Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox/archive01

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

This is the archive01 page of the Chemical infobox discussion. Please continue the discussion there if you want to. Wim van Dorst 20:49, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC).

Contents

Various includes/excludes to the tables

The Thermochemistry values and symbols need to be explained somewhere. AxelBoldt 18:53 Jan 28, 2003 (UTC)

I've added links to standard enthalpy change of formation and created and linked to a new page standard molar entropy. Good enough? --- Tim Starling 04:12 Jan 30, 2003 (UTC)

It would be nice if a space for association or dissociation constants (in water) could be made. I may not give a darn about the enthalpy of formation of an organic acid, but if it had 2 carboxylate groups I might want to know the Kd of both. Dwmyers 15:30 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

I thought from the start that organic compounds would require a different set of properties to inorganic ones – hence the title of this page. If you want to make tables for the organic compounds, I can give you the excel spreadsheet I used to generate the current tables. It's pretty handy: it has a macro which processes a wiki text file and replaces certain tags with values from the spreadsheet, then dumps the text to the clipboard. I had been meaning to put it up on the web somewhere, but hadn't gotten around to it.
For the moment, though, you might want to consider adding a table to the dissociation constant article – like what I did with band gap. I don't really know much about organic chem – the last time I studied it was in high school -- Tim Starling 00:44 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

Short form of page for less common inorganics

I have put up a short version of an inorganic compound page, called inorganic_stylesheet1 since I note that the current template is rather intimidating. I am concerned that most people writing new pages are not going to want to spend the time to look up all of the data asked for, and I personally don't like putting up a page where most of the entries have a "?". This could get even worse if we include all of the details that a "full" page should include (see my comments in the next talk section on suggestions for the template). I have put up a sample page at samarium(III) chloride so you can see what a typical page might look like. I have put some more extended comments up at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals#.22Short_form.22_standard_for_less_common_inorganics

Please give me your comments on inorganic_stylesheet1, either here or at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chemicals#.22Short_form.22_standard_for_less_common_inorganics- thanks!

If people like this, I will produce one for organics too. Walkerma 19:46, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

After several minor changes to inorganic_stylesheet1, this seems to be a good format for inorganics. It is not quite as short as simple organic template, so I have used the word "short" instead of simple. I have now uploaded the template, but the main page for Chemical infobox is getting rather cluttered- feel free to reorganise this. I will upload a list of pages using the new short form (about 20 so far) when I get time. By the way Cacycle, I love the new simple organic template, we really needed this. Thanks! Walkerma 17:58, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See discussion on Walkerma's page .Walkerma 16:50, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Chemical Infobox

I just discovered another "sister" project, compiling DATA on chemical compounds over at Wikipedia_talk:Chemical_infobox. We should keep an eye on things happening over there. Walkerma

From the various talk pages

I have reorganized the current template, you can see the new version below. I will use this new template on hydrochloric acid for a real-life example. The only row I have removed (as far as I remember) was the "pH of 10% solution". If you have suggestions please post them here. 19:24, 14 Mar 2005 Cacycle

Being familiar with the result on the hydrochloric acid, I would like the standar chembox to have a link back to the template:chembox page, where we can provide the disclaimer and other legalese. Additionally, this will provide us a means of automatic counting the use of this template.
ps. If the table below is the same as on the template page, I think it can be deleted here on this discussion page. Wim van Dorst 16:16, 2005 Apr 10 (UTC).

I removed the (double) template here, and --unanswered-- will take initiative for the chembox. Be Bold they say. Wim van Dorst 21:59, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC).

Hazardous Chemical Database

The problem I see with using this is that the pages doesn't seem to stay for very long at the same spot. Right now I wanted to look at sulfuric acid and went to http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/chemicals/8/7116.html, given in the article, but the link was broken. That has happened a lot recently. What made it worse is that the search function there gave neither sulfuric acid nor sulphuric acid. So, is there anyone who knows any more reliable sources than HCD? Mikez 21:05, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Correction - this time the search yielded http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/chemicals1/8/7109.html for sulfuric acid /Mikez
Unfortunately the HCD people have rebuilt their database since I initially gathered the links, and most of the internal IDs have changed. Thus, the large majority of safety information links are currently broken. The data is still in there, someone just needs to find it again using their awful search engine, and fix all the links. -- Tim Starling 16:59, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Why are "Standard Enthalpy of Combustion" and "Standard molar Gibbs free energy change of formation" not on the table? --OldakQuill 17:11, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Because most inorganic compounds don't combust, and the Gibbs free energy can be calculated from the entropy and enthalpy, which are already given, using the formula:
ΔG = ΔH - TΔS
If you need to know the energy of combustion or oxidation of an inorganic compound, form a balanced equation of reactants (the compound with oxygen) and products, then find the total formation enthalpy of the products and reactants. The heat of combustion is the difference of the two. -- Tim Starling 00:31, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)

Table frmt

Could the following be wrapped / implemented?

<table border="0" align="right" style="margin-left:1em"> <tr> <td> Existing table code </td> </tr> </table>

I think the important part is style="margin-left:1em" ... so as the text doesn't "rub up" against the tables? It does in mozilla ... thnks, reddi

  • This has been dealt with a long time ago. Wim van Dorst 21:08, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC).

Infoboxes (discussion moved from Chemistry Wikiproject)

There are a few pages I've made/heavily edited that link to organic table information that use tables inspired by the inorganic table information template. In making these, however, I came to realized that the appropriate information for any given compound varies rather heavily from compound to compound, and so the "definitive" organic table never came to pass. This is better shown by looking at a few of the pages and their tables, such as furfural, citric acid, and butadiene. Shimmin

I had created organic table information before I found this comment, but no regrets - it ought to exist if it's linked. I have raised it to a superset of the sold, liquid, gas, acid/base and hazardous type info. --Keith Edkins 21:54, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I've made a template for the infobox. You can use {{subst:chembox}} to add it to articles. I merged the inorganic compound and organic compound tables into it; I think it covers everything one might be interested in. A few fields (such as the IUPAC name) might not be needed for inorganic compounds, but everything else should probably remain the same between the two. --Eequor 20:45, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

{{Chembox simple organic}} {{substemplate|chembox_simple_organic}}

This is a new template for a chembox that is in use for medium-sized organic compounds. For a list of the about 80 articles that already use this box see Wikipedia:Chemical infobox. Cacycle 16:44, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Shall we move these discussion texts to the talk page of the Chemical infobox?. Wim van Dorst 07:54, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC).

Question about which box to use

There are two types of info boxes which I'll call "orange" and "new" (since I think it's newer--the info box currently shown on the project page.) I actually prefer the orange box style, and plan on making articles with that. Is there a problem with this? Can we even adopt that as the official standard? For one thing, the new box shows up poorly on some browsers (with black backgrounds in some cells), and I think color makes these articles look better. Cool Hand Luke 23:57, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I've notice several different schemes on various articles, so I don't know exactly what new box you're talking about. I prefer and use the two-tone color scheme of the present infobox. - Centrx 20:25, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm now at home on a mozilla browser and I can now tell the new one is still orange (now two-tone). On certain versions of IE, the current style looks awful: the backgrounds appear black. I'll try to tweak the template the make this problem go away. Otherwise, I do like the new style better. Cool Hand Luke 20:37, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Is it possible this is because of some articles using colors like #FAD or #FED instead of #FFAADD or #FFEEDD ? - Centrx 20:22, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
More than possible. I fixed the template. If I happened to edit articles using just three bytes, I'll fix them too, but I'm not going out of my way to do it. Cool Hand Luke 00:48, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Disclaimer and References links

Hi, guys, I added a Disclaimer and References link to all three infoboxes, linking back to the Chemicals infobox page. This was in old version of the infobox, and I liked it. Wim van Dorst 22:38, 2005 Apr 15 (UTC).

How To Use Infoboxes

Hello WikiChemists! Very basic question: How does one use these info boxes? I paste the text {{Chembox simple organic}} into the article, but am unable to edit the entries. So, I figure I'm doing something wrong. (See Lithium aluminium hydride as an example of my attempt to add an infobox.) ~K 22:15, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Edit the chemistry article to add the infobox to
  • Type the text {{subst:chembox}} on the top line
  • Save the page. Now that typed text is substituted by the actual infobox code
  • Edit the article again, and now the infobox is available for editing

We should consider this a FAQ and display this usage-tip somewhere. Í'll try to find a proper place somewhere. Wim van Dorst 12:27, 2005 May 2 (UTC). I put it up on the wikipedia:Chemical infobox page itself. Wim van Dorst 08:57, 2005 May 5 (UTC).

Limonene template problem

User:Malcolm Farmer notes problems with using the infobox, if you look under the history of the new (and much-needed) Limonene page. If you look at the older versions of the page, you will see. Maybe we need to explain how to use these templates, because I confess I haven't worked it out properly myself, and I even wrote one! Myself, I just keep versions of each template in MS Word, and I edit them as I need to. How do others do this?

Hi Martin, the trick is to open the page where you want the table for editing, type {{subst:chembox}}, and then save the page. Upon saving the actual template table is inserted into the page. So opening the page again for editing: Presto, the full table is there! PS. Good progress you, Henry and the others are making. Wim van Dorst 20:57, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC).
I just inserted the chembox, added some details, and edited the text a bit. It does need quite some work, though. Wim van Dorst 22:22, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC).


FYI, I added a new Category:Terpenes and terpenoids, I didn't like them all going into organic compounds, and User:V8rik has been very busy creating Ionone, Citral, etc. Walkerma 16:57, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the explanation. With writing most of my material offline, I'd missed this, I feel so stupid! But probably a lot of newbies have the same problem, only they're afraid to ask. Walkerma 15:55, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions for the template

I have a few thoughts on editing the template, but I don't want to upset people by editing first and asking questions later. Also see my comments in the previous section on a short form.

1. A lot of thermodynamic properties are included, yet many other things are not. Is this by choice, or is it just an accident of evolution? I would definitely like to include coordination geometry for metal compounds, and possibly include a section on hydrates too. I think there should also be a link to related compounds, as they do with chemical elements- thus the page on NaCl would link to NaF, NaBr, NaI, LiCl and KCl. There are quite a few other pieces of data omitted from the template, such as dielectric constant, molar conductivity, dipole moment, viscosity, vapour pressure at STP or SATP, refractive index, lambda-max and extinction coefficient, major IR bands, 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR chemical shifts (for organics), mass spectrum information, magnetic susceptibility, magnetic moment (where appropriate), symmetry point group, basic chemical properties (besides the acidity currently included)- and these are just a few things that spring to mind! The NMR, IR and possibly MS could be links to scans of the spectra. Many of these are properties I would consider to be more important than those currently in the template- but if we put EVERYTHING in, it may be quite overwhelming- so do we need to limit what is included? If so, what goes in and what stays out?

2. Isn't specific gravity rather redundant when density is included?

3. Don't the Safety and Precautions sections really belong in an MSDS rather than here? We include a link to an MSDS in the template box, so anyone wanting serious safety information will look there (or at an external link if provided). It seems silly to clutter up much of this box with a repetition of the MSDS information. The purpose of a page on a chemical compound is to provide a summary of properties, uses, etc. of that compound, it should not try to be a watered-down MSDS. I would suggest a simple summary term like "Hazards"- and then put in simple words such as Irritant, Carcinogen, Toxic, along the lines of the Aldrich catalogue. If someone wants the full MSDS sheet they click on the link.

4. Should things like density and phase be given for STP, or should we use SATP? I think of benzene as a liquid, not a solid! I think many density values are given at temperatures other than 0 °C. Also, shouldn't the default for temperature be °C rather than K? Other than NIST, I don't know of any chemists who routinely use anything other than °C to report the majority of their information on chemical compounds- but then I am an organic chemist rather than a physical chemist!

Walkerma 20:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I raised some of these questions some time ago, when I was quite new to Wikipedia. I still think most of the above comments apply. Now we have more chemists active on Wikipedia, it may be time to revamp the main template- which I suspect had a lot of input from non-chemists, so it comes across to me as unusually skewed towards certain data. Can I solicit comments here? Once we have resolved the List of compounds split I would like to start wholesale editing of this main compound template. Walkerma 22:11, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Short form" standard for less common inorganics

Looking at the template that we are currently developing/using- Wikipedia:Chemical_infobox

I am concerned that it may be far too detailed for less common materials. For example, it may be perfect for methanol or sodium chloride, but the types of thing I have been submitting (such as cerium(III) chloride) frequently do not have detailed thermodynamic properties available- and even if such data are available, I may want to get a page up in a reasonable amount of time which is not filled with question marks. Bearing in mind that even some quite simple compounds such as calcium chloride do not currently have basic information, I think it would be better to get a large number of compounds entered in with reasonable pages, rather than having only a couple of dozen compounds covered in excruciating detail.

