) — 19:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 4 December 2012

Hi. I've noticed that if backgrounds are added to the headings in this template, the headings don't appear vertically aligned within them (see example below left). If, however, the padding in the heading styles is changed to padding:0.1em;, i.e. an all-round 0.1em padding, the headings now appear vertically aligned (below middle). A tweak to the content styles (bottom padding of 0.4em) ensures each heading-content pair remains grouped when no heading background is in use (below right). So, I've amended a copy of the current template code in the sandbox to include these tweaks (15:46, 4 December 2012‎ CsDix (talk | contribs)‎ . . (14,077 bytes) (-420)‎ . . (re-retweaked (to reduce gap between headings and contents when no heading background)) [1]).

CsDix (talk) 03:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The alignment is looking fine to me. Maybe the problem went away with the introduction of new MediaWiki software yesterday? Let me know if you're still seeing issues. (A screenshot might help clarify things as well.) — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 10:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Here are a couple of screenshots of a couple of Sidebars as they appear on the Firefox-based browser ("Palemoon") I'm currently using:

Here, the space above each heading looks more than that below (especially e.g. in the Anthropology sidebar's first heading "Fields"). Small in the overall scheme of things, but noticeable. CsDix (talk) 16:50, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

PS I've just edited Template:Anthropology, so the screenshot above left was of this version of the template. CsDix (talk) 17:13, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

This looks better, but I am wondering about the condition padding in the first two fields. In particular, the part that changes the padding for the first heading if there is an image, and the part that changes the padding for the first contents if there is a first heading. The ordering on these statements appears to be important, and it's not clear exactly what is going on there. Otherwise, this looks very reasonable. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 06:02, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point; thanks. I've toyed with the sandbox code a little, left it with no special padding for the first heading/content (this version) and added another row of examples (that include images/captions) to those above. Maybe no special padding is required, as they seem okay here – how about there? (Perhaps I'm missing some circumstance/s where the special padding would still be required?) CsDix (talk) 06:25, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Not clear what should be done right now, if anything, so I've declined the request. I've asked both of you to come back here and clarify what should be done. Nyttend (talk) 13:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I think I got it. Let me know if there is a problem. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 05:43, 19 December 2012 (UTC)