Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates/Archive 1

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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.

Contents

Scope?

Is this a wikiproject on templates, or a template for future wikiprojects? It certainly looks like the latter. Radiant_* 15:19, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

  • Okay, I'm convinced the new version is the former :) sounds like a good plan, I'll consider to join, time permitting. Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 14:03 (UTC)

Documentation standards

Although I see documentation of user warning templates (among others) as an issue, I didn't want to expand the WikiProject on User Warnings too far beyond its primary goals. This WikiProject states better documentation as one of its goals, so that's... rather convenient. >_>;

I'd like to find or develop a standard example of template documentation that would be applied throughout the template namespace. Anyone interested, or shall I freelance a proposal for later comment? // Pathoschild 16:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Late comment — we always have {{doctl}} →AzaToth 02:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I have always wondered why we put the usage notes on the talk page at all. Wouldn't it make more sense to have them displayed on the template page and leave the talk page for discussions? That makes it easier to find the instructions and also helps to remind people to update them when they make changes to the template. If the template code is placed within <onlyinclude> tags, or <includeonly> tags with <noinclude> tags around everything else, then only that section gets used when the template is transcluded and everything else just displays on the local page. If we have an example of the template in use (automatic from the code for most templates) followed by instructions right on the template page then people following links to the template will usually get all the info they need right there. --CBD ☎ ✉ 12:42, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Editing a popular template, even for usage info, is something to be avoided. Even though we have the ability to do it with noinclude, we should make it standard to have documentation on Talk. -- Netoholic @ 03:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
Again I say, "why"? Page cache invalidation? It hasn't been shown to be a significant issue, and even if it were... the documentation is seldom going to be updated unless the template itself is - which would invalidate the caches anyway. Right now we have a mix - some templates put documentation on the template page, some on the talk page, and some have it split up on both. I think we should definitely try to standardize this, but I don't see any real advantages to using the talk page. --CBD ☎ ✉ 12:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Potentially very useful project

Heh, I was thinking that we needed a wikiproject to provide help for people in setting up templates and standards... typed in a name to set up a new one and surprise, it's already here. Think we need to advertise a bit more though. --CBD ☎ ✉ 00:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

expert attention

I don't know what happened in Cumberland Valley High School it seems that someone did a wierd cut and paste instead of a subst. I would fix it but I don't know how. Jon513 22:36, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I converted it to a call to 'Infobox School'. --CBDunkerson 00:49, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Template:Information appliance

Could someone take a look at Template:Information appliance? For some reason when instances do not call one of the optional parameters there is a large white space above the article. I can't figure out why. Thanks! jaco♫plane 04:49, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Just Joined Project

Hi, I have just joined the project, and [apart from the collaborative tasks on the main page], I am unsure of what I can do to help! If anyone has anything template-related that they would like me to look into then just add it here or put it on my talk page --Richard0612 19:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Jewish history template

Hello. I hope you do not mind me coming here for a little help. I recently created a project banner template, Template:WikiProject Jewish history, and I seem to have messed up the coding somewhere. I admittedly copied the template from another WikiProject, and tried my best to leave the coding alone while simply changing all "Japan" references to "Jewish history." But evidently I messed up, because now anything coded/written on the page after my project banner will not show up. Thank you for any help you can offer. LordAmeth 00:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know much about the coding for Templates, but maybe you want to look at Template:Stargateproject? It already has a drop-down box, so all you'd have to do is modify the code, not come up with it. --Tim4christ17 12:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Request!

Template:Infobox_Hospital could use some parserfunctions and cleanup, I tried to use it in Townsville General Hospital but apart from displaying empty parameters, the content was pushed to the right... Maybe it could resemble our great Template:Infobox Disease?--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 20:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Generic WikiProject template

Hey folks. Is there any interest in making a meta-template to standardize the WikiProject templates? Someone recently asked for some additions to {{WikiProject California}} and {{WikiProject Southern California}} based on features they saw in {{TrainsWikiProject}}. While making the changes, I was thinking how lame it was that I needed to make them twice. I don't forsee this being the end-all, be-all solution to creating all WikiProject banners, but I think it could give a lot of power to the majority of WikiProjects without duplicating effort editing esoteric templates.

