Template talk:Infobox Book/Archive 3

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Contents

Relase Date

Why does the relase date come up as {{{release_date}}} if left empty? Example: this bookAdammw 09:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It is a mandatory field and that is what WikiMedia does if this is not included. You can get round this by including the field but leave the content "blank" if it is genuinely not known. Do you have an example it may be that a publication date can be found. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposed field: Wikiquote

I am thinking a link to Wikiquote may be helpful, much like the Template:Infobox_Film has links to official sites and IMDb.com. The current method is to add the {{wikiquote}} template to each article, but its format (box with icon) limits its placement in an article. It would be a lot more handy to have an "external link" in the infobox, and isn't that what they're for anyway? I can add it if there's a consensus to do so. TAnthony 18:28, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Why not then to Wikisource? feydey 22:48, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
These ideas have some merit on two grounds, they relate strongly to the main text of the novel (something some of the earlier ideas didn't) and they will produce only one possible entry per link (unless I misunderstand WikiQoute and WikiSource). What do others think on these two proposals. If they are thought worthwhile I would suggest they fit just above the "preceded_by" field and they are added to a couple of articles first as a trial to see how people react to their implementation. If people agree that is. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:36, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

How's my first use

I've just used this for the first time, on A Nature Conservation Review. How does it look? Why isn't the ISBN showing up? Andy Mabbett 14:27, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

if you check the documentation above these discissions you will se the parameter is lower case. Fixed .:: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:48, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Without CSS

With CSS disabled, this appears as:

A Nature Conservation Review
Author Derek Ratcliffe
Country United Kingdom
Language English

and so on. I think there would be some value in prepending the word "Title" to the first entry, then hiding it with CSS. Andy Mabbett 14:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

why would you want CSS disabled and the title is a different section of the infobox - above the cover image.! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say I wanted CSS disabled; nevertheless, it is disabled (or unavailable) for some people, and W3C "WCAG" accessibility guidelines rightfully say that pages should be readable without CSS. Andy Mabbett 10:04, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok understand - as the field is effectively the "title" of the infobox itself and also that of the Novel / Book, I don't believe change is necessary for this field. Also adding "title" would look visually awful for those "with" CSS. This is particularly the case when a cover image is added as is ideally the case. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:11, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
adding "title" would look visually awful for those "with" CSS - no, because I suggested "hiding it with CSS". Andy Mabbett 12:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Ok, if you know how to do that - give it a go and we'll see how it looks.! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 13:01, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Done. It's not as neat, because, unlike the other labels, it's not in a separate table cell. Andy Mabbett 22:49, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Microformat for citations

Please be aware of the proposal for a microformat for marking citations (which pages about books are, in effect) in (X)HTML. See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats. Andy Mabbett 15:04, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Editors & foreword-contributors

What about a field for editors, for non fiction "compilations" like The EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds. Maybe also for "foreword/ introduction/ preface by". Andy Mabbett 18:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I personally think these are fields too far. Mainly of use for non-fiction books. Editors can be placed in the infobox "author" field with suffix annotation of "(editor)". I don't think the other contibutors are significant enough in the case of "most" books to warrent a universal addition to the infobox. Both these types of extra can be added in the body of the article and possibily in the reference citation. Also it is worth noting that these additions vary from edition to edition. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 10:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Many non-fiction books (such as that cited) have editors, but no named authors. Perhaps we need to split this into two templates, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. Andy Mabbett 12:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
It is still the main person responible for the content. What is wrong with the suffix of "(editor)" in the author field. This is a solution often used in systems that have "simple" implementations of bibliographic information. The wiki infobox is not intended to be an exhaustive repository of normalised biblio information just a convenient banner splash for common info. And no a split "Book" form for non-fiction and fiction is not ideal at all. If we "must" have an editor field that is preferable to having a split. I remain to be convinced. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 13:07, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Serialized books and release date?

