Wikibooks:Reading room/Archives/2017/January

Creating pop-ups
Is there a way to create a pop-up on hover, which works for both users logged-in or not? (Something similar to hovercards, which is available as a beta feature). acagastya 💭 15:05, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't there a feature in Special:Preferences? And if so, I don't believe it works for non-accountant people Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 16:34, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think we could make a new feature for someone who is not logged in without editing the local preferences in PHP. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:05, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * is it likely to be added if it benefits Wikibooks?
 * I do not mean hovercards. I just mean that it works like hovercards. I would use it for creating trivial information about something which can't be added to the page without shifting the focus, or a tip which would rather break the flow.acagastya 💭 09:05, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Mouseovers of the sort provided by (for example) n:Template:Plink work here, with no need for an extension. For those of us who aren't familiar with hovercards, What is the capability you want that could not be done without an extension?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:06, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Definitely. But it's just a lot easier to add a feature that is an option for logged-in users versus a default setting for those who are logged out. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:30, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Javascript error: mw.util.$content is null
I'm getting this JS error (on all pages on Wikibooks): Exception in module-execute in module ext.gadget.extlinks: TypeError: mw.util.$content is null Is it perhaps something to do with  not being loaded by the extlinks gadget? Sam Wilson 06:58, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This bug is present on every wiki I know for one month, forcing us to refresh one or two times our different navigators to get our toolbars. [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition&diff=3161401&oldid=3150031 This was supposed to fix it] but there's nothing efficient I could find from now. So I'm willing to test your solution if no one does it before tomorrow. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 08:39, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into it! It's certainly a bit broken — not even search autocomplete works for me at the moment, because no page JS is loaded properly. Happy new year by the way! :-) Sam Wilson 08:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I think autocomplete wasn't working here for me yesterday; it's working now though. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 15:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, from time to time some of the older gadgets break because of software changes, and in breaking they kill everything else if they're selected. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, turning off the extlinks gadget makes everything okay for me. Thanks! Sam Wilson 23:07, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

New template to replace magic words
Template:ISBN I have ported over w:Template:ISBN and w:Module:Check isxn from en.wp. Magic words as links are being phased out and although we don't have to replace all instances of them now, they will all be removed from MediaWiki in 2017. See Requests_for_comment/Future_of_magic_links. We have about 1,350 entries in Category:Pages using ISBN magic links. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:30, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Any bot could find these space or carriage return delimiters:
 * "ISBN ([0-9]*)( |\n)" -> "ISBN $1$2"
 * "PMID ([0-9]*)( |\n)" -> "$2"
 * "RFC ([0-9]*)( |\n)" -> "$2"
 * JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 00:53, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Correct. I just figured I would alert the community in case others weren't aware. I can easily do it myself. Do you think I should? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In one week after this message the consensus will be made. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 11:57, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Receiving notifications when new books are uploaded
Hello,

Is it possible for eBook readers to receive notifications when a new book is uploaded?

Thank you

Anupama Srinivas (discuss • contribs) 14:27, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
 * This would need a bot to watch the recent changes and warn those who would have subscribed to it. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 08:57, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Appearance of categories
Please change The way that categories have been restructured here is probably fine semantically but I have to say that it is garish and almost unusable. I don't know why it was rearranged to look the way it does but the subcategories stretching across the entire page makes category pages much larger than they need to be, the tiny roll-over text when I go to click is hostile to users (and probably very difficult for some users with medical conditions to even click), and there is a curious side effect of some kind of transclusion so that undesirable effects happen to categories. E.g. Category:Remembering the Templars transcludes the mammoth 300% text from the title page. I've been encountering problems with this layout for several weeks now and I can't imagine that I'm the only one. I'd like to request that the styling be changed to something more akin to every other WMF project and that someone review the manner that book category header/BookCat transcludes unwanted information. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:08, 6 January 2017 (UTC)