Another point on this- there are still many details omitted from the Wikipedia:Chemical_infobox template, such as dielectric constant, molar conductivity, dipole moment, viscosity, vapour pressure at STP or NTP, refractive index, lambda-max and extinction coefficient, major IR bands, 1H-NMR and 13C-NMR chemical shifts (for organics), magnetic susceptibility, magnetic moment (where appropriate), symmetry point group, basic chemical properties (besides the acidity currently included)- and these are just a few things that spring to mind! Many of these are properties I would consider to be more important than those currently in the template- but if we put EVERYTHING in, it may be quite overwhelming!

I have also added a couple of extra comments on this at Wikipedia_talk:Chemical_infobox.

I would also like to suggest that we have some suggested section headings, such as "Chemical properties," "Uses," etc.

To that end, I have taken the liberty of putting up a short form of the template written as a regular page, called inorganic_stylesheet1. If this should be called something else, please feel free to rename it and the related image file. It was created by taking the Wikipedia:Chemical_infobox template, chopping it down and editing it mercilessly. It will allow us to upload a lot of pages without having to spend hours tracking down molar entropy for gaseous samarium chloride. The table includes what I would consider only the bare essentials, nothing more. The idea is that in the future someone could (if they wish) upgrade this more basic page to the more detailed version. However, in most cases, most people would be delighted to find even the short form information in Wikipedia- for the majority of compounds I think it would be entirely sufficient. I have also put up a typical example, samarium(III) chloride so you can see how a typical compound might look.

Please give feedback! If people like this format, I would like to get a basic set of compounds done in this format.

Walkerma 19:42, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

UPDATE: I have put up some pages in this format, please take a look, give comments. See lithium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium chloride and a new page, aluminium chloride. I plan to do a few more chlorides in coming weeks as time allows.

Feb 2005- See discussion on Walkerma's page.

Hi, Martin, as the infobox is now up at this project page itself (after much moving around of both the box and the discussion about it), I took the liberty to strike out the misdirecting information from your text here.
Importantly, I'd like to fully agree with your remark that the short version of the inorganic table is by far not short enough. I'd rather like the shortiness of the organic table. Could you reduce the inorg one as much as the org one? Wim van Dorst 22:19, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC).

Thanks for the reorganisation, Wim- I know things had kind of evolved, and needed some tidying up. I like the way you've set up the talk pages (even though it looks from the above like I'm repeating myself- yes, I admit I did cut & paste some things!). I had the impression when I started that some people worked in one corner and others in another corner, with the left hand not knowing what the right was doing. I hope that the changes help to reduce this problem. I like the disclaimer text too- unobtrusive, but we're nicely covered.

As for the inorganics table, I've been very happy with it, and it only takes me about 20 minutes to fill it out, but that's because I have all of the books laid out in my home office. I can certainly come up with a very basic one, and I'll call it "simple" so it can be seen to be comparable to the organic one. I'll try to do that soon. I'd also like to make some changes to the so-called "main" template- which I don't think has been used by anyone here in over a year as far as I can tell- though the Germans seem to be using a simpler version of it. See my comments above on this page. I took a very close look at the history of the current version, and it seemed that lots of people added things to it, but no one took things away. I would like to remove much of the safety information, and replace that with a link. My impression is that I have never actually seen the current version of the "standard table" used in full by anyone (though ammonia is close)- having created a time-consuming "monster" table, this table was then abandoned by its creators! Earlier versions of the table were much more reasonable, and these are the versions you see actually in use more. I may even add one or two things- I really like the "related compounds" idea- but rest assured it should be a lot sharper overall. So unless anyone objects strongly to my suggestions here, I will start to edit the "standard" table in 2-4 weeks time, as time allows. Walkerma 03:28, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Martin, don't wait another fortnight for improvements. You have good ideas: go for it! I recommend to reduce the short inorg template by moving that related-compounds part to the big chembox template. That'll be a good step. And then I would like to propose to further reduce by moving the structure details too: that are rather difficult data to find (for people without big books on their desks. And what about moving the product name to the header field, Wim van Dorst 20:26, 2005 Apr 17 (UTC).

Odor

In my opinion the parameter "odor" should be removed, as the previous "psychological" classification of smell sensations has been shown to be obsolete and inaccurate. Also the number of primary odors is not at all clear. It can vary from at least 100 to perhaps more than 1,000. Discrete odor blindnesses have been proved to exist for many of these. For more info, see Guyton:Textbook of medical physiology, ISBN 072168677X. --Eleassar777 11:32, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a fair point. I will be doing a major revamp of this template soon, I will take out that section. There's also the safety issue- we discourage people from sniffing things too much unless we know they're safe. I think the odour issue is best handled in the introductory paragraph in cases (like limonene) where it's appropriate, but for many things it's irrelevant anyway. Walkerma 14:58, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Good point. Odor is out of the template. Wim van Dorst 20:00, 2005 May 4 (UTC).

May I ask why it is still present in the infobox of e.g. the article hydrochloric acid? Does it have to be removed manually from all the articles the part of which it is? --Eleassar777 20:30, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

  • yes: all the infoboxes in all wikipages are fixed into the text. The template is only useful for starting a new infobox. If you want to replace an outdated one, you'll have to do the whole laborious work of substituting the (empty) new infobox into that wikipage, copy/re-keying/moving all numbers into the new table and finally deleting the old table. Wim van Dorst 21:35, 2005 May 4 (UTC).

New Wikipedia colour scheme: ClockWorkSoul

Hi, all. I have applied the new colour scheme ClockWorkSoul, which is generally chosen for the page-wide banner templates, to all four of the chemical infoboxes. Actually, I'm a sucker for standards, but this time I see that the dividing horizontal lines on my Unix-box come out very poorly. What do you think? Wim van Dorst 22:40, 2005 May 2 (UTC). I used the lithium aluminium hydride and dimethylsulfone as examples. Wim van Dorst 22:49, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

I think that scheme is fine for the inorganic pages, the colour change is fairly small. (Is it usual to take out the dividing line between the two columns? If that's the norm, I'm OK with it.) However I think it's good to distinguish organics from inorganics, so I really like Cacycle's grey-blue version, which has become a "standard" for most organics. I'll go with the group's overall opinion, though. Walkerma 00:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, it is not good to completely loose the dividing lines. They are not in the colour scheme per se, but a result of using styles (as per the scheme). I have added to the styles to see several important dividing lines again. Example is up at hydrochloric acid. Comments? Wim van Dorst 22:03, 2005 May 3 (UTC).

I'm pleased that you like my ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll color scheme. Let me know if there's anything I can do to adjust or improve upon it for you. – ClockworkSoul 17:43, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Could we reduce the number of infoboxes to three?

There is a good chembox template now, that really always should be considered for a Chemicals WikiPage. Then there are two nice and handy simple chemboxes for organic compounds and for inorganic compounds, which are for less known chemicals or for Chemicals wikipages still in a stub phase. Can we declate that enough? I'd rather remove the short inorganic for the Chemical infobox wikipage (Sorry Martin), and start using the other three for real. We can elaborate this recommendation in the text and in the wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals activities much better too. Wim van Dorst 05:31, 2005 May 4 (UTC).

By the way, can someone remove odor? See discussion above. --Eleassar777 13:19, 4 May 2005 (UTC). Done. WvD.

I have been very busy with exams looming, but I will endeavour to rewrite the main template by Friday May 6th. I disagree that the template is good at present, there are important things missing and some silly things (like odor!) included (see #Suggestions for the template). I don't know of any new pages that have used in the last year. If the consensus is against the rewritten version, we can always revert it. I like the way User:Cacycle rewrote my original "short form" so as to be flexible- you omit things that are irrelevent. For a "standard" template this is essential, but it's not set up that way at present- I will try to make it adaptable for covalent inorganics, covalent organics, ionic inorganics, etc. If we have something like that then I have less attachment to the short form inorganic template. However we may decide that having an intermediate between a 5 minute table and a one hour table is a good idea- what do others think? Walkerma 15:16, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Martin, to have one really good chembox template, covering everything that is necessary but in a flexible way is IMHO the target. That is then the way to go for the FA-quality chemicals wikipages. No discounting on that: if it takes an hour to do it well, so be it. It's a joint effort of thousands, so all together we can spend some time on it. And only for all the other chemicals wikipages we offer two minimal infoboxes, sort of step up to the big thing. I guess, that is what we would call a minimum below which we're talking stub-quality. No half-baked infobox suggesting that a good job is done when it isn't, really. Wim van Dorst 20:26, 2005 May 4 (UTC).
I did a little bit of housekeeping (archiving old discussions about things that have been already done) in this page, leaving open all discussions about the content of the {{tl:chembox}} template. On the projectpage itself I did similar housekeeping, e.g., included the FAQ about How to use templates. To not push you too hard, I refrained from putting your May 6 target for the Chembox update on that page too, but of course you're free to add it as a personal reminder. ;-). I'm looking forward to the update, which I hope will spur things on quite a bit. Wim van Dorst 13:01, 2005 May 5 (UTC).
I have put up my draft version on my user page, please take a look. Walkerma 21:10, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Supplementary pages for major compounds

Working on the main template, I came up with an solution to the problem of having a huge table (for completeness). This is the same solution used in the chemical literature, and indeed it is Wikipedia official policy- namely, if it is getting too long, start a new page. 98% of people accessing a page on hydrochloric acid or methanol want to know basic information, not standard molar entropy etc. Let's keep obscure information out of important pages. Therefore I suggest that the table should include the main things that will satisfy 98% of users, but include links from the table to an MSDS and to a supplementary page. This supplementary page would include thermodynamic data and spectral information useful to experienced chemists, without filling up bandwidth for thousands of schoolkids etc. I am writing the table in this way- I hope to post it by this evening (USA EStime) but would like feedback on this. Walkerma 15:59, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Excellent idea! This is indeed a break-through idea! I really like to see this in effect. Are you thinking about adding a link in the bottom of the infobox to a detailed infobox on a separate page? Sounds good to me. Thinking on, this means that ultimately, we'll only have ONE simple chembox, with a link to some larger table (on a separate page) if necessary. Wim van Dorst 19:16, 2005 May 5 (UTC).

New chembox

I'd like to direct comments on the new chembox here. There is a draft version for people to look at. It attempts the impossible- to be compact & easy to use, yet suitable for any chemical compound. It uses the supplement idea (see above); detailed safety data are on an MSDS page (which might just be an external link), and thermodynamic & spectral data on the supplement page. As well as general feedback, I'd like people's specific thoughts- please vote for in the main table or in the supplement: Walkerma 21:56, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

  1. Refractive index Aldrich etc put this in all their catalogue entries, but is it widely used these days?
supplement: not widely used. Wim van Dorst.
  1. Viscosity I put in as "liquids only, optional", but should it still be in the supplement?
main table: especially with the remark Liquid only. Wim van Dorst.
  1. Dielectric constant I put in as "solvents & dielectrics only". I like to use it as rough guide to solvent polarity, but am I alone in this?
supplement: not widely used. Wim van Dorst.
  1. Dipole moment
main table: but only when the structure section is applied (which should be optional). Wim van Dorst.

For the rest I think we should make recommendations about the the Supplement page, e.g., specific names of section titles so that in the chembox you can directly link to that particular section. Notably, I strongly recommend to make only one supplement page and not several for the various sections. Wim van Dorst 08:36, 2005 May 6 (UTC).

  • Update comment: I really like the way the new chembox is developing. Excellent progress. Even the lines.... Wim van Dorst 20:01, 2005 May 11 (UTC).
  • My update comment- Thanks for updating the lines/colour, Wim. I think we can make the switch to this being the official version of the infobox on Monday May 16th. Ideally I'd like to hear comments from User:Cacycle before setting things in stone, as I'd hate to change it again too soon- one problem in the past has been the use of 73 different "standard" tables. To encourage standardisation we may need to spend some time converting some pages to the new style. A couple of unresolved issues:
  1. Will the colour for the organics still be blue as it is (in practice at least) currently? I would favour this, though it does make the standard table a little more complicated.
  2. The supplement page needs to be standardised. Wim, would you be able to take the three tables and make one big table out of it? Instead of the present |S&P| |Spectral| |Thermo| going across the page, I'd like to see one combined |S&P|Spectral|Thermo| or similar. I don't think I can do this- Wim, can you do this? Then we can create a supplement template. Walkerma 21:51, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
    • We're working now on one chembox, which has one proper colour scheme. Personally I like it when (in the end) the two simple chembox variant have exactly the same layout (colours, lines, wikilinks) albeit in shorter form. But let's discuss that later, if necessary.
    • I see now three tables which fold on the page. If the page is narrow (or the font large), it winds up as just one long table (with extra footers), If the page is wide (or the font tiny), there are three tables next to eachother. Where do you want it differently? Just one long long table? That's easy, but is is nice? Wim van Dorst 23:08, 2005 May 11 (UTC).
      • I already did the two simple chemboxes. Wim van Dorst 14:35, 2005 May 12 (UTC). And the supplement too. Is this what you have in mind (normal wiki-layout), or might perhaps just one longer (combined) be better (like the chembox itself)? Wim van Dorst 15:27, 2005 May 12 (UTC).
  • Yes, it looks great now. I will try to do the details you mention on my talk page. Walkerma 16:11, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Update: I have put the toluene page into the new style. I don't have time to write the supplement page for it, maybe tomorrow. The table seems rather wider than it should be, and even the draft template has grown an inch or so in the last 24 hours. Is this necessary? I much prefer the skinnier table, it increases space for text and also reduces problems when printing articles. Please check the page and let us know what you think. Walkerma 19:49, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Wim van Dorst asked me to comment. What I've seen till now is a great job. I have a few suggestions, although I am not a chemist nor a doctor yet (and I hope I did not say something silly ;). Where I use the word category, I mean a sub-box, a group of lines.

