Template talk:Navbox/Archive 1

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Tweaks for {Navigation} compatibility

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My goal is to make this 100% compatible with {{Navigation}} so that this template can replace that one. The major reason is that a bug fix which repaired NavFrame behavior caused {{Navigation}} to be always initially closed. So we need to implement category:

Please change:

|l1 = {{{body|}}}{{{list1|}}}

to:

 |l1 = {{{body|}}}{{{list1|}}}{{{category|}}}

Thank you. ←Ben^B4 15:51, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 15:54, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Class nowraplinks

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I have made a template and some CSS code that prevents word wraps inside links and only allows word wraps between the links and in normal text. This is useful for instance for long link lists.

The {{nowraplinks}} template has now been fully deployed and the CSS code added to common.css. I and other editors have tested it in several ways in several browsers. There for I suggest that the CSS class is used here (in Template:Navbox) to save users of this navigation box from using lots and lots of   or {{nowrap}}. I have tested it with the template's current code in my own testpages/sandboxes.

I suggest that the first line of Template:Navbox/core should be changed to:

<table class="navbox collapsible {{{state|autocollapse}}} nowraplinks"

While I am at it I suggest that the last few lines of Template:Navbox be changed to:

}}<noinclude>


{{protected template}}


{{template doc}}
<!-- Add categories and interwikis to the /doc subpage, not here! -->
</noinclude>

The change of the last few lines is to get the documentation look and feel recommended in Wikipedia:Template documentation. (The two empty lines between the "protected template" and the "template doc" is to prevent the green documentation box to come too close to the template, just to make the template page more readable.)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks MZMcBride. Now all the generic navbox templates use the nowraplinks class. Except for {{Navigation with columns}} which I think probably should not use nowraplinks. --David Göthberg 05:03, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice new feature, I like it. --CapitalR 06:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Differences from Navbox generic?

This template seems to have the same purpose and even much of the same logic as Template:Navbox generic. I see that Template:Navigation, which again had the same purpose, was recently merged in to this one... but why did we ever have three to begin with? Offhand I don't see any features or options which couldn't all be included in a single template. --CBD 11:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, there is a simple answer to this: Not long ago all those "generic navbox templates" weren't as compatible as they are now and there were a whole bunch of them, each one good at doing some specific things. Now some template coders are working to make the navboxes compatible with each other, with all web browsers and include all the functions. Then they use bots to update all the usage of the templates (many thousands of pages) to the new compatible parameters, and then remove the redundant navboxes. So they are working hard towards making it fewer but better templates. As you noted they already have merged several navboxes. I think they are making a great job! --David Göthberg 14:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This template was created in order to simplify the code in Navbox generic, greatly reduce its pre-expand side (see Wikipedia:Template limits), fix a number of bugs in the image placement code, and to force on some default styles (like striping and colors). Unfortunately, Navbox generic could not be directly edited to include all of these changes, because it would have broken hundreds of templates that use it. I hope to slowly go through them all and convert as many Navbox generic templates as possible straight to {{Navbox}} (by taking the basic ones with styles similar to {{Navbox}} and just changing the template they point to, in order to standardize the styles; the rest will have to be slightly modified in order for them to be compatible with Navbox). This will allow me to eventually redirect Navbox generic to Navbox without breaking any.

I also hate template diversity creep, which is why I recently deprecated and converted {{Navigation}}, {{Navigation with image}}, {{Dynamic navigation box}}, {{Dynamic navigation box with image}}, {{Navigation box with image}}, and {{Navigation bar}} all to the new {{Navbox}}. Hopefully, the {{Navbox}} / {{Navbox generic}} will remain as the new standard. Overall, I thought it was acceptable to introduce one new template in order to deprecate 6 others. Just as another note, I'm planning on converting {{Navigation with columns}} to use the {{Navbox}} form soon, and possibly also {{NavigationBox}} (though that one will probably cause a minor uproar, as it will require significantly changing the way the template looks, so I'm not sure if I'll do it). --CapitalR 15:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there should have been a way to include any options and formats desired in a single template without breaking existing uses, but the continued movement towards consolidation now is good. One thing though, this template's pre-expand size is not "greatly reduced" from that of Navbox generic. In fact, it is quite a bit larger. For instance, Template:Dilbert has a pre-expand size of 15589 bytes while Navbox with the same parameters has a pre-expand size of 18786 bytes... which is about 120%. Moving half the code off to Navbox/core reduces the immediate size (and was presumably done to clear out some of the more convoluted stuff which is unlikely to change), but since this template calls that one, any actual use of it requires that both be taken into account. --CBD 17:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

hide/show

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Can the [ hide/show ] be made in small text. To correspond with the " v . d . e ", size text. It also looks ugly with the [ and ] not linked to the hide/show.

