Template talk:Dablink

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Template:Dablink is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template.

Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases.
Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.

[edit] Nominated for deletion

This template has been proposed for deletion. See templates for deletion to help reach a consensus on what to do.

Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 05:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Conclusion was to keep (Jan 10) -- era (Talk | History) 22:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overview

This box: view • talk • edit

[edit] Otheruses templates

To discuss these templates as a whole, please see Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation If you wish to discuss general wordings, rather than the wording or formatting of this specific template, don't post here, or else what you say will probably go unnoticed.

For a summary page on how to use these templates, see Wikipedia:Otheruses templates (example usage).

[edit] Generic

{{Dablink|TEXT}}:
TEXT

For example, {{dablink|For other senses of this term, see [[etc...]]}}. This template is adaptable, but fails to standardize hatnotes.

{{Selfref|TEXT}}:

TEXT

(Similar to Dablink, but used for messages that wouldn't make sense on mirrors of Wikipedia, such as a link in the main article namespace that links to one in the Wikipedia namespace. See Wikipedia:Avoid self-references for more details.)

[edit] Otheruses

{{About}} is the main template for giving other uses; it redirects to {{otheruses4}}.

{{otheruses4|USE1}} (disambiguous):
This page is about USE1. For other uses, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otheruses4|USE1|USE2}}:
This page is about USE1. For USE2, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otheruses4|USE1|USE2|PAGE2}}:
This page is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE2.
{{About||USE2|PAGE2|USE3|PAGE3|USE4|PAGE4|USE5|PAGE5}} (alias and empty first param):

For USE2, see PAGE2. For USE3, see PAGE3. For USE4, see PAGE4. For USE5, see PAGE5.

{{otheruses4|USE1|USE2|PAGE2|USE3|PAGE3|USE4|PAGE4|USE5|PAGE5}} (fully specified):

This page is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE2. For USE3, see PAGE3. For USE4, see PAGE4. For USE5, see PAGE5.

[edit] Variations

There are also variations of {{about}}. These serve the same purpose, and are marginally easier to use for each individual purpose, but overall, it is complicated to have so many different templates; it could be argued that the time saved using them is lost as other editors have to familiarise themselves with them.

All of these templates are special cases of {{about}}.

{{otheruses}}:
For other uses, see Dablink (disambiguation).

Note: {{about}} will produce the same result.

{{otheruses1|USE}}:
This page is about USE. For other uses, see Dablink (disambiguation).

Note: {{about|USE}} will produce the same result.

{{otheruses2|PAGE}}:
For other uses, see PAGE (disambiguation).

Note: this simply adds "(disambiguation)" to what you input as PAGE.

{{otheruses3|PAGE}}:
For other uses, see PAGE.

Note: {{about|||PAGE}} will produce the same result - note the two empty parameters.

{{otheruses5}}:
For other uses, see Dablink (disambiguation) and Dablinks (disambiguation).

Note: this is for when there is both a singular and plural disambiguation page; it only works when the plural is formed simply by adding "s" at the end.

{{otheruses6|PAGE1|PAGE2}}:
For other uses, see PAGE1 and PAGE2.

Note: this is for when there are two disambiguation pages, such as noun and adjective, or singular and irregular plural. There are only two parameters and at least one is required.
Note: this cannot be recreated with {{about}} - only with {{dablink}} or {{for}}.

{{This|USE|PAGE}}:
This page is about USE. For other uses, see PAGE.

Note: {{about|USE||PAGE}} will produce the same result - note the empty parameter.

[edit] For (other topic)

{{for}} (and {{for2}}) can be used instead of {{about}} to not include the first part - "This article is about USE". However, this can also simply be achieved with an empty first parameter in {{about}}.
For example, {{For|OTHER TOPIC|PAGE}} becomes {{About||OTHER TOPIC|PAGE}}.

{{For}} (disambiguous):
For {{{1}}}, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{For|OTHER TOPIC}} (disambiguous):
For OTHER TOPIC, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{For|OTHER TOPIC|PAGE}}:
For OTHER TOPIC, see PAGE.
{{For|OTHER TOPIC|PAGE1|PAGE2}}:
For OTHER TOPIC, see PAGE1 and PAGE2.
{{For2|OTHER TOPIC|CUSTOM TEXT}}:
For OTHER TOPIC, see CUSTOM TEXT.