 * The wiki software is severely misdesigned, which said, it is possible to apply a patch to the book page to fix it. I've just done that for Remembering the Templars.  It will likely be necessary to redesign BookCat to avoid the issue, but for now I've been applying the patch to book pages as necessary. The problem is this:  BookCat when used on a book-category page extracts category information from the main page of the book, and it then discards everything else from the main page of the book.  But, the wiki software is misdesigned so that certain things from the transcluded page are applied to the transcluding page even though the transcluded text is discarded.  This is true of footnotes (which, fortunately, most wikibooks don't use), and, as you point out, it's evidently also also true of the DISPLAYTITLE magic word.  I see it as part of the Foundation's war on wiki markup that they would build in this perverse behavior that interferes with freely transcluding wiki pages; but, I take it for granted the Foundation doesn't care about wiki markup, even though it's one of the key elements that makes the sisterhood work.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 04:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I knew you would see this. I have seen this transclusion problem before--in point of fact, I found this because these categories are all in a tracking category (Category:Pages_using_ISBN_magic_links), in spite of not having the actual code in them to add them to said category. Likewise, something need to be done about the styling and the weird way that the font contracts upon focus. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Um. Could you give examples of what these problems?  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 12:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * If you go to any category--e.g. Category:Remembering the Templars--and when you hover over the s for either a subcategory or the "More Recent Additions/Modifications" table, then the text changes size for some reason. Why? It makes it so that when I go to click, the text runs away from my mouse. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:43, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, this is the only project where Special:Notifications doesn't have a drop-down menu but takes me to a new page, even if all the scripts have loaded on the page. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:47, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As best I can tell, the two things you're describing &mdash; the text size and the notifications thing &mdash; don't happen for me. Could be something odd about your preferences here?  (Notifications works for me the same way here as on other projects.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 18:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Are you serious? That is so weird. What skin are you using? I have Monobook. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Monobook for me also. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 20:36, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * These problems sound like exactly what I was getting the other day here. It turned out to be a JS error in a gadget, which was stopping the rest of the page's JS from loading. Do you get any errors in your browser's JS console? Try turning off all gadgets and see if the problem goes away. Sam Wilson 22:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
 * , I had the Gadget for "Color-Coded Categories" turned on and that's it. Thanks guys. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Handbook on a fictional world
Hello everyone,

first I want to apologize, if I'm in the wrong place, but it seemed pretty appropriate.

I got a problem. I did invent a sci-fi setting to play a RPG in, now I thought it would be great to release all information necessary to generate content for this universe into the public domain (describing society, planets, companys, races, basic timeline etc...). So that people would be able to base RPG-Settings, Audio Theater, Films, all sorts of fiction in general on the material. During time the book will grow with every media published about the setting adding to the "canon". The problem is: I think Wikibooks is the ideal place for this, but because of the fictional nature of the topic it might be... dunno... bad?

Why do I think wikibooks is the ideal place for it? Because everyone can contribute to the universe, even as an IP who doesn't care about wikimedia, but publish a short story on his/her Blog adding the infos he invented here. Hence the "Handbook" on the world is growing larger and larger, so everybody wanting to publish their own material can look up easily everything necessary to tell storys according to the here published growing "canon". There need to be some guidelines to let's say "block" certain "bits of information" for a certain amount of time, so that a creative mind can finish his work, adding the events he/she proposed to the "canon". The easiest example would be: The story takes place on a certain planet, and the author says: well for the next three month, the information about this planet is only written by me. It's probably possible to set the stage for something like this in the "Authorsguide" for the book...

Why do I think it might be a problem: It's a fine line between facts (here known as canon to a story) and fiction. There is the risk, that authors think they can contribute stories/content here. Where should be even drawn the line? Isn't the "invention" of a world in itself already fiction, so it does not belong here? There might occur problems, because some persons want to write, lets call it, "inappropriate" stuff, describing the backgrounds here... (actually my biggest concern: abuse in a "being rights" sense).

You probably guess: I think it will fit in nicely (and hopefully work out). I looked some books up and I think comparable would be the Lego Design book and the Magic The Gathering Book. My goal would be to describe "bricks" of information (published here), with which authors can build stories (published NOT here -> Youtube, Blogs, Deviantart, etc...). The result would be a totally free canon of a fictional world to whom everybody can contribute to.