It should be more like {{Navigation}} (which is being depreciated). It looks nicer. SpecialWindler talk 10:06, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: I'm not sure if this can be done in this template. The CSS for a.NavToggle is defined as font-size:smaller; at Mediawiki:Common.css. I'm having a hard time figuring out the parent elements and whether they can be spanned here. ←Ben^B4 10:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that can't be changed in the template, unfortunately, as it is part of the collapsible table defined by MediaWiki's Common.js (which can be viewed here). Someone could put this in as a requested edit there, however, as I agree that the brackets should be linked with the Show/Hide word, and that it should be smaller. --CapitalR 13:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I just posted a request on the MediaWiki talk:Common.js page to include the square brackets in the show/hide link. Someone else can make a separate request to make the font size smaller. --CapitalR 13:27, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I know what to do for that, but I can't really do anything about the font size. ←Ben^B4 13:41, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I too agree, it looks better with the [ and ] linked and with a smaller size. --David Göthberg 13:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know where the "v•d•e" comes from? They aren't in Template:Navbox/core. ←Ben^B4 14:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look closely in the "---Titlebar---" section of Template:Navbox/core you will see the {{Tnavbar}}. That is the template that creates the "v•d•e" links. --David Göthberg 14:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Default groupstyle?

I think that the default groupstyle should use "vertical-align:middle;" just like {{Navbox generic}} does. It just looks better and works even better here at {{Navbox}} than at {{Navbox generic}}, since {{Navbox}} has every second list greyed thus the group heading doesn't need to be aligned with the top of the list to show where the list starts. --David Göthberg 12:43, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the middle alignment is a good idea. While we're at it, what do you think of changing the even striping color from the gray to a light purple, to maintain the purple theme throughout the whole template. I think we should also put the bodystyle color to be #fcfcfc, which is slightly darker than the white it now defaults to when groups are present.

This is what we have now:

This is what I propose for colors:

The old code is currently:
Navbox:

|bodystyle = {{{style|}}}{{{bodystyle|}}}
|titlestyle = {{{titlestyle|}}}
|abovestyle = background:#ddddff;{{{abovestyle|}}}
|belowstyle = background:#ddddff;{{{belowstyle|}}}

|above = {{{above|}}}
|below = {{{below|}}}

|gs = white-space:nowrap;background:#ddddff;text-align:right;vertical-align:top;{{{groupstyle|}}}
|os = width:100%;font-size:95%;{{{liststyle|}}}{{{oddstyle|}}}
|es = width:100%;font-size:95%;background:#f7f7f7;{{{liststyle|}}}{{{evenstyle|}}}

Navbox/core

<table class="navbox collapsible {{{state|autocollapse}}} nowraplinks" style="margin:auto;
{{#ifeq:{{{nogroups|}}}|true||background:white; }}{{#if:{{{l1|}}}|{{#if:{{{l2|}}}|background:white; }}}}{{{bodystyle|}}}"><!--

The new code would be:
Navbox

|bodystyle = {{{style|}}}{{{bodystyle|}}}
|titlestyle = {{{titlestyle|}}}
|abovestyle = background:#ddddff;{{{abovestyle|}}}
|belowstyle = background:#ddddff;{{{belowstyle|}}}

|above = {{{above|}}}
|below = {{{below|}}}

|gs = white-space:nowrap;background:#ddddff;text-align:right;vertical-align:middle;{{{groupstyle|}}}
|os = width:100%;font-size:95%;{{{liststyle|}}}{{{oddstyle|}}}
|es = width:100%;font-size:95%;background:#f5f5ff;{{{liststyle|}}}{{{evenstyle|}}}

Navbox/core

<table class="navbox collapsible {{{state|autocollapse}}} nowraplinks"
style="margin:auto;background:#fcfcfc{{{bodystyle|}}}"><!--

What do you all think? --CapitalR 13:39, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

First of all a disclaimer: I am using a CRT screen so I see colours differently than people on LCDs (flat/thin) screens do. CRTs have much better colours I think, but I have special colour seeing so I see more colours than most people. Yes more, not less. And most of my female friends say my sense of colour matching used to suck, but that it has improved lately.