  • Correct links - "Ingestion" has been made a redirect to eating; the contents were moved to Wiktionary. This link should be corrected or removed, while other links should be formatted so that they bypass redirects (e.g. molecular formula; I mean put this in: [[chemical formula|molecular formula]]).
  • References in the bottom. Do they point to references of the topic described by the article or of the infobox? This should be defined (add e.g. "infobox references" or something).
  • Dissociation constants. There are three articles now: dissociation constant, acid dissociation constant, base dissociation constant; and two lines in the infobox. Perhaps the articles should be merged and the lines in the infobox replaced with "Dissociation costants". Besides this, are not Ka and Kb used as dissociation constants instead of their negative logarithms pKa and pKb?
  • The order of categories. It seems more natural to me to have it in the following order(from top to bottom): image, general, structure, properties, hazards, supplementary data page, related data compounds.
  • Related category: what is: "related ?"
  • "Chemical data" line in the category "supplementary data page". That sounds somewhat strange as other things in the category also can be considered chemical data. I don't have a suggestion.
  • "Related compounds" line in the category "Related molecules". Will it not interfere with "Other cations" and "Other anions"?
  • what about the line "Biological significance"? Would it be redundant or unusable? Or perhaps "Occurrence" (where in nature, or is the substance synthetic etc.)

Thanks, happy wiki-ing. --Eleassar777 20:32, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

  • Correct links: Done. Pfew, there were quite a lot of them.
  • References: Done. Good suggestion
  • Dissociation constants: For future work.
  • order of categories: I mainly agree and therefore move Hazards down.
  • Related: This is up to the person who fills the table. He/She is expected to be knowledgable, so no change.
  • Chemical data: Agree. The supplements page is still under construction, so no decisive change yet.
  • Related compounds: No problem here: the knowledged table filler will be able to make the organic/inorganic distinction to remove either field when inappropriate. no change.
  • Biological significance and Occurrence: Interesting. I think I rather want this in the main text.

Overall very good suggestions, most of which I have already implemented. I'm much obliged that you as an experienced non-chemical wikipedian had a fresh view at it. Thanks. Wim van Dorst 09:52, 2005 May 13 (UTC).

Thanks for having a look at my proposals and implementing some of them . May I just point out two things again: a) dissociation constant - that's K<d>, K<a> and K<b>, isn't it? And b) I also don't understand why properties come above structure. --Eleassar777 15:45, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Eleassar, they were very helpful & insightful, (for a "non-chemist" you seem to know plenty of chemistry!) Thanks Wim for chasing down the links, something I didn't do before or I'd never have got the draft done! Regarding the remaining loose ends-
Dissociation constants Indeed, the pKa (or pKb) is strictly speaking "Minus long to the base ten of the acid (or base) dissociation constant", but that's quite a mouthful to put on a data table. I've looked at a couple of books and they only ever refer to these things in the text as pKa without using words- though March's voluminous index says "pKa- see acidity constant." I would propose that we just use the term "acidity (pKa)" and "basicity (pKb)" in the table, using links for those unfamiliar with pKa. I will change the draft table to reflect that. Ka and Kb (the actual acid or base dissociation constant) are rarely thrown about in chemical conversations, I know organic chemists will always say, "That proton's got to be pretty acidic, around 6 (understood as pKa)." It is used in the same way as pH is used for aqueous solutions. They won't refer to Ka any more than people talk about the hydrogen ion concentration in the river.
Structure vs Properties This in effect mostly means Molecular scale properties vs Bulk properties. IMHO: Most people work with bulk matter and so things like density, BP etc are the main things people need, they should be near the top of the table, right below a drawing of the structure. I accept that the box would "flow" better with structural stuff first, but I think usage in this case trumps that. You should be able to type in "toluene" into Wikipedia and see structure, BP and density without a lot of scrolling. Walkerma 16:48, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
Template wikitext vs appearance on page Some of the things you things you mentioned earlier have a lot of guidance in the code to help people through, though of course this doesn't show up on the displayed page. I really like the "related compounds" link, this is one of the strengths of the element tables, but the problem is that toluene has different related compounds than copper(I) chloride. It's fairly open-ended because trying to pin it down to specifics makes it very clumsy. I think anyone proficient enough to be typing up this full length table should EITHER know what is meant for that particular compound, OR be able to work it out from similar pages. To assist things there are comments in the code like for Related compounds it says "A miscellaneous heading- use for covalent inorganics; e.g. for PCl3 you would list PCl5, POCl3, PF3, PBr3, NCl3 and AsCl3. Please omit if not applicable". Thanks again for your valuable help. Walkerma 16:48, 13 May 2005 (UTC)
The new infobox has been really well done and it was an honour for me to have contributed my two cents. Only dissociation constants still need to be replaced with acidity and basicity (or just plain pKa and pKb). Regards. --Eleassar777 07:28, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I like what you've done with the infoboxes. Nice work! ^_^ ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 09:28, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Table resolving in various browsers: losing divider lines and border colour

As a proud co-developer of this new chembox, today I took a few minutes of a coffeebreak at work to have a look how the new chembox works out, now it is published. At work we have Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0. And it showed the table quite differently from what I expected. (Insert here some expletives not to be written in full). The problem is in the apperent different resolving of table code by the various browsers.

as in Mozilla browsers
as in Opera


The left version is as shown in Mozilla derived browsers (which is as the table is intended), such as in Mozilla, Firefox, Epiphany, etc. The right hand is as shown in Opera. The table in the MSIE browser looks like the Opera variant, but worse. Now what? Wim van Dorst 20:51, 2005 May 17 (UTC).

I just took a look, as I have IE 6.0 here- I found that in the template the lines disappear in IE where they are present in Mozilla Firefox (my default). Otherwise the differences are largely superficial. However in the toluene and HCl pages the lines are still there. Also, if you go to print the template from IE you get the lines in there. I notice that the resolution of you screen shot is poor- is that just an artifact of the screen shot? My IE page for HCl or toluene looks fine on the screen. (Martin Walker asking Wim van Dorst)
  1. Do we lose the lines in IE only in the original template? If I go back through history on my page to the edit that says "uploaded the new template to toluene and hydrochloric acid" the lines are still missing in IE, yet they are there in all versions of the toluene page. Martin Walker

Using external links in the infoboxes

A more serious problem that I noticed is probably a general one on Wikipedia- when you go to print, any external links are written out in full. That has the effect of widening out the table to fill or almost fill the page. The toluene page looks really bad- the text is crammed into about 3 cm on the left hand side. This happens with both Firefox and MSIE. Another related problem that I'd noticed before but never addressed- take a look at phosphorus tribromide, it should look OK. Then do a print preview- and in Mozilla notice how the image goes down past the table, as it has to squeeze the page into a narrower space. Now try the same page in MSIE6.0, you will see that it prints the image right over the top of the table! I think this was in the back of my mind when I said I wanted a skinny table- but this business of the expanded links makes that go out of the window! Where should we go next?

  1. Are we using an incorrect format for inserting external links? If so, we need to find the correct format, and rigorously enforce that in the table, to stop the unwanted expansion. If we are already following protocol, then should we just tell people not to put external links in the table?
  2. Regarding the table/image conflict, we probably need to be more careful about checking browser and print compatibilities when we first write the pages. We have some old Macs down the hall, I will check IE and Netscape on there. I know I've been bad at doing this...
  3. Are there other issues I'm missing with the IE version? If so, please elaborate, Wim. Walkerma 00:54, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
I am for discouraging external links within the table, even if it means that we have to add See also: MSDS to the bottom of every page... Physchim62 06:24, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Me 2. I did remove them from the infobox of hydrochloric acid for trial, and I like the printout much better.
This is an unfortunate feature of Mediawiki; there is currently no way to control the display of external links. However, it seems that the behavior may change in version 1.5 — see http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2301. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 09:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have updated the toluene page too. Any thoughts on the problem of printing tables & images together in IE? Do we just try to write narrow images? See PBr3 Walkerma 01:46, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Wording of the Disclaimer

I reverted some latest tweaking there, so as to have the most accurate disclaimer, referring only the potential inaccuracy of 'information contained in the table' and not 'the table', referring to 'hazards', not 'safety' (that section there is called Hazards). Nonetheless, I also misread the 100.000 kPa thing, first thinking about onehundredthousand kiloPascal. So I reworded it to read 'by definition'. Wim van Dorst 22:20, 2005 May 18 (UTC).

  • The current wording of the "hazards" sentence is poor English: might I suggest "includes any information on hazards, which..." or "includes any hazard information, which..." See the essay "English chemists secretly practice German vice" in The Chemist's English by Robert Schoenfeld for a light-hearted discussion of the (mal)formation of English compound nouns ;) Physchim62 23:38, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
    • I wouldn't mind a copy, if only for bedtime reading. Would you have an on-line source? I changed the disclaimer text, btw, albeit slightly differently from your suggestions here. Please comment. Wim van Dorst 21:39, 2005 May 20 (UTC).
  • It's copyright, so you'd need a library (VCH published the edition that I have). Disclaimer text is now OK with me. Physchim62 22:23, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Formalization?

Shall we try to formalize the three chemical infoboxes as a Wikipedia policy (set in rock and poured in concrete)? Or as a Wikipedia guideline (just the rock :-)? I think we should go for guideline. Wim van Dorst 22:40, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC).

  1. 18 out of 27 A-Class articles have non standard tables (including 5 which are in HTML format, not wikipipe).
  2. Many many tables have external links, when we know that this can cause browser problems, not to mention the fragility of external links (almost all the links to "Hazardous Chemicals Database" are broken, for example)
  3. Wikipedia:WikiProject Drugs uses a non-compatible format for their {{drugbox}}: we will need to compromise for articles which fall under both Drugs and Chemicals.

I vote festina lente. Physchim62 06:20, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would say guideline too. Chemistry is too full of exceptions to be able to set things in concrete. As we say in Newcastle Upon Tyne (my original home town), let's gan canny. 16:16, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Then I close this discussion by simply putting the guideline template up. Wim van Dorst 19:28, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC).

Component-based infoboxes

Would it be a good idea to build the infoboxes from components, as at Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects#Starbox tree? You could have:

and simply pick and choose which to include. This way instead of having two totally separate templates for "short" articles, and translating to a new template when the article expands, you simply grow the infobox as required. --Phil | Talk 11:27, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Phil, thanks for pointing this out. I previously took notice of this technique, and it is indeed very nice. The thing is that I, for one, see the {{chembox}} as one total block of data. It is all obligatory for a good (A-Class) chemical compound article, apart from where is it explicitly indicated. There is no modularity in the information provision there. The two simple boxes are only for starter and stub articles in the WikiProject.
The total of three infoboxes covering it all in a straightforward subst:template installation (fast code!) are very easy to maintain and use, contrary to your proposal (six chemboxes templates, and all fields in them again as templates), with nested templates as resource grabbers.
So all in all, I see two major things in favour of retaining the current version of the infoboxes. Not that there aren't any improvements possible:
  • use of CSS for table makeup
  • better MSIE/FireFox/Opera support
  • etc.
which is already doable with the {{chembox header}} template that we use for table layout definition. Wim van Dorst 22:16, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC).

When to use full and when to use simple chemboxes

I do not agree with the current text when to use the full and when to use simple chemboxes in articles. I suggest to use the following explanation instead:

Chembox infobox for full articles

The {{Chembox}} infobox template is applicable for all chemical substances including organic and inorganic compounds. This infobox is the recommended infobox to use where detailed information is appropriate, for example:

Simple infoboxes

Two simple infoboxes are covering the most important data for organic and for inorganic compounds where in-depth information is not available or required. These templates can be used for:
Simple infoboxes may later be replaced by the full infobox or expanded stepwise.

