Template talk:Header/2010

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in 2010, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion.

Interwiki Ru

Please correct Russian interwiki, it should point to ru:Template:Отексте. — Lozman (talk) 23:58, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Done. You could have done it yourself; the interwikis are on Template:Header/doc, which is not protected. Hesperian 00:09, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Bah [looking conflict]!, I wondered why it looked right to me. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:26, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

year fix

It needs a space to avoid, "In Flanders Fields (1921)by John McCrae" Cygnis insignis (talk) 23:47, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Done — billinghurst sDrewth 06:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

link in footer

This doesn't appear to be working, they display correctly (red/blue) but are not clickable. cygnis insignis 11:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The link now works in the footer, but when I click through to an adjacent subpage it doesn't; it shows unclickable links again. cygnis insignis 12:14, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

italicise title instead of author

Currently this yields

Early Voyages to Terra Australis
by Richard Henry Major

As far as I can tell, the only reason the second line is italicised is to increase the visual distinction between it and the first line. But as there is a fairly strong real-world convention to italicise titles, and not authors, it seems to me that this is a bit backwards. I would like to change it to yield

Early Voyages to Terra Australis
by Richard Henry Major

Thoughts? Hesperian 02:50, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree with your reasoning about it having being done for the visual difference. That said, if we were going to look at a change, I think that it would be worthwhile taking the extra step back and to review headers from first principles and how we represent titles of works, versus titles of collections, and how we utilise individual works with collections. For instance: Index:Mandragora.djvu; Index:Essays in librarianship and bibliography.djvu and Index:Lectures on Modern History.djvu all by the same authors, then compare it to journals and the like, eg. Popular Science Monthly which are collections by different authors. The issues that I see are

• physical presentation (as you identified)
• author association with the individual work, or the collection (especially in shared works)
• is the title the collection or the individual work? Especially if the parts of the collection have been elsewhere
• there is also criteria built into Index: framework to identify the type of the work and to present it. ThomasV has part of the framework in place, though not implemented (which I believe he has done at frWS)

— billinghurst sDrewth 03:47, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it possible to have italic for the title by using the section field, this PSM example gives the hierarchy of the 'sections'. Note also the previous and next fields at this example link the previous volume and the next article.

I think confusion is generated by the tendency to use the field title to show a meta-title, what is actually the name of a section of the actual source. The section field could show section links, volume, issue and the PSM title taken from page "The Industrial Type of Society". If the text had come from a Political Institutions, being Part V of the Principles of Sociology (The Concluding Portion of Vol. II) (London: Williams and Norgate, 1882) it displays any subpage structure in the section field, down to and including "CHAPTER XVIII.: the militant[!] type of society" if one followed this as a source. 'Militant' and Industrial' are part of a full citation, the half title for these sources is Principles of Sociology and Popular Science Monthly and that would be linked in italic (and bold) from title=.

• Title can autoformat if it only names the top level label, if we push the rest to section; this is flexible enough to accommodate 'collections' of same or different authors.

The type of source should be considered irrelevant, I think this consideration stems from the earlier practice of fragmenting works to pages with titles of sections and divorcing it from its actual source. The top level of a subpage structure give the details of the whole work, the section header includes info like its author and access to any subpage structure. Cygnis insignis (talk) 14:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I was probably indirect in the mentioning of the ambiguity with the author of the work vs part of the work. For the DNB we use a modified header {{DNB00}} which puts the author details in a different location, and one that is slightly more obvious. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

The DNB is not subpaged, a side issue that pushes a user to a dab of a meta-title Blake, William, but where would the scheme fail for that example. It is considered to be a 'reference work', but that should not affect the header or subpage arrangement either. The fragmentation of that work is another issue that impacts on the rest of our catalogue.

Why is putting the author on its own line 'more obvious'? In the PSM example I modified the title of the section "The Industrial Type of Society" is followed with "... by Herbert Spencer". The DNB template style creates a new line for the author, it is 'less obvious' what Anne Gilchrist is the author of, though the title page and the text itself show the various authors - the article is by "A. G-t.", perhaps with changes by "the editors". Cygnis insignis (talk) 15:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Add "see also" and "shortcut", and document code

