User talk:Patrick/Sep 2003 - July 2007

User's Guide

Thanks for all the work on the MediaWiki user guide and also for being bold by redirecting future edits to the meta version. --Maveric149 19:57, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

But for en:Wikipedia:Searching I am more ambivalent because you have put a shorter version on meta. And with MediaWiki User's Guide: Namespaces it seemed more practical to explain the general case referring to the Wikipedia case. - Patrick 21:36, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Great work on maintaining the MediaWiki User's Guide! I also think it is a good idea to move much of it into the help namespace. --mav 02:50, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I prefer the shorter names.--Patrick 11:48, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Help:Template

Hi. I've no doubt that the template facilities are valuable, but i can't decide from Help:Template whether it is a feature or a bug keeping me from generating by substitution the name of the inner template of a nested call.

Examples using the same template two ways are via subst and via msg-equivalent

I'm guessing you can see clearly enough what i want, to say right off if there's a simple way. (If you can't see already, the only compact explanation is to mention that this is a prototype for T1; {{T2|H|a}} and {{T3|H|a|r}} are typical & immediately useful calls that would also pull in Template:List of people Ha in both cases and Template:List of people Har in the T3 one; if it can be made to work, i'd also write T4 and T5 without knowing for sure if they'd ever be used. And i'd be glad to give a thoro explanation if you want one.)
--Jerzy 18:06, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Continued and answer at [1].

Fun with Please Fix

good point about it not being clear what the redirect does. I'm still mid editing a bunch of pages, (I gotta cut and paste stuff to make it fit into format, and then I get side tracked) I'll do another revision on please fix within the span of a few days, (or hours). i'm a bit confused now about the page's layout, but I'll wait a bit for you to get done.

Meta sysop

Congratulations! You are now a Meta administrator. Please read the Meta:Deletion policy before deleting anything, and make sure you understand how to edit pages such as the fundraising page before doing so. Angela 22:14, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!--Patrick 22:23, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hello Patrick, also my gratulations :-) I just stumbled over Documentation - is this an alternative approach to the manual you are working on? I really got confused. There shouldn't be two different documentation projects on meta. Are there plans to merge the two? --Elian 23:16, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. I renamed Documentation: User's Guide to Stub for an alternative User's Guide by Asb to help avoid this confusion, because it was just a start by a user who seems to have left in December; however, the renaming was reverted by AaronPeterson. I keep an eye on that, it is not clear yet what he wants to do. Other, more developed parts by Asb, about installation and configuration matters I am not so familiar with, are being integrated.--Patrick 23:44, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Capitalization

Sorry about changing the capitalization of that page, I'm really agrivated by the capitalization issues, and I feel a bit violated by the initial caps, and no caps... I hope to become a good enough developer that capitalization can be handled in _multiple_ proper ways, allowing everyone to be happy... I'm not going to fight the convention, but lease note, that I feel like I get kicked in the face every time I see a weirldy capitalized title.

AaronPeterson 23 Jul 2004

Request help on formatting dispute on Help:Contents

hello, User:Elian and I User:AaronPeterson have a disagreement on the formatting of Help:Contents. Please see old versions of the page to see the difference in opinion.

Elian, on IRC, suggested asking your opinion on the matter. (because you are a major contributor to that page) I believe that her arguments consist of: 1) The long list doesn't need another list of a list (my words), and 2) the page is for the readers, and she thinks that a list looks better.

My arguments are:

• the list is so long, that it is hard to edit.
  • because the list is so long, editors will give up on correcting the page.
• There is no whitespace between major topics, and when reading, or editing they all merge, and (this is the second major point) numbered lists, when seporated by a blank line, all start at 1.!
• The list is so long that it does not fit on one screen, but the table of contents at the top, which is created by using the headers, IS capable of fitting on one screen,
• If the header table of contents is not liked, it can easily be hidden.
• having seporate editable sections(by header), makes editing the page even less of a problem, as the maintainer will not accidentally place a link in the wrong section.
• I am willing to continue maintaining this help:contents page... but only if there is some whitespace to break down the long list.
• I am willing to change the page back to my formatting without reverting other changes that have been done since.
• I'd like a chance to show what I've learned over the years, (I know I'm a new user here), I know that change is hard, but I'm willing to guarantee that this will save time/ make it easier to manage.
• I'm an arse hole! I'll continue flame wars on topics that I care deeply about, but in as a general rule, I will not engage in edit wars... (meaning that I will keep my chatter on discussion pages, IRC, mailing lists, etc)
• I could be willing to compromise on other things, and or put effort into something else as well..
• This list of arguments is fairly standard for me, so from now on I'll just make a copy of these arguments and place them on my user page, I'm not _THAT_ obsessed with this feature, to be trying to scare you into following my will. (actually, I don't want to be annoying, but I know that a huge list can be annoying for a small ticket item.. but I actually think that this is a rather big ticket item, due to the popularity of the page)
• Also, headings allow for a wiki link directly to the topic. (i could do my own A name field, but that isn't automatic)
• Also, I don't like doubly nested numbered lists, and I don't know how to do an alphabetical list!

AaronPeterson 24 Jul 2004

See Help talk:Contents#Sections_or_not.--Patrick 08:29, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I went to Help talk:Contents#Sections_or_not, and I'm not sure if you responded or not, I forget to sign often, and I think it's probably easy for others to not sign as well. If I see that you've edited pages after this posts, I'll wait a few days, look for responces, then if there are none, I'm planning to reformat. AaronPeterson 12:14, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I suppose the section header which is part of my example there confuses you, look again. You may reformat according to the comprise.--Patrick 12:58, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Template:hi

I have been bold and modified Template:hi to try to make it a look a little more "polished". - dcljr 08:40, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

---

Patrick, what were you talking about changing category names in templates? do they apply to the host page as well? that... gets complicated if it does! http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Template:Hi&action=history AaronPeterson 13:28, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the help pages are now divided over two categories.--Patrick 16:19, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

can we keep help:help as a help pointer?

to all the projects? I was thinking about editing it.. help:contents doesn't feel right for what it is.. Help:MediaWiki would be a nice place to move Help:Contents too.. and then help:help would make sence to be redirected to help:contents?

and then there could be a help:wikipedia and a help:whatever...

I'm on IRC now, I hate talking on wiki's... I also have instant messangers, I'm MrDarkUser... -- AaronPeterson 09:24, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think talking here is fine. I think it is convenient that the Help link which is in the interface directly points to a page with links to many help pages, whatever that page is called. For other matters there is the link to the Main page.--Patrick 09:43, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is help joke?

Patrick, what about the question from Help talk:Preferences that you write about different version of wiki software that is really installed? (This page is a joke. It looks like it was written for a completely different preferences page to the one I came from. 210.50.108.76 07:18, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)) - you don't answer the question. Ency 08:07, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This is a wiki, anybody can contribute. If a page is outdated it is because people like you have not updated it yet.

Per item the text was fairly up-to-date, except for the screen shots, but the rearrangement of the items had not yet been updated on the help page. I have done that now. I have replaced the screenshots with preformatted text.--Patrick 08:35, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Bar

Don't move Bar around, it is linked to from several pages on five projects. meta.wikimedia.org is meta by design and there's no need to put anything in Meta:. Please do not disorganise our work.
--tsca 12:16, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK. It says at the top "This is our Polish equivalent of Meta:Babel", so putting it in the same namespace seemed more organized. By the way, it is not very convenient to use a page name that does not give any indication of the language it is in.--Patrick 22:09, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

ISBN links help

I don't know if you're still trying to figure out how to set up book sources pages or not (your post on the talk was months old), but if you are, I added a little bit to the talk on how to do it. Help talk:ISBN links Hope it helps. Sillydragon 01:59, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Great work!