I have not checked if all examples exist or contain an infobox. Feel free to add the respective articles and infoboxes - especially the acetic anhydride article is a shame :-) Cacycle 7 July 2005 19:55 (UTC)

  • Hi, Cacycle, You have used more words than originally to exactly formulate what I fully agree with. But what is the important thing that is wrong with the original text, which in my humble opinion means the same? Its brevity? Wim van Dorst July 7, 2005 20:10 (UTC). PS The acetic anhydride doesn't have any infobox yet, but menthol has a nice one. That is the reason why the former is an A-Class article in the Chemicals wikiproject, and the latter would be listed as Stub if it were in the wikiproject. WvD.
Speaking as someone who hated the old infobox, I have to say I now agree with the text as is. We should use the starter box for stubs and short articles, but a full-length article deserves the longer table. The new infobox is limited to only important data- minor things are spun off onto a supplementary page (still not written for menthol, I accept). I would argue anyway that adenine is common, and as such it deserved complete information- wouldn't the pKa or pKb value be useful? Isn't solubility information and chiral rotation on ergotamine or cholesterol useful? Isn't it convenient to be able to be at a page on benzofuran and have a convenient direct link to indole without wading through text? The "non-useful" entries for complex natural products such as dipole moment, coordination geometry, related anions, etc, are simply deleted from the box, but for a simple inorganic you would delete the SMILES and the chiral rotation entries. Is there anything in the menthol page (besides flash point) that would be inappropriate for, say, cholesterol? Heck, I even managed a supplement page (albeit rather sparse) for gold(III) chloride, not exactly common! Walkerma 7 July 2005 20:44 (UTC)
  • Sorry for not making my point clear. The current version is somehow self-contradictory: On one hand it says the full infobox is the recommended infobox to use "where detailed information is appropriate". On the other hand it continuous with "and for high quality chemicals wikipages" and "This template is recommended by the WikiProject Chemicals for all its wikipages.".
My point is that for many articles - even for high quality pages - the full chembox is inappropriate. We have to keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, not a database of chemical and physical properties. For many compounds the chemistry part of the article is just a small part (e.g. see the drug articles). The readability of such articles and infoboxes would clearly suffer from chemical data deserts. The full infobox (mis)leads to listing all available data even if they are without any foreseeable significance for our readers - chemists as well as laymen.
It might often be more appropriate to extend the simple infoboxes, e.g. with pKa or pKb values, if this is an important property of a compound instead of automatically adding them to every compound just because the data exists somewhere.
This is in no way a criticism of existing tables or disrespect for the work we put into setting them up. I think at the current stage most full chemboxes are appropriate (although menthol might be a borderline case...). It is also no criticism of the full chembox structure which now looks pretty good. I just don't want that the current guideline misleads us into wasting our time with setting up full infoboxes where it is clearly inappropriate and at the cost of the article's quality.
Cacycle 7 July 2005 23:06 (UTC)
I agree that in cases where the project interfaces with other projects, we need to tread lightly- we had a long discussion with the Drugs Wikiproject regarding paracetamol which came to exactly that conclusion- paracetamol has a page principally because it is a drug, not because of its chemical properties. However in cases where the chemical aspects are the major part of the article, it is perfectly appropriate to use the full chembox.
I think a lot of these disagreements come from a difference in perspective. When I write a page such as gold(III) chloride, I see it as part of a Wikipedia five years from now, where every chloride in the periodic table has a full-length article. I imagine millions of chemists worldwide using Wikipedia as a valuable source of information, and millions of schoolkids and college students writing papers on things like "The Chemistry of Gold" finding useful "nuggets" of information there. I am aware that many others see a much more limited chemical content on Wikipedia, or they focus on where Wikipedia is now. However I have been astonished to see the pace of change. When I wrote aluminium chloride around six months ago I think I was the only Wikipedian at the time writing lengthy articles on metal chlorides. I joked a little later that "I will probably be bored by the time I write a page on NbCl5". In January an article on NbCl5 would have seemed rather perverse- yet now I find that someone else has already written a significant article (rather technical IMHO) on it, and what is more this now seems perfectly appropriate, as we have about half of the metal chlorides in the periodic table covered. Or take a look at Category:Chemical_compounds_by_element to see how far we've come. What I have seen is that as the chemistry content grows we get more chemists writing articles, and therefore the chemistry content goes up etc. etc. I have absolutely no doubt that many things like cholesterol and benzofuran will have extensive articles with full-length tables eventually, quite possibly by the end of the year. That doesn't make it a database instead of an encyclopedia, it just makes it a bigger and better encyclopedia. And think what an amazing resource we will have by 2010! Walkerma 8 July 2005 03:42 (UTC)
I agree with User:Cacycle almost entirely, so I will mention my one disagreement first! Some articles are going to stay with a short form chembox for the simple reason that the data necessary for the full form does not exist in verifiable form. Short form boxes can also always be extended to provide important information beyond that which is in the template, as I have done for amino acid articles.
My rule of thumb is to not to use the long form where this will be substantially longer than the article text (although I allow myself exceptions where I intend to extend the article myself, as in arsenic trioxide). The problem as to whether these articles can become A-Class is one that we set ourselves, and one that I am quite happy not to worry about yet! A short form chembox is better than no chembox at all—if this were not true, the templates would not be there! It has to be said that is substantially easier to convert a short form chembox into a full one than to insert a full form chembox from scratch.
As yet I have had no comments on the text in the style guidelines, where I deliberately tried to find a middle line between my position and Wim's (Wim: maybe I failed, but I did try ;)
Physchim62 8 July 2005 09:56 (UTC)
  • Hi, PC, I'm really very sorry to inform you that you have horribly failed in treading the middle line: in your Style Guidelines you write about the infobox exactly MY position. You missed your own position at least by a mile :-). Now, as we apparently all feel very much alike, can we get on with adding whichever chembox you consider most appropriate and creating A-Class articles? Wim van Dorst July 8, 2005 19:38 (UTC).

Units

At the moment the units are like this example: g/mol. But they should be like this: g mol-1. I think the template should be changed but also each individual article that already implements the table needs to be changed. Does anyone agree? Borb 23:10, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, I absolutely do not agree. Why do you want to use a completely uncommon and difficult to write and to understand nomenclature? Cacycle 23:46, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Cacycle. I think that g/mol is accessible to most. Changing all articles would be alot of work for such a triviality. Also, you will need a multiplication symbol between g and mol-1 to be technically correct. ~K 02:42, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I concur with User:Cacycle. g/mol is proper unit and easy to read, however use of Amu is good choice too.HappyApple 02:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The chemboxes use g/mol as a compromise, given the technical constraints of Wikipedia. Borb is right that IUPAC and IUPAP prefer the symbolism g mol−1: note
  1. that there should be a narrow space (not a multiplication sign) between the g and the mol, however narrow spaces do not exist in HTML so we have to use a non-breaking space (& n b s p ;)
  2. that the superscript should have a & m i n u s ; sign, not a hyphen
  3. that amu (no capitals please) is an acceptable unit, as is Da, although personally I don't like them.
Individual editors are welcome to use g mol−1 or amu, but I don't see a consensus arising to change the template, and I certainly can't see anyone changing all the tables that are out there: we have enough work converting the old-style and HTML tables to the new format!
Are there any other comments on units before I write this up into the style guidelines? Physchim62 09:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Either a space or a centered dot (·) are acceptable dividers in these units. BIPM, NIST Also, both the solidus and the exponent are legitimate. --Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)
No, "amu" and "Da" not acceptable. The "unified atomic mass unit" is only acceptable for use with SI with the specific symbol "u". See BIPM rules,NIST rules, and atomic mass unit.
Change centipoise (cP) to millipascal-seconds (mPa·s), or Pa·s with another or no prefix. Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)

Agree both with PC and Cacycle (still no personalized name, I see, but welcome back in the activities): g/mol is most informative. Further things to be put forward for the style guidelines:

  • cP (centipoise) for Viscosity. In the text the Pa.s is suggested to be allowed, but while trying to find that for all the boxes that I fill in, I hardly ever see it. No comments on preference, though (it is an easy calculation), but perhaps a recommendation is called for?
  • g/cm3 for Density. As a bulk chemical supplier employee, I don't normally use this unit, but I agree that tonne/m3 are perhaps overdone ;-). Alternatives are allowed in the text, but I wonder whether we should make a recommendation? Wim van Dorst 21:13, 2005 Jun 24 (UTC).

There is one more thing about units. I know it sounds like i'm being padantic but I think that standards should be followed as closely as possible in an encyclopaedia. The SI unit for temperature is K not degrees C. The melting/boiling points should be in kelvin. It is unliekly that people that do not know what a Kelvin is are going to be concerned about melting and boiling points of specific chemicals anyway. Likewise with other units, anyone interested in densities will understand g cm−3

Borb 22:26, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, you are wrong. Unlike those centipoises and "amu" which are not only not SI, but not acceptable for use with SI either, the degree Celsius is an SI unit of temperature. [1] [2]
That doesn't mean we can't standardize on kelvins for things like boiling points. But when specified standard conditions such as 0 °C, 20 °C, or 25 °C are used, those are the numbers we should be using, none of those 298 K and 293.15 K numbers.
BTW, you remind me that a pet peeve of mine is people who do not know that kelvins are not capitalized (or that they do add an "s" in the plural). Maybe that should be mentioned in the guidelines, too. Gene Nygaard 28 June 2005 06:03 (UTC)
Please, let's use normal g/mol, °C, cP and similar, and spend the time on actually finding the data to put into the tables, and adding filled out infoboxes to pages which need them. Wim van Dorst June 28, 2005 21:16 (UTC).
I support Wim's last comment. When I put the table together, I tried to make a reasonable balance between SI and real-world. I think I suggested cP, because as Wim says nearly all tables report this, but I mentioned that Pa.s were acceptable. As for K vs °C, this has been debated before- the reality is that nearly all (organic) chemistry journals I read still use °C, and most of our users will be much more familiar with that- but physical chemists & physicists tend to like K, so let's put that in as well if convenient. Regarding g/mol vs. g mol−1, I think both forms are still in common use, and we can accept either- though if the former is considered "incorrect" I won't object to us changing that. I think amu are a bad idea, IMHO, let's stick to molar mass not molecular weight/mass, which (besides IUPAC issues) can get into awkward problems with isotopes, mass# vs. average atomic mass, etc. I want to keep producing & upgrading articles for now, and I find the current table is easy to work with, so I agree with Wim, let's fill up some tables! Walkerma 29 June 2005 04:56 (UTC)

Format within tables?

I am noticing that there is a certain amount of minor reverting of edits going on within tables, for example with propionic acid. Things I have seen, along with my personal preference, are as follows:

  • The "nowiki" there or not there around [] in CAS nos. I have been told that these brackets tell the computer to look for a reference or link- is this so? If so let's keep the nowikis, if not let's delete from the template.
    • There is no need for the "nowiki", so yes, I delete them when I find them. Single brackets are used in Wikipedia as a mark for an external link, but the software treats them as normal characters unless it finds an http straight afterwards. Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
      • It is removed from the template now. Wim van Dorst 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC).
  • Capitalise or not to capitalise words like soluble, miscible, corrosive that appear in the right hand column. I mildly prefer capitalised, but is this contrary to Wiki policy?
    • I prefer capitalised as well. Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
      • This is an anglo-thing: I definitely do not like the capitalization where there is no need for it. Titles, beginning of sentences: that's alright, (see the style guides) but for simple words in sentences (and tables), capitalization is IMHO superfluous. Wim van Dorst 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC).
  • Units such as °C adjacent to the number, or with a space between? In the US the latter is a rigid standard, the only possible exception is %, so I strongly prefer that.
    • °C is an exception (along with °F). There should not be a space between the number and the degree sign (Source: the Green Book). However, there should be a space for K and for all other units (apart from °, ' and "). Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree with PC, to follow the standard. In the table template, I put the '?°' as a strong suggestion to the user of the template to not put a space there. Wim van Dorst 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC).
A space between the number and the unit symbol is clearly required by ISO 31-0 and by the NIST (the U.S. national standards laboratory) Guide for the use of the International System of Units (SI)[3] and by the Oxford Style Manual (2003), section 7.5. See the recent discussion, all within the past month, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/archive 25 and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/archive23. Gene Nygaard 22:57, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

We should agree on how to do this, then perhaps write it up in the style guide. This could also include some help on whitespace also. Walkerma 06:23, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

While someone is touching up the template, can we remove the blank lines that appear in some sections (particularly in the Supplementary Data Page section)? Minor personal querk, but they annoy me! Physchim62 15:55, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Yep, that's a good recommendation too. Done that as well I leave the style guide to others. Wim van Dorst 21:32, 16 July 2005 (UTC).

Thermodynamic data

I raised this question on the Water page as well but it may be more appropriate here. Why is there no thermodynamic data in the infobox. It is much more useful than some of the information you have in there now. The infobox should have heat of combustion, heat of formation, heat of fusion, heat of vaporization and heat capacities at STP. You have the viscosity in there, which is a number that really means nothing to normal people unless they compare it to something htey know or they have already seen the liquids viscosity, and is used mostly in pumping calculations while thermodynamic data is used in many calculations.