Consider Farnham's Freehold. It was serialized in a magazine in 1964, then printed as a novel in 1965. The release_date field is currently 1964 (serial)<br/>1965 (book). The documentation for the template is skimpy here--what's the right thing to do for novels that first appeared in magazines? Date of the first book edition, date of the appearance of the first piece of the serial, or both? grendel|khan 22:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The solution to the problem in example above seems adequate, did you have something else in mind. On the subject of the documentation if the existing example is "good" then you could add that as a pattern to use for others. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Multi-national release

So I was updating some infoboxes and realized that we don't have a policy established for books which are simultaneously published in multiple countries. Since this wikipedia is supposed to encompass all English-language "stuff," I feel like we should come up with a standard. For example, I was working on the page for Broken, which was simultaneously published in the US, the UK, and Canada, all in English (um, obviously) - by different publishers (so, with different ISBNs) in each country. So... which go in the infobox? Should all three (with a note as to which is the US/etc in <small>? The same issue also relates to the covers of multinational books. Any thoughts?? -Elizabennet | talk 19:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the technical answer to this one - we need to discover how the publishing world treats these and find a means of reflecting that. I would think that a publisher has a "prime" national location in such cases but I don't really know! :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
-Oh, forgot to add: in cases like that, I think the country tag should apply to the author's country... unless it should list all the countries it's been published in? -Elizabennet | talk 19:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
That should be true regardless of publication. It is the national origin of the cretive content, i.e. authorial content that is key. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:13, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Formatting the image caption

I've been noticing that the image caption field seems to format image captions strangely (i.e. not like normal image captions). The text is larger and oddly spaced... I don't know how to fix it, but I thought it was worth noting. Perhaps we could imitate the {{Infobox_Film}} in how they do the captions on images? Unfortunately I have no idea as to how to make these changes. -Elizabennet | talk 21:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have example articles to illustrate your points. Thanks :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:49, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Release date fields

These have recently been changed, without any discussion. For an infobox with such wide usage this at least needs discussion, and co-orination with the second release date field. Also if change is agreed and I personally think it may well be better a change plan and or Bot assisted change be arranged. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Reason for reversion - no discussion on a key - infobox - no plan for change to hundreds if not thousands of articles. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

You should mention that you brought the issue up in the talk page when editing, rather than reverting without any explanation, because I looked at this talk page and did not notice this section because it had been pushed up by following sections. I do not understand your objection: the old key works just as well with the change; the change is fully backward compatible and anyone is free to go on using the template with the old key as they did before with no change in behavior. Also, the change in the key is separate from the change in the heading, which does not affect the key. —Centrx→talk • 00:22, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to my poor editing protocol - however the debate is the thing to have.
First point to say actually agree with the terminology of the change.
Second I believe we would be best served if we could make the change "throughout" wikipedia if possible.
Thirld;y if we change "release date" to "publication date" we should also change "english release date" to "english publication date" as well. Making both changes at the same time.
Fourthy all documentation that refers to the new and "supported" field names and labels should all change at the same time.
Fifthly as there is also a companion infobox for short stories which uses the same terminology, similar changes should me made there as well.
Perhaps you might see why I thought this needs to be a little more planned and considered. Don't get me wrong I think the idea of the change is good and correct. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:42, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
So, 1) what is wrong with "Date published" or "Published"; 2) You can make the change elsewhere, what relevance does that have to making the change first here?; 3) So then change "English release date" too, rather than reverting uniformly; 4) I thought I changed the documentation, if not, you change it or tell me where it is, this is no reason to reverse the change; 5) So change the short story infobox too. None of this requires any planning; none of this requires reversing the other change, they do not need to all be enacted in one single procedure. —Centrx→talk • 03:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
While I can't say I'm empathetic to any unnecessary change which comes down to a matter of preferred taste in phraseology (or prejudice against an publishing industry standard term—the case here I think. Shrug we don't make the world, we all just have to deal with it! <g>), I agree that the change made was BOT free and one term is as good as another. With that in mind, I made a trial substitution as a compromise offering. One phrase or the other is produced, depending on the tagging selecting the operable name. From this diff/version. The only code line changed is the logic after publisher: (There's some other inconsequential whitespace padding per my change request below.)
 -->{{#if:{{{subject|}}}|<tr><th>{{nowrap|Subject(s)}}</th><td>{{{subject|}}}</td></tr>}}<!--
 -->{{#if:{{{genre|}}}|<tr><th>{{nowrap|Genre(s)}}</th><td>{{{genre|}}}</td></tr>}}<!--
 --><tr><th>[[Publisher]]</th><td>{{{publisher}}}</td></tr><!--
 -->{{#if:{{{release_date|}}}<noinclude>1</noinclude>|<tr><th>Released</th><td>{{{release_date}}}</td></tr><!--
     -->|{{#if:{{{publish_date|}}}|<tr><th>Date published</th><td>{{{publish_date|}}}</td></tr><!--
     -->}}<!--
 -->}} <!--
 -->{{#if:{{{english_release_date|}}}<!--
     -->|<tr><th>Released in English</th><td>{{{english_release_date}}}</td></tr><!--
 -->}}<!--
 -->{{#if:{{{media_type|}}}|<tr><th>Media type</th><td>{{{media_type|}}}</td></tr>}}<!--
 -->{{#if:{{{pages|}}}|<tr><th>Pages</th><td>{{{pages|}}}</td></tr>}}<!--