Anyway, I did a screen dump of your examples above and edited them in my trusty old Paint Shop Pro to test many colours. Here's my results:

Yes, I think the bodystyle colour should be very light grey: #fcfcfc. But having the even striping colour light purple is too much. I tried to lower the saturation of the light purple striping (making it more grey) but still it was too much. Plain grey was best. But the old grey even striping #f7f7f7 was not dark enough when the background was #fcfcfc so I had to use #f5f5f5 for the even striping.

--David Göthberg 15:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

So this is what I (David) propose for colours:

• So as my disclaimer, I'm using an LCD and I'm also red/green colorblind (so I really have no idea what my styles look like to most other people). I'm fine with sticking with the gray if that's what we agree on, though I still prefer to light purple to maintain the color motif. --CapitalR 17:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Font size

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Could the default font size be changed from 95% to 100% (i.e normal size)? Wikipedia (and any navbox) is for everyone, not just those with perfect vision. Tompw (talk) (review) 18:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

With the risk of sounding like a "smartass": The current font size used in {{navbox}} is not 95%, it is 90%. And yeah, for us that have sensitive eyes that is a bit too small. However, many of the navboxes contain a lot of links, so they would become awfully big if we used 100% font size. I recommend that you instead do one or both of the following:

• Set your screen resolution to 800×600 if you are currently using something larger.
• Get a web browser that has a decent zoom feature, like Firefox ( press ctrl-+ and ctrl--, reset with ctrl-0 ) or Opera ( press keypad + and keypad -, reset with keypad * ). I don't know if Internet Explorer and Safari have decent zoom features nowadays.

Since I myself have sensitive eyes (inspite having better eye sight than 95% of the population) I use glasses and stick with the 800×600 screen resolution, since then usually I don't need to use the zoom functions.

--David Göthberg 22:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh wait, I just looked in the code again. The navbox CSS class used in the table header sets "font-size:90%;". (The class is declared in common.css) and used in Template:Navbox/core.) Then in Template:Navbox the oddstyle and evenstyles are set to "font-size:95%;". I think that means we are using 95% × 90% = about 85% font size.

--David Göthberg 23:43, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

So it's actually 85% font size. With regard to the "100% makes things take up more room": surely the whole point of having a collapsible navbox is that it doesn't matter? Users will unhide the navbox when they need it. When they need, they will want to be able read it all as easily as any other text in the article. Tompw (talk) (review) 19:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah yeah, you do have a point there. Since our navboxes nowadays autocollapse when an article has two or more navboxes the size of text in the navboxes in many cases is not much of a problem anymore. However, some articles have only one but a very large navbox and then it still is a size issue, since a lone navbox by default is expanded. (And that a lone navbox is expanded is at least a default that I feel sure about is a good thing.) I have to think about this for a while and perhaps test a little to see what is a good default text size before I will have a definitive opinion. (I am in no way claiming that I am in any position to decide this, just wanted to point out that I see what you mean Tompw.-)

--David Göthberg 23:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Group label alignment

Is there some particular reason why the group labels aren't centered vertically in their cells? Placing them at the top seems a bit strange. Kirill 21:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Kirill, this has been recently discussed and will soon be changed to be vertically centered. This code is undergoing a major re-write at the moment, and I promise the centering will fixed soon. Let me know if you have any other requested changes. --CapitalR 21:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that's good; I just wasn't sure if this was a deliberate choice. :-) Kirill 22:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I guess we can just do this right now so it can take effect before all of the other changes are made.
{{edit protected}} Change the "gs" parameter to have the "vertical-align:top" part be changed to "vertical-align:middle". All that needs to be done is to change that one word. Thanks, -CapitalR 23:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think most of us want that change. I very often see people manually adding that "vertical-align:middle" in navboxes when they make them. But, since "vertical-align:middle" is the default in web browsers if no vertical-align is given, it is better to simply remove the "vertical-align:top" part. --David Göthberg 23:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, done as per David. Kirill 00:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki-syntax sub-tables