To get the thermodynamic data, click on the words "Thermodynamic data" and that will give you all of the thermodynamic data we have at present. If some of these data are missing, it's just because no one has uploaded them as yet. We moved away from having thermodynamic data written out in full in the main infobox because this section was beginning to dominate the page, so there was little room for other content. The articles are aimed at a variety of audiences, ranging from 10 year olds to PhD chemists, and these users have a wide variety of needs and interests. For example, as a working organic chemist myself, I have never had the need for any of these data in 25 years (12 years in industrial research), except for teaching thermodynamics!
The water_(molecule) page is using an older form of the thermodynamic data table, so it is possible that data are missing- the new form of the data table is linked from the Chembox page, you can see it here. We will be updating the water page in the next few months to comply with this format. In the meantime, if you have a specific piece of data you need, ask me on my talk page and I will be sure to answer your query directly. Walkerma 17:27, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
I see, this is a little misleading becuase most links are to definitions, so I thought that clicking on the thermodynamic data link would send me to a page about what thermodynamic data was in general. I could trapse around and look this data up too but wikipedia is just so much faster and easier than almost any other information website, I just like having a one stop shop for all things i need to know

I understand your point - when developing the infobox we experimented with labels such as "click here for data" and so on, but it was regarded as clumsy or ugly. The other way into the data is to click on the "supplementary data page" (a bolded link) which is clearly not a definition, but more data- this was seen as a solution to the problem, though clearly not a perfect one. I hope that most of the more technical users like yourself will become familiar with this aspect. I know it took me a while to understand several things on Wikipedia - e.g. that the foreign language links on the left weren't just for the home pages, but for the specific pages.

As for Wikipedia being a one-stop shop, that is what we are hoping for. We already have (I think) several hundred chemical compounds with articles, of which about 30 so far are what we call "A-class", but this number is growing. I hope in a few years you will be able to get all of the data you need right here (or on a supplementary page, at least)! Walkerma 15:36, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

  • We have roughly a thousand pages on chemical compounds on Wikipedia, which range in quality from the truely excellent to the excruciatingly awful! I agree with Walkerma that on many pages there is simply not the space to include full thermodynamic data in the main article: this certainly applies to water, and to ammonia (a page I am working on at the moment). There is too much data available for these simple compounds. However, there is a compromise possible for compounds where there is less data available in the literature. For these, the supplementary page is probably unnecessary, and the thermodynamic data can go as a section in the main table. I tend to list ΔfH° and S°, from which one can calculate ΔfG° and reaction ΔG°. Do not forget that thermodynamic data is not available for all compounds! Rhodium(III) chloride is one such example which I have come accross recently. Physchim62 18:26, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Chemdata supplement

I have created a template {{Chembox supplement}} to produce a blank version of the supplementary data page with the necessary headers which are linked to from the main chembox. Hence, clicking on the redlink on the main article page, typing {{subst:chembox supplement}} and saving the new page will produce a supplementary data page ready for completing.

May I take this opportunity to plead for an nth renaming of the supplementary data page (at least for new pages) to {{{PAGENAME}}} (data page). This make it consistent with other data pages in Wikipedia. I shall experiment with this on ammonia. Physchim62 15:49, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Can you furnish us with some examples of this type of page being used elsewhere? I don't think the element data pages are equivalent, as they do not contain supplementary data. If there are good equivalents elsewhere called (data page) then I agree that we should switch. If not, then I prefer to include the word supplementary/supplement in there somewhere, to indicate that it contains data not in the main table.
I would also like to suggest moving the MSDS section up to near the top of the page. Currently the Chembox "External MSDS" links to this supplement, so many people coming to this page will be trying to get MSDS data. An external link is only one line, whereas the tables take up a lot of screen space. Can we put this one line link near the top please, as I have done at toluene? If no one objects, I will make the change to the template.
Once we agree to the above, and any other template changes, then we should formally adopt version 1.0 of the supplementary data page. Walkerma 01:40, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I find the {{{PAGENAME}}} (data page) suggestion to be sound. I like it because it is:
    • Systematic
    • Less idiosyncratic than {{PAGENAME}} chemdata supplement: The unitiated might have a prayer of finding it. Along these lines, {{PAGENAME}} (data) might be an even better name.
    • Parenthetical, and therefore easily referenced on other pages using the pipe trick.
Shimmin 13:37, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

Background color of chemboxes

Check Cyclopentadiene to see why it is probably a very bad idea to have a table background color other than white. Since we cannot use transparent formulas (the transparency feature of png is not supported by MS Internet Explorer) the borders of the formula image are visible. While it did not matter for the pictures of the inorganic salts, this is very, very ugly for formulas. So I plead to change the normal cell background to white. Cacycle 20:05, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the background for the image cell should definitely be white. The rest of the table background is okay, though, isn't it? The tables would look a bit plain if they were all white. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 20:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I fully admit that I'm colour blind, but my tables, and background are white. And I agree that is rather plain. But where is now the change? Can somebody who actually sees these changes make a screenprint for me, please? Wim van Dorst 21:25, 28 August 2005 (UTC).
Ah, hm. It's a very subtle shade of off-white (I hadn't realized how subtle until now); #fffbff instead of #ffffff. Also, it probably won't look different from white if your monitor doesn't display truecolor. Sodium hydroxide uses a somewhat different, more colorful style, which I guess might be better if the current style looks too white. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 22:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
Tables have been coming out distinctly grey for me recently, whereas I would prefer white, but it didn't bother me enough to go searching for the reason. I noticed a TOCColors tag somewhere in the header which I though might have something to do with it. Sodium hydroxide is a non-standard version of the old format (someone's experiment?). Physchim62 09:05, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Yes, class="toccolours" invokes the CSS settings that control the table colors and layout, which is much simpler than specifying individual cell colors. Personally, I think I prefer the table's current appearance. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 09:27, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
OK can someone who knows what they're doing (ie, not me!) change the colour of the background for the image cell to force #ffffff. The background for the rest of the table can be left as it is for the time being. Physchim62 09:47, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Eequor has already changed the article, but the first link points to the ugly version. I will change the template later today. BTW, I think it looks better if all normal cells have the same color (this would be white) than if we have white for the structure or image cell and grey for the rest. Cacycle 11:49, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Real white is fine with me. Yet, as we follow the CoffeeRoll colour scheme, perhaps that off-white was introduced?. And although it is plain, I agree with Cacycle that all cells the same colour is best-looking. Wim van Dorst 20:15, 29 August 2005 (UTC).
I am just a beginner on chemical articles here at wikipedia, but is it really relevant to argue about the background color of chemboxes? HappyApple 02:37, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

subst: must die!

Why in the world does this page recommend to use subst:? Why not make it a full-fledged template and use it as templates were designed to be used? If the full text of the template is copied into each article with subst:, then if someone fixes a typo or tweaks the formatting of the template, it won't do any good! All the articles will have to be changed manually! That's ridiculous. —Keenan Pepper 03:00, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you and if noone objects I would like to fix this problem and make it into a real infobox. David Björklund 20:54, 19 October 2005 (UTC){{
This is more advanced wiki-markup that I don't understand. I would guess that most WPChem participants don't understand. (We're just chemists after all.) Is there a link you can supply to explain the difference between full-flegded templates and subst:-templates? ~K 04:28, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

This is not really the best place to discuss Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits. Suffice it to say that by using subst:, the WikiProject avoids the costs of transclusion, while having a table which is easy to edit for less experienced editors. Please do not change it. Physchim62 12:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the explaination. ~K 14:35, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
If you understood that page, you're doing better than I am! (kidding, but only just ;) Physchim62 14:54, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

For completeness sake, I agree with PC here: the chem infobox is rather larger to make in into flexible templates. It would probably have to be built up out of numerous smaller ones, leading to very complex editing. And considering that we're only talking of several hundred pages with it, I rather prefer to not have it changed. Wim van Dorst 20:13, 20 October 2005 (UTC).

I am all for substituting a table into the article made of parts to be transcluded and it would be cool if David Björklund would sacrifice his precious time to do this. I would say we do not have to care at all about system resources for that - that would be like switching off pictures to save computing power :-S Cacycle 20:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

But what would be the advantage of using transclusion? Physchim62 03:56, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Melting point 110 °C
Something like {{chembox/melting point|110 °C}} in the article would result in:
This format is self-explaining and not more complex than the existing table. By editing just the templates it would be easy to change the table layout or the wikilinks of all existing chemboxes without modyfying hundreds (or soon thousands) of articles. If I remember correctly there were quite some changes made to the chembox during the last year... Cacycle 09:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
On the other hand, the sort of changes that have been made to the chembox over the last year would still have required editing every article as well as changing the templates. We already use transcluded templates for the format of the box: {{chembox header}} and {{chembox disclaimer}} for example, not forgetting {{nfpa}}. You seem to be proposing that we change all the chemboxes yet again for no change in article appearance and no greater simplicity in creating new tables (there would still have to be a template {{chembox}} to contain all these new templates, and the selction of which lines to include remains an editor task). I remain unconvinced. Physchim62 12:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who doesn't know a transclusion from a cisclusion, I have been quiet on this, but can I suggest we try the idea out? I think that I have very slight support of the new idea. The advantage as I see it is that it would be easier to follow- I do agree that the present tables are very awkward to read the code if you're not used to them. I suggest that we don't need to manually change all of our current chemboxes to include the new template style- though it might be a good idea anyway to list the pages that have the present table. Simply use the new style table for all new uses of the table.Walkerma 13:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
The way I see it, the only way these one line templates will be useful would be to include them in the subst:Chembox template. Since the chembox is rather stable now, I don't see any advantages to making this change. We've already done all the hard work, so I think we should leave it alone. ~K 15:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Agree with K and PC: the chembox isn't a changeable thing. We had a development spell, where significant changes where made (which would not have been any easier with an fully transcluded chembox), and now the chembox is pretty fixed. Better let it be hard to change: then no-one in his right mind will easily condider that it must be further 'improved'. Leave the chembox alone. Unless you yourself take it on you to edit all ~300 articles currently using the current version! Wim van Dorst 19:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC).

If anyone really wants to use transclusion, please see Template:Chembox transcluded. Physchim62 11:12, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Very impressive, PC. How would I use it? {{subst:Chembox transcluded}} in the article? Wim van Dorst 14:36, 22 October 2005 (UTC).
    • Exactly, but beware! I have not yet had the chance to test it for real, there may still be some bugs... Physchim62 16:37, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Nah. So you still use subst: to get a complicated table, which you then edit laboriously? There's no win in that. So it's only for changes afterwards? Small win, imho.

The proper implementation for a transcluded chembox would be

 {{chembox Chemname=abc Property1=This Property2=That etc etc}}

and then it is up to wikipedia to make a nice chembox table out of that. But indeed that would need a very complicated programming, I agree to that.

  • I would suggest that it is quite simply impossible to make the chemboxes that way: they are not sufficiently standardised. Not our fault, you understand, I must get on to a passing Supreme Being and ask him/her why chemical compounds have such a range of different properties. Physchim62 17:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
      • To get a good idea of how it works, I made a transcluded chembox table for vinyl chloride (much needed) on my talk page. You can see it needs correction in SMILES, and.... R/S phrases (SIC, how could this happen, PC?). For the rest is it quite ok. Wim van Dorst 17:07, 24 October 2005 (UTC).
    • Yes, there is a problem. There are so many new templates that they don't all work together.... I was forced to use subst to get the R/S templates to display properly on the inorganic chemboxes I did yesterday. I can see where the problem is on the SMILES template, but it's going to be a pain to fix it: it will fail for any compound with a double bond! Physchim62 17:45, 24 October 2005 (UTC)


International use of chembox, no subst please...

Hi :-) I have translated chembox to catalan. it's easy to copy, paste and translate if included in articles without subst, like SiO2. If subst is used, the translation work to be done is much higher... ca:Usuari:Joanjoc 13 January 2006

I'm new here. I love this Chemical infobox idea. I changed some pages over to it today. Just to clarify, to support easy translation of the tables, it is best to use Template:Chembox transcluded ? So, the right/recommended syntax is:
{{Chembox/IUPACName|mychemical}}
{{Chembox/OtherNames|?}}
{{Chembox/Formula|?}}
{{Chembox/SMILES|?}}
{{Chembox/MolarMass|?.??}}
{{Chembox/Appearance|?}}
etc.. etc...