Bottom line, this seems reasonable as a request, and unless there is some overwhelming reason to not use equivilant terms as desired, let's just get on with things that matter. Cheers! // FrankB 04:28, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

The error is in describing it as "Released" at all. Keeping the release_date key is for backward compatibility, not because the template user is making some editorial judgement to call it "Released" in one case and "Published" in another. For a book, the book publisher actually publishes the book, it does not make it "released for publication" and then not publish it itself; films are "released", records are "released", books are "published". —Centrx→talk • 03:49, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I intend to recommend that we adopt "roughly" the ideas above about moving from "released" to "published". This has already been done for the "Short story infobox" (If anyone wants to check it out to see how the coding should perhaps be achieved). However I would like to co-ordinate this with changes to all the associated documentation and style guidelines etc. To achieve this If we could do this early next week when I can spend a bit of time making the supporting changes, we can get the protected element changes to suit at that time. Then I can run my Bot to start making changes to existing articles parameters to effect the changes in each instance. This is not urgent based on the way the changes can be written, but it would be nice to be consistent. Regards :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 14:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

"release_date" should link to corresponding "Year in literature" article

Will someone please modify this template so that (for example) |release_date=1984 is linked to 1984 in literature without having to do it explicitly?

I mean, since we have List of years in literature, it just seems logical that the release date (if provided) should be linked to the corresponding "year in literature" automagically ... as part of my WikiGnome cleanups of articles about books, when the date is mentioned in the article, I have been changing (or adding) the appropriate wikilink, because many editors simply link to the article for the year, e.g., [[1984]] instead of [[1984 in literature|1984]].

I know that I can link it explicitly in the field, but (a) that's susceptible to human error, e.g., linking to the wrong year because of an incorrectly edited copy&paste (a mistake which I have made Too Many times, hence this complaint), and (b) that's the kind of thing that computers are supposed to do for us, isn't it? ("Never make the wetware do anything manually that can be done more accurately by software." - Software Engineering 101)

BTW, this should also be done for templates associated with List of years in film and List of years in television.

I'd take a stab at modifying the template myself (I've only been "pushing bits" for 30+ years now), but it looks like anons can't edit templates ... Happy Editing! —68.239.79.82 (talk · contribs) 08:17, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe there has been discussion in the past that it specifically not link to the "year in literature" articles, because a full date is often used (month/day) and so the date wouldn't adapt for user date preferences. TAnthony 13:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
D'oh! ... "Never mind" ... I'll just keep doing it manually. :-) —68.239.79.82 09:01, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the point is that if I am correct, you shouldn't be doing it manually either because dates in the infobox shouldn't be linked to the "year" articles at all. But I could be mistaken, I imagine Kevinalewis would remember the outcome of that discussion. TAnthony 13:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Protection and server loading