I started a prototype at User:Mike Dillon/WikiProject banner that is minimally demostrated at User:Mike Dillon/Sandbox#Generic WikiProject template. I purposely avoided demostrating anything that would include my sandbox in an inappropriate category, but I have tested that the category functionality works using "Show preview". Let me know what you all think. If such a template is desired, I think it should be called {{WikiProject banner}}. It would be used by transclusion in the project-specific template with the "project_*" params specified, leaving the secondary template call to the project-specific template to fill in the usual WikiProject banner params like "class" and "importance".

Also, is this the right place to bring this up, or should I go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council? Mike Dillon 06:56, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Nice work! --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:34, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Things look a little somnolent herein

This is just a heads up about changes proposed regarding template deletion (speedy) processes and procedures. See Wikipedia talk:Proposed deletion Regards // FrankB 15:20, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposed rearrange of Category:Wikipedia templates

I've put forward a proposed rearrange of the top-most template category at Category talk:Wikipedia templates. Please drop by and make suggestions / comments. Thanks. Mike Peel 17:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Icon templates instead of large boxes at the top of pages

See this discussion here. Some icons have already been created; see my user page. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HisSpaceResearch (talk • contribs) 11:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC).

Talk templates on main article space.

I have noticed a couple of templates intended for talk space only have meen misused on the mainspace. A WP:Self problem. To solve it I have modified Template:ACIDnom and Template:Cleanup taskforce notice with the following code.

{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}||<span style="font-size: large; color: red">'''Warning. This template should only be used on discussion pages.<br> Please it move to [[talk:{{PAGENAME}}]].'''<br></span>[[Category:Misplaced Templates]]|}}

If the template is inserted in the main namespace the page will be categorised into Category:Misplaced Templates and the following will be visible.

Warning. This template should only be used on discussion pages.
Please it move to talk:WikiProject Templates/Archive 1.

This may be of use on other templates. GameKeeper 21:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

"WikiProject Banners"

If anyone is interested I have proposed "WikiProject Banners", a WikiProject to set standards for, and help projects with, WikiProject banners at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.— miketm - Queen WikiProject - 11:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject Microformats

Anyone interested in microformats (or metadata in general) and the deployment - via templates - of microformats on Wikipedia, might like to be aware of, or even join, WikiProject Microformats. Andy Mabbett 09:03, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Hello Wikipeidians. I have made a proposal that would take care of the userbos issues and the general clutter of the Template namespace. Please see it here and make comments conserning it. Thank you for your time. SadanYagci 14:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Template infobox width

Suggest a uniform maximum width for infoboxes: Preferably at 50% of the body column, otherwise at 22 or 23 em. This is due to the recurring problem of excessively wide templates. -Stevertigo 20:29, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If done, percentages only, please - with an over-riding minimum set in Em. 22 em is about an eight of my monitor; 50% may be 8 characters wide on a mobile device. Andy Mabbett 10:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Templates - a right mess

I'm in the process of adding hCard microformat mark-up to a large number of biography and place- related templates, as part of the microformats project. It has become clear, as I've edited so many similar templates, that there is a lot of redundancy (very similar templates, where one, with optional components could be used) and a lack of standardisation (fields named "name" vs. "subject_name" vs. "playername"; or "url" vs. "homepage", for instance. I'm new to the templates project, but is this being addressed anywhere? Andy Mabbett 10:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm also finding several biography templates )e.g. {{Former F1 driver}}) with no birth/ death date fields! Andy Mabbett 12:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Deprecated templates

I have put forward a proposal to rename (and repurpose) this category to a temporary holding category; please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 May 7#Category:Deprecated templates for the full details and to leave comments. Thanks. Mike Peel 11:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

substring extraction in templates?