I hope that is the recommended method. It is much easier to edit for new users than the very lengthy table syntax. Cheers, Jeff Carr 08:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Please use Transcluded Infobox syntax

Can this page be changed to recommend the use of Template:Chembox transcluded syntax instead. This has many advantages

  1. Simpler and shorter syntax
  2. Allows easy translation of all tables
  3. Stores values like molar mass as values that could be sorted numerically
  4. Temperatures would only need to be stored in C but could still be displayed as 0 C (32 F)
  5. Allows the wikipedians of individual chemical pages to easily pick and choose which sections are applicable/sensable
  6. Would allow other requested sections to be added to the template (Optical property, NMR spectra)

Jeff Carr 09:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The challenge using transclusions poses to the chemical articles is that there are enough variations on which properties or groups of properties are most appropriate to a given compound, that a single template doesn't fill the need. Rather, substitution has been used to provide the basic framework, which can be edited to fit any given compound's peculiarities. If some of the functionality discussed at meta:Extended_template_syntax were to be implemented, this situation would be changed. But as it is, chemical articles have enough variety of needs that I don't perceive templates with their present powers as fitting the bill. Shimmin 14:25, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The Extended template syntax is interesting. I think I understand what you want. The standard wiki table syntax allows you to define your own rows and sections. The transcluded version does not. I added questions to the transcluded talk page about that same problem. If I understand the way templates work, you can change the main template page, and it will change for future people that past it into a new page. Kind of interesting cut and paste idea, but the transcluded concept is far superior. I can't yet find how one edits a transcluded template. Maybe it's admin's only or is something done via cvs? Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Indeed you are fully right, Shimmin! I agree with you completely. In the archives, one can find plenty of discussion of the pros and cons of transclusion, including the conclusion that it won't work for the {{chembox}}. Wim van Dorst 20:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC).
I did post the above note after reading the archives because it seemed inconclusive and contradictary at times. It also intermingled with the advent of the transcluded option. I may have groked things wrong so this was an attempt to clarify things. Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
We do make both options available, however, and personally I have begun to use the transcluded version - I just pick the variables that are appropriate for that type of compound. Our current transcluded version does allow flexibility since every variable has a separate template. I think we should post information on using BOTH options on this page. I'd prefer someone more knowledgable on this to explain how to use them properly (PC, how wrote the transcluded version, perhaps?). Walkerma 20:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps User:Physchim62 can explain how to make and how to modify trancluded infobox's. Jeff Carr 16:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Last time I looked into actual use of the transcluded chembox, there were some significant deviations from working well. Have they been solved? PC? Wim van Dorst 21:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC).
Take a look at alpha-Pinene, my last effort. I think there were one or two variables with problems, but mostly it's OK. It won't accept pipes, though, e.g. for solubility in ether. Walkerma 23:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh! What? Someone called? ;) Wim is quite correct, the transcluded version still doesn't work properly, notably for the safety section; in fact, it is not a fully transcluded version and most of the benefits that Jeff Carr claims are not there for the moment. The (semi)-transcluded version does have the advantage of a shorter length of code in the article, and it is just as flexible as the traditional version. This last point is very important given the wide variety of "interesting data" which may or may not be appropriate for different compounds. We're a long way from the {{taxobox}}, and I have a feeling things will stay that way: chemical compounds are just more complicated than living organisms ;) Physchim62 (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The French are currently working on a transcluded chembox here: I'll see if I can get some ideas from them. Physchim62 (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Transclusion could work if we took an even more radical stance against table creep. If the standard chemboxes included only a few, generally relevant fields, and all other data were relegated to the data page, the trouble of every compound being exceptional in some way would go away. Shimmin 03:01, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Can I add "Optical property" in this table?

Optical property
Refractive index  ? for 589.2 nm (nD)
 ? for 486.1 nm (nF)
 ? for 656.3 nm (nC)
V-number ?

Physchim62 deleted these. So I want to know why I cannot add these.. by Weihao.chiu 15:00, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I think these are secondary chemical properties, and belong on the supplemental data page. ~K 16:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with K and Physchim62. We at WP:Chem actually debated refractive index both here and on my talk page when we set up the page, and we decided to put it on the supplement page. Join WP:Chem and convince us otherwise if you wish! There are hundreds of data we could put in, but we can't fit them all on the main page. Walkerma 17:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
In particular, these are properties which are not important (or even known) for many compounds: that's why I didn't think they should go into the template which is downloaded every time someone wants to insert a table. If you wanted to add a refractive index to a table in an article about an organic liquid, I wouldn't have a problem with it (although don't go too far, the tables are already quite long): add a line in the "Properties" section. Physchim62 (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Okay~~I will not add these in this table. However these properties are just not important for you but they are important for me. I can understand this, because I am not a chemist. This is jut like that I don't care the Molecular shape, Crystal structure,etc. But I will still add these properties in the individual compound page that is important for me. by Weihao.chiu 07:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Please can you make sure you add these to the supplement page if at all possible, rather than the main page? I disagree with PC on this, I'm concerned about "table creep" For example, I would love to add NMR spectra for all organics to the table, but I got overruled by others! If there isn't a supplement page as yet, click on the link to it and enter your table on there, as described here. We have a rough template for the supplement page, but we haven't had a formal vote on it yet, just make sure that optical properties are there. We will be sure to include your comments when we formalise the supplement. I have added Abbe number into the "structure and properties" table right below refractive index. Thanks, Walkerma 14:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Martin here: let's prevent table creep. Wim van Dorst 21:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC).

External links in tables

I am busy reverting another well meant example of table creep: External links do not work well in tables (they get expanded by some explorers when the table is printed), and to place them there is contrary to the MoS. They should go in the External links section at the bottom of the article. Physchim62 (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

The example in question is {{PubChemRow}}, of which I am the instigator. Please note that one reason I developed it was precisely to avoid table creep — some of the detail available on PubChem (an authoritative, public resource) can be omitted in the infobox (e.g. perhaps the SMILES, which can be very long). Unfortunately, I was not aware of the IE issue, and was wondering if there is a way around it. (TinyURL does not help.) In the meantime, feel free to use {{PubChemLink}} (created by Physchim62). Peak 17:21, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
PubChem is public, but it is not authoritative. I hoped to use their InChIs in my Compendium of Pesticide Common Names, but I found so many wrong names and structures that I had to generate my own InChIs using ChemSketch. Alan Wood 17:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

InChi

Should InChi's be added to the Chembox underneath SMILES? It would make google searching an InChi pull up the wiki page which would be usefull.

For details about InChi see http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/inchifaq/ (the InChi FAQ)

I would give this a cautious welcome, although I know that other editors are concerned about keeping table length down to a reasonable size. Physchim62 (talk) 18:02, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
As one of those "other editors" I would give it a cautious welcome too; I think if this does turn out to be official IUPAC policy then we need to take it seriously, and it would only add one line. I think as an online resource, our users are sitting at a computer - the place where an InChI is most useful. One major problem; When someone like myself writes a table like for alpha-Pinene (done last night) I want to be able to fill out the table completely in one go, using the Aldrich book, the Merck, the CRC and perhaps a couple of other books. As far as I know, none of these lists the InChI at present. With SMILES (which I never personally use) I can ask ChemDraw to do the conversion for me. This InChI generator looks way too difficult for a simpleton like me, and bear in mind that many of our editors do not even have access to ChemDraw. A few pages like ethene already have the InChI listed, but I don't want to see 1000 tables where 990 of them have ? as the entry. Could we make it an optional feature? Walkerma 21:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
If Martin is merely one of 'the other editors' I must consider myself on the far side of the other editors: I'm dead against table creep. And the only way I could agree with InChi in the table is by systematically having it replace the SMILES, which serves exactly the same purpose. Personally I don't use either, and before the WP:Chem I hadn't even heard of either. So not a longer table. Wim van Dorst 22:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC).

Template:Chembox new

Chemical infobox/archive01
Except where noted otherwise, data are given for
materials in their standard state
(at 25 °C, 100 kPa)
Infobox disclaimer and references

Thanks to all who have worked on transcludable versions of the chembox: I am pleased to announce the arrival of {{chembox new}}, which is a fully transcludable version with all parameters optional. This means that the default version is as right! I have included all parameters used in chemboxes, and also some found in {{drugbox}} and {{explosivebox}}, in order to ensure the compatibility with existing versions. The same template can be used for both "simple" and "full" chemboxes. The appearance of the chembox is unchanged from the current versions. See {{chembox subst}} for a list of parameters. Enjoy! Physchim62 (talk) 07:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Potassium hydrogen phthalate

Anyone know what's wrong with this article? --M1ss1ontomars2k4 05:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Now fixed. The box expands to the width of the widest entry - in this case the many alternative names widened it a lot. If you insert those br tags (see the changes I made) you can get it to a good width. Also, I noticed that the external link was written like an internal link - for ext links you only use one square bracket, not two, and you use a space instead of a | between the URL and the text part. Thanks for alerting us. Walkerma 05:28, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

MSDS

The MSDS link in the template is written like an internal link with double cornered brackets. Why is that? Do you expect people to copy the MDSD to the wikipedia possibly infringing on copyrights? May this should be changed to external link. I just used the chembox from HCl. Jasu 11:58, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

You'll notice that if you click on the redlink, it asks you to create a supplementary data page called {{PAGENAME}} (data page). When creating chemboxes, you should also create the associated data page as a home for MSDS links, thermodynamic data, spectral information, etc. Please add in as much of those data as you can! Hydrochloric acid was a featured article before the supplement was created, so it's not quite standard. An article like toluene and Toluene (data page) show how it's to be done. Walkerma 16:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

NFPA Fire Diamond

There's a problem with one of the struck Ws in this section, but I don't know enough about the language to fix it. ejstheman 04:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

When should they be used?

When should chemboxes be used? This article says it should be used with all chemical articles, but does that include alloys? I am aware of the drugbox and the explosivebox and the elementbox, but what about alloys and dyes? What if I come across drugs article with no box at all? what about ones where the line of distinction is blurred (eg. ascorbic acid). Is it ok to replace old style chemboxes? mastodon 14:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

  • The article is correct: all. But you have of course found that there is no fine line between 'chemical' and 'non-chemical' articles. When the article is about a subject only marginally about a chemical substance, then it will certainly be difficult to find the chemical (and physical) data to fill the chembox table with. Generally alloys would be out of scope of the chembox, but it may well be that a specific alloy (e.g., stainless steel 317) is of a fixed composition for which these data can well be found. If there's a certain group of chemical compounds (e.g. alloys) with specific data (e.g., shine, tensile strength, etc), perhaps it would be worthwhile to make a wikiproject of your own, with an own alloybox? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 15:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC). PS. Yes, it is highly recommended to update old chembox. Have a look at the worklist of Chemicals wikiproject if you feel like stepping in.

Ethylene glycol

Can someone fix the box in Ethylene glycol? — Omegatron 03:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Chembox new

It is recomended that the template Template:Chembox new is used.

I propose a move of Template:Chembox to Template:Chembox old, and a move of Template:Chembox new to Template:Chembox. Any objections? This would make it much easier for beginners to find and start using the chemboxes. Zephyris 15:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Strong object. This format of the chemical infobox, as used in the wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals, has been extensively discussed and formalized. See above paragraphs for my and others' arguments to not change the format. I agree, though, that transcluded version has good arguments too. Please do not declare this fixed chembox template out of date or otherwise as 'recommended' to be replaced by something else unless after sufficient discussion on the wikiproject talk page. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC).
    • Object. The chembox new template titles itself after the article. This is broken. Sometimes you want a chembox that is titled differently. Steviol glycoside for example, needs a chembox only for steviol, but chembox new won't call it that. -Amatulic 18:41, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Subst

Hi all, I saw that User:BetacommandBot started subst-ing the template last night, I have reverted the edits, and blocked the template from substing by betacommanderbot. I am sorry, but I like it in a non-subst way, since it is more easy to see what is there, and it is a lot less code on the page. Any comments? --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:42, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I fully agree with you, but I haven't read the arguments that the bot has for subst'ing templates. Having an uncluttered page to edit is my preference too, hence my support for staying with the fixed chembox with the fixed wikitable instead of transclusion. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC).

Replacement

I am trying dry runs in which I try to replace old 'chemical boxes' with the 'chembox new' (see User:Beetstra/Chemical; don't worry, I won't press save until controversy over this new chemobx is over, and if I do, either this rule will be turned of, or I will revert). But I encounter many problems. I will list problems here:

  1. Drugbox ({{drugbox}}) contains sometimes more than one image, how to implement? (drugbox var 'image2') Dirk Beetstra T C 10:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  2. Drugbox contains much more info than I can use in chembox new, anyway Dirk Beetstra T C 10:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
  3. Would it be possible to provide the image size? Dirk Beetstra T C 11:27, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Could someone look into this? --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:30, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

  1. Combined images are considered a Nice Thing (tm): see benzene and the talk archives for examples
  2. If the chemical compound is more important as a drug than as a standard chemical compound, the drugbox takes precedence over the chembox. Choose which is the subject of the article, and then use THAT infobox.
  3. I gladly leave that to others.
Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC).
Why do I now get the feeling, that {{chembox new}} is not accepted, while it is already used on pages. {{Chembox new}} incorporates the {{drugbox}}. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:45, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

See section 1 and section 13 above how the discussion stood. Indeed some articles have been provided with a new chembox, but these were merely try-outs by PC while developing the transcluded version, and some new people in the WP:Chem project not aware of this point. IIRC, there were several important issues:

  1. some technicalities on fields with links, now perhaps solved??
  2. prevention of table creep

IMHO, there has been no further discussion on the chembox, hence the decision of the Chemicals wikiprojects still stands at the fixed wikitable. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:05, 27 August 2006 (UTC).