[edit] Other people

{{otherpersons}} (disambiguous):
For other persons named Dablink, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otherpersons|USE}} (disambiguous):
For other persons named USE, see USE (disambiguation).
{{otherpersons|USE|PAGE}}:
For other persons named USE, see PAGE.
{{otherpeople2|PAGE}}:
For other persons of the same name, see PAGE.
{{otherpeople3|USE1|USE2}}:
This article is about USE1. For USE2, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otherpeople4|USE1|USE2|PAGE}}:
This article is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE.

[edit] Other places

{{Otherplaces}}, analogous to {{Otheruses}}

For other places with the same name, see Dablink (disambiguation).

{{Otherplaces2}}, analogous to {{Otheruses2}}

For other places with the same name, see DifferentArticleName (disambiguation).

{{Otherplaces3}}, analogous to {{Otheruses3}}

For other places with the same name, see DifferentArticleName.

[edit] Otherhurricaneuses

For articles on storms.

{{otherhurricaneuses}} (disambiguous):
For other storms of the same name, see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otherhurricaneuses|DISAMBIG}}:
For other storms of the same name, see DISAMBIG.
{{otherhurricaneuses|DISAMBIG|THIS}}:
This page is about THIS. For other storms of the same name, see DISAMBIG.
{{otherhurricaneuses3|USE1|USE2|MAIN}}:
This article is about the USE1. For the USE2, see the main article, MAIN. For other storms of the same name, see Dablink (disambiguation).

[edit] Otherusesof (topic)

{{otherusesof}} (disambiguous):
For other uses of "Dablink", see Dablink (disambiguation).
{{otherusesof|TOPIC}}:
For other uses of "TOPIC", see TOPIC (disambiguation).
{{otherusesof|TOPIC|PAGE}}:
For other uses of "TOPIC", see PAGE.

[edit] Redirect

{{Redirectstohere|REDIRECT notice}} (To Document dependent link[s], Template also has a hidden mode, (Set "|hide=true") which enables it to document a section title is a redirect page target section, and so should not be changed.); Some examples:
REDIRECT redirects here.,
REDIRECT, Another name and A Foreign name all redirect to here.
— with a little care, bolding the titled redirects can substitute for awkward phrases involving multiple name forms of the main article title; particularly those of the "also known as varieties"...
Gustavus II Adolf, Gustav Adolphus II and Gustavus Vasa II of Sweden all redirect to here.
{{Redirect|REDIRECT}} (disambiguous):
"REDIRECT" redirects here. For other uses, see REDIRECT (disambiguation).
{{Redirect|REDIRECT||PAGE}}:
"REDIRECT" redirects here. For other uses, see PAGE.
{{Redirect|REDIRECT|USE|PAGE}}:
"REDIRECT" redirects here. For USE, see PAGE.
{{Redirect2|REDIRECT1|REDIRECT2}} (disambiguous):
"REDIRECT1" and "REDIRECT2" redirect here. For other uses, see REDIRECT1 (disambiguation).
{{Redirect3|REDIRECT|TEXT}}:
"REDIRECT" redirects here. TEXT.
{{Redirect4|REDIRECT1|REDIRECT2}} (disambiguous):
"REDIRECT1" and "REDIRECT2" redirect here. For other uses, see REDIRECT1 (disambiguation) and REDIRECT2 (disambiguation).
{{Redirect6|REDIRECT|USE1|PAGE1|USE2|PAGE2}}:
"REDIRECT" redirects here. For USE1, see PAGE1. For USE2, see PAGE2.
{{Redirect6|REDIRECT|USE1|PAGE1||}}

"REDIRECT" redirects here. For USE1, see PAGE1. For other uses, see REDIRECT (disambiguation).

[edit] "Not to be confused with"...

{{Distinguish|PAGE}}:
Not to be confused with PAGE.
{{Distinguish2|TEXT}}:
Not to be confused with TEXT.

