User talk:P Aculeius

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Hello, P Aculeius, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for joining the project. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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Again, welcome! Beeswaxcandle (talk) 19:07, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I'm a seasoned editor on Wikipedia and have made minor contributions on some other Wikimedia projects, but adding texts to Wikisource is new for me! I hope my mistakes aren't too terrible, and that my work is improving as I go. I'll be sure to check out some more help topics and resources when I need a break! Meanwhile, if you see any issues, I'm happy to clean them up if you can explain what I've done wrong, and how to do it right! P Aculeius (talk) 23:47, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Base-ball ballads

I wanted to let you know that I have validated the pages that you have created so far at Index:Base-ball ballads (IA baseballballads00rice).pdf, and I really enjoyed reading the ballads - as someone who didn't grow up with baseball it was interesting to hear about in such poetic terms. If you want to ping me when you have created the remaining pages I'd be happy to validate those too --DannyS712 (talk) 05:29, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! I will certainly do that! I was wondering how the validation process worked in practice, and whether it might be a while before anyone got to this! It may take a few more days to finish the book. Depending on my energy level, I can do twenty pages at a time—or just two! Incidentally, some of these are rather maudlin (and at times I question Rice's meter)—but others are quite amusing. "Game Called", the last one, might be the one that Rice is most famous for, perhaps in part because he wrote a new version in 1948, in memory of Babe Ruth, who had just died, and that one, like the original, is quite good—in fact, the reason I stumbled across this book is because I was searching for the original publication. Unfortunately, I think that the 1948 version is probably still under copyright, though it's not hard to find on the internet if you're curious. I wish I had a better idea how to search for evidence that the copyright was renewed, but when I tried a couple of weeks ago I had no luck. I'll ping you when the other pages of this book are ready, and once again, thanks! P Aculeius (talk) 05:39, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

No problem - I'm not entirely sure what gave me the urge to check wikisource for the first time in a while, but I saw in recent changes that you had created some of those pages and figured I could take a look - they are a bit easier to review than more dense content about less interesting subjects... if you want to know more about the validation process though, I would ask someone who has been active here in the last few years, or maybe try Wikisource:Scriptorium? DannyS712 (talk) 06:02, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I've finished transcribing and proofreading, and added my versions of the illustrations, including the cover and title page. I hope I did them right! I think there might still be some work to do on my annotations, some terms I didn't feel comfortable defining earlier, but which I think I can do now. And possibly some adjustments to formatting. I hope it's okay to do this kind of work post-validation! I'm also worried about the table of contents. I think I linked the contents correctly—but the table doesn't look like the example I followed on the index page! Just let me know if you see anything I need to fix or redo, please! P Aculeius (talk) 05:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@DannyS712: I've gone back and added/adjusted some annotations, fixed a couple of mistakes that I spotted, and now think the rest is ready for validation, if you have the time! Could you also take a peek at the illustrations and the table of contents, and see if they look right? Thank you! P Aculeius (talk) 19:24, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

@DannyS712: Everything should be finished now—I've removed all of the annotations so that there'll be a "clean" version (you can check my sandbox if you run across something or someone that needs explanation), and I've been through every page multiple times, so I think they're ready for validation! Note that the links in the table of contents are gone—I believe that'll be fixed when the book is transcluded to mainspace. I need to review how to do that in the next few days... But it'd be great if you're still willing and able to help me finish validating the book! P Aculeius (talk) 02:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

TOCs

While there is still some debate as to what exactly we should use, I think I can say that there is consensus against using {{Dotted TOC line}} (and also {{Dotted TOC page listing}}). The problem with these two templates is that they create a one-row table for each row of the TOC, and in the end it makes an absurdly large output. Dotted TOC page listing gives

Extended content

{|<!--
    --> class="ws-summary wst-dtpl  "
{{#if:| {{!}} class="wst-dtpl_chaptertext" {{optional style|width=|max-width=|text-align=}} {{!}} {{{chaptertext}}} |}}
|<div style="position:relative; width:100%;"><div style="max-width:80%; text-align:left; text-indent:-1.0em; margin-left:1.0em;"><div class="toc-line-entry-text wst-dtpl-background" style="display:inline; position:relative; text-align:left; padding:0.0em 0.5em 0.0em 0.0em; {{#if:|background:white;}} z-index:2;">Entry text</div></div><div class="ws-noexport wst-dtpl-background" style="position:absolute; left:0px; bottom:0px; width:1.0em; height:1.00em; {{#if:|background:white;}} z-index:1;"></div><div class="ws-noexport" style="position:absolute; right:0px; bottom:0px; width:100%; overflow:hidden; white-space:nowrap; text-align:right; z-index:0;"><div style="display:inline; float:right;">{{Dotted TOC page listing/{{#invoke:String2|trim|1}}|.}}</div></div></div>
|style="text-align:right; vertical-align:bottom; padding:0.0em 0.0em 0.0em 0.5em; width:2.0em;" | {{scan page link|1|0}}<!--
-->{{#if:| {{!}}{{!}} class="wst-dtpl_col4defaults" {{optional style|text-align=|width=}} {{!}} {{{col4text}}}|}}
|}

