User talk:Robert W King

Robert W King

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Timeline

I just noticed we were playing tag on the DNA timeline, I thought I was losing my mind ;) I discovered that the correct length is dependant on the width of the browser. That is why it is different on my browser compared to your browser. Did you try using a tables structure to build the timeline. One advantage of that would be the length of the cell on the left would vary proportionally with the timelines length. Chris Day 22:11, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

see Template:Timeline/Sample --Robert W King 22:16, 10 April 2008 (CDT)

I noticed you were changing widths to be in terms of pixels rather than %-ages? I never like doing things in terms of pixels, because for those on very small or very large screens (I have some old laptops with 600 pixel screens, so I'm sensitive to this - not everyone around the world has the latest and greatest), it gives a bad look. What's the problem with using %-ages?

Also, I see you were manually bolding all the dates. Why not have an optional "date=" parameter to {{TLevent}} which does the bolding inside the template? That way if you want to change the look of timelines, you don't have to edit every page which uses them. J. Noel Chiappa 10:48, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

As Chris pointed out earlier, the wordwrap in percentages causes problems with the stem either being too short or too long based on the width of the browser. Fixed widths turn out to be better, unless I can figure out a way to improve the stem. Also, there's other work to be done on the template which I just haven't got around to doing yet, with much improvements to be made. They're all on my mental list. I'm just rrrreeeallly slacking on it. --Robert W King 10:55, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

I just thought of a problem having a data parameter; some entries are just one line, while some have one year and multiple things happen during that year, which involve having a list. You'll need a carriage return to begin the list, but if you include one by default, the event stuff will automatically be on the next line even if it's just a single entry. What I thought about doing was making it like so: |-[date]-[event ] but I'm not entirely sure it's aesthetically pleasing. --Robert W King 11:27, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

Too bad about the bugs. I wonder if it would make any sense to pass the %-age in as an argument, and then, inside the {{TLevent}}, convert it to pixels there? J. Noel Chiappa 14:43, 11 April 2008 (CDT)

Template:H:title

I saw your experiment in your sandbox in the recent changes. That's really cool. Can you make the text in the box that pops up when you hover over a link show the text in the definition template for that page? That would be wonderful!
--Joe Quick 15:37, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

It's used on Related Articles subpages. See Tecum_Umam/Related_Articles for an example.
--Joe Quick 16:54, 12 April 2008 (CDT)

Experiment

Still not eactly sure what you have in mind but I have set up an experiment on the biology workgroup. See CZ:Biology_Workgroup#Lower_priority and siilar sections. The {{WgTable}} template can distinguish redirects too. There is one bug that is a pain, there cannot be a space between the article name and the pipe (or brackets) otherwise the status call to the metadata template does not work. For example, {{WgTable| Biology | Life }} does not work but {{WgTable| Biology| Life}} does work. Chris Day 11:03, 15 April 2008 (CDT)

Transparency

I think you must have been thinking of someone else? I was staying out of that one... :-) J. Noel Chiappa 10:27, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Why was the TOC of Compressibility factor (gases) relocated?

Robert, I don't understand why you moved the TOC of the article to the right. It is not a major point, but I think it looked much better on the left, as it was originally, without any text wrapped to the right of the TOC.

When the TOC is located on the right and the text is wrapped to the left of the TOC, the wrapped text looks cramped and less readable ... at least, it does look so to me. Would you mind if I moved it back to the left where it was when I wrote the article? Regards, - Milton Beychok 12:25, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

Up to you; I thought stylistically it looked better. --Robert W King 12:29, 16 April 2008 (CDT)

minor edit please

Hello Robert. Could you check the "minor edit" button when you are making so many edits? That way we can hit the hide minor edits button on the recent changes page to see more items. Thanks, David E. Volk 15:10, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

My apologies, I'm so guilty of not doing it. --Robert W King 15:19, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

CZ:Templates

Will do (if I can figure how how it works :-). J. Noel Chiappa 15:33, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

In part, because there are still reference to them from quite a few talk: pages, etc, which might be confusing if the target's gone. I am accumulating a list of 'obsolete, deal with them' things, at User:J. Noel Chiappa/ToDo, but I was putting off dealing with them for the moment. E.g. I want to check with Chris Day to make sure we don't need them, etc, etc. Someday! J. Noel Chiappa 15:57, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

I just had a quick look through and many of those are false starts or obsolete. We might want to keep some for historical purposes such as the vertical version of the buttons we were considering at one point. I'll try and work through them. Chris Day 16:32, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Hi, I did go through and update CZ:Templates to haave the stuff I just did, plus I deleted a bunch of entries for obsolete subpage templates we are about to ditch. I notice that the whole thing is somewhat out of date, though. I'll see if I can find time at some point to update it some more. J. Noel Chiappa 22:21, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

CZ authors

Robert, on the CZ Authors page and Editors page, it would like so much nicer if every name didn't start with "User:". Do you know of a way to automatically make all names like User:David E. Volk appear as David E. Volk on the Authors and Editors pages? It would certainly look much more professional and easier on the eyes. David E. Volk 16:01, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Funny, I just noticed that it works automatically on this page on my signature. David E. Volk 16:02, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

You mean Category:CZ Authors, right, not CZ:Authors, which doesn't actually list any names.

Short answer: "no". Slightly longer answer: "not easily; it would take a MediaWiki change". The list of constituent pages in a category is generated by MediaWiki code, and we have no control over it.

Ironically, if you include a category in [[Talk:Foo]], when you go look at the category, it only lists [[Foo]] - very confusing! I don't know if this is a 'bug' or a 'feature'. J. Noel Chiappa 17:22, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Its a feature, it was done so that all the clean up etc. categories could live on the talk page but not all be listed as Talk:Foo. I see no reason why this could not be done for the User pages too. We should start a thread in the technical section of the forum to see if this sounds like a good idea to others. Chris Day 17:26, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Probably ought to be controllable on a per-category basis, through magic words such as __NOTALK__ and __NOUSER__. I think it's a good idea, but we have no active MediaWiki hackers at the moment (although I keep threatening... :-), so I'm not sure the thread's much use. J. Noel Chiappa 17:42, 17 April 2008 (CDT)