Template talk:NavigationBox

Discussion

Please put discussion in the organized Discussion section, below. Edits are, of course, welcome, expected, and requested. But please don't delete the template without at least discussing it on this Talk page.

Problems, bugs, kinks

• All of the <nowiki>|</nowiki> that have to be inserted between items in the List. This is extremely inelegant and makes this entire template (Template:SuccessorSeries) virtually unhelpful. Can anyone devise an elegant solution? --Markles 18:29, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Ed g2s came up a better solution: replace <nowiki>|</nowiki> with |. I don't think he knows it (yet), but it's applicable in this template. Can anyone improve on this? --Markles 19:04, 1 December 2005 (UTC).
    • Let's use commas instead of the ugly | characters for separators.— Markles 01:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
  • There's also a template for this purpose: {{!}}... GregorB 17:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• The page Category:United States Government navigational boxes lists a lot of person names. Is this because the template doesn't have noinclude around its category? --Fred Bradstadt 17:27, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Eeek! For a relatively short time, a couple key templates didn't. I've corrected them, but I can't get the articles which use the templates to get off the category list. The only thing that works, it seems, is to "touch" each article by editing it (with a blank edit). Can you come up with a more elegant solution?—Markles 04:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Template color

Would it be possible to allow the templates which use this template to change the color, leaving the current blue as the default. Some successions should be of this style but are not good in blue. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 22:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• That seems like a great idea! Can you edit it to make that work? —Markles 23:22, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

• • Problem solved! See how I used it in Template:Canada Liberal leadership 2006. —Markles 15:47, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Commas

What do you think about using commas instead of | in the lists? It looks "cleaner" to me.—Markles 10:46, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• I personally prefer using a bullet in Navigation boxes. For an example, see {{Tufts_Presidents}}. I think that the bullet more prominent than the pipe and comma, making the templates easier to read. However, if I had to choose between commas and the pipe character, I would also opt for the comma. I much prefer having the font larger than what Jack Cox is arguing for. His font is just a little too small to read, and your font size appears to be the standard. I've been following the edit/reversion wars he's been waging against you and I am almost always am on your side. It does not please me that he seems so unwilling to compromise or let anyone else edit "his" templates. Let me know if you ever need any help and I'll be happy to lend my opinion to a discussion or help make necessary changes. Keep up the good work! --CapitalR 10:58, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Can you show me what bullets look like in a list longer than Tufts?—Markles 11:05, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The templates I'm familiar with that use the bullets are the following: {{Cornell}}, {{Tufts}}, {{Ivy League}}, {{NESCAC}}, {{National Intercollegiate Women's Fencing Association}}, and {{Tufts Presidents}}. In addition, I just made a version of the MAGovernors template with bullets in my user space so you can see what it might look like (shown below). Hope this helps, --CapitalR 11:20, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I like the comparison you just did (below). I'm still in favor of using the bullets after seeing the choices. --CapitalR 11:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
        • I don't know. I think I still like commas better, but I don't know. But, as you may have figured out from Jack Cox's Revert War, my personal taste is not enough in wikipedia: consensus is necessary. —Markles 11:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
        • What do other editors think? —Markles 11:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
        • May I join this discussion? Nice work on the bullets. I like their presentation very much. Between bullets, commmas & pipes, I definitely think bullets are the best. stilltim 12:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
        • It seems that the nbsp-trick doesn't work with bullets (try changing the width of your window - the two bullet examples break lines exactly alike: In Firefox, a line apparently can begin with a bullet, whereas in Internet Explorer, no lines ever begins with a bullet in either example!) --Fred Bradstadt 06:43, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Comparisons

I see that you have chosen the rather fat bullets for your examples in the documentation. Most other navigation boxes now use the bold middot instead. It can easily be used by using the template {{·}} and it also handles proper line breaking etc. I added a bold middot example below. --David Göthberg 13:24, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Order of content