I just innocently added a category to this template, not thinking of how widespread it is. This page needs to be set up for WP:DPP ASAP so interwikis and other trivial edits like I just made don't cause ripple effects due to server loading. Things took quite a while to 'settle', which at 1:00 am EDST on a Saturday was probably the least impact one could hope for, but in addition, strongly suggests this is a prime candidate for being fully protected as many widely used templates (e.g. {{tl}}) are, for that specific reason... server loading effects. // FrankB 04:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Done. feydey 10:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that - long overdue. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:06, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Protected Edit Request

without any {{EditProtected}}
We have time to discuss this if needed.
  1. I've writen some changes into the template (in my sandbox) for anthologies, co-authors, and author-editors such as we have to deal with (All three plus a 'Editor') in the 1632 series, which is mostly all collaboratively written, and well over more than half being anthologies, counting the e-books. As we're currently looking at fourteen canonical anthologies in production or already published and (so far) one novel with three authors, this change here will go in cut and paste and no fuss — 'FrankB guaranteed' to not affect other pages using the template <g>.

    The upper section on that page is the current template, with disarmed comments (re: "---XXX>" in lines) then commented out as one big block so as to make the changes pretty clear in one place where you can see the diff on one page.

See serarate discussion below. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  1. I opened up the whitespace here and there with one common C-Language style indenting that shows nesting clearly. The pertinent added fields are: {co-author, 2nd co-author, editor, author-editor (Eric Flint always adds a story to the The Grantville Gazettes when they're published in HC or PB. So it needs handled, whereas the online versions, he's merely the "Editor — which also needs handled, author 'alone' being incorrect, for sure.) The new code accepts only one of the three (Author/Author-Editor/Editor)

I think the indenting is good and whichever way we agree to go should be taken forward. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:35, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
  1. The effects and difference can be seen here, and I'm ambivalent as to whether to keep the colons as I wrote the co-author and 2nd co-author fields (the second call version shown). [I'm not sure the 'co-author' field shouldn't also float right as I did with the 'And:' ... any feedback on that point?]

  2. There are two other changes of no consequence to current pages using the template; An option parameter infoboxwidth, and a change to the call to the /doc page:
    1. I find with all the templates I work with from WP:TSP explicitly listing the /doc page (as per {{Infobox Book/doc}}) is quite useful... if for no other reason, that when you take it to a sandbox to test changes, the link is still operable. (For parallel reasons, I usually subst (as I did here tonight) {{Template doc page transcluded}} on the doc page... which leaves the edit link stay alive on the sandbox page.

    2. I've played a lot in the past three weeks with Infobox widths and page layouts, especially with respect to {{TOCnestright}} and {{FixHTML}}; in particular what sort of behavior one sees in different browsers and differing zoom-in/zoom-out effects as the page is scaled.

      Hence I've become a strong advocate of fixed infobox widths, with the knowledge that 280-325px is more or less equal to 22-25em on the medium to medium small fonts most of us use (unconsciously, and generally without zooming at all). I'd prefer this box to be scaled in px (I can't recommend something specific without trials using the option parameter, but similar changes to half a dozen other sorts of infoboxes have gone unremarked—WikiProject MILTHIST did a lot of experimentation on this, and the idea of fixing the box width is really theirs.), but I can live with an option parameter 'infoboxwidth' as I wrote this changed version for cut and paste. The Infobox I was adding tonight (to Ring of Fire (anthology) will definitely layout and behave better with a slightly wider infobox.
    3. Three other points on this:
      1. Scaling a box in em's or ex's causes it's contents to expand and contract as one zooms in/out, whereas almost all contain fixed pics widths... creating an inherent incompatibility.
      2. Fixing the width, the contents within stay fixed relative to the local margins... the px width, so don't blow up obnoxiously on zoom-ins to large fonts on the rest of the page, and the images stay proportional and well behaved.
      3. TOC behavior and floating elements like pics generally behave much better overall if the tall infoboxes are fixed.