[edit] Notes

Do not use subst: with these templates, as that will prevent:

propagating changes as the template is modified; and
the What links here (WLH) listing.

Please do not edit these templates unless you know what you are doing

These templates may be used in thousands of articles, and changing the syntax could therefore break thousands of articles. If you wish to edit a disambiguation template first ask yourself:

Is there already another template that will do this job? We have lots of disambiguation templates already, see Category:Disambiguation and redirection templates.
Do I really need a template for this? Will it ever get used on any other articles, or should I just use {{dablink}} instead?
Do I know what will happen if I change the parameters around? Will it break existing uses of the template, and if so, can I fix them all?

(This box appears in several articles in Template talk and Wikipedia namespaces.)

[edit] Template name and usage scenarios

Referring to some historical comments on this page, I believe the name "dablink" is a contraction of "disambiguation link". However, the template doesn't seem to be particularly suitable for disambiguation, and certainly doesn't add any sort of link. I'm confused. Could somebody please fill me in here? -- era (Talk | History) 23:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think this template should be renamed. Unfortunately there already exists Template:Comments and Template:Comment (which redirects to Template:Notice). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

But those aren't very descriptive of what the template is for. It is for applying a format that is consistent with all the other disambiguation related notes, but which allows the actual text content to be adapted as needed. older ≠ wiser 02:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

So shouldn't older ≠ wiser's clarification above be added to a more prominent place in the documentation for this template? -- era (Talk | History) 03:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Good point, older≠wiser. Yes, era. The current text "This template provides HTML block around the material embedded within forcing browsers to react on the contained code and text within a div-/div block. This is very useful for binding effects within other templates, or on disambig lines heading an article." is not that accessible to the typical editor. Maybe saying something that emphasizes that this is a fall-back dab template when other more specific ones prove to be inadequate to the purpose of providing a dab-hatnote on an article page (avoiding the use of 'hatnote', though, as this isn't a term that a lot of people are familiar with). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 10:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You want to avoid "dab" too ... or better yet actually explain that it stands for "disambiguation". Also pointers to the "Comments" and "Notice" templates as possible alternatives would be useful, I imagine. -- era (Talk | History) 01:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) I just ran across my first instance of {{dablink}}, and yes, the doc was utterly unhelpful in explaining what it was for and why you'd use it instead of an {{otheruses}} variant. I'm surprised no one made any changes since this thread seems to say I'm not the only one who has been confused. So, I've edited the /doc page in an attempt to address the concerns here.

I think part of the problem here could be that "dablink" appears first on alphabetically sorted pages like Wikipedia:Otheruses templates (example usage), which implies it's preferred rather than what I would call a "template of last resort". On the page I found it used on, there's absolutely no reason why other more convenient templates couldn't have been used instead. I think there should be a note explaining that you should only use dablink when no other template will do the job.--NapoliRoma 16:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also used as a "meta-template" for all of the other disambiguation link templates. Look at the source of {{otheruses4}}, for example. So, even though there isn't generally much of a reason to use this template directly, it controls the ultimate formatting and CSS classes of all other disambiguation templates. Mike Dillon 17:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

That's what I thought was probably the case, so I came here to see whether it was true, and nothing in the doc or this discussion said it was the case. I hadn't gone to the extent of checking the source of the other templates yet.--NapoliRoma 17:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I tend to use this one far more often than any of the others for the simple reason that it is the easiest to remember how to use. Personally I find the thicket of Otheruses templates rather confusing. older ≠ wiser 17:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We should probably sort this out here before making any more changes to the doc.

The fundamental difference between using this and using one of the "otheruses" templates is almost philosophical: who controls the style? If you use "dablink", you have full control over the style, which is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, yes, it's much easier for you, the editor, to do exactly what you think is appropriate in this case; on the other hand, that means there is a great potential for loss of consistency over the whole of Wikipedia, which would be a loss for readers.

This is very similar to the decision of whether in editing an article you use section headers or just fall back to raw HTML. Raw HTML is "easy to remember" if you're familiar with it, but you not only lose things like automatic TOC generation and consistent style, you also lose the ability for future changes or enhancements in WP style to automatically be applied to what you've edited.