I would like to be able to have an {{author}}-style way of linking to the relevant Wikipedia or Commons page from a work. Many of our works have Wikipedia article, and many have Commons categories or pages (if fact any with scans should have). I have made the modifications [here], and you can see the result [here]. I also commented all of the code so that you can now actually see what is happening :-O. If people could try to break this template to look for bugs, I would be grateful. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 03:52, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This was a discussion that has taken place earlier in places (was in Scriptorium at one time and focused on aligning the format of {{wikipedia}}, {{commonscat}}, etc.), and from that evolved the less obtrusive {{plain sister}} and another (forgotten name) which can be used within the notes field, rather than looking to further complicate the header template. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:44, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This was the aim of {{plain sister}} and its kin {{interwikidiscreet}}, to imitate and eventually merge the 'author-page style' sister links into the header. Including this in the author template is not problematic, other than the inclusion of non-existent links, why would it be here? Those templates are very close to this suggestion, producing very similar output in the notes field. It is frequently needed on a parent (title) page, perhaps on subpages as well, and because it is like the author template, it accords with a widely deployed navigational arrangement. I support inclusion and merging every other interwiki template into this. Cygnis insignis (talk) 05:11, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I have never noticed those templates before. But I have seen a lot of people using the big and bulky {{wikipedia}} templates in the "notes" field. If we would incorporate {{plain sister}} into the header template, we should also incorporate it into the author template (replacing the links we have now) and the portal header template. This would outsource the parameter parsing to {{plain sister}}, meaning less code in header, author and portal template.

• I have added {{plain sister}} to {{portal header}} as an demonstration of what I envision for header and author. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 07:09, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I like the way it was merged into the portal template. I'd love to see it merged as well into the header template, since I think both alternatives (plain sister and the clunky {{wikipedia}} templates) are too cumbersome.—Zhaladshar ^(Talk) 13:41, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

While I am ambivalent(ish) about merge or not as I don't find it a burden to add, and it gives me a little flexibility on positioning, and possibility of alternates. On a thought along a similar line, we should be looking to extract common css codes and the colours of each these different header templates into common.css and simplifying the editing, and the call of the like colours as needed. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:18, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• {{plain sister}} also merged into my sandbox's version. See here, and result here. Remember that the box disappears if you don't use it, so if you really need alternative placement, you can do it as you do now. However, a unified approach would be better wherever possible, in my opinion. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:57, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• The unified CSS code is now in place, and applies to all header templates ({{header}}, {{author}}, {{process header}}, {{portal header}}). See Mediawiki_talk:Common.css for a list of the new classes. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 04:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify what I'm hoping is going to happen: When I create an Author page the template has fields to wikipedia, commons and quote. I find this very convenient for checking and creating content elsewhere, and as a reader I know exactly where to click on the page as I browse around.

• These first two should appear, and be left, as parameters in the header template whena page is created.
• Perhaps the commons link should default to commonscat.
• The set of links should be extendable, to include other sisters. Maybe this is neater in a separate template?
• The output might need better labels and/or icons, or a left aligned sentence, but they will become as familiar to users as I think they are on the author pages.

Apologies if this has already been addressed above. I used the model someone created for 'plain sister' to tout the desired outcome, I hope it becomes redundant and is eventually deleted. cygnis insignis 12:44, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

That is the plan. Except that I am planning to use {{plain sister}} directly, so that the parameter parsing is outsourced away from the header template. See {{Portal header}} for what I plan to do. I prefer {{plain sister}} to {{interwikidiscreet}} because it has more uses, so it will be easier to delete {{interwikidiscreet}}. Also "interwiki" may mean inter-language, but "sister" means the other projects. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 14:54, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, if there are no objections, I am going to change to the version here. Changes are:

• Improved code readability (comments and spacing)
• Add fields for sister wikis, using {{plain sister}}
• Add field for {{shortcut}} (for works like EB1911, Colliers, etc). This adds a tracking category to make it easy to check for abuse.

Any objections, thoughts or comments? Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds okay to me. We should make specific note on {{plain sister}} that it is embedded into these templates, or maybe better some generic text and create a link to which templates transclude it, and ensure that there is a suitable level of protection for that template. Should we also add some clear documentation to this template that explicitly states which templates are transcluded? — billinghurst sDrewth 07:58, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Probably a good idea. I'll have to update the documentation anyway. Plain sister could also use a makeover. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:35, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The template has been updated. Docs for this and {{plain sister}} have been changed. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 13:54, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

modification

I needed a wrapper for my scripts, so I added a new div with the "headertemplate" id. The "headertemplate" id was already used for the table, and I boldly removed it, because it is apparently not used by any script. (only the class is used) If I was wrong and you need to revert me, please let me know, so that I’ll use another id. ThomasV (talk) 17:01, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't know if it matters -- the only way to keep {{Potus-eo}} from producing an error bang was to add id="headertemplate" to it. George Orwell III (talk) 17:06, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Suggested to modify to add subsection author