Guess that covers my reasons and reasoning. If someone want test a bit, I'd guess 250px is wider than the current infobox on most middle-of-the-road zoom settings. (Tack in a {{Commons}} template and compare. Thats' fixed at 250px.) Thanks! // FrankB 05:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I bow to your greater experience on these formating issues - and again whichever way we go on the other issues - Ipersonally would be happy for you to bring this experience to bear on the template formatting. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

editors, co-authors, and author-editors

This issue is raised above and needs careful consideration, so I have seperated the issue out to it's own heading. The problem I see with the proposal above is largely one of multiples. In other words as soon as we cater (by seperate parameters) for additional author's, editors etc where do we stop, one, two, three or more.

What most people do is use the one field and separate co-author's with a <br/>, also if an individual is in fact an editor one just adds a short suffix. "= A. N. Other (ed.)".

I know there may well be better ways to deal with this issue - however a discrete set of parameters may not be it. Also I am unconvinced that the incidence of "author-editors" warrents such handling, again annotation should be sufficient. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 09:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

{{editprotected}} The template is protected, so please add the following interwiki: [[he:תבנית:ספר]].

Thank you, Noaa 14:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Done. However, the page where you add interwikis (Template:Infobox Book/doc) was not protected. Cheers. --MZMcBride 00:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

OCLC parameter?

How about adding an "oclc" parameter. This can be helpful when someone wants to locate a book without an ISBN (such as an older book). Thanks. — Bellhalla 23:01, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}
Can someone add this code right after the ISBN line:
-->{{#if:{{{oclc|}}}|<tr><th>[[OCLC]]</th><td>[http://worldcat.org/oclc/{{urlencode:{{{oclc}}}}} {{{oclc}}}]</td></tr>}}<!--
This is code copied from {{Cite book}} and modified to fit syntax of {{Infobox book}}. I tested this code in User:Bellhalla/Sandbox/Infobox_book and transcluded it in User:Bellhalla/Sandbox/. Please feel free to examine and/or test either if you wish.
Thanks. — Bellhalla 15:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 15:39, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hidden Option

I was thinking maybe hadding the option of being able to hide the infobox like on the CVG Infobox. It would prove useful on pages that contain a whole series of books. 04:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is a particularly helpful idea, I would like to see series articles develop to the point where the articles generally take a life or their own (i.e. eventually split) in instances where the notability warrents additions of individual book infoboxes. In instances where this is not the case we should think about a "series" infobox to support these articles, and "not" use individual "book" infoboxes for these articles. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 07:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


Change to Pub date from Release date

This is exactly what I was afraid off - the change going off half cocked. We need to keep everything consistent and also in line with the wording of the "Short story" infobox. Could someone please make the change to the relevant two line, I have copied in here the two lines from the already changes "short story" template so I believe they should work as found. {{editprotected}} <tr><th>Publication date</th><td>{{{pub_date|{{{release_date|}}}}}}</td></tr><!--
-->{{#if:{{{english_release_date|}}}{{{english_pub_date|}}}|<tr><th>Published in English</th><td>{{{english_pub_date|{{{english_release_date}}}}}}</td></tr>}}<!--

These should go instead of the currect "publish_date" and "english_release_date" lines

Regards :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:08, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

done. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:04, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

ISBN link?

Why doesn't the ISBN entry create the hyperlink like when you have it explictly in the article? (ex. "ISBN 0345340744" makes a useful link in the article but when in the infobox, no luck) --MarsRover 22:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It does; all you need do is use the "ISBN" prefix as you would in the article. This is std WikiMedia as far as I am aware. It isn't a hyperlink as such but a wikilink to a specific wiki isbn search page. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 08:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, it does but then the infobox then has ISBN label duplicated. Any way around that? --MarsRover 19:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunately, no. Wikipedia has not (yet) installed string functions (like removing/replacing part of a string). -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 14:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Then change the infobox so the headings are handled differently and the ISBN comes up as a real ISBN. I mean, duh. DreamGuy 06:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)