Wikipedia:WikiProject User Page Help/Help Desk

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See also User page design.


Welcome to the user page help desk! Please ask as many questions as you want!

[edit] Newbie

Major Newbie here. I'm installing MediaWiki on my system so that our association can use the software for a standards review process. The standard has numbered paragraphs (section 3, SS3.1, SS3.1.1, etc.). I want the section numbers to appear in the TOC instead of the numbers that are automatically added by the TOC. Is there a way to do this (suppress the auto numbering of TOC entries), or another better solution? Thanks for your help. I hope I'm doing this right. ;o) MajykHands 00:26, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

This question would best go at WP:VPT. But, a solution would be to go to your preferences, go to the "misc" section, and uncheck the box that says "Auto-number headings" --GeorgeMoney T·C 00:44, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CSS in Wikipedia

I've found the manual for using CSS in Wikipedia markup. I'm attempting to make a userbox with a graphic for the info background. I have thus far been unsuccesful. MrWarMage 19:35, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

So you want, for example, a box with an image as the background instead of let's say yellow? Well if so, that would be impossible unless you put it in your own personal css file. Wikipedia disables certain types of css on the page. For example, you could do <div style="background: red">, but not style="background-image: url(http://example.com/example.jpg)" GeorgeMoney (talk) 02:06, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User Page

I was wondering if anyone who has experience in the area take a second to look at the display problems I'm having on my user page and possibly give me a few pointers? My userboxes don't seem to want to line up correctly, and I get weird "{{}}" symbols (for lack of knowing their name) in my Babel box.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide me. --Cduffner 23:35, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I fixed it [1] the problem was that you had extra {{'s and }} which were ignored by the wiki-engine because they were extra. GeorgeMoney (talk) 02:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is it. The problem was with this sloppy edit by a bot - see how he has removed newlines before the |} characters. Removing newlines usually makes no difference, but it does in this case, where the |} are a part of the table syntax. By putting it in the same line as the table entry, they were treated as literal text. I hope this provides you with enough information to restore the table format, if you so wish. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 05:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Monobook

What are all these monobooks (monobook.jc, monobook.css, monobook.php) what is the difference, how do they work and what do they do??? (#R!$5897 (T@£k) 13:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

If edited in the correct way, they can be used to modify the appearance and behaviour of Wikipedia. For instance, the gallery of user styles gives a list of appearances which can be implemented, and Wikipedia:Tools shows the code for a million useful programs used on Wikipedia. See one of my monobook pages for an example. CarrotMan 09:29, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scroll Blocks

I wondered if there was anyway to intergrate this: so that it fits into the text like a thumbnail picture, because I just can't get it to work properly.  Scrumshus Talk to me 18:32, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving a Discussion

How do I go about archiving a discussion and its history?And the truth shall set you free! 23:57, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure. Maybe you could move the page to the archive and then change the redirect to the new page. — Sebastian 22:14, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
See how to archive a talk page for information. CarrotMan 09:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swap TOC and Userboxes

Is it possible to swap the positions of my TOC and Userboxes so that my userboxes are farthest to the right? TonyTheTiger 20:57, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I see you solved this in the meantime. — Sebastian (talk) 06:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I did swap them, but I got in trouble

I did just that, and it somehow automatically displayed the userboxes in two columns. But every other day, it cuts off the right column (the whole Babel box). The code I used was like this:

{{Boxtop|Some things about me}}
{{User:Cool Cat/Newbie}}
{{Babel|de|en-3|fr-2|zh-2|it-1|grc-1|la-1|ja-1}}
{{User Washington}}
{{User:Tal642/my userboxes/democracy}}
...
{{Boxbottom}}
... remaining text.

Thanks for your help! — Sebastian (talk) 06:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This problem is still there. (I realized it was dumb to close with "Thanks for your help!")

I found a simple way to reproduce it:

  1. Go to my header page User:SebastianHelm/header
  2. Click "Edit"
  3. Click "Cancel"

It occurs in other situations as well, but I couldn't find a pattern. This seems to be a sure way to repro it. It may not occur always; possibly it depends on how wide the window is, but it worked with maximized window on a 1280x1024 monitor the last few times. — Sebastian 17:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC) - amended 23:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

What browser are you using? —sd31415 (sign here) 17:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I see, by your screenshot, that you are using Internet Explorer. Userboxes and such are best viewed in Mozilla Firefox. —sd31415 (sign here) 17:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, then I'm glad that I'm using IE - or else I wouldn't have noticed this problem. Maybe there's something wrong in the syntax, and IE is just more severe. (I once had such a situation with a website I created, which was wrong on Firefox. Turned out, I had written "style=something", instead of "style:something". Firefox just balked, but IE understood what I meant, which is unfortunate when you create a website that you want to display nicely under any browser.) So, how can this be fixed? — Sebastian 23:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I don't think the problem can be fixed to where it looks fine in IE. See this discussion between Tone (talk • contribs) and me:
· · · · · · · · ·

Just another thing. I was trying to move the links to my admin actions to the yellow box and the flags under it. But I don't quite get the syntax (or it's just because I am really tired already :-)) and besides, sometimes the userbox section shrinks to the edge and I can't fix it. Could you have a look one more time? Thanks. --Tone 00:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit weird. When I open it, it looks fine. But when I refresh it, it looks like this. I am currently using IE at resolution 1024*786. If you have any idea what's wrong...Thanks. --Tone 10:56, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I mostly use Mozilla Firefox. I looked at my page and your page on my Internet Explorer, and I saw the problem. I tried editing mine without improvement. If you can, you should download Mozilla Firefox, because boxes (and a lot of other formatting styles) are best viewed on Mozilla Firefox.
Indeed, it looks fine in firefox. I swiched some parts and now I like it a lot. Thanks again. --Tone 13:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
· · · · · · · · ·
To the best of my knowledge, there is no way that this problem can be fixed. Your best solution is to use Firefox, since your user page won't look correct in IE. —sd31415 (sign here) 00:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Userbox/Babel formatting

Hello, I'm a newbie here at wikipedia. I am trying to setup my userpage by adding my babel and userboxes on the right side of my page. However, when I put in the coding for both my Babel and userbox, they appear side by side and I am not sure how to format the code to make the boxes one on top of the other. Any help is appreciated!! Jimzim66 05:34, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

» Fixed formatting
» Replied
S.D. ¿п? § 13:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you kindly!! Jimzim66 18:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] hi

hi im new and dont know how to use my userpage what do i do thanks!Pjg12 12:02, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

» Replied
S.D. ¿п? § 12:45, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Access to user page

This is probably staring me in the face, but how do I actually get to my user page to view or edit it? Kritikos99 13:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess you've found out yourself. :D Cheers, S.D. ¿п? § 13:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pix

Is there any way to embed pix to userpages from external servers? Whenever I want an image of myself, it gets taken off. Rjsec4ever 12:36, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

No, but you can upload an image (and specify the license). Instructions for doing that can be found at Wikipedia:Uploading images. Cheers, S.D. ¿п? § 12:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] When to archive talk pages

Hi, I have been on Wikipedia for a month, and my talk page is full of trivia. I am unclear on what the rules are about deleting junk from it, or archiving the whole thing. What to do? Buddhipriya 20:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Instructions can be found at how to archive a talk page. You can cut the old discussion from your talk page and paste it to an archive under User talk:Buddhipriya/Archive #. However, it seems that you have already learned how to do that yourself — good job! Happy editing, S.D. 21:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
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