I thought that I had left things at a state where {{chembox new}} was equivalent to {{chembox}}: never mind! Image size can be changed using the optional parameter ImageSize, which defaults to 200px width. Combined images are a nightmare to code for, the only option I can provide on {{chembox new}} is to ask users to combine the images into a single file. I deliberately created fields for all data which was used on current infoboxes, ie {{drugbox}} and {{explosivebox}}, so that conversion could go ahead without loss of data (even though this might lead to table creep in some isolated cases): on the other hand, if the drugbox has developed since I wrote the code.... please provide examples of the fields which you would like to include but can't. I am currently testing a fix for fields which include URLs, but these still cause problems in a few circumstances (notably printing from IE). The general quetion of table creep is not for me to answer! Physchim62 (talk) 10:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Oops, forgot to answer this, thanks for the 'reminder' on my talk-page, PC.
I was programming AWB-box-replacement on a drugbox-page, moving it into a chembox, I seem to be able to do that all automatically. But I indeed encountered quite some variables that did not fit, and then I saw Wim's remark above, so I decided to remove the box-conversion. For a list of things that are not programmed into the {{chembox new}}, see {{drugbox}} (full template). Maybe the drugbox-template should be copy-pasted into the chembox-new? And could you then give a full list (including the optional parameters, like given on {{drugbox}})?
By the way, I would be in favour of moving all the boxes on chemical pages into the chembox-new, sorting variables into the subboxes where needed (so a page which originally had a drugbox, the template chembox-new would now have a header drugbox in it). How do you chembox-loving Wikipedians think about that! --Dirk Beetstra T C 21:02, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I have copied Aspirin to User:Beetstra/aspirin, and run my AWB script with box-replacement on it over it:
  1. before
  2. after
  3. diff
This is a fully automatic run, I don't do anything afterwards (in this case, to show what I do, normally I might change some things). What happens now is that the drugbox gets depopulated in favour of the new chembox, things that do not fit into the chembox, stay in the old box, which is then a second box on the page. If I am sure everything gets depopulated out of a box, I would dare to remove the second, empty box.
There is still a lot of tweaking to be done (on this specific page I see now that I leave a lot of empty lines, and I should do something about the image size in the new chembox. I should be able to capture that as well).
I will not run the box-replacement in the real .. I am waiting for comments for now (maybe I should give Martin Walker a hand before I do more tweaking on this script). --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:34, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I think start-chembox new-end

</body></html> seems much easier to enter data into, but I'm a bit puzzled by the multiply duplicated fields. Can someone enlighten all of us here, how to use it? --Rifleman 82 00:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

subst (encore)

Not sure exactly what substs the bot was making in the above discussion, so I'll just ask straight-out: are we preferring to subst:chembox or just template:chembox unsubstituted? To fix a spacing inconsistency/style issue, I found three different templates all explicitly contained the same footer, and now I see that lots of pages have been subst'ed so the fix will have to be done manually in each page. DMacks 20:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

That is my mistake, the subst were on {{chembox new}}, which, IMHO, is better unsubstituted. So I went to the talk-page of chembox new, not noticing I ended up here. So the discussion was about chembox new. The {{chembox}} needs to be substituted, it is not built in the way chembox new is. What I am trying to program, is a AWB-script that moves all possible chemboxes into the chembox new, but for that the chembox new has to be finished. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Width of chemical infobox

I realize that the chemical infobox usually expands to the width of the longest line. Can we set a default width of perhaps 300 or 350 px in the template to be substituted such that long lines will wrap automatically? This is more aesthetically pleasing than the use of manual line breaks which result in poorly aligned lines. --Rifleman 82 19:15, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  • although a nice idea, I don't believe you can do that: wrapping doesn't occur (or is highly browser dependant) and the box simply as wide as the longest line. The size that you give is the minimum width, not the maximum width. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:24, 3 November 2006 (UTC).
    • Take a look at benzophenone. I've found that by setting "width=250" in the first line defining the table, I am able to get the "Other solvents" line to wrap:

{| class="toccolours" border="1" width="300" style="float: right; clear: right; margin: 0 0 1em 1em; border-collapse: collapse;"

I've tested this on Firefox and IE on Windows XP and they both work fine. Would you like to test it out on your system? --Rifleman 82 22:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Good example: the table is as wide as the smiles entry. And the wrapping is within that limit. Note that setting to 150 doesn't have any effect. I don't think implementing will be effective, but as it won't change the table, feel free to give it a try. Do choose a small value, to prevent the browser from making the table too wide. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 23:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC).
    • Done. I've set it as 300px which should be adequate for most stuff. Many SMILES even with small are longer than that, but this might reduce the number of line breaks needed! --Rifleman 82 23:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Check out User:Rifleman_82/Benzophenone. I believe the table width setting defines the maximum possible width, and will wrap text to fit. HOWEVER, if there is a line which exceeds the table width, this length of line will take precedence. That being the case, I'm setting the table width for the template as 200, the same as the default width of the image. --Rifleman 82 00:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
        • 250px is a set width which is widely used for other infoboxes I deal with (I had forgotten than the chembox didn't have one). It is also possible to set widths for individual columns, although wider text without spaces will override the specification. I suggest the application of the principle that "Chemistry is an experimental science".... Physchim62 (talk) 09:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Molecular formula

Using "molecular formula" as an entry for non-molecular solids such as sodium chloride and silicon dioxide is not strictly correct. An option would be to use a different term such as "empirical formula" when necessary, but I think it would be easier to use a more generic term in all cases, such as "formula" or "chemical formula". Itub 16:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

  • I could accept a change to Chemical formula, if a serious group of supporters can be found. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

Added SMILES substructure search in eMolecules and PubChem

I have added a SMILES based substructure search for eMolecules and PubChem.

Please comment on possible improvements. Things I considered

  • How to improve visualization for SMILES? Smaller font, truncating it?
  • Instead of search in should just use images for eMolecules and PubChem?

JKW 14:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I reacted to this on template talk:drugbox; it may break! --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
o.k., I will also answer at template talk:drugbox JKW 14:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Image size

I'm unable to set the image size to anything other than the default 200px. For example, I noticed that acetamide, which uses {{chembox new}}, has a picture that seems too big to me, so I'd like to shrink it. There is a line in acetamide's chembox that says " ImageFileSize=100|" but it still displays at 200px. The instructions for this template indicates that "ImageFileSize" should be used instead, but when I tried that with various values it still seemed to stay at 200px. Probably I'm just doing something wrong, but perhaps there an error in the template. Can someone please demonstrate to me how to set the image size to something other than the default? Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 14:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The template listens to '100px', not to '100' .. should this be changed (I repaired acetamide)? --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:49, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. That was obvious enough that I should have figured it out. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Subdiscussion - chembox new

The {{chembox new}} has gone through a big revision these last days, I have been trying to get it into a more consistent format, sorting fields, adding fields (see the 'what links here' on chembox new to see some example pages, in the latest format is oligomycin. It is still fully compatible with the old version, since some documents already use the chembox new (migration to the new format might be a good plan ..). I will continue to work on it in the coming time.

To use the new chembox, either do a subst on {{chembox subst}} (i.e. {{subst:chembox subst}}, save, and edit the page to enter data), or copy the left column from the table at {{chembox new}} (bottom of that page). There is no need to subst chembox new, better not, since when layout changes on chembox new are performed, all templates transcluding chembox new will have the format changes visible (colours, field order, whatever).

One of the major things that has already been done is that the output of chembox new is now clean, it only shows fields which are supplied, and it only shows the sub-boxes when there is data in that subbox available. The subboxes are now rather esoteric, and I still want to play with some of the functions. They contain some automagic: one example, if "pagename (data page)" exists, the chembox new will now automagically pop up a subbox with some links into that datapage). If something does not work properly, poke me, and I will either help you adapt it (so I am not the only one who can break things .. err .. so others can help me repair things), or try to adapt it for you. Or when you think you can use your magic wand to build in more automagic, please help me (one thing I do not know, is there a check possible if "pagename.svg" exists, and if it exists, then automagically shows that picture as the main picture? Of course images can be supplied by hand, I could also use some help with that .. hmm .. I suddenly have an idea .. I'll keep you posted on that somewhere else).

As said, chembox new consists of subboxes, which are sorted a bit by function, pertaining the above colour-discussion, would it be nice to have the subboxes coloured? Personally I think that would be a bit overdone.

Now I have two questions. First, are there fields missing? If so, then please poke me, and I will make an addition. First, there are fields missing, could you supply me with fields that should be here, from whatever field of chemboxes, or even, help add them to the chembox new? And second, would it be an idea to (slowly) migrate to this chembox, instead of the existing chembox? Thanks! --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:58, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Relating my earlier idea. Chemical compounds with the chembox that do not have the ImageFile set (hence, do not show an image) are now automagically categorised in Category:Chemical pages needing a structure drawing. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the improvements to the template. I've been holding off on using it because of issues that you seem to have fixed now. Well done! To answer you question about color, I have a strong preference for maintaining a single color throughout the box. --Ed (Edgar181) 15:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
One more comment - many chemical articles have both 2D and 3D images. An improvement I would like to see is the ability to handle two images, just as {{drugbox}} can. I expect that wouldn't be difficult to enable, correct? --Ed (Edgar181) 15:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Consider it done :-) --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

should be more like drugbox

the chembox is hard to use and is not as attractive as the drugbox, where drugs have chemboxes i replace them with drugboxes if possible, now i must fix psilocybin.The Right Honourable 02:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at {{chembox new}}, it is more like drugbox. --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:33, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Would it be possible to get the pleasent colour scheme of the drugboxThe Right Honourable 03:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be possible (though quite a bit of work since certain parts of the chembox do not support colouring, yet). But I think we then have to discuss what colour scheme we are going to use. For that we first have to agree if we really want one single box for all chemical compounds throughout the wikipedia, or that we keep a bit of a difference between certain fields (taking the occasional 'is this a drug, or is this just a chemical compound, or an explosive, or all ..' for granted). Another option would be to make the chembox change colour upon the value of a certain field, but I don't know if I am able to do that with the current setup. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
There could possibly be added formatting variables that could be passed to each Chembox_entry, although as you said this would be quite time consuming to get up and running. A separate formatting for the name and value of each entry could be passed with a default value if nothing is passed. Also, i started playing around with the aesthetic of the Chembox_new over at my sandbox. A drugbox-like look might be more aesthetically pleasing, but we'd have to implement style options for the entries to make it more readable. (Ccroberts( t · c · g ) 19:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC))

I prefer the look of chembox new to drugbox. What's so attractive about drugbox?

Ben 15:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Request

I'd like to request an additional field for chembox new. When I get the majority of data that I use to fill a chemical infobox from a single source, I like to put a reference at the top of the box. See o-Phenylenediamine for an example. Can a simple field for adding a ref at the top like this be added? Thanks. --Ed (Edgar181) 16:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that was easy, but Cite.php does not work inside a template. Any other place where I can add that? Maybe a plain line in the footer? (stating 'source' or something like that?) --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Kind of solved. Not the nicest way .. it's not clear where you go to with that external link .. but o-Phenylenediamine has now that functionality .. the parameter is 'Reference', to be added in the header of {{chembox new}}. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't think I'm happy with the way it turned out (not your fault, of course.) I'm copying this conversation over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals so others can give input. --Ed (Edgar181) 17:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Now properly fixed, see the Reference parameter of {{chembox new}} --Dirk Beetstra T C 23:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Template fields