To give an impression of how I see the content of the book:

What I would do:
 * Describe characters that have a real impact on the world
 * Describe Planets, vegetation, brief history
 * Describe Technology
 * Describe the timeline

What I don't want to do:
 * I don't want to describe characters that are part of small stories
 * I don't want to describe every ship in fleet xy
 * I don't want to describe personal belongings of characters

What do you think: Would you as a community accept such content? Do you think future Wikibooks-Generations would defend the idea against moving to wikia, which would probably be the first reflex of a wikipedian, to move the content to? At least it's original descriptive content? Did I miss any points (I probably did)? Is there anything that should be discussed, or is there a general opinion of "Cool! Give it a shot! If you stop writing in 3 month, we'll delete it anyways?"?

Thanks for reading, and your opinion, if you are so kind to write it. I'll probably sign up and start writing within the next half a year, if the majority likes the idea! Regards Axel--82.82.70.233 (discuss) 22:47, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Just a few days after I wrote this, I thought, maybe it's not that important anymore, but obviously it's more interesting than ever. Any Thoughts? Regards, Axel--HirnSpuk (discuss • contribs) 11:06, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't speak to how good of an idea this is (it could be very creative and fun) but I don't think it would fall inside the scope of this project. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I think so too. On the one hand. On the other, let's think about creatives, that need to write something creative and original about something special and need a textbook reference about the stuff they should be creative about. Shouldn't they be able to read something like this, which could probably be categorized as an educational textbook? Educational resources are not solely about science and tech, I think. But I know, the idea is somewhat controversial. Hence I was asking here about it. One could argue, and maybe this is the point, that a book about creative writing in general is okay, a book about specific creative writing is not. Everything might be about the question, would we tolerate such an experiment and monitor the outcome to judge the experiment successful or not (aka the book is read and creative works are emerging because of it). Accepting the risk of making an example which opens wikibooks in a direction, that makes it possibly more controversial regarding topics and thus less servicable (on the other hand, take a look at Subject:Fantasy_literature, it wouldn't be that far of limits). If I'm concluding from german wiki-projects, an experiment like this would be heavily rejected by the community. But suprise me :-)... actually I'm thinking nothing will happen here anymore, and don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a bad idea. So I'm pretty happy, that someone took the time to think about the idea. So thanks again. And: If anyone is interested in the idea, don't count me out. Regards, Axel --HirnSpuk (discuss • contribs) 13:39, 2 November 2016 (UTC)