Dotted TOC line gives

Extended content

<table class="toc-line dotted-toc-line" {{#if:|style="width:{{{width}}}"}}>
<tr>
{{#if:|<td class="toc-line-chapter-text" style="{{#if:|width:{{{chapter-width}}}; max-width:{{{chapter-width}}};}}{{#if:|text-align:{{{chapter-align}}}}}">{{{1}}}</td>}}
<td class="toc-line-entry" {{#if:|style="vertical-align:{{{col2-vertical-align}}}"}}>
<div class="toc-line-entry-inner">
<div class="toc-line-entry-text-outer" style="{{#if:|max-width:{{{entry-width}}};}}{{#if:|text-align:{{{entry-align}}};}}{{#if:|text-indent:-{{{hi}}}; margin-left:{{{hi}}}}}">
<div class="toc-line-entry-text" {{#if:|style="background:{{{textbackground}}}"}}>Entry_text</div>
</div>
<div class="toc-line-entry-text-space ws-noexport" style="{{#if:|width:{{{hi}}};}}{{#if:|background:{{{textbackground}}}}}"></div>
<div class="toc-line-dots-outer ws-noexport"><!--
	--><div class="toc-line-dots" {{#if:|style="letter-spacing:{{{fillsp}}}"}}><!--
		-->{{#invoke:String|rep|.<!--
			-->{{#if:|{{#invoke:String|rep| |{{{spaces}}}}}}}<!--
			-->|244}}<!--
	--></div>
</div>
</div>
</td>
<td class="toc-line-page" style="{{#if:|text-align:{{{col3-align}}};}}{{#if:|width:{{{col3-width}}}}}"><!--
	--><!--
		-->{{scan page link|1|0}}<!--
	--><!--
--></td>
{{#if:|<td class="toc-line-col4" style="{{#if:|text-align:{{{col4-align}}};}}{{#if:|width:{{{col4-width}}}}}">{{{col4text}}}</td>}}
</tr>
</table>

and {{TOC row 2dot-1}}, the more reasonable alternative, gives

Extended content

|- class="__toc_row_m-1 __toc_row_2dot-1 wst-toc-row-2dot-1 " style=""
|colspan=2|<div class="wst-toc-dotcell"><div style="text-align:left; text-indent:-1.5em; margin-left:1.5em;"><div class="toc-line-entry-text wst-toc-dot-bg wst-toc-dotentry" style="{{#if:|background:{{{textbackground}}};}}">Entry text</div></div><!--

--><div class="ws-noexport wst-toc-dot-bg wst-toc-dotempty" style="width:1.5em; {{#if:|background:{{{textbackground}}};}}"></div><div class="ws-noexport wst-toc-dotouter"><div class="wst-toc-dotinner">{{Dotted TOC page listing/{{#invoke:String2|trim|5}}|.}}</div></div></div>
|style="text-align:right; width:2.0em;" | {{Scan page link|1|0}}

Still, this is pre-expansion, but the size of the content generated has about the same proportions (size comparison there).

For two pages, it can be more or less fine, but with a few more we begin having problem with the limits of MediaWiki.

Bottom line is, try to stick to the TOC row's, or even raw wikitables if you can.

Also, I noticed that in the TOC you added links to the pages (in the Page: namespace), but it should always link to main namespace pages in the end, because the content will be transcluded.

Pinging @DannyS712, because they validated these pages so maybe they don't know either. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 16:19, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't look at the templates - thanks for letting me know. I was just validating if it matched how the pages looked --DannyS712 (talk) 18:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

TOC width

In general, except if necessary, e.g. if there is an image that needs to fit, we tend to avoid specifying widths for TOCs, as if readers want a narrow view they can change layouts in the "Display options" on the left. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 09:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I just didn't see the point in the table of contents displaying at more than twice the width of anything else in the book, sprawling across the whole width of the screen for absolutely no reason whatever. Is there actually a reason why anybody would want the table of contents to be so much wider than it has any excuse for being? None of the lines were over about 32 em, dots included—or is the width of an em fixed without respect to the size of the text? The only reason I can think of for avoiding any limit on width would be if it were causing problems with someone's display, but if someone can't display 35 ems in width, then how is 64 or 75 ems going to help? Does max-width prevent it from scaling down as well? P Aculeius (talk) 12:49, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

We do not either put limited width for other content (except verse), so I don't see what you mean by "anything else in the book". We let text wrap around as well.

Without specifying the width, we let people who are fine with full-width, for example because they don't care about the page numbers on the other and, have full-width, and those who want a narrower table have one easily, by changing the layout once, since Wikisource remembers layout settings.

If we say max-width:35em, those who want full-width have to muddle with custom CSS to get it right, which most readers cannot do, while it only saves one click, once, to the others. — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 13:06, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

The entire book consists of poetry and illustrations, so every page is quite narrow—except for the table of contents, which expands to however wide one's browser window is. At 100%, the longest title in the table of contents is about four inches wide on my monitor; and with the browser window at full width it's followed by eleven inches of empty space, then the page number. The window I'm currently using is fairly narrow, and it's got nearly six inches of blank space between the longest title and the page number. Most of the titles are half as long or less, so there's a lot of white space even at 35 em, which approximates the width of the widest illustration and is wider than the content of any other page. Why does there need to be 2, 3, 4 times as much?

But I'm still confused: who is going to have trouble reading the table of contents at 35 em, and need to expand it, if none of the titles plus page numbers plus white space are any wider than that? Presumably the only people who would have trouble reading it are people whose screens are too small to display the whole title and page number on one line—and specifying a maximum width doesn't affect that. Can you explain how anyone could find the table of contents too narrow to use at 35 em, if that's wider than all of the text of the longest line plus a gap? P Aculeius (talk) 15:00, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

The point is not that making it narrow makes it hard to read, but that, just as there is no major^[1] reason to have it wide, there is no major reason to force it to be narrow.

Anyone wanting, for personal preferences, to make it narrow should use layouts and not force it.

Consensus, as of now, is that specifying width limits for TOCs is a bad practice.

If you disagree with that or want to make an exception for poetry, then you should make your point at the Scriptorium and see what the others have to say about it.

1. Technically, I could go on and tell you that, as content is transcluded, we don't really care for the page numbers at the right, and some people prefer the one column that matters to be left-aligned instead of centered, but, as I said, that's not the point.

— Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 15:20, 24 June 2024 (UTC)