Wikibooks:Reading room/Technical Assistance

Welcome to the Technical Assistance reading room. Get assistance on questions related to MediaWiki markup, CSS, JavaScript, and such as they relate to Wikibooks. This is not a general-purpose technical support room.

To submit a bug notice or feature request for the MediaWiki software, visit Phabricator.

To get more information about the MediaWiki software, or to download your own copy, visit MediaWiki

There are also two IRC channels for technical help: #mediawiki^connect for issues about the software, and #mediawiki-core^connect for WMF server or configuration issues.

Infobox styling

I can technically make this change, but am first asking if it would be acceptable for me to do so, since {{Infobox}} has over 5,000 transclusions. What I'm asking about pushing the changes to {{Infobox/sandbox}} to the main template, which uses TemplateStyles to add word-wrap to the text of infoboxes. Compare without TemplateStyles and with TemplateStyles. JJP_Master (she/they) 20:50, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

This seems quite helpful—I've had trouble in the past with the lack of wrapping. —Kittycataclysm (discuss • contribs) 21:26, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd say go for it. Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 03:36, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

WhatLinksHere interface page edit request

While trying to determine the number of transclusions for {{Infobox}} in the above § Infobox styling thread, I noticed that the "transclusion counter" tool on Special:WhatLinksHere doesn't work, so I made my own. It's here, and its code is based on a similar tool for Wikipedia (toolforge:templatecount). Accordingly, please replace the content of MediaWiki:Linkshere with User:JJPMaster/MediaWiki:Linkshere, which switches the link to my tool. JJP_Master (she/they) 21:59, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

There wasn't one on WhatLinksHere, or am I missing something? Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 02:37, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: It's only visible on templates. JJP_Master (she/they) 02:41, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 04:15, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: The fact that WhatLinksHere is technically a special page means that the namespace check doesn't work. Please replace {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Template| with {{#ifeq:{{padleft:|9|$1}}|Template:| accordingly. JJP_Master (she/they) 04:17, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 05:31, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: It's good now, thanks! JJP_Master (she/they) 05:34, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

What links here is one of my wikimedia interests recently, so this thread got my attention. However, as happens to me quite frequently I bumped into something new when I checked template: Infobox.

On the fourth line of the page on the right hand side I see this:

• Read Latest draft Edit source View history

instead of the usual

• Read Edit Edit source View history

I was under the impression that the second line is the standard for content pages on wikimedia . I was obviously wrong, but as a periodic member of this community, I am curious who at wikibooks can implement such changes, and where can the community see announcement of these types of changes Ottawahitech (discuss • contribs) 16:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

{{infobox}} has flagged revisions. See Help:Tracking changes. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:03, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

discussion as opposed to talk

I am an experienced Wikimedian but I do not visit wikibooks very often, so I hope I have chosen the right reading room for my question?

Anyway what I wanted to find out is why talk-pages here are called "discussion" and not "talk"? Ottawahitech (discuss • contribs) 16:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Histlegend

Currently, the "Statistics" link in page histories links to the stats of the interface page itself, rather than of the page whose history you are viewing. Thus, in MediaWiki:Histlegend, please change index.php?article=MediaWiki:Histlegend with index.php?article={{FULLPAGENAME}}. JJP_Master (she/they) 16:18, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 15:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: Actually, {{FULLPAGENAMEE}} (with the second E) is needed to support page titles with multiple spaces. JJP_Master (she/they) 16:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

That template doesn't exist? Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 16:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: It’s not a template, it’s a magic word. JJP_Master (she/they) 16:33, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Did not realise that, Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 02:10, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

Interface page edit request

Please replace the link to the range calculator on MediaWiki:Blockiptext with a locally hosted alternative (toolforge:ftools/general/ip-range-calc.html). I am technically able to perform this task, but doing so would violate the terms of my request for adminship. JJP_Master (she/they) 14:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@JJPMaster Isn't the third-party tool more feature rich? Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 15:26, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

@Leaderboard: Sorry, I asked you to change the wrong thing. I was referring to the "Rangeblock helper" link. JJP_Master (she/they) 16:10, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Done Leaderboard (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

WikiProject Little Star Newsletter: January 2025

The first full month of WikiProject Little Star has come to a close, and we have got a lot of work done! Here's all of the main projects we've worked so far:

OneClickWelcomer

This is a gadget that was designed to supersede MediaWiki:Gadget-Welcome.js, which has not worked for several years. This adds the ability to welcome users with a single click from Special:RecentChanges, Special:Contributions, or a user's talk page. It also allows for quickly warning users with {{Test1}}, {{Test2}}, or {{Blatantvandal}}.