...but on a somewhat unrelated issue, wouldn't a navigation box be more easily navigated if the contents were in alphabetical order. I know everyone is used to chronological order, and for those familliar with the subject matter it is satisfying to see it that way, but for the unfamiliar- most of the world- they have to hunt forever to find what they are looking for. I think the chronology belongs on a list not a device intended to help readers find things. stilltim 12:14, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• I disagree. If a reader needs to find something in a list, she can use her browser's "search" / "find" feature. Chronological order provides both a list and a context to that list, all in one package. —Markles 15:07, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Accessible navigational templates

Hello, I'm working on the Wikipedia:Accessibility project, and one of the requirements for accessible tables used only for layout is not to use the syntax for table headers, but style syntax (structural syntax shouldn't be used for presentational purposes). In this case, instead of the header:

{| class=toccolours style="margin:0.5em 2em; clear:both" width=94%
! style="padding:1px 20px 1px 20px; background:#ccccff; {{ #if: {{{Color}}} | background:{{{Color}}} | background:#ccccff}} " | {{{Title}}}
{{#if:{{{Image|}}}| <td align=center rowspan=2 width=1> {{{Image}}} </td>}}
|-
| style="font-size:90%; padding:5px 20px 5px 20px" align=center | {{{List}}}
|}

use the equivalent wikicode (font-weight: bold; is added, and the header cell is replaced by a data cell):

{| class=toccolours style="margin:0.5em 2em; clear:both" width=94%
| style="padding:1px 20px 1px 20px; font-weight: bold; background:#ccccff; {{ #if: {{{Color}}} | background:{{{Color}}} | background:#ccccff}} " | {{{Title}}}
{{#if:{{{Image|}}}| <td align=center rowspan=2 width=1> {{{Image}}} </td>}}
|-
| style="font-size:90%; padding:5px 20px 5px 20px" align=center | {{{List}}}
|}

I also propose to make another change to remove the additional background: #ccccff: put the template code into a <includeonly> block, remove the additional background: #ccccff changing the if expression, and finaly add an example at the end (for documentation purposes):

<includeonly><center>
{| class="toccolours" style="margin:0.5em 2em; clear:both" width="94%"
| style="padding:1px 20px 1px 20px; font-weight: bold; background: {{ #if: {{{Color}}} | {{{Color}}} | #ccccff}} " | {{{Title}}}
{{#if:{{{Image|}}}| <td align="center" rowspan="2" width="1"> {{{Image}}} </td>}}
|-
| style="font-size:90%; padding:5px 20px 5px 20px" align="center" | {{{List}}}
|}</center>{{{Category|}}}</includeonly><noinclude>
{{NavigationBox
| Title = {{{Title}}}
|  List = {{{List}}}
}}

This second change is only a proposal, but the first change is important for accessibility reasons. HTH --surueña 11:50, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

• 1) It's OK with me.
• 2) However, I'm not sure about moving the additional background: #ccccff. I put it there because that makes it the default color. If there is another color provided in {{{Color}}}, then it overrides the background color. : If you can still make that happen, then it's OK.
• 3) Finally, I'd get rid of the superfluous quotes, such as:
  align="center" rowspan="2" width="1"
  would become
  align=center rowspan=2 width=1
  

—Markles 12:57, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

1. Very good!
2. Yes, it doesn't work
3. I like that quotes (you know, in XML are required), but I can live with that (anyway, they are finally added by the MediaWiki).