The doc for this template is a perfect example of this -- prior to my edits, it used a collection of font size changes, manual numbering, horizontal rules, manual indents and other minor format abuse. Was I correct to change this to use section headers and other higher level wikiformats? Some might disagree, and I suspect the line would be pretty much the same as that between those who prefer "dablink" and those who prefer the "otheruses" family.

I totally agree that today, the range of options for disambiguation link formatting is broad and insufficiently documented (I've been making my own attempt to fix this in other places). However, I also feel that punting and saying "write your own HTML and wrap it in a div block" isn't the correct answer.

My opinion, which seems to be on the whole backed by all the various disambiguation policy and guideline docs, is that the higher level formats should be preferred. As I mentioned, today was the first time I'd seen {{dablink}} in the wild, and I'd never seen it in documentation. Can we gather consensus? Is this the right place to discuss it? Have I missed an existing policy that already covers this?--NapoliRoma 17:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Editing on a Wiki should be easy. If I have to consult a reference page each time I want to add a simple disambiguation note to a page, there is something wrong. I never cared much for the Otheruses templates and never saw much point to what seems their overly prescriptive and overly fine gradations. I don't see that using dablink is in any way equivalent to using raw html. The point of dablink is that is provides consistent formatting. I'm not aware of discussions in which the use of dablinks has been deprecated. In fact, from what I can recall of previous discussions, it was the ridiculous proliferation of specialized otheruses templates that was criticized. I mean, I don't care that much when other editors replace my dablinks with some other template. But I'd sure get a little irritated if they start giving instructions like "Tsk, tsk, you shouldn't be using dablink there -- you should be using XXXX instead -- that's what the guideslines say." older ≠ wiser 18:41, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I see your points. My initial reaction came from some very poor documentation surrounding "dablink" -- it didn't appear in any of the dab-related documentation I had so far encountered, and its own documentation was woefully inadequate. There was no indication that it is heavily used as a meta-template, and the doc page was mostly taken up by examples of what looked like very arcane markup (much of which turned out to be display formatting for the examples themselves). Meanwhile, this talk page led off with a deletion proposal (and I didn't dig further to see that it was unanimously defeated), and was followed by other people wondering why this was used instead of something in the "otheruses" family.

That being said -- I still think the "otheruses" templates could be useful; their main drawback is that there are so $#^% many of them ("otherhurricaneuses"?!). They promote standardization and consistency, which is in favor of the reader, which should trump ease of editing. There is nothing inherently hard about using them, but they do tend to also be poorly documented. Current guidelines favor their use, which is why I phrased my edits to dablink/doc as I did, but you make a good case for the policy to be changed/softened/clarified to include dablink.

Anyhow, I think the documentation is now sitting at a reasonable place. There's a better explanation of what the template is, why someone might use it, what alternatives are, and where to go for more info. I'm going to take one more pass to try to group concepts a little more appropriately (and "unquestionably" will probably disappear, sorry :-).--NapoliRoma 20:13, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage of the template

What is the point of {{dablink|...}} when it is replacing something far simpler (:''...''). Please don't add unnecessarily complicated formatting for no reason, particularly not at the very start of articles where it is going to confuse people. Angela . 03:07, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I understand the reasoning behind this template, but only after figuring it out for myself (in case the accepted formatting of disambig links changes, the template can be changed). This is a good idea, but it should be mentioned on Wikipedia:Disambiguation before people start hopping in and changing articles. dablink is also not the best name for this template. Rhobite 03:40, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

View the source, there is more to the change than just italics. anthony (see warning) 14:22, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's a div with a class (presumably to be hidden in the print CSS), indent, and italics. I agree that it's a good idea but it should be explained and debated before it goes into general use. Rhobite 23:25, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)

I don't see why anyone would need to remove it from a printed version since it is useful information directly relevant to the text. I see no reason to add additional confusing templates. This increases the barrier to editing for no benefit. Angela . 00:05, Sep 12, 2004 (UTC)

