Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes

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Template talk:Ambox redirects here since it was merged into this page. Its old contents are placed in Template talk:Ambox/Archive 1 and Template talk:Ambox/Archive 2.

This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot II. Any sections older than 21 days are automatically archived. An archive index is available here.

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[edit] Merging the talk pages

This section was previously named "Discussion on colour change for template". --David Göthberg (talk) 13:17, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

An editor feels that {{POV-check}} should belong to style instead of content class. The relevant discussion (right out of the freezer) can be found here.

I was unsure of where to post the above... Now that the standardisation effort is more or less over, at least where ambox is concerned, which is to be the difference between this talk page and Template talk:Ambox? Waltham, The Duke of 21:14, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Even though that the standardisation effort is more or less over for ambox, this is probably the best place to discuss things like what colour level to use for a message box. Since this page is watched by many editors who have worked with this and have discussed such colour levels before. So thanks for pointing to the discussion about {{POV-check}}. I responded at its talk page. (And my personal view is that it should remain orange, although it is a tough case.)

And regarding this talk page contra Template talk:Ambox: Yes, having these two talk pages have caused a lot of confusion and split up discussions all since we started the ambox project. That is why when we made the {{tmbox}}, {{imbox}}, {{cmbox}} and {{ombox}} we kept all talk on their talk pages. Both regarding the templates themselves and regarding the new colours and styles for such message boxes.

I am thinking of solving this problem by doing this: Archive all the sections of Template talk:Ambox, then link to those archives at the top of this page (next to the box that links to this page's own archives), then redirect Template talk:Ambox to this talk page.

And I think this talk page should be the "main" one for article message boxes since this is the talk page of the guideline.

--David Göthberg (talk) 15:33, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

You have left nothing for me to add; I agree completely. Waltham, The Duke of 19:10, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes please. Merge to keep things together/simple would be good. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I laughed when I saw the {{mergefrom}} on this page... I've indirectly provided an argument in favour of borders in move-type boxes. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

For some reason I've been under the impression that the merge had been sorted out. I now realise that it has not. Shall I proceed with the above-described course of action? Waltham, The Duke of 02:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Waltham.: Oh sorry, I just have not had the time to do it yet. (It has a low priority on my long to-do list.) You are more than welcome to do it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Mission accomplished. Although, I regret to say, I did not have the courage to re-order the archived sections; several of them from September and October 2007 are out of order and divided between the two (uneven) archives. The Erinyes will hunt me forever... Waltham, The Duke of 23:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Waltham: Thanks, well done. And as I stated above I have now added a hand-coded archive box at the page top, that explains the merge and links to the archives of Template talk:Ambox. (Well, not very hand-coded, with {{tmbox}} it was a breeze to do it.)

And I don't think we need to worry about the order of the sections in those old archives. Besides, we can sort them out any time in the future when we feel sufficiently bored.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:50, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. Although boredom is something unlikely for me to experience in the foreseeable future. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:52, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Header and footer message box

I have now built the {{fmbox}} "header & footer message box template".

Some time ago I noticed that we could have good use for a message box similar to the {{ombox}} but with 100% width and only one colour style. It can be used to build message boxes for system messages such as MediaWiki:Sharedupload and MediaWiki:Sp-contributions-footer-anon. It can also be used for header and footer boxes on user pages.

I would appreciate if those that are interested would check it out and comment on its talk page.

At the same time I would like to draw the attention to a closely related message box standardisation discussion: Should editnotices be transparent or have the "table of content colours"? See Wikipedia talk:Editnotice#Colours for editnotices.

--David Göthberg (talk) 11:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

We are now discussing to standardise some more colours for the {{fmbox}}, so it can be used for warning messages like MediaWiki:Editingold and MediaWiki:Protectedpagewarning. Everyone is welcome to join the discussion over at Template talk:Fmbox#New type?.

--David Göthberg (talk) 14:20, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extraordinary usage of ambox

Template:Current disaster has recently acquired a parameter that allows one to change the sidebar's colour from blue to red. As this treatment of the template falls outside the ambox colouring scheme, I believe the editors dealing with such boxes might be interested to comment in the relevant thread here. Waltham, The Duke of 02:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I need to clarify that the link given above is to a convenience subsection of the longer debate. For those who would like to read the lengthy discussion prior and how the conclusion was reached, please go to WP:AN#warning template for Hurricane Gustav. Cheers! —Elipongo (Talk contribs) 06:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. Thanks for the heads up Waltham. That red border they show at the bottom of the documentation for {{Current disaster}} makes it look like a page is going to be deleted.

