Template talk:Archive

Link to page discussed

Repeating my previous request, before this template was merged with {{aan}}:

To reduce the number of clicks needed to return to the page under discussion, can we add a link to change:

This page is an archive of past discussions.

to something like:

This page is an archive of past discussions about Example.

Are there any edge cases where this would not be appropriate, that need to be catered for? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:36, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: I've added it to the sandbox version (sorry for taking so long :V), check it out at Template:Archive/testcases and User talk:Hilst/sandbox. @Rjjiii: Any thoughts? – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 12:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hilst: LGTM, thank you. I have template editor rights, if you need someone to implement it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:18, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead! :) – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 21:02, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

No objections here, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

{{Done}} Please report any issues promptly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:31, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Reverted. @Hilst: I checked Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom/Archive 1, and the revised template generated the red-linked text "This is an archive of past discussions about COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom/Archive 1."

@Pigsonthewing: Oops!  Fixed in the newest sandbox version. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 23:27, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

OK,  Done again. As before, please report any issues promptly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:44, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

New parameters discussion

Copying a post from Steel1943 below:

@Rjjiii: I noticed some of these abnormalities as well, and had actually started manually editing some transclusions to conform with what seemingly needs to be done here. And ... you may the best editor to ask this, given I saw your work on Module:Archive and since I'm not very versed in editing modules/Lua: In Template:Archive, did 1=1 function like it does prior to you performing your edits? (After reviewing the edit history of Template:Archive/doc, it looks like it did not, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there.) If not, is it possible for that to instead of hiding just the text in the article box to hide the entire archive box, leaving just the navigational links below it? Steel1943 (talk) 16:19, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Responding here so that the discussion will be easier to locate for future editors. I'm not so great with Lua either tbh; if you look at the sandbox histories, you'll see that I've mostly been discussing, testing, and cleaning up talk pages.

The sandbox now has |omit=banner to omit the whole box. There is almost certainly a better way to code that if you flag down someone better with lua modules. It worked okay when I previewed {{archive/sandbox|omit=banner}} on a few of the odd pages. |next= and |previous= are already available, but for some pages like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Middle-earth/archive10 it probably makes more sense to move the page. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 06:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hilst: I only added a parameter because I was unsure how "1=1" was currently being used. In your recent sandbox update (much appreciated!), the sandbox version now omits the banner for "1=1". If that works fine on the pages currently doing it, then "omit=banner" can just be removed entirely. That's closer to what Steel1943 had proposed anyway. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:20, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: I think omit can be kept, since we could do something like |omit=links, which would keep only the banner. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 20:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. Do you have any example pages with |1=1 so I can preview them? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Only one I know of is this template's testcases page. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 23:32, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been in Template:Automatic archive navigator since the beginning,[1] but I don't see any usage on actual archives. "|omit=<whichever>" is probably more clear. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:28, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I've implemented this in the sandbox. I've also removed |1=1, since I don't see any value in keeping a special case that is pretty much unused. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 14:43, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: Could you review the changes and push them to the live template? It's just a simple rewrite of table code, |omit=links, and some misc improvements (ignore the yellow test cases, the output is the same between both versions, save for the order of some CSS rules). Thanks. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 17:51, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and if I don't do it in a week or so, {{ping}} me again to remind me. The whole site's default font size is a bit bigger, so the links are slightly too wide on a page like Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 101 (try zooming the page in and out with the toolbar pinned, if it looks fine at first), so fixing that is a priority. I'm also waiting a week to see if any more bugs are reported, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:10, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

By too wide, do you mean that they spill out into the sidebar? If so, a simple max-width: 100% should prevent that. I don't use Vector 2022, so I didn't know that that was an issue. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 19:31, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, only on Vector 2022. The mobile site and app both scroll overflow. Try this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard/Archive_101?useskin=Vector-2020 Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 19:47, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks good, I'll still wait a bit. Introduce changes slowly in case more problems pop up, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:57, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Category talk pages

Hello, it seems like this template is inadvertently placing archives of category talk pages into their respective categories. For example, Category talk:Candidates for speedy deletion/Archive 1 is currently under Category:Candidates for speedy deletion (here are all category talk pages with this template). The template displays the message "This is an archive of past discussions about .", without the category name, and removing the template gets rid of the category placing. ObserveOwl (talk) 17:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Note that for some reason the CSD category talk archive has two duplicate transclusions of the template (the second one at #Odd bug) so removing both of them makes the page away from the category. ObserveOwl (talk) 17:31, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing and Hilst: there's a colon missing from the output. It should be "Category:Candidates for speedy deletion" ([[:Category:Candidates for speedy deletion]]). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:25, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@ObserveOwl, @Rjjiii:  Fixed in the sandbox. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 18:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hilst: Only in main space, this adds an extra colon that breaks the link. See Talk:Antisemitism/Archive 20, where it says "This is an archive of past discussions about [[::Antisemitism]]." I checked the other namespaces and it seems to work in those, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:58, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: Check again, it should be working this time :) – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 19:08, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, thanks! And also sorry about doing two updates back to back on a widly used template. I noticed the live template was linked to the sandbox and needed to go ahead and fix that. And also, thanks for leaving the clear message above with links and examples, ObserveOwl, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:28, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Very nice, thank you both! :) ObserveOwl (talk) 19:40, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Archive navigation edge cases