It's been a while since I said this, but Great job on the help pages/MediaWiki docs. :) --Daniel Mayer 10:09, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks!--Patrick 10:13, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Template:Hcit

I have seen you have created Template:Hcit. Thank you! If is better for you i will translate the link name and fix the link to poin to the Itlain page (namespace Aiuto:). I will alsa take care of putting it in all page I have already created, I am going to create and someone will create (Italian only!). But I can not tell you how quickly I will do. Bye. AnyFile 15:52, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

When I have it translate I will add it to the list on Help:MediaWiki help policy#Internationalization AnyFile 15:55, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Very good. Please see also .--Patrick 00:15, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just to let you know it: Help:Reader and Reader handbook is one the dublicate of the other (and is not a redirect). I put some comments on Help talk:International help page footer overview AnyFile 16:21, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

--

There is a problem we cannot always use Template:xxx for listing the traslation of Help:xxxx . Sometimes this template is already taken. I started using template name like Template:H-langs:Namespace AnyFile 10:48, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have seen your modification to template:hcen to include the othr template via the variable of the name of the page. I have modified hcit in the same way. Please note that you have to modify all the en page (I will do for the it) you have already modified to remove the explict inclusion of the template after the inclusion of hcen or thre be the link list two time. Also at this point it is necessary to have really a template for each page or a red link to the template is display. Creating tese templete will no cause problems: until the parameter to langs remains this paramenter is dispplayed. So we are free to create these new template with only some language (e.g en and it) andd add the others languages later. AnyFile 21:08, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Argh ... what a fool I was ... I can not modify Hcit as you do with hcen. Well, the other thing I told you are still true. But this thing make me think a possibility (I have no time now to try, its time to go to bed in Italy) if I pass a paramenter, say for example enname, which has the name of the English page can I them to insert in Hcit the inclusion as {{H-langs:{{enname}}}}  ? AnyFile 21:23, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good idea! It works (with triple braces around enname), see Aiuto:Vai.--Patrick 21:42, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just wonder if you can undestand Italian. By the way Vai means Go (imperative form) AnyFile 13:01, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, I don't. But Vai looks like the French Va.--Patrick 13:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Templates for Help

I have noticed, changes with Help:Contents and Templates which it use. Where I can see information about this changes, and directions for how it use. Guria 11:49, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am working on that, including the page Help:MediaWiki help policy. I added the top bar to the template for the sidebar, so that we have only one tag at the top of help pages. Also I did a renaming so that the variable {{NAMESPACE}} can be used to get the correct template.--Patrick 12:06, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for explain. I already start thinking that I'm gonna crazy. Now I have understand why top bar on Help:Contents goes a little down. I'll correct this. Guria 12:15, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Now I think better you'll do it. Check this more closely Guria 12:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

I want that Template:H:f accepts another parameter to pass to Template:H:f Aiuto (and the same for all other languages) as explained (and I know I not need to explain you again because you modified for me Aiuto:Vai and Template:Hcit) (please note that in this schem Template:Hcit will be renamed Template:H:f Aiuto). The name could be anything and if you have no objection I will keep enname. I did not make the change now because otherwise ... OK I was bold I done the change myself. I will fix English Help page by adding an empty parameter enname to all the calls of the template (as soon as I can).AnyFile 13:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually even if there is no enname parameter thing works fine in the English version. So there is no urgent need to put it into the English version, but I will prefer that it is, and at this point with the correct value filled. This will make the job easier to non english editor. AnyFile 13:58, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, it does not work fine without enname, the value does not matter but it should be there otherwise you get braces.--Patrick 16:04, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please be careful that if you use the enname parameter, it is case sensitive even in the first character. I propose that template like Template:H-langs:Contents always has after H-langs: a capital letter. AnyFile 13:39, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

H:h and H:f

Ehi!! Important!! H:h has not space before {{namespace}} while H:f has. Please choose an uniform way. AnyFile