And yes, we should take part in that debate and try to convince them that using red in that case is a bad thing.

--David Göthberg (talk) 07:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Now we have a dmbox too

I was asked to solve a problem with the disambig and set index boxes. (There are a whole bunch of them.) And while solving that problem I realised it would be better if they used a single meta-template. And they have pretty much the same needs as the other mboxes. So I made the {{dmbox}} which works like the other mboxes but looks like a disambig or set index box.

--David Göthberg (talk) 02:04, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] No borders around the message box?

I tried to use this template - and when using default notice - there is no border or background colours - just the 'i' image and the default text is fine. What am I missing here - something to do with referencing to the tables? PLA72 (talk) 17:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Where did you try to use it? —Ms2ger (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

On a local ubuntu server machine - had to copy the common.css and the FunctionParser extension. PLA72 (talk) 10:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Did you make sure you cleared your own cache? I don't know what else could be the problem. —Ms2ger (talk) 10:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes I did, and also checked on different computer that hasn't accessed the wiki before - same result. I even restarted the server just to make sure. It's like the table coding is not taken into consideration, everything was copy and pasted from here. PLA72 (talk) 11:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, you need to copy the ambox CSS classes from MediaWiki:Common.css, and enable the ParserFunctions extension in MediaWiki. And then you need to install/enable the MediaWiki extension that allows HTML in wikitext, since the {{ambox}} uses "HTML wikimarkup" (like <table> and so on) instead of plain wikimarkup for the table (like {| |} ). See meta:Help:HTML in wikitext#External links. Since as far as I remember the support for HTML wikitables are not enabled in the default installation of MediaWiki. But it is enabled in the Wikimedia projects like the English Wikipedia.

And of course, then you need to purge the page that use an ambox, and then you need to bypass your browser cache. (Note that that is two separate operations.)

--David Göthberg (talk) 12:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Already done all that - but want to ask - which extension is recommended to 'enable' HTML as there are a few out there? Thanks.

And I have enabled the $wgRawHtml but does nothing. The Ambox does show the image, the text in correct order but the border and the background colour is not showing up. PLA72 (talk) 13:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ouch, you have already done all that and still don't see the borders? Then I don't know what more to do.

And regarding which MediaWiki HTML extension to use: I have never installed a MediaWiki, and I think most or all of the people who watch this page have never done that. So you have to ask at the forum for that, probably somewhere on mediawiki.org or so. Sorry.

--David Göthberg (talk) 13:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok thanks for your help, have registered and posted my question there... PLA72 (talk) 13:42, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

It is working now - What I did with common.css was I created a file and put it into skins folder! Now I did it via MediaWiki:Common.css which I never realised I needed to do this. Thanks for your help in trying to get me sorted. PLA72 (talk) 13:29, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Minor thing: Here at Wikipedia we put our signatures after our comments, not before. I fixed your comments above accordingly.

Ah, good to hear that you solved it. And yeah, I am not surprised that the MediaWiki default installation doesn't have the same CSS file names as Wikipedia. Next time you ask people for help, then if possible link to the problematic page (on your site in this case) so people can take a look. If you had linked, we probably would have discovered that your page didn't have the CSS code loaded.

--David Göthberg (talk) 18:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Allowing a "small" attribute

So {{Current sport-related}} used to use its own hacked-up "tiny" attribute to float it underneath article infoboxen. I've converted it for the time being to use a raw mbox, but adding a small attrib to this template with slightly different styling (basically, to give it the same width and styling as an {{infobox}}) would be even better. Comments / suggestions? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There was an ambox-mini class, but it was removed, because it wasn't used at all. I think the best way forward is to get .ambox-small into Common.css but keep it out of {{Ambox}}, as this template is really the only use. I do believe, though, that we shouldn't be using {{Ombox}} for an Ambox. —Ms2ger (talk) 12:11, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, it's hackish. I'll see what I can do. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There actually is a better solution: as of next year, we'll be able to use class="ambox ambox-notice mbox-small". Until then, I'd go for hard coded styles. —Ms2ger (talk) 12:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Great. Thanks! Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Standardising cleanup box formatting

I've made a proposal regarding standardisation of the way cleanup templates are laid out. Please add comments and suggestions there. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)