It has been suggested that the template Header should be modified to allow the addition of a parameter to show the contributor of a part of a work where the contributor of the relevant piece of text is not the author of the entire work. Examples of such cases are journal articles (eg. PSM), biographical dictionaries (eg. DNB) and works where an editor has undertaken an introduction to works of another author. To do this we would need to decide upon—

1. a parameter name, my personal preference would be contributor, though others may have alternate preferences, or we may be able to align two names to the parameter;
2. the display location of the field, and it has been suggested that it be after the section name, possibly on a new line
3. it would automatically wikilink to the Author pages (unless people can think of reasons not to); and there would be a need for an override function (no link required, or to allow for multiple authors)

The parameter would be optional. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:52, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Try this out for size: User:Inductiveload/Sandbox. You can see example usage at User:inductiveload/Sandbox2. It adds an "editor" field, and a "sec_author" field. I've made it so it uses the same "dirty-link" capturing as the author and translator fields, and it supports overrides for both. All new parameters are optional, no change is made if they are not used. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 18:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that a relevant test is something like a DNB article or a PSM article where we can look at set-out clarity and the header width versus depth, and to see whether it adds value to clarify sub-authors, or works where we have overarching editors and different authors. Also would like to see it where we have an introduction by a separate contributor than the author.

One of the other considerations is how well will it work with the preload tools especially where they pre-populate fields from other pages in a work. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:55, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Take another look at User:inductiveload/Sandbox2. I've added a DNB-style entry, and some of the preceding entires are the kind you'd expect for a separate author of a preface or introduction. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 05:35, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I get translator name split for With author, editor and section author and With author and overridden editor, [17" monitor] so I am not sure that the long lines work or give clarity, though they do give a shallower header bar. I would also like to see how it would look with the sec_author being a new line under the section name, that is the presentation style for DNB00 and PSM. — billinghurst sDrewth 10:53, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The split line is caused by the central "title" cell (as opposed to "forelink" and "backlink" cells) of the header box not being long enough to take the full line. I've adjusted the template so that if there is no forelink and no backlink, the title cell takes up the whole width, to avoid a short, split line if there is lateral space. However, if a fore or backlink exist, the table space is constrained by the classes .gen_header_backlink and .gen_header_forelink which both have width: 20%;.

I've added a line break before the section author too.

If you want to change the parameter name from "sec_author" to something else, that's fine. However, I don't think "contributor" is ideal for situations where the editor just gathered up works and put them together, as it kind of implies that the author wrote the article for this use. This is just semantics, and I'm not very attached to "sec_author" other than the fact that it is the same length as "translator", so it will prevent a ragged line of equals signs in the template.Inductiveload—talk/contribs 12:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This one With author, editor and section author needs fixing as we get a wrap on William/wrap/Wordsworth followed by single word lines. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:16, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

┌───────────────────────┘

Here is an example of a section author, and section translators, and an alteration The University Hymn Book/God reveals his presence. When we are keeping works as sub-parts of the compilation, works like this continue to highlight that we need to either amend header or to give fuller guidance on how to manage. My opinion on this rendition is that I would think that how we could make it happen is have section author as proposed, then we utilise the Notes display field in either a structured or instructive means. My preference is for optional structured parameters.

Structured could be to have a leading controlled area within the (managed by an #if: statement) that enables us to put in supplementary subsection information, section_translator, section_illustrator and they are free text and can be wikilinked as required.

Right, let's get this discussion going again! I think free-text for all new parameters a good idea, as otherwise we end up with even more ways to do it wrong, and the template's dirty-link handling code is getting out of hand already. To be honest, I think that the author field should be free text, (we have 26,300+ works in Category:Pages with override author), but that is a discussion for another time. I propose adding the following, optional, fields: "editor", "illustrator", "translator". All fields (including "author" too) will have an optional section variant for when the subpage's data differs from the main work. Inductiveload—talk/contribs 19:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Wrapping "plain sister" components?

Is it worth wrapping the components of {{plain sister}} that are embedded in the header into #if statements so that they don't call the template unless necessary? — billinghurst sDrewth 14:32, 21 December 2010 (UTC)