Dark mode optimizations

Xeverything11 has spent a significant amount of time helping to ensure that templates and interface messages are accessible and dark mode-compliant.

markAdmins

JJPMaster (bot) has been summoned to keep a list of everyone's user rights across the English Wikibooks, which allows the markAdmins gadget to run with up-to-date data for the first time in about two years.

Miscellaneous gadgets

JJPMaster helped update the codebases of other outdated gadgets, including GetCollection, SidebarTranslate, BookCat, and markblocked, the last of which is the reason for the only time her account has ever been blocked on any Wikimedia wiki.

Unmerged transwikis

With the help of Graham87, Pppery, UtherSRG, and the Wikibooks community, JJPMaster led an initiative to complete the histories of old articles that were imported from the English Wikipedia. This investigation is responsible for the majority of history merges in Wikibooks history.

Luna

This is perhaps the biggest project that WikiProject Little Star has developed. Luna is a collection of user scripts that attempt to help users review new pages and patrol recent changes, similarly to what Twinkle used to do. It includes functionalities such as nominating pages for speedy deletion, making requests at RfD, tagging files for copyright problems, adding maintenance templates to books, removing all links to a particular page, and, most recently, a rollback-like feature. It can be used by all autoconfirmed users, but some features are limited to reviewers or administrators.

That's it for WikiProject Little Star's first newsletter! You can subscribe here if you haven't already. Thank you!

Delivered on behalf of JJP_Master (she/they) by MediaWiki message delivery (discuss • contribs) 05:16, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Duplicate identifiers?

Hi, On the Oberon/Text page, lintHint reports 4 instances of duplication of identifiers. Can someone spot a duplication? Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 15:39, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The problem comes from transcluding other pages. E.g. on Oberon/ETH Oberon/TextType, you can find <div id="Piece"></div>. If you changed that name to something else, it could fix the problem. I'm not sure why there is an empty div in the first place. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:49, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

The div is empty but provides a fragment identifier to link to; but the identifier should be in the table tag. Thanks, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 17:32, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but why not use Template:Anchor or a span? Why include a blockline element? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:50, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

Was unaware of Template:Anchor. The problem seemed to be resolved after some fumbling. Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 22:23, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Suppressing a redundant link.

Hi
How can the link at the left, surrounded in red, be suppressed? Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 22:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

To hide these links for yourself, add this to Special:MyPage/common.css:

#mw-content-subtitle {
	display: none;
}

If you want to only hide it on that page, add this:

.page-Oberon_System_Variants #mw-content-subtitle {
	display: none;
}

JJP_Master (she/they) 22:45, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I've added a statement per page but commas in two page headings are problematical. How can the syntax accommodate a comma? Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 16:21, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

@PeterEasthope: Commas aren't included in the IDs. You can just remove them. JJP_Master (she/they) 02:39, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. Omission of a character seems an arbitrary syntactical detail but works. =8~)

Can omission of the "back link" be declared within the page? Enclosing the page content in <style mw-content-subtitle="display: none;"> ... </style> is conceptual but doesn't work. Thx, ... PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 17:42, 20 February 2025 (UTC)

Linking a cell in a table

Hi, Another question about hyperlinking. In this case linking a cell in table. The introductory paragraph in Wikipedia Help:Table states "Tables can be created on Wikipedia pages using special wikitext syntax, or HTML syntax, and many different styles and tricks can be used to customise them." Applies in Wikibooks also? Not for the example in my sandbox. Ideas? Thx, ... P. PeterEasthope (discuss • contribs) 21:12, 21 February 2025 (UTC)