Yes, let us add the space in the header.--Patrick 13:51, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've done AnyFile 14:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another think you have included hh into Handbook sidebar and blanked hh. You can not trust that every page has Handbook sidebar included. In my opinion it would better if hh remains, making also the job of Handbook sidebar, and Handbook sidebar is blanked. AnyFile 13:55, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But Handbook sidebar has a parameter, so for every page with a sidebar it works without changing the tags. In your method all tags must be changed, because hh would get a parameter.--Patrick 14:03, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In your way a page without Handbook sidebar will have only a blank header. FOr the moment I left everythig as it is (except to adding an spcebefore namespace). But I have the folloving proposal. Getting back Handbook sidebar as it was and make hh a redirect to h:h and h:h just an inclusion of "h:h {{namespace}}" AnyFile 14:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Later if you want you will be able to put a parameter to h:h and make h:h display the toc and abolish Handbook sidebar. I think this way is more conservative. AnyFile 14:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Another solution is that we consider that editor has two possibility

• As in old version insert hh and Handbook sidebar 8and these template are exactly as were two weeks ago) (this method should be deprecated)
• Insert only h:h and remove the two old one. h:h call the language specific templete like h:h Help or h:h Aiuto. This template will both display the header and the toc menu. I prefer that is the h:h Help to display the toc menu rather then h:h so that language specific question could be solved. AnyFile 16:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The second seems fine. I like having only one tag at the top because the fact that there is a top bar and a side bar is an internal matter of Meta and people using a copy of the wikitext should not be bothered with that, they just need one tag for their own header.--Patrick 16:32, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SideBar

Maybe I something missed, but I didn't understand how to place sidebar on the help pages. Guria 06:50, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for disturb. I'm already understand. Guria 06:54, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

name in footer header

Do you mind to put in the list in Help:Help page footer templates of the H-langs template not the name of link in the English footer (which is language dependent and do not correspond to the enname and the name of the English help page), but the name of the page in English, that is the value of the parameter enname? AnyFile 12:40, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That was the intention, I fixed Go button.--Patrick 12:47, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Can I help out?

Hi Patrick,

I see you're busy doing... umm.. well, whatever it is you're doing. It caught my eye because they're Dutch things. I am fairly new to Meta, but I'd love to help out in any way I can, but so far all I managed to do was find some old pages that were awaiting translation. Is there anything you could use a hand with, or could you give me a pointer to something useful to do?

Thanks in advance, Kander 21:09, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Kander, welcome!

We are working on help pages like NL Help:Geluid, with links to other Dutch help pages on Meta (to be copied from nl) and with interlanguage links in templates. As you see at the bottom, most links are still to English pages. See also Help:MediaWiki help policy.--Patrick 21:17, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

template:h:g

I am not sure that the introduction of Template:h:g is a valuable thing. It is complicating a yet complicated situation. In my opinion keeping H:f as it is is enough. We can suppose that since h:f is relativelly new it is rare that someone use the parameter langs, excpet as a transiction. So one day we can just remove it from h:f. We can from now remove it form Template:h:f Help and Template:h:f Aiuto. The real problem are the page which include the old template hc. My proposal is to keep think like now. Copy now or later Template:h:f to Template:hc (now it should be a redirect, I want a real copy). After we have look no (English, Italian, ...) page use langs in Template:h:f calling, we remove langs from Template:h:f, but we keep hc as now, and from this time we can remove the langs from h:f calling. AnyFile 16:42, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I kind of agree. the introduction of h:g seems to require more changes than adapting the current occurences of h:f in my eyes. I don't see the benefits of it. wouldn't it be easier to just kill the usage of langs right away instead, if we really want to? I'd rather do that than switch to h:g --TheDJ 17:02, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, let us remove langs from h:f, then we do not need h:g. The idea of h:g was that it is odd to instruct people to put a deprecated parameter in a new tag. --Patrick 20:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please do not remove langs from h:f . I have seen you removet it in Aiuto:Sommario. Please follow the procedure I am going to propose in Help talk:Help page footer templates AnyFile 13:08, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

removal of langs parameter

I have check every page I found and I have not found any pages that use the langs parameter in the template h:f. I will going to remove it from template:h:f. If you belive that there are pages that need it and they will be damnaged, tell me. Consider that this not regards page with empty langs parameter like {{h:f|lang=|enname=xxx}}. Consider also that there is no need to remove the empty langs parameter from the help pages. After this change is made there would no more need to insert line as above (but they will still work) but it will enought to insert line as {{h:f|enname=xxx}}. The only problems that can arise is if there are some page that use a non-empty langs parameter to template:h:f. AnyFile 20:49, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, we can remove langs from h:f.--Patrick 22:44, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have just removed it AnyFile 11:09, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Very good.--Patrick 15:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ja page