I have a couple of templates (such as {{StatcanProfile2006}}) which currently take two parameters, such as 6106023 and 61. The second parameter is just the first two characters of the first parameter. Is there any way to extract this from the first parameter in the current template syntax? I found the StringFunctions routines, but they apparently aren't incorporated into the Wikimedia code as of yet, otherwise "#sub:" would be the way to go. If there is a better hangout of template gurus to post this, just let me know. - David Oberst 02:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It is not possible, but the template can be modified to require {{StatcanProfile2006|61|06023}} instead of {{StatcanProfile2006|6106023|61}}, i.e., no duplication.--Patrick 13:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Messing things up

I've little experience with Templates, but by carefully and unashamedly cribbing a similar template, I devised Template:Norwich City F.C.. It's not a bad start, but:

  1. In the title bar, I can't get the font colour the correct shade of dark green. It seems black to me. Is that my eyesight, or am I doing something wrong?
  2. How do you make the article name appear bold if that's the article you're looking at?
  3. What a horrible mess it's made at The Nest (football ground). What did I do wrong?

Yours hopelessly, --Dweller 14:41, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Two of the three fixed. Any advice on number 1? --Dweller 19:21, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
I see you have manage to change from black to green since then. But I took the liberty to slightly modify the colours to those used for the official logo on the official web page. (Not the faulty colours used in the logo in the article.) I hope you like it. --David Göthberg 00:55, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Test case pattern

FYI: Wikipedia:Template test cases --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Avoid template creep

FYI, a statement regarding a problem that will hopefully largely heal itself: Wikipedia:Avoid template creep. Cheers, heqs ·:. 23:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Motorsport template mergers - help./ opinions needed

the possible merger of several templates is being discussed at Project Motorsport. Some concerns about the practicalities have been raised, and I think additional opinions, and expertise, would be useful. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 14:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Standardization of message boxes

Hello fellow template people! If you're not already aware of it, there is an effort underway to standardize the appearance of the "message box" templates which are used in articles, and possibly elsewhere as well. If you are interested, please check out Wikipedia:Template standardisation, and join the discussion. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 19:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this another harmonization project ... ? --Kralizec! (talk) 15:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Another template project request

See request here. Thank.↔NMajdan•talk 15:10, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Template example template?

Hello there. Just joined this project. It doesn't seem very active, I hope that's not the case and I just caught you at a slow time. Anyway, the first thing I was going to do is help fix the issue of templates adding pages to bogus categories because there's an example of the template on that page. I was wondering if there's a way (e.g. a template, like {{tlrow}}) that will just add an example without the category add. Or does each template need to be changed. If so, what do you change? Rocket000 18:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind. I made a template to do this. Rocket000 02:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Template help

I need some help with a table problem from someone who's more knowledgeable about templates than I am.

The list of MPPs on Legislative Assembly of Ontario is coded as a "wikitable sortable", but in actual practice the page shows up on the article as a non-bordered and non-sortable list. Meanwhile, the list of MNAs on 38th National Assembly of Quebec shows up correctly as a sortable table, and i can't find any difference in the way the two are coded. Can anybody help me locate the problem in the Ontario list? Thanks. Bearcat 23:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

It appears that Nat (talk · contribs) fixed it [1] by commenting out the HTML table and replacing it with an image. Specifically, it looks like there was an extraneous </td></tr> after the </table>, which is what broke the wikitable. --Kralizec! (talk) 02:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

More template help

Hi. Can anyone help me figure out why a fail is reported at Template:Infobox Album/color/doc#Unit test at "video". Thanks in advance. --PEJL 11:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Just taking a stab at it, but this is the only one that uses a numerical value to define the color, as well as <nowiki> tags. *shrug* JPG-GR 01:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I've guessed as much. The question is why {{#ifeq:<nowiki>#</nowiki>99CCFF|<nowiki>#</nowiki>99CCFF|pass|fail}} fails, or even better how to fix it so it doesn't? It does so here as well: fail --PEJL 06:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

{{Marian Engel Award Winners}}

I need some help with this navbox. It currently forces the most recent winner onto her own separate line instead of directly after the previous winner, but I can't figure out how to fix this. Thanks. Bearcat 17:44, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, found the problem. The closing </div> tag was in the wrong place. Bearcat 18:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

{{Infobox Canadian provincial riding}}

If no filename is included in the image field on this infobox, then the map slot actually displays the text [[Image:{{{image}}}|200px]] when the template is used (e.g. at Fredericton-Silverwood.) Can somebody help me recode the template to hide the text if the field is left empty? Thanks. Bearcat 20:53, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! Just needed an "if". --Brian Olsen (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

New Member XD

Hello, I have just joined this project and need to know what you want me to do if anything, I have a very good example of my work, a template using complex parser functions which I created, it looks simple but is effective

I'm probably best at creating a template from scratch, than editing one I know nothing about.

If you want me to join in head first then I will throw myself :-) PhilB ~ T/C 23:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Slideshow template testing help and comments needed

Hello collaborators on WikiProject Templates. I need the assistance of some experienced souls to evaluate and comment on a proposal to add a Slideshow template for convenient display of multiple images. The template would require addition of a couple of JavaScript functions to Common.js, so it's not something I can do alone. I've kicked off the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Add a Slideshow template, based on existing functionality in French wikipedia. Anyone with suggestions or comments on this is welcome to join the discussion there.

In particular, I am looking for Wikipedia users to help test the template's browser compatibility, and for input from anyone with knowledge of <div>s or JavaScript, who can help analyze what's happening with this template in IE7. Thanks! Rupert Clayton (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Template producing odd display

The template {{Vojvodina-geo-stub}} looks strange on the pages where it is transcluded, for example Orešac. The template looks fine on its own page, but it balloons with white space in the articles. I wish I knew how to fix it myself, but...I leave it in your capable hands. (If there is a better way to report problems like this, should I discover any in the future, please let me know.) --ShelfSkewed Talk 18:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Fixed! None of the table fields (<td><tr><table>) were closed. With the template by itself, it didn't matter, but on pages with other info, the template didn't know where the template ended, causing weird spacing. (At least I assume that's what was happening - it fixed it, in any event!) --Brian Olsen (talk) 05:32, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject Contemporary Music template

Hi, Wikiproject Contemporary Music is working on developing a talk page template. I wonder if you could help us with a couple things. The template is {{Template:Contemporary music}}. There are a couple of problems however. First can the background of the image be changed to match the rest of the template as Template:Composers somehow managed to do? Secondly we’re apparently having trouble integrating the box into show/hide formats. There is probably something wrong with my design for the template. My experience in this area of Wikipedia is very limited. Help would be much appreciated. Thanks, --S.dedalus (talk) 21:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I can answer one of your questions. The problem is with the image, not the template. The image at {{Composers}} has a transparent background, so it will automatically blend in. The image at {{Contemporary music}} has a solid white background, so it doesn't. The image itself needs to be altered to fix this; most photo-editing software will allow you to make part of the image transparent. I don't have much experience with the show/hide feature, I'm afraid. --Brian Olsen (talk) 00:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

need template help

I've been trying to create a version of Template:Climate chart that's accessible to people who only understand fahrenheit, and I've got something that's nearly working at Template:Climate chart convertible. I achieved this by simply autogenerating and hiding a fahrenheit version that readers can click to expand and read. The problem is that the it causes all text below the template to also be hidden. You can see the havoc I accidentally wreaked at the Tokyo article here[2] for an example. It seems to me that the template I'm using to hide things has the }}s paired, but on the talk page for that template others have mentioned problems they experienced when trying to add tables. Can someone help me out? Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I think I fixed it. The problem seemed to be that the information in the "content" parameter of the {{Hidden}} template was only a section of the table, and the template couldn't figure out where the table ended - so it put the entire rest of the page into the table, and hid it. I've turned the hidden section into an entire nested table of its own, and that seems to have done the trick. --Brian Olsen (talk) 22:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Yay! Thank you! Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:35, 10 January 2008 (UTC)