I'd like to get some thoughts about which fields we should use with the template. So far, I've been using nine (ImageFile, OtherNames, Formula, PubChem, MolarMass, CASNo, Density, MeltingPt, BoilingPt), while User:Beetstra is recommending using the 47 fields listed at Template:Chembox_new#Small_form. The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, so I'd like to hear what people think. (To avoid confusion -- we're not talking about which fields should be displayed -- I think we're in agreement that the template will only display fields which are populated. Rather, we're talking about which fields should be cut-and-pasted at the top of the page in new uses of the template.) --Arcadian 01:36, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Although I think the basis is there now, I would like to say that there still may be fields added, but that can also come from this discussion. For now, what I have planned is 'elements fields', E.g. C = 2 | H = 6 | O = 1, which gives as output "C2H6O" (hereby overriding the Formula field, but these are certainly not going to be standard fields). For what I would say should be there: as said ImageFile, OtherNames, Formula, PubChem, MolarMass, CASNo, Density, MeltingPt, BoilingPt, and as addition IUPACName, SMILES (search capability!), quite some fields form the hazards form (R, S sentences, mainhazards, HFPA, Flashpoint, Autoignition point), and a handful of the properties (Appearance, solubility). The optimum has to be somewhere, that the fields are general enough to be available for all chemicals (you can leave them empty when you don't have them, but we need to be sure we can expect them to be available), when omitting too common fields, people will have to either search for the parameter name and its position, or to guess. That may on its turn result in people having the data available, but not filling it in. Just as a sidenote, the old chembox just substed the whole box, and this often resulted in half-filled boxes and a lot of unintelligble code, this list is much better in that respect, but we don't want to add too much in the standard list.
By the way, removing them from these lists simply means that in the standard cut-and-paste to start a {{chembox new}} these fields are not displayed, the chembox will still support them (chembox supports way more than is shown in these lists anyway). Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 02:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
It is hard to give a single answer to the question. Before {{chembox new}} we had {{chembox simple inorganic}} and {{chembox simple organic}} for this kind of situation, but in general I would say add whichever fields you think are the most important for the compound in question. Physchim62 (talk) 02:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I think we're making progress here. I've created a new version of Template:Chembox_new#Small_form (copying the old one to Template:Chembox_new#Medium_form), incorporating Beetstra's comments above, to the best of my understanding. It currently has 17 fields, which seems like a reasonable number. Feel free to change as needed. --Arcadian 03:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
If you're happy, I'm happy—I know the chembox too well to effectively go about simplifying it! Physchim62 (talk) 04:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I have refactored the system, there is no problem in using this anyway while we are discussing whether other fields should be in the smallest form or should not be there. I also created the appropriate subst templates. Arcadian, just a note, the chembox new is divided into sections, the main chembox only recognises a couple of fields, the rest is handled by the sections (and will only work in the appropriate section), the main template will simply ignore them if they are not in the proper section.
For us, indeed, we can add as many fields as possible in a document. Wat worries me is the occasional new editor that has an acid, and who wants to add the pKa to the chembox .. that editor would not know where. Now I understand that we cannot put the complete, full list in the document, that would really be too long, I guess we are talking over 100 fields now, but for the things that are really common I would suggest to put them in the standard list. Any thoughts? --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
If I had to pick a rule of thumb, I'd say that it would be useful for the end of the infobox to be visible in most cases when the user edits a page, which would limit it to 26 lines. The more we include in the standard list, the harder it will be to get people to adopt the template. But I don't think that adding a couple more fields, like pKa, would be a problem. --Arcadian 15:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
pKa was just an example. I think 26 is good, that would give about 20 fields in the standard box. But I already like the small as it is now. What about making small being transcluded with {{chembox subst}}, and the two other variants with {{chembox subst full}} and {{chembox subst medium}}? --Dirk Beetstra T C 15:39, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Why do we need different names for them? They all tie to the same template. --Arcadian 16:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
No, these are the subst-templates, not the actual template. The subst-templates give the same effect as 'browsing to {{chembox new}}, copying the required set of data, and pasting it into the document you want'. They just give an empty chembox new. You type {{subst:chembox subst}}, press save, and press edit, and the empty chembox is there, for you to fill in, no browsing required. --Dirk Beetstra T C 16:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Now I understand the miscommunication -- I didn't realize you still wanted to use "subst" with this template. In my opinion, transcluded templates like Template:Drugbox are much easier to use and maintain. If that's what you really want, I won't stand in your way of your efforts, but in that case, I think I'm going to stick with Template:NatOrganicBox for the new infoboxes I add myself. --Arcadian 17:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Ow, we really miscommunicate, I am not talking about transcluding {{chembox new}}, that is impossible, useless, and unintelligeble. Just try and type {{subst:chembox subst}}, save, and edit, and see the effect. I apparently cannot transclude my thinking here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 17:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps part of the problem is that the word 'transclusion' can mean different things in different contexts. Under what circumstances, if any, are you recommending "subst" be used? In the past, the instructions for this infobox explicitly required it, which is one reason I was so reluctant to use it. Let's try this -- if you don't mind, edit a page so that the new template is being used in exactly the way you envision, and include a link here so we can see how it looks, both while editing and while displayed. (Or, if a page already exists like that, provide a link.) And to other people monitoring this thread -- your comments would be both welcome and helpful. --Arcadian 19:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
What I would like you to try is exactly what I typed above, edit a document, and type {{subst:chembox subst}} in there (without the nowiki that is around it in the edit-version of this document). Just try and substitute a {{chembox subst}}, and see what the result is. You can do that e.g. in User:Arcadian/Sandbox, no harm can be done, there. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:51, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I think we're back on the same page, and sorry if I misinterpreted you. --Arcadian 20:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(undent)No worries. The 'chembox subst' templates are just a trick to get an empty chembox new, without having to find the original first. Call it a shortcut. --Dirk Beetstra T C 20:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

IUPAC versus Systematic

There are some compounds for which the systematic name is not the recommended IUPAC name. Chloroacetic acid for example. Although its IUPAC name is chloroacetic acid - using the systematic method would give this compound the name Chloroethanoic acid. This presents a problem with this template - in that the field IUPACName in the code, results in a box titled Systematic name. Should this be changed or is this template not appropriate for use with such compounds. The specifc problem I am having is with Dichloroacetic acid. --Conrad.Irwin 22:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm .. that should probably be changed. I will have a look at {{chembox new}}, see if I can come up with something. I'll get back to this here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I changed it in the {{chembox new}}, but I see now that chloroacetic acid has a normal chembox, you can change and add the fields there as you want. Thanks for the note, though! --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Autofill available

Howdy folks! At Arcadian's request, there's now a {{chembox new}} template filler over at http://diberri.dyndns.org/wikipedia/templates/?type=pubchemid. It fills in a few chembox fields given a PubChem ID. Comments welcome. --David Iberri (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hazard Symbols

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but it would be very helpful to have the European hazard signs in the infobox as well. I know that this would useful and as a British chemistry student it would mean a lot more than the American system (which no one uses over here). I know that some of the other language versions of Wikipedia use it and I know that Americans need to have their system present too so I suggest having both. Is that not logical or have I missed something? 87.194.118.241 20:41, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Might well be interesting. You've got a wikilink to it? Wim van Dorst (Talk) 19:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC).
    • I know that the Germans use the EU symbols in their version of the chembox, for example here; Polish and Dutch as well. It is quite difficult to code for, and would obviously increase the length of the box. I decided to give up on the idea when the NFPA triangle came in, although many of our articles do have the relevant information: e.g. here, which contains more complete information than the German article if you know how to decode it... Physchim62 (talk) 13:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Placement and use of infoboxes

There is a discussion taking place on the placement and use of infoboxes: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Image_V_InfoBox SilkTork 06:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the problem: all chemboxes are meant to be used with a top-image, which keep us with MoS guidelines. We don't always have a top image available, but that is a problem which would be present regardless of the placing of the infobox. Physchim62 (talk) 10:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. And if you look at the Wikipedia content in other languages, those communities seem to have come to the same consensus independently. --Arcadian 13:09, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

In my humble idea, the chemboxes are well designed, balanced and contribute significantly to the article. There's no problem with chembox as I see it. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 17:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC).

Disclaimer

I thought we weren't supposed to have any disclaimers other than those in the official disclaimer link at the bottom of each page. ←BenB4 07:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Bond type

Should the bonding type for each chemical be included in the infobox? I noticed that this is missing from most pages and believe it is relevant to the chemical pages. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 03:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Why no Decomposition Point?

Just wondering why there's no field for "Decomposition Point" in whatever Chembox we're loving this week. In most articles where a decomposition point is specified, it's at best tacked onto the Boiling Point line, i.e. Boiling Point: 64 °C (decomposes at 90 °C). At worst, it's mentioned somewhere in the article. I feel that the decomposition point is just as important to know as the melting/boiling points. I base this on the fact that of the three points, decomposition is usually the most likely point where unexpected, potentially dangerous or fatal reactions can occur. Dedicating one extra table row to provide such important safety information is well worth the space. Even better, listing the products and/or effects of decomposition after the decomp. point would also be a very helpful and educational reference. But at minimum, the decomp. point needs to be there. It certainly is way more useful to the average reader the more technical fields, like Spectral Data / Thermodynamic Data. Comments? Flames? 97.82.247.200 22:06, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

  • There isn't a full field for it because it is only applicable for some chemical compounds. But is it explicitly mentioned in the boiling point field (as commented-out remark) in the chembox template. Practically that has sufficed. And surely please add the info when available (or when you read it in the article, and it hasn't been listed in the chembox yet. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 20:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC).

A request

A couple of requests from someone working on the Dead End Pages project.

I recently ran across one of these pages, and not having seen it before, assumed it was an error until another editor clued me in. I'm sure this has happened before and will happen again. It would be majorly helpful if there was a comment at the top of the data page explaining that this is a valid page. If the comment were part of the template, people would even remember to use it. :)

Another issue we're running up against is that all the internal links (at least in this page) are in the form of templates. Unfortunately, that makes the page show up in each regeneration of the DEP list. Any easy way to get just a plain old internal link in the infobox so we don't have to manually deal with each instance of a data page? It would help us out loads.

Thanks!--Fabrictramp 14:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Assuming that your writing about data pages for chemical compounds, the semi-official recommendation is that one of the first lines should be a wikilink back to the original page, e.g., as in this page. Unfortunately, due to limited number of chemical editors, not all data pages are up to spec yet. I corrected the teflon page you referred to with minor work.
  • The data page isn't produced from a template, just from collections of table templates by a chemical editor. So there isn't the one template to change. What we can do is make a more explicit recommendation in the WP:Chem pages about datapages that at least a wikilink back to the chemical compound in question should be the minimum.
  • Hope this helps. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 21:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC).
Yes, it does. Thanks!--Fabrictramp 21:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

LD50

Should LD50 be added to the template? It is a piece of information that is available for thousands compounds (for example in the Merck Index) and that could be of interest. It is certainly more informative than the vague "is toxic" comments that abound in chemicals pages. --Itub 09:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Please give it a try in the {{chembox new}}; Hazards section (line display is in {{Chembox LD50}}). --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I just added it to potassium cyanide. I also changed the format of the link slightly. --Itub 09:46, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I added an example section to {{chembox new}} which should explain how to add (simple) fields to one of the sub-boxes. Hope this helps. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Chembox new not working properly

There's something wrong with the template "Chembox new"; it doesn't give an infobox in the articles but just plain text with pictures and headlines! 82.128.235.222 11:53, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. It has been solved now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 13:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

standard pressure

The bottom of the infobox states, that the information given in the infobox is at 25oC and 100 kPa, but isn't standard pressure supposed to be 101.325 kPa ? I was just wondering, if this is a mistake, or if the standard information is really stated for 100 kPa? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.162.185.210 (talk) 21:51, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

re EINECS - depreciated

As EINECS article indicates this was only used 1 January 1971 to 18 September 1981, superceeded by ELINCS and then EC-Number, so at very least, link should be to EC-No ? David Ruben Talk 02:49, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I have introduced the parameter 'EC-number', is now also the standard in the subst templates. Please give it a try (see {{chembox EC-number}} for tweaking of the links; I don't know if the external link is working correctly). --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Chembox -> chembox new

I have changed the contents of chembox so that it now can be used as a template to create an empty {{chembox new}} in a document. Just type {{subst:chembox}} in the beginning of a document, and save the document. --Dirk Beetstra T C 10:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Chembox new is broken again

I took a look at a couple of pages that use it, like Ammonium chloride, and they all just say "Template:Chembox new" (linking here) instead of showing the box. Looks like somebody broke something again. -- HiEv 12:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... On further review, I note that a "fact" tag in the Ammonium chloride article just says "Template:Fact", so it looks like all templates might be broken for the moment. Neat.  :-P -- HiEv 12:24, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
This appears to be a more general bug in the caching process. I am investigating. Physchim62 (talk) 12:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I just noticed the same thing—no templates are showing up on pages transcluding {{chembox new}}. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 14:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Strange transclusion problem. {{chembox new}} does depend on {{chembox}} in a strange way .. I expected it was completely independent. Problem is 'solved' for now. --Dirk Beetstra T C 14:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem is definitely more complicated that was thought at first. We seem to have created a template loop somewhere, but we haven't yet found it (as of time of posting). Physchim62 (talk) 16:55, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem appears to have been solved for the moment. I have found one or two possible sources for the template looping and closed them, although none of these should really have caused the collapse that we saw today. I still think that there is a chaching problem somewhare in the system, and I invite all concerned to keep an eye on the template and on this page to report any further problems. Physchim62 (talk) 17:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Still broken

Someone replaced the old chembox on steviol glycoside with "chembox new" and this causes the chemical in the chembox to be named after the article title, not what's actually in the chembox. I am reverting back to the old version until this new chembox can be fixed to specify a different title. -Amatulic 18:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: never mind - if you specify "Name=" in the chembox, you can change the title.
PLEASE, folks, when you replace chemboxes in articles, pay attention to the title in the original chembox! It may be different from the article title! -Amatulic 18:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)