Template talk:CatDiffuse/layout

Language bar

This is a maintenance template intended mainly for editors. The language links take up valuable space especially at the larger font sizes that many people use.

One of the main complaints about this and other maintenance templates used at the top of categories is that they take up too much space, and thus hinder the average reader from finding what they want, the image and media files.

Maintenance templates are mainly only useful for editors. Editors will soon learn to click the arrow on the right side of collapsed language bars in order to see all the languages.

Collapsible templates have been around on Wikipedia and the Commons for a long time. See:

• Category:Collapsible templates

These type of collapsible show/hide boxes are extremely common on Wikipedia. They are found at the bottom of many articles. They are being used more and more on the Commons.

Language bars are becoming longer and longer. Some language bars are becoming extremely long. There is no need to clutter up the top of categories with them when the language bars are found in maintenance templates. The average reader does not need to see the language bar for maintenance template boxes. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry: Kiss-prinziple. Therfore no collapsing. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 16:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) is not relevant here. Maintenance templates are for editors. They understand collapsible boxes. They are all over wikipedia in navigation boxes, etc.. Editors will have little difficulty recognizing collapsible boxes here on the Commons. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

They don't understand English. Plus I don't buy that your target group understands collapsible boxes but not how to create subcategories. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 08:23, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible boxes are on nearly all Wikipedias in all languages. So it is a common experience for many readers and editors to have clicked on an arrow or a "show" link to open a collapsible navigation box at the bottom of many articles.

Very few Wikipedia editors have ever created a subcategory. Most just edit articles, and put the article in existing categories. So when they come to the Commons most editors have no experience in creating subcategories. I have seen this many times.

Many editors give up on the Commons because they can't figure out how to categorize the images they upload. They can't find existing categories, because they don't know how to get to Special:Search in order search category names. And they don't know how to create subcategories. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Coll. boxes look different on every wiki. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 07:38, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

They operate basically the same. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do you want to collapse. You don't save any space you only make it harder for the people to find their language. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 07:56, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

One click is not that hard to find a language. Collapsing saves space. Especially at larger text sizes that many people use in their browser. See below for Template:CatDiffuse/en. Try making your font/text size larger in the options in your browser.

	This category has become too crowded. It should list very few images or pages directly, so one can see all items on one page. Files should be moved to subcategories where appropriate. New subcategories can be created. Some files need to be moved elsewhere. Search for more categories here and here. Please remove or replace this tag afterwards.
languages

	This category has become too crowded. It should list very few images or pages directly, so one can see all items on one page. Files should be moved to subcategories where appropriate. New subcategories can be created. Some files need to be moved elsewhere. Search for more categories here and here. Please remove or replace this tag afterwards.

--Timeshifter (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Auto-translation

 Comment As this template is mainly for logged in users, I don't think it needs the language bar at all. A layout like the one of {{LangSwitch}} displays the preferred language directly. -- User:Docu at 11:59, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

That looks like a good idea. How does one set it up? --Timeshifter (talk) 13:26, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

This edit should do it. Try e.g. uselang=ca, uselang=cs, etc. -- User:Docu at 13:40, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess this is the line that does it?:

|{{lang|{{{lang|}}}|{{{text|empty}}}}}

It seems to be based on {{Lang}} and {{Text}}. I don't know. I am not too experienced in understanding, deciphering, or using that complex, nested wikicode. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

When I made my first comment, I wasn't sure how these templates work either, but it seems that {{CatDiffuse}} uses {{Autotranslate}} to call {{Fallback}}. That template uses {{CONTENTLANGUAGE}} (value: en) and {{int:Lang}} (value: en) to determine which language version it should use. Try "&uselang=ca" in the url to see if the result varies.

{{LangSwitch}} uses {{int:Lang}} directly and has a variable (lang=) to default to another language than English. -- User:Docu at 14:12, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. This makes my brain hurt almost as much as figuring out CSS nesting. I guess I need to RTFM. :) See Commons talk:How to create new subcategories for related humor. I am getting better with some of the complexities of wikicode. Tables, for example.

Would you set this up also for Template:Categorise/layout? --Timeshifter (talk) 14:39, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

With i8l, Commons adds additional complexity to wikicode, even though it doesn't make use of most of the other stuff. BTW for categorise the change would be the same (just remove the transclusion of {{Categorise/lang}}.

In regards to the icon, instead of a prohibition sign, we could try to find an icon shows the incremental flow of categorization .. -- User:Docu at 15:07, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I will look at Template:Categorise/layout later when I get some more time. Feel free to make the change if you want to. Any images in mind? --Timeshifter (talk) 15:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I modified Template:Categorise/layout. See Template:Categorise. It looks like auto-translation is working there too. Here is the template using the French and Spanish languages:

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Categorise&uselang=fr
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Categorise&uselang=es

--Timeshifter (talk) 20:51, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Icon

Starts looking shorter! Good. I had something in mind like the icon on disambiguation pages, possibly vertical rather than horizontal. Looking for similar things, I wasn't that lucky. The dab icon is in a series of nearly empty categories with numbers! Anways, here are a couple of other ones I found. Not quite what I had in mind when I started though.

• 
• 
• 
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Maybe I will try to find some other ones. -- User:Docu at 22:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Of the above images I like this one the best. Some others have also looked for icons. I haven't seem anything that makes much sense at small sizes. Any image with a prohibition bar or slash in it might work. It gets people's attention. See Category:Prohibition signs and its subcategories. How about these images:

• 
  Don't crap on the Commons. Clean up your mess!
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
  The image used now. For comparison.