Look at the top of Wikipedia:Copyright problems (noting of course that this is in the Wikipedia namespace). Would you want that in a printed copy? Brianjd 10:18, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

I'm still cloudy on the advantage of this template over such things as {{otheruses}}, which has an essentially opposite directional orientation with respect to the linking concept explained. My interest comes as a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Disambiguation. Courtland 15:32, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Horizontal rule or no

I have a problem with the indenting and I don't think I'm the only one (although I think we are in the minority). I would rather just add a horizontal line underneath. Brianjd 10:19, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

The horizontal rule is evil and should be destroyed. It is one of the ugliest HTML elements and has defaced many a webpage. Please indent. JFW | T@lk 03:17, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The wording of the response made me laugh :). I do agree with User:Jfdwolff on this. Courtland 15:29, July 23, 2005 (UTC) P.S. I annihilated the horzontal line above, just a minor piece of deconstruction

Disagree. As stated the horizontal ruler is very ugly in almost every case. In fact, if you could run a search for the usage of horizontal rulers in articles, you could probably use that criteria to track down badly formatted pages. I don't think I've ever seen a well-formatted article that contained horizontal rulers. --Michiel Sikma 12:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related Templates

I created Template:dablinktop as a header for disambiguation links on pages that are genuine articles — not disambiguation pages themselves, worthy of the Template:disambig.

— <TALKJNDRLINETALK> 19:51, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

There are already a couple of disambig templates with a canned message, please have a look at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Templates_for_disambiguation_links. --K. Sperling (talk) 00:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Can [[Category:Disambiguation and Redirection templates|Dablink]] be added? —Mark Adler (markles) 22:52, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I second the request using <noinclude>[[Category:Disambiguation and Redirection templates|Dablink]]</noinclude>. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 00:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Done. howch e ng {chat} 19:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish version

Hi. I would like to propose to using Polish version of Dablink. Here you can see them:

I think that they are more readeable, or put in another words: you see them in the couple of secounds after page is displayed. Present form of Dablink is hard to see for those who are first time on Wikipedia.org. I saw a situation then somone think that he can not find on Wikipedia information he wants, becouse he didn't notice Disambiguation.

So whats why I propose to change this Template to something more "hiting in the eye". Egon 18:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subst

Should these be subst'ed? --Liface 18:01, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

No, but I couldn't give you the detailed reasoning why not. My own reasoning is based on the desire to be able to track dablink usage via the what-links-here association with this template, which can be used by either human or robotic actors to harvest dab-msg bearing article identities for a number of different purposes. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Another argument against substing is that it defeats one of the purposes of this template, to globally change the formatting on all the disambig links if the accepted format is ever changed. Binabik80 20:52, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Polish interwiki

Please, add Polish interwiki: pl:Szablon:DisambigL. Thanks. Hołek ҉ 13:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] visual formatting should be done in CSS, not wiki markup

See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Disambig_link_formatting — Omegatron 16:29, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. But couldn't you have done this yourself? Aren't you an admin? —Mets501 (talk) 20:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Of course. I wasn't asking for someone else to do it. I was asking if it should be done. There are a few different ways it could be implemented.

Note that people are going to want to to rever these changes if they haven't bypassed their cache. — Omegatron 20:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, the other templates that use this class need to be updated, which I am doing now.

{{primary}} uses class="notice". What's that for? — Omegatron 21:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This change was not appropriate, since {{dablink}} has been subst'd in way too many places. Now those uses are all double-indented. Mike Dillon 22:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right. But Omegatron has already changed many templates. What should we do? —Mets501 (talk) 22:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you (Mike) give an example of this? I don't see that subst'ing now makes any difference (although it might be possible that subst'ing some earlier version might cause problems). Without some evidence to consider, it's hard to evaluate your complaint. older ≠ wiser 22:17, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Los Angeles, California. Mike Dillon 22:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I see, thanks. Although I have to say, subst'ing dablink kind of runs contrary to the whole point of using dablink in the first place (which is to standardize the formating a bit). older ≠ wiser 22:24, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

See Macintosh for example. —Mets501 (talk) 22:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

There are only 548 times that this template has been substituted; should I just send my bot to fix it? —Mets501 (talk) 22:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

How did you determine that? If we can compile a good list, having a bot fix it should work. Determining what the original template was is probably not possible anymore. Mike Dillon 22:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, I think you guys have been a little too bold with some of these changes lately. Please don't take this the wrong way, Mets501, but I don't think you know enough about the technology to be making changes on this scale without discussion.