--surueña 13:44, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Modifications to NavigationBox

• Now I begin to think someone was kidding at me. The auto margin, which is the standard way to cope with the issues we had here, was exactly what I had introduced in this edit. Soon after someone said to remove it as it didn't work. Now someone else reintroduces it under the summary "cleanup". Please, next time don't make people waste time for what you don't know. Thank you. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 16:17, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The problem wasn't that you used the auto margin before, the problem was that you set "margin: 0 auto". His worked fine because he set "margin: 0.5em auto", which added the correct spacing between templates. --CapitalR 17:27, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, sorry, I was a bit nervous for edit wars on other articles. Apologies to everyone for being polemic. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 17:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

• There were several misunderstandings about this. The "auto" solution is better because it removes the dependency on the width property (94% -> (100-94)/2 = 3% margin) but I thought it broke something, thus I used the latter as a fall back. One other remark I would like to do is that MediaWiki is veeery idiosyncratic especially now that the Parser Functions have been introduced. This template for instance is not "esoteric" in the sense that it uses complicated features. It's just fragile, because of MediaWiki oddities. I'm begin to think that MediaWiki makes simple things simple and all the rest harder. But at least the generated code passes now a first level of validation, a rare property of wikipedia pages :-/ —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 18:34, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Choosing were to put documentation

Hi guys, I think we should decide if the documentation belongs to the template page or the talk page. Briefly, there are reasons for both choices. The former is preferable for locality of reference. The latter is preferable because of a MediaWiki deficiency: even if you only change a noinclude section it will treat the edit as a normal edit and will update the cache for all pages including the template; thus a change which only affects documentation will cause a regeneration of all dependent pages. But I see this as something which will be fixed in the future, so I'm still for keeping the documentation in the noinclude section, unless we'll begin to hear shrieks from the servers ;) In case the docs are kept in the template page, however, we should scale down all level of headings in this page, as it doesn't make sense to have a Discussion section. In case we'll put the docs here instead, the following template, to be put on the template page, may be of help {{Usage instructions cross-reference}}. —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 18:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

100% Width

Can we simplify things here by putting the template width to 100% ? Most page-bottom templates (that use this one) are 100%, and having this one line up with these would give a page bottom a much cleaner look. Also, it would be nice to see the box width line up with the edges of the rest of the page. Are there any arguments against? If not, I'd like to give it a go as it is but a slight style modification. THEPROMENADER 12:50, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

• I'd say we stick with the 94% standard that's being used now. I've been categorizing thounsands of templates lately, and it seems that 94% is very popular for the width, even when not using this template (I'm guessing someone made a few at this width a long time ago and many templates copied it as a de facto standard). --CapitalR 18:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I concur with CapitalR. I like 94% mostly because it IS just a little bit short of the bottom- it makes for a new stylistic look. —Markles 18:20, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, the whole point of my making my post was the fact that 94% isn't the standard on the pages I'm involved with, and in fact this one is the only one that is 94%. How about setting a site-wide standard? THEPROMENADER 21:12, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, whatever the size is (I'm happy with 94% but I do not object to changes), it shouldn't be hardcoded. Please, let's decide a suitable class for common.css (or choose an existing one, if it exists) —Gennaro Prota^•Talk 21:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly second this (with a good dose of reason): this template should have a style option, as all articles are not the same. A CSS class is a perfect solution for all cases. For the immediate future, at least add an optional 'extra style' argument in that would default to the existing hard-coded style - this would grant 'style freedom' while not at all affecting this template's existing (widespread) usage. THEPROMENADER 21:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

When I first created this template, many of the templates that were subsequently brought in were 94%. But tradition is hardly reason to continue. So if there's consensus, I'll cave in and agree to 100%.—Markles 22:10, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I like the CSS class idea for this. I also will go along with any consensus agreed on without any problem. --CapitalR 23:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Show/hide

Is there any way to make this template have a default show/hide option without messing it up too badly? I'm not very experienced in WikiMarkup, so I wouldn't know. --Mr. Lefty _{Talk to me!} 23:05, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I too would like to see Show/Hide added, as in {{Pritzker Prize Winners}} for example. I think it's achieved using div classes "NavFrame", "NavHead" and "NavContent", but I would rather leave it in the hands of someone more capable than me! --Bruce1ee 12:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Template usage

Though Template:NavigationBox is great for smaller, simpler templates, it doesn't work as well with larger, more complex templates, such as Template:Mario series and Template:Censorship. Should this be mentioned under the Use or Purpose sections? --TBCΦtalk? 22:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Revert to add color functionality back