I think we should use this one for awhile. It will get people's attention, and they might help out with subcategorization for awhile. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 23:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

• 
• 
• 
• 

Personally, I'd rather not see a prohibition sign even though I liked the first anchor above. I agree that the initial series didn't scale down too well. I looked through some of the flow chart icons, but that wasn't too interesting. -- User:Docu at 00:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The picture should symbolize maintenance. (svg would be good and if you make it unclickable it should be PD too.)

• 
• 
• File:Vista-package settings.png
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• 
• 
• 
• 

I also disagree with removing the translation. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 08:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

• 
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As a sample for flow, I found the ones above. -- User:Docu at 22:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Could you tell me why you keep changing the icon? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 06:11, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

It helps us in our search for a new icon? -- User:Docu at 06:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Editing the template every time just to see how the icon looks in small is a bit much. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 06:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

• 
• 

It's not really frequently used template. BTW, I tried to combine two of your suggestions. -- User:Docu at 11:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

How about these two:

I wish the exclamation point ( ! ) was bigger.

or these two:

--Timeshifter (talk) 20:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Translation for non-logged-in users

An admin put back the language bar at Template:Categorise/layout. See this diff.

The edit summary was "Undo revision 30482772 by Timeshifter - please leave /lang links in, unregistered users can't choose a language like registered users can."

Is there a way that the template can be set up to choose a language for non-logged-in users too? I see various web pages that automatically choose a language for the readers who come to that web page. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Afaik, something like this is planned (see MediaWiki talk:Common.js#Ajax translation of templates), but it's still buggy. --The Evil IP address (talk) 22:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I left a note there asking for help. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Categorise is slightly different than CatDiffuse, but even there, it isn't of much use for not logged in users.

Besides, even unregistered users can already get a language specific message, just as they get for the remainder of the interface. There isn't really a point in making that other one template different. -- User:Docu at 05:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

When you reach commons from a wiki not logged in, the first page is in your language the later ones are not. -- Either you remove the language bar from every category header template or you leave it. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 13:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Most other categorization templates don't have non-English versions. -- User:Docu at 22:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not true for the templates put into regulary cats. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 05:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I looked into the temporary ones at Category:Category maintenance templates. Which ones do you have in mind? -- User:Docu at 06:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I had Category:Category header templates in mind. But even in the other category half the templates are localized and especially all that are meant to stay permanently. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 06:42, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

AjaxTranslation works for templates of class layouttemplate. I added this class to this template and now it works. ערן (talk) 21:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. Can we now safely remove the language bar {{CatDiffuse/lang}} from the template? --Timeshifter (talk) 20:00, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

No. AjaxTranslation is script that enables user to change the language of template by selecting one of the languages in the {{CatDiffuse/lang}}. It is built for anonymous users which we can't know their language. The autotranslation trick selects automaticlly the language according to the user interface language. ערן (talk) 19:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Clickable

Why have the icons been made clickable again? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 11:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

As you pointed out earlier, if the image is not PD, it should be clickable. The current ones probably don't need to be. -- User:Docu at 11:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would we not want the images to be clickable? It encourages people to use them elsewhere. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Absurdness at it's best. It is not the function of the template to encourage users to use the icons elsewhere. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 11:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

It is the basic function of the Commons to encourage the use of its images everywhere. Plus people want the added info found at to understand why this particular image was used versus GIF versions. Why make people have to right-click the image to get more info, and then paste the image URL into a browser address bar? --Timeshifter (talk) 11:52, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a sentence to the template that the discrimination of minorities is not good and that people should not do that. This template is an exelent place to do so. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 11:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe if your English were better, you would learn a LOT more about how the Commons works. And why. Since you don't already know everything, you might listen to others who have been here longer than you. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:57, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Why is it that as soon as I disagree with you you start questioning my personal skills and perform an edit elsewhere exactly knowing that I disaprove of this edit? --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 12:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Until a few weeks ago you had never edited these categories. Now you think you are an expert, and you ignore most of what I and others write. You make many English mistakes, and those mistakes are relevant to how the template text is worded, and to what you know and don't know about categorization guidelines and history. You ignore people with more experience and you ignore what is already written, or don't understand what others are writing in English. Then you get perturbed because people disagree with you. If you made the slightest effort to compromise, cooperate, and learn then we might get farther. I have incorporated much of what you have been saying into the template text. The text is much improved. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The text got worse each time you "improved" it. But that's only a detail. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 21:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Sju prefers my version of the template text at {{CatDiffuse}}. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

SJu is somebody who according to you can't speak English properly. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 21:11, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

But Sju is more willing to learn, cooperate and compromise.

You haven't explained why you do not want the template icons to be clickable so that people can learn more about the images. They are free images, and not copyrighted images that can only be used on Wikimedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

You make icons nonclickable if there is no function. Since usually icons are cklickable if that serves some function. That's why for usability reasons you avoid icons where the click just brings you to the icon image page. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 21:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no rule against template icons being clickable. The function served is the normal function served by clicking images on the Commons. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I give you a reason why one makes icons unclickable which is by the way quite common on wikis. Then you go "but there is no rule". If I would have wanted to cite a rule don't you think I would have done so. Anyway in case of PD icons there is no rule to do the opposite. --Cwbm (commons) (talk) 21:41, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal and new users

Cwbm. I believe new (and old) users want to know more about the template icons.

I make the same proposal as at Template talk:CatDiffuse/en#Proposal and new users. I suggest you edit Template:Categorise/layout and I edit Template:CatDiffuse/layout. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Simpler format

I simplified the layout of these 3 diffusion templates:

• Template:CatCat - see Template:CatCat/layout
• Template:Categorise - see Template:Categorise/layout
• Template:CatDiffuse - see Template:CatDiffuse/layout

I simplified the format with type=diffuse of Template:Cmbox. See its documentation. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:25, 16 September 2014 (UTC)