As for fixing it, it probably needs to be done by compiling a list of pages using the classes directly from the database dump and unsubst'ing those uses. I think all of the template and CSS changes probably should be rolled back in the meantime.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good idea, but it needs to be done in a controlled way. Mike Dillon 22:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That's why templates shouldn't be substituted. The substituted instances will be updated over time. This method of formatting is superior. — Omegatron 22:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a list of substituted uses from the database dump. I do understand the technological aspect 100%, I was just hasty and didn't think that it might be used in other places and forgot about substitution.

OK. Like I said, don't take it the wrong way. Anyways, that list doesn't have Los Angeles, California. Mike Dillon 22:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That was probably added since the last dump. Should I start fixing these substituted ones? (or am I being too hasty again? :-) —Mets501 (talk) 22:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the fixing the subst'd dablinks is hasty. We can do a second pass after you're done to see if there are any more. The extra indent isn't the end of the world. Mike Dillon 22:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Starting now. —Mets501 (talk) 22:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right about the timing. It was done in this edit on November 25 by User:Mgekelly. I have asked him not to subst these templates and pointed him to this discussion. Mike Dillon 22:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another problem :-)

Now that I changed all the templates, the complaints are going to my talk page. :-) See

See User_talk:Omegatron#Broken_templates and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Someone.27s_screwed_up_the_formatting_of_the_dablinks.21.21.21

Another problem is the line break caused by the use of the definition list for indentation. We should either change the dablink class to display:block;, or change all the instances into p class="dablink" instead of span class="dablink".

Mets501, this is why I asked about it first instead of just doing it. Now you've rushed it. — Omegatron 22:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

This template is already a div, not a span. Changing it to a <p> probably makes sense. Mike Dillon 22:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Mind reverting all the changes until after the CSS is coded? Or code it soon? It looks awful everywhere... Tito xd^(?!?) 22:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The CSS is already coded. People are having issues because of CSS caching, as is often the case with these things. Mike Dillon 22:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Try to persuade a developer to update $wgStyleVersion... that will kill caches everywhere. Tito xd^(?!?) 22:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that version number is not included in the site CSS link the way it is for the CSS in the skin. The link is "/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Common.css&usemsgcache=yes&action=raw&ctype=text/css&smaxage=2678400", without the current $wgStyleVersion (39). Mike Dillon 23:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Bug 8433 filed. Tito xd^(?!?) 23:22, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

<p> tags are much harder to control. I'd prefer <div>'s. -- Renesis (talk) 22:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

What does "harder to control" mean? We should be using the most semantically appropriate HTML tag. I think p is appropriate for these short paragraphs of text. — Omegatron 01:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that p makes sense semantically. I believe what Renesis is referring to is the fact that the default browser style for <div> is generally just display: block, while the default style for <p> often include line-height and other things. If you can't predict what individual browsers are doing, it's harder to control, whereas the fact the pretty much every browser has the same default styling for div makes it a cleaner starting point. Mike Dillon 01:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah. Well, I will change them all to p pretty soon unless anyone objects. — Omegatron 03:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Better yet, I'll convert them to dablink meta-templates. :-) Then if we change our minds, it's one change here. — Omegatron 03:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

In about 10 minutes, all the substitutions will be unsubstituted, and then everything will look the same everywhere. (I'm running my bot faster than usual as this is sort of urgent). —Mets501 (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. :-) — Omegatron 01:19, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Layout broken

The most recent change ([1]) broken the usual layout (indented, with italics), thus I had to revert it. Please provide a test version before changing it once more. We don't one thousands of pages broken. -- User:Docu