This edit [1] (the latest) removed the ability to supply your own color(s) to the template. I request that it be reverted to add this functionality back. --MECU≈talk 14:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I asked R. Koot, the reverter to answer this request. NCurse _work 15:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I restored the functionality to change th color of the header, although I don't see how this feature can useful: navigational boxes with fancy colors are highly distracting while adding nothing of value. —Ruud 20:14, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but it's still not quite right -- it doesn't look the same as it did before. I've used this color feature using the school colors on the College football coach templates. I think it adds a certain flare. The blah blue on all of them (as the NFL uses) looks... well, blah and boring. The colors help identify the teams and schools quickly to a fan as well. --MECU≈talk 01:07, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I know it doesn't look exactly the same as it did before (as intended), are there any specific difference you object to? Also see User:R. Koot/navbox for what can happen when everyone tries to add they own flare to their navigation box. Not an improvement in my opinion (and well... encyclopedias are supposed to look a little boring/strict). —Ruud 17:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It looks back to normal now. Perhaps it was just a temporary glitch that the outline box and gray-ish background were missing. I don't agree with you example. If you look at the bottom of John L. Smith I think the colors both add information and interest to the article. Why does an encyclopedia have to look boring/strict? Because encyclopedias always have? I would much rather read an article that is both stylistically pretty and informative and accurate. There is no reason to think you cannot achieve all of those and more. Call it the USA Today revolution of newspapers. --MECU≈talk 18:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the default color has been taken away. While it's good to be able to choose a color, it would be nice if the template provided a default. There are thousands of pages that use this template, almost all of which are now using the template with a white title (which does not distinguish the template from the rest of the page). Look at Henry Waxman, Trenton, Michigan, and Zeno of Elea as examples. — Chris ( t c ) — 08:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

merge

We have way too many nav templates as collected at Template:Navigational templates. Merge! --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 22:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe {{NavigationBox}} not the ideal candidate as it seems deprecated...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 09:15, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe {{Navigation no hide}} can simply be deleted as it is not linked by any article, and it can be substitued by this {{NavigationBox}}. Peterwhy 14:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, go for it! –Pomte 04:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

...but don't substitute {{NavigationBox}}, please; {{Navigation}} (or convert to {{Navbox generic}}) instead!  Regards, David (talk) 05:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

You guys shouldn't propose, and especially not execute such merges without attempting to get a historic understanding of why the different templates were there in the first place, and contacting the editors concerned. You may find that I undo some of your efforts as a result. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Would you like to share with us your thoughts and the template you reverted and why? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

picture

Test to see if the picture keep on the right

Nav box revolution

If you watch this template, you might be interested in Wikipedia talk:Navigational templates#Style guideline for footer templates. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 05:45, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Template and CSS class nowraplinks

Hi everyone. 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. I am pretty sure this will be used in navigation boxes like {{NavigationBox}}. If any of you are interested I have brought my template and CSS code up for discussion at the village pump. See also {{nowraplinks}} itself and its talk page. --David Göthberg 15:34, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

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:NavigationBox) to save users of this navigation box from using lots and lots of &nbsp; or {{nowrap}}. I have tested it with the template's current code in my own testpages/sandboxes.

I suggest that the first line should be changed to:

{| {{#if: {{{Summary|}}} | summary="Navigation box - {{{Summary}}}" }} class="navbox nowraplinks"

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

|}{{{Category|}}}<noinclude>
{{pp-template|small=yes}}


{{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 with a green box around the documentation. (The two empty lines between the "pp-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.)

--David Göthberg 23:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride 00:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! Oddly enough the "Wikimedia commons box" in the documentation broke the green doc box. So I had to move the "Wikimedia commons box" to the bottom of the doc page to minimise the damage. --David Göthberg 00:34, 20 August 2007 (UTC)