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but is there a specific limitation in the navbox template which means that sub-tables have to be in HTML rather than Wiki markup? Trying to use Wikitables for lists results in a single open curly bracket. I'm asking because I'm trying to make Template:Compression Formats as simple as possible, but keeping the tables for internal layout. Chris Cunningham 14:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are asking in exactly the right place. And the limitation you noticed is not in the navbox themselves really. It is a general limitation in MediaWiki. That is, a template can not take parameters that contain pipes "|" and some other special characters. So you can not use a wikitable in a parameter to a template. The reason is that the pipe is what delimits different parameters to a template so if you use a pipe it looks to MediaWiki like you are adding multiple parameters instead of just one parameter. (Well, if MediaWiki was a bit more smart it would see that the end of your wikitable has not been reached yet, but it isn't that smart.)

I know for some such cases people use this template {{!}} to trick MediaWiki into accepting a pipe as parameter. I am not sure that would work in your case.

Anyway, I took a look at your Template:Compression Formats and actually, we have a way better solution for you! Take a look at Template:Navbox generic subgroup, it is especially designed for cases like yours. I think you will like that one. (If you have any problems using it, just tell me and I can edit your navbox for you.)

Cheers! --David Göthberg 18:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Awesome! I'll have a look into this. Many thanks. Chris Cunningham 11:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Colorizing VDE links

There has been a move (which I approve of) to convert existing templates to use Navbox, which has nicely implemented the collapsible templates on many pages. However, this has broken custom colorization of VDE links in the title bars of many templates. For those templates using dark backgrounds in the title bar (which includes many university athletic teams, which are using school colors), the VDE links can now be nearly impossible to see. (See Template:AuburnBasketballCoach and Template:CaliforniaBasketballCoach for examples.) The title itself and the show/hide links take on the custom color, so it would be great if the VDE links could as well. Is this possible? Thanks. WildCowboy 08:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Yup, it's possible, and has already been done on test versions for the next upgrade. It will be done when the new changes to the Navbox go through. --CapitalR 16:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Great...thanks! Looking forward to seeing it implemented. WildCowboy 18:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Wrapping

I have noticed that when a link clicked on in a template, and it no longer appears as a link but as bold text, the nowrap no longer works. See: {{US Presidents}}, click on Van Buren, my screen resolution setting is 1024px X 768px using FireFox. When Van Buren is the active page, the name wraps to the next line. This is an extremely minor nit-picky point, but if you can fix it go for it. Otherwise, forgetaboutit. Regards.--Old Hoss 21:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Because the no-wrap css applies to links only. Not sure how to fix that. Hmm. Smarter people here so I pass. ←Ben^B4 21:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

On second thought, the purpose of navboxes is to leave to other related articles, so I'm not sure if this is a big enough deal to spend a lot of time on. ←Ben^B4 21:49, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Problem

There's a problem with {{Fourth Balkenende cabinet}}, at least in Firefox. Some of the text appears outside of the box. Anyone know what's going on and how to fix that? JACOPLANE • 2007-09-24 09:23

It's because of the long lines of nowrapped text. That template needs tidied anyway, so let's see if we can kill two birds with one stone. Chris Cunningham 09:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Alas, it's going to require a rethink of the template layout. But there template's a little tidier than it was, anyway. Chris Cunningham 09:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I did a quick (and not the best way to do it) edit using {{-}} although the nav box still needs to be cleaned up. Peachey88 02:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Tagging templates that need to change

Say if we find a template that needs to be changed but we don't have the expertize or time to change it, is there a way we can tag it (eg: a category)? Peachey88 07:28, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

If by "change" you mean "tidy and cleanup", there's Category:Wikipedia template cleanup. Chris Cunningham 13:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Tutorial

Anyone know where I can find a tutorial on how to create a navbox for my own site? Thanks Travb (talk) 08:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Unless your site is running the Mediawiki software, it's not something which is transferable from here. If you're running MediaWiki, the best place to start is Help:Templates, which gives an overview of the syntax. Chris Cunningham 09:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Categories (discussion and non-inclusion)

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Firstly, the main page documentation doesn't mention the category attribute, which can be used to add cats to transcluded pages.