User:Daedalus969/talkarchive is used on pages like User talk:Daedalus969/Archive 20. Adding this template into that userspace template, prevents it from rendering. It gives the wikitext for a table? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:06, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Also, pinging Steel1943 who was looking into these and Daedalus969 who may have some insight, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:08, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

This was fixed with this edit, btw. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 20:19, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh snap, you've already fixed it! I see your testing in that page's history now, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 23:53, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Paper9oll/Archive 8 This is another archive using a custom userspace template. I tested the sandbox template out here and it breaks in a different way. I don't know if it's worth making any kind of change to the template to accommodate pages like this though. Courtesy ping to Steel1943 who was looking into these, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 00:16, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any problems with the sandbox test. How exactly is it broken? – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 11:18, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Too wide and overflowing to the right of the content area (Windows 10, Firefox, Vector 2022), Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:19, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It *should* look better now. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 15:20, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hilst: I think so, planning to push it live on Thursday Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:10, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

That's fine by me. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 11:32, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Striking those two examples above. After recent updates, they work. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:43, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Template:Archive number

{{Archive navigation}} is down to around 150 uses on weirdly named pages that will probably have to be manually fixed. The 30 pages after User talk:Fish and karate/Archive 1 are easy to fix but will require an admin. {{Archive number}} was made to work with {{Archive navigation}} and it is now down to around 70 transclusions. The only page remaining with both[2] has a warning banner not to change it as it is some kind of demo? The remaining uses are kind of odd but all in userspace, like User talk:Little Mountain 5/Archive 12. If the template is not nominated for deletion, the documentation needs to be updated Template:Archive number/doc Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 06:08, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Down to 100 transclusions now. For some of the odder uses of archive nav, I think it's easier for us to just remove the template entirely. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 12:12, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: We're down to only Fish and karate's archives. I've left a message over at his talk page, but if you want to speed things up, feel free to ask someone at AN to do so. – 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 13:15, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hilst First, thanks for going through and doing all of these types of edits to clean up.[3] And, Fish and karate seems fairly active, so I'll wait a week or so before reaching out to another admin. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 13:56, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

@I've fixed them all, I think. Thanks for letting me know. Ping me if I've missed anything. Cheers, Fish+Karate 14:01, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I think that's all of them,[4] Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:17, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Break

{{Archive navigation}} is now deleted, and the helper template {{Archive number}} has been nominated for deletion.[5] Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 18:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Possibilities for merging uncommon templates into this one?

There are several templates that make archive banners, that I am thinking could possibly be merged into this one. {{UserTalkArchive}} seems redundant but I may be overlooking something. Check out the sandbox for a proof of concept on on using {{archive|period=index}} to replace {{Archive index}} and {{Archive-index}}.

I am not sure how difficult it would be to implement something like |period=annual for pages using the format "Archive 2023, Archive 2024, etc.". I also wonder if there might be a way to detect situations where the year-based links of {{Annual archive}} would be appropriate ("Archive 1" does not exist but an page beginning with "Archive 20..." does?). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• {{UserTalkArchive}} has a slightly different blurb ("past discussions with X" vs "past discussions about X") and the box listing all archives. Other than that, it has the same functionality as {{Archive}}.
• I'm not sure if |period= is the correct parameter for implementing {{Archive index}}. Maybe it should get its own parameter?
• Annual archives shouldn't be too hard to implement. We could just reproduce {{Yearly archive list}}'s logic (or, better yet, use the actual template with expandTemplate).

– 🌻 Hilst (talk | contribs) 13:23, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Replying also in bullets:

• The blurb there makes slightly more sense, but it's not a huge difference. If the blurb here could be switched automatically on namespaces 2 & 3, it would make more sense, but again not a big deal. The box is an actual difference, but I don't know that it's a positive difference to have an arbitrarily different interface on a handful of talk pages.
• I'm not attached to "period=index" and would be fine with an |index= parameter.
• expandTemplate is definitely the way to go. That should give the same output as the main talkpage banner for annual archives.

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 07:47, 2 November 2024 (UTC)