Have you purged your cache? Your change results in the dablinks being double-indented. older ≠ wiser 13:45, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems like I didn't do it sufficiently. Works fine now. Thank you for fixing it. -- User:Docu

One way to possibly ease this pain would be do add inline style to the {{dablink}} template to duplicate what's in Common.css. It could be left in for as long as necessary to make sure people's browser caches have cleared on their own. This would be made easier if all the other templates using class="dablink" called this one as a meta-template, as suggested by Omegatron. Mike Dillon 17:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like this has already been done by Omegatron, so that makes things easy. The only caveat is that the inline CSS will have higher importance than CSS rules using ".dablink" as a selector, so people who want to override the style in personal CSS will have to use "!important", since rules in a style attribute have the same specificity as an id selector rule (100). Mike Dillon 17:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I meant that the meta-template thing has been done. I still think that the inline CSS should be added as a stop-gap. It doesn't make sense to keep telling individual people to clear their caches. Mike Dillon 06:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Mets501 (talk) 15:21, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with nested italics

By placing the italicization via the style attribute for the div, nested italics which should occur with items such as book titles can't.

Please change

<div class="dablink" style="font-style:italic; padding-left:2em;">{{{1}}}</div>

<div class="dablink" style="padding-left:2em;">''{{{1}}}''</div>

so that nested italics work properly. Caerwine Caer’s whines 01:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Another way to address this would be to add CSS rules for <i> tags that occur inside of .dablink. For example:

.dablink i {
    font-style: normal;
}

Since MediaWiki won't generate nested <i> tags, this should cover all the cases. Mike Dillon 02:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. If the effect does not display as desired, re-add {{editprotected}}. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 03:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Please remove the CSS styling that forces italics on this template's contents. There is no compelling need for it when wiki markup suffices, and there's good reason to avoid it. Wiki markup and styling should serve the needs of ordinary editors, not the other way around. We should not have to tell people "use wiki markup everywhere, except in really weird places where it doesn't work because some programmers wanted to use CSS styling and didn't consider how it would break ordinary use, in which case you must use old HTML". We may be HTML coders, but we are expecting our main editing audience not to have to be. That's the whole friggin' point of wiki markup! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Made up a /doc file

Hi! Can you add Template:Dablink/doc to the template. (It seems likely to survive TFD <g>, and I wish I'd known of it sooner.)

I added a couple of cats ans stubbed in some interwiki's so it would travel better. Best regards and Happy New Year. // FrankB 16:54, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. J Di ^talk 20:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Afterthought Query for opinion

Just wondering whether it would be a good idea to add 2em on the right side to stand clear of infoboxes, images, etc. Or is that likely to mess up some of the works inside template tables and such? // FrankB 16:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I've thought of that too. Might be a good idea. — Omegatron 18:53, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Then go dude! Do it! Thanks // FrankB 18:20, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] X Redirects here

Would it be possible to have an optional parameter for the "redirects here" usage, to add invisible information to the html expansion so that user javascript (and perhaps ultimately standard javascript controlled by a user preference) can hide the text if the page was not reached via the redirect in question? —Random8322007-01-28 06:23 UT C (01/28 01:23 EST)

[edit] XHTML fix.

{{Editprotected}}
A nitpick to some, but actually following the XHTML specs won't hurt anything. Please change all occurrences of <br> to <br /> in the template. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The template doesn't contain any <br>s - perhaps you got the wrong page? Tra (Talk) 23:41, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Fixed, but you could have done it: the <br>'s were all on the unprotected /doc subpage. Nihiltres^(t.l) 23:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Italics in dablinks

Just to let people know, I've removed the redundant '' from the template, and added .dablink i { font-style: normal; } to MediaWiki:Common.css. This should enable '' to work as expected in dablinks, such that {{dablink|This is in italics, but ''this'' is ''not''.}} will produce:

This is in italics, but this is not.

See also this discussion at the village pump (technical). —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CSS: Padding

Please add top padding to this template as such templates as {{Refimprove}} border too closely. For example:

This sentence exists to demonstrate insufficient top padding.

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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2008)

This sentence exists to demonstrate sufficient top padding.