Wikibooks:Reading room/Proposals/2017/September

New Lua template: Template:Footer
Hello, I've just developed Footer to replace the many fastidious manual templates we have into Category:Navigational templates, such as B3D:N2P/NAV or Python Programming, which should be carefully filled during their deployments and updated after every TOC modification.

I want to deploy it in my books, and allow to customize more options like the arrow pictures, the frame color, and the possibility to add a header similar to this footer. As it doesn't need any parameter, we would even be able to deploy it like BookCat, embedded into one book-specific template. What do you think? JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 01:15, 12 June 2017 (UTC)


 * This seems distantly related to the navlist facility I developed a while back and deployed on Conlang, which I know has since been used on a few other books, and which I've been grumbling about upgrading (for one thing, I was thinking of using a more user-friendly format for the navlist). I don't understand what yours does. Where does it look for the table of contents?  The book's main page?  (I dislike using Lua for anything specific if one can possibly avoid it, of course, but, whatever.)  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 02:20, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's just fully automatic from any of our TOC ([//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Python_Programming&action=edit&section=1 like this one]), so the Lua couldn't been avoided ([//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Navlist/Map/Prev_page&action=edit unless we enumerate a certain number of cases...] from a special TOC template). Actually I didn't find your templates before, and I couldn't imagine their existence, even if [//fr.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Utilisateur:JackPotte/fr-accord-r%C3%A9g2&action=edit I had tried this kind of experience before] with an inconclusive result. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 07:39, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Navlist was last discussed, afaik, in a thread here now archived at Reading room/Proposals/2016/April. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 17:08, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem is [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Conlang/Navlist&action=edit that Navlist needs to rewrite all the TOC in a complex way], whereas Template:Footer works with the standard TOC (the bulleted lists like on Wikipedia, so no need to touch them) in a few Wikibooks (French, Spanish, German...).

Today, I propose an automatic header with the same skin on Template talk:Programming/Navigation. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 21:20, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I've pointed out, several times at this reading room as I recall, that (by using evalx) we could now upgrade navlist to use whatever syntax we wish for the toc, and I have solicited input on what syntax people think would be best for the purpose, but I don't recall anyone ever offering any such input in response to my requests therefor. Meanwhile, over the years I have come to mistrust the idea of an instant-single-point-of-failure page controlling the entire navigational structure of the entire book, and if one does have such a page I think it's better to have it be a template, set apart from the main page of the book.  The instant-single-point-of-failure problem is a smaller-scale version of the same problem as using wikidata to generate interwiki links, something for which I do have a better alternative to suggest but do not yet have an implementation of that alternative.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 21:45, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Understood, but my Lua module is not a god object and just utilizes the available information to do automatically and instantaneously what should be done manually, in order to avoid the antipattern. Moreover, it doesn't crash if we insert some strange things into the TOC but ignore these lines. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 21:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Redundant data storage is not always an instance of the duplicate code antipattern. Or, putting it another way, single-point-of-failure is also an antipattern, especially in the wikis.  What you do want, with redundant storage, is something to aid in tracking coordination between related elements.  Just saying.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 01:16, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Personally I can't bear [//en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Science%3A_An_Elementary_Teacher%E2%80%99s_Guide%2FElectricity_and_magnetism&type=revision&diff=3288094&oldid=3241884 to update each linked page] when deleting every day: this is the longest part of the process and it could be avoided. JackPotte (discuss • contribs) 09:37, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I did conclude, at some point, that the real need in the long run is for wiki-driven interactivity, so that the users on the wiki can readily arrange to make that procedure easier to do.  Hence my long-term pursit of dialog.  --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 10:52, 1 September 2017 (UTC)