 * It only depends on how you format it. The community will not pass judgment on keeping the content beyond the satisfaction of the rules. The main problem seems to be this "I did invent a sci-fi setting to play a RPG in". You will only be prevented to extrapolate directly on your creation if it isn't recognized as "published" or in general use. If it is not, expand the scope of the project to generally cover Creating RPGs in a SCi-FI Settings and use your created universe as an example. But note that you will not be able to have any strict editorial control, other editors may add different examples or change your's, since your specific setting is subjective not factual or static. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 16:16, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thinking about your proposal, I actually think it could work on where the guidelines are a lot more flexible. It could really be an interesting task to see world-building as it happens and document it on the site. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:34, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * As a Wikiversity editor, I think it would be suitable for Wikiversity to withhold this type-of-content. Wikiversity is a LOT more lenient than other Wikimedia projects, heck, I got a fictional university to be a standard WV page! (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Mustafa_Einhoonansebadoi_University - this was when I was quite young). I'd be watching your progress and contributions there to make sure everything run smoothly, if you be willing --Atcovi (Talk - Contribs) 20:03, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow, cool!, , , thanks for the replies. To answer it piece by piece, I think generally talking about roleplaying would be something I'd like to do, but it's not the idea about this "Project". I just checked a little with the Versity's rules and initially thought it would not be suitable, but I'm flattered, that you offered to watch over it, thanks. On the other hand, I don't want to "bend the rules" so to say, and actually I think it could be nothing else than a wikibook. It is not intended for teaching creative writing, learning creative cooperation by cooperative-storytelling or something the like. I thought a little about changing the scope to this direction, but it's not, what I initially had in mind (let alone, that I don't know anything about it :-)). To be honest if it ever becomes, what I want it to be, it shall be "educational material" for creatives generating material "within" the canon of a "universe". It's not intended to tell an individual story (that's what the creatives should do afterwards), but more some general ideas and timeline behind the "universe" in a cooperative manner, so every creative mind can place his/her story within the canon.
 * With the option of contributing any additional canon-material (for example one could think about artworks and illustrations for commons changing the words into pictures for let's say specific races). The max I would do is opening a link collection, so everybody can show off, what was done with the canon (comics, audio-drama, hobby-movies, fan-fiction, roleplaying games,...) additionally giving editors who are not into creative things the opportunity to think about which facts could be considered canon (e.g. which character is important enough to be described in the wikibook). But the more ideas I get the more it turns into a tough job deciding between, what could be wikibook-material, what'd be wikia-material, what'd be creative-material... A possible book would probably need a whole set of rules to decide those things.
 * Additionally I'm quite busy at the moment, so I couldn't start away right now full speed anyways, even if you say: well, why not, go ahead. So thanks for your help, advice and good will and if you see an opportunity and/or a place to do it here on wikibooks, I would like to try discussing and fleshing out the idea further at a slow pace (with open end). But I suppose here (the Reading Room/Projects) would not be the right place than, correct?
 * As a side-note, if you are interested, I tried doing the thing small scale with a friend of mine (he's DMing another adventure in the same universe with our group with me as another player, pitched it to our group expanding my ideas). To watch my reactions, when he added to "my ideas" was pretty interesting, because I initially thought: "Nooo! You cannot do this or do that..." I did not speak with him right away, he told us his ideas via E-Mail and a few days later I was thinking: Well, actually, that's exactly what you wanted, just do it, let's see, where it's going... Kind of stressing, but kind of fun :-). Regards --HirnSpuk (discuss • contribs) 00:41, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * See here. As a heads-up, I probably wouldn't have anything to contribute but I think this could be a useful exercise. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Just a quick note, because of Justin's help above I came up with an Idea to maybe fit it into the scope of Wikiversity. Visit v:Wikiversity:Colloquium for the according discussion, if interested. Thanks, regards --HirnSpuk (discuss • contribs) 15:59, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Making PDF look better.
Hello everyone, it is my first time here :).  My name is Moushira, and I am part of the community engagement team at Wikimedia Foundation.  The Reading team is currently working on enhancing the PDF rendering output of printed articles and books, for more information, please check the page  here which explains the changes, and please, add comments or questions, if any.  Thank you! --Melamrawy (WMF) (discuss • contribs) 19:44, 22 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Hello and welcome, . It is very good to hear of improvements to PDF renderning. The limitations of the currently available renderer make it inadequate for many wikibooks (the output for programming books, for instance, is unusable due to lack of support for code blocks). I would love to see that change, as print version generation is highly relevant for Wikibooks. Cheers, Duplode (discuss • contribs) 06:45, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposal for a Guide to Musical Instruments...
Recently User:Beeswaxcandle transcribed a 1917 book entitled Instruments of the Modern Symphony Orchestra at Wikisource.

I was wondering if there would be any interest in there being something broadly like this on Wikibooks, covering the instruments (and effects) in the General Midi list (which I think is 128 instruments + various drum kits.)

The thought was to initaly perhaps import the book mentioned above and update it slightly.

Each page would ideally have an infobox which listed things like tonal range, tunings, stero postions, GM instrument number and so on.

Would anyone be interested in writing such a work? ShakespeareFan00 (discuss • contribs) 10:56, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
 * That would be great. All I could add is things like copyediting, inter-linking, and adding media. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)


 * My next question would be how do I start a project here? ShakespeareFan00 (discuss • contribs) 21:01, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Our main repository of how-to about the project is, with thematic consistency, a book: Using Wikibooks.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 23:31, 9 January 2017 (UTC)


 * I second the idea, ShakespeareFan00 and myself talked a bit on IRC and there may be some sections I could collaborate on. Penskins (discuss • contribs) 21:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Additionally, I know how to play trumpet and a little bit of bass guitar so I can help out on those sections. Please Ping me if you get it off the ground. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)