Secondly, these should be <noinclude>d from the category itself. See Template: Games Workshop, which transcludes Category: Games Workshop onto pages which include it but avoids being part of that category itself. I'd rather this were automatic with the attribute, because templates shouldn't be getting tagged with article namespace cats.

Chris Cunningham 12:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• The category attribute is basically useless and should never be used (which is why it's undocumented). It is only included for backward computability; cases where it is used should slowly be removed and phased out. On any sub-template that wants to use the category parameter, just add the categories after the Navbox call instead. For example:

{{Navbox
|title = Title
|list1 = List
|category = <includeonly>[[Category:Cat1]]</includeonly><noinclude>[[Category:Cat2]]</noinclude>
}}

{{Navbox
|title = Title
|list1 = List
}}<includeonly>[[Category:Cat1]]</includeonly><noinclude>[[Category:Cat2]]</noinclude>

The two above calls do exactly the same thing, so there's really no point in using a category parameter in my opinion. It just makes the template more complicated to understand without adding any use. It's easier to just add the categories at the end after the Navbox call instead of inside of it. Unfortunately, we can't just add the includeonly tags to this main Navbox template, as it would screw up lots of templates that are (unfortunately) using the category parameter. I'm going to remove the editprotected tag for now until more discussion follows. --CapitalR 08:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Reduce gap between lines that wrap around?

Hi — I was wondering if anyone else felt that the gaps between lines that wrap around were a little too wide? When I view the following, for example, the bottom line of list1 looks nearer to the top of line of list2 rather than to the preceding line in list1; note also the line-spacing of the "Quite-a-long group title":

Can the line-spacing in this template be modified to reduce this gap? Thanks, Sardanaphalus 00:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Haha i know. there needs an "enter", line break before {{list1}} in template code. Before all list1, list2... an enter is necessary to reduce line gap between lines of same list. I can show using an example. Or you see 2 revisions ( [1] and [2] )to see difference.

{{editprotected}}

Give a linebreak before (here){{list1}}. and all list2 list3 etc. not br/, but hit enter key before all list1, list2 transclusion. Lara_bran 06:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry by now it is moved to navbox/core. So it should be l2 l3 instead of list1 list2. in core template. But please compare 2 revisions i gave as example. thanks.Lara_bran 06:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, Lara_bran. After some experimenting, I found the following seemed to work:

|list1 = <div>
blah{{·}} blah{{·}} blah [etc]
</div>

In other words, not just using a line-break before the list, but making it a <div> as well. Do you think people would be happy to have this formatting included in the Navbox/core code? Best wishes, Sardanaphalus 13:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

• Including the divs in the core is something I've thought a lot about, and I lean toward not including it, as it makes the navbox list heights higher, making it look funny. Compare:

The first example is how the code works now. The second example above has the divs for all lists/above/below (which is what was suggested as an edit protected in {{Navbox/core}}), and you can see how much taller the lists/groups/above/below become, making it look quite weird. I think we should just leave it as is for now until more testing can be done to figure out if we can get around this problem. Also, I'm fairly certain that many templates will get messed up by adding the breaks before/after each list or adding div containers around each list, so we can't make the change yet without more testing. --CapitalR 08:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, so I did some testing and it looks like the way to do this will be to put in code like this:

<div style="margin:-4px; 0px;">
{{{l1|}}}
</div>

I'll do more testing and try to estimate the unintended side effects of adding this to the Navbox/core code. --CapitalR 09:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, so I've done some more tests on this, and I think it might be possible eventually include the divs automatically, but it cannot be done immediately or it will mess up many instances of this template. I'm working on a new version of the template (you can try it out at User:CapitalR/Test1, don't forget to add the new CSS to your monobook as instructed). I added the divs to the new version and it seems to work ok, but there's some unfortunate formatting differences between Firefox and IE that I'm trying to work out. I'll keep people posted on how the tests go. --CapitalR 18:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Did anybody see 2 revisions and diff i gave as example? including div takes lot of work, like compatibility with mozilla/ie etc. My solution is just hitting enter before every list. Lara_bran 03:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, pressing enter before every list has the same side effects though as adding the divs. I've tested this thoroughly and am working on a solution now (check my edit history for all the edits to test pages in my userspace). --CapitalR 04:20, 1 October 2007 (UTC)