I am doing a special job on japaneese help page, they are in temporany situation AnyFile 10:53, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My job is over. Now they include directly the language specific template Template:h:f ヘルプ (without calling H:f because it is not in the correct namespace) AnyFile 11:08, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There a a serious probelm in Template:H-langs:Namespace I will ask to stop using Lang name (code) AnyFile 10:55, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Language name translation templates

Please see the brief discussion at User talk:Dcljr#Lang name templates and Meta:Templates for translating language names and its talk page. Comments welcome. Thanks. - dcljr 21:34, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Complete list of language Wikipedias available

Why did you move Complete list of language Wikipedias available? Is the longer name really necessary? (See also its "What links here", BTW.) - dcljr 18:33, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

There is also List of language names ordered by code, with links to the Wikipedias, and perhaps there is or will be a third list in alphabetical order of full language names (or more, distinguished by the language in which the language names are expressed), so it seems good to have this distinction in the name: Complete list of language Wikipedias ordered by size. If you like it shorter, let us remove "Complete" and/or "language": we could make it List of Wikipedias ordered by size. Or we could combine the pages and have different sections for different orderings.--Patrick 20:26, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I have added two templates, each with a differently ordered list, now we can call it Lists of Wikipedias or List of Wikipedias.--Patrick 21:07, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Test

Hi, Patrick do you need still Template:Test? If so, would you like to rename? I think now we have to have like en:Template:Test here on meta too... --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 23:15, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

I moved it. By the way, shouldn't that be "in principio erat Verbum" (see wikisource:The New Testament (Vulgata)#secundum_Iohannem)?.--Patrick 07:02, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, well as you said .. thanks double ;) --Aphaia | Translate Election | ++ 08:09, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Minor edits on Special:Export / help pages and bugs

It's hard to fix bugs when nobody tells us about them. :) In the future, please make a bug report at http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/ instead of writing documentation as if the bugs are intentional. --brion 01:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Hi Brion,

Thanks for fixing Special:Export.

When something works differently from what I would expect, I do not always know whether it is intentional, inevitable, or a bug (sometimes I write "oddly", to tell the reader that, as far as I can see, he/she is not supposed to understand the logic of it). Regardless of whether something will be fixed, it is useful to describe how things work now. That should neither be interpreted as meaning that the software works intentionally like this, nor as a complaint (I know I can't complain if I have not even filed a bug report, and anyway, that does not belong on help pages). I may file bug reports more often in the future, but I also welcome other people to do that, if some behavior of the software, described on the help pages, strikes them as odd and/or inconvenient.

Best regards,

Patrick 11:44, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Special thanks for all your support

T120(T121(T006(x))) = T011(x)    revID: 648055   purge

006 11 12 13 10 21 22 23 20 31 32 33 30 01 02 03 00  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

121 31 21 11 01 30 20 10 00 33 23 13 03 32 22 12 02  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

120 02 32 22 12 01 31 21 11 00 30 20 10 03 33 23 13  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T126(T115(T016(x))) = T011(x) 22 23 20 21 32 33 30 31 02 03 00 01 12 13 10 11  →  * * * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

 

 

Halló Patrick! Thanks for all the provided help. I was searching a bug but I could see that the main issue with nested template is not to use parameters outsite the environment where they are defined. (See also: examples) Best regards Gangleri | Th | T 07:40, July 14, 2005 (UTC)

background pictures

iterations of T150    revID: 648055   purge

T150^1 21 22 32 31 11 12 02 01 10 13 03 00 20 23 33 30  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^2=T115 13 03 33 23 12 02 32 22 11 01 31 21 10 00 30 20  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^3=T238 01 31 30 00 02 32 33 03 12 22 23 13 11 21 20 10  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^4=T011 22 23 20 21 32 33 30 31 02 03 00 01 12 13 10 11  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^5=T160 03 00 10 13 33 30 20 23 32 31 21 22 02 01 11 12  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^6=T121 31 21 11 01 30 20 10 00 33 23 13 03 32 22 12 02  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^7=T232 23 13 12 22 20 10 11 21 30 00 01 31 33 03 02 32  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

T150^8=T001 00 01 02 03 10 11 12 13 20 21 22 23 30 31 32 33  →  * * * * * * * * * * * (*)

• Halló Patrick! Please take a look at the arangements of (00, 01, 02, 03) and (10, 11, 12, 13) in T150 and T150^7=T232. These arangements are shifted also at T150^3=T238 and T150^5=T160. We see that last arangements are the "similar" only in the "endless plains".
• Is it possible to use underlaying background pictures or another method to combine both pictures and values? Maybe it would be easiest to make some screen dumps with ilustrations.
• Thanks for your answers in advance. Best regards Gangleri | Th | T 11:23, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Where to find my ip-number discussion page?

(moved down)

When I connected to the documentation an hour ago I saw there was a message from Patrick, so I looked at it, and edited some responses into it. But now I can't find it any more. It no longer says there's any message from Patrick, and I don't know where to find the ip-number page that I had been editing. I want to add the following text to the end after what I wrote before:

Oh, I remembered my question: How do I make a new section, especially on discussion/talk pages that already have a lot of sections and have a table of contents at the top of the page. I want to start a new section rather than append to somebody else's section that is on a different topic from what I want to discuss? Hmm, I think I found it, equal signs around title of section, right?

Also I wanted to edit the place where I mentionned new page to instead say something like this: new page

If you follow the link "Create an account or log in" you can choose a nicer and easier name than 198.144.192.42 ; the page is User talk:198.144.192.42.--Patrick 10:51, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Update by uh3t 2005.Jul.25: I'm reluctant to make a new account because I already have so many accounts I can't remember all the passwords, so I'd have to make yet another password I can't remember or re-use an old password which would compromise security by having the same password known to both Yahoo and MediaWiki. I think I'll stay using the IP number of my Unix shell account, since I seem to be the only person on the ISP who ever posts here, so I won't need to use a password. If and when somebody else on the same ISP posts here, I'll reconsider.

You could have found it with Recent Changes.--Patrick 11:22, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Update by uh3t 2005.Jul.25: I'm reluctant to ask for Recent Changes for the entire WikiPedia/MediaWiki/whatever system globally because I'd be totally overwealmed with the quantity of changes of no interest whatsoever to me, like spam, and never find anything I really wanted to find. However when you sent a later message I clicked on the new messages link again and this time I bookmarked the page locally so I'll be able to find it again. Thanks anyway.

One thing I wish I knew: How to find all places I've recently edited, so that I could quickly visit them all and see if anybody, such as you, has edited or moved what I had written. I checked here by clicking on the Patrick link in your new message to me and then clicking on Discussion, whereupon I found you'd moved my misplaced sections to the bottom where I originally intended them to be, thanks! And you've added more comments to them here. I originally found this site by following the User's Guide link from www.zimpedia.com. I was at that site because a fellow in London said he might like to work with me to set up online user communities to serve special needs not currently being adequately served. Unfortunately he left London after the bombings and hasn't gotten anything through to my InBox since then, so that project is on hold currently until he gets back to me. One of the services I'd like to set up is a unified new-message-etc. alert system, whereby daemons on various systems notice whenever something of interest has happened, and send a network message to a central server for the interested user, where the alerts are organized and sorted into priority classes, and then when the interested user logs in he/she sees a nice clean menu showing (starting with most urgent) all the alert classes. For example, I might see an urgent message from my Unix ISP admin as top priority, a message from the lawyer who might work on my behalf to sue California spammers as second priority, the London guy back in town as third priority, lists of guests on my Web site as next priority, then new messages posted to Yahoo! Groups where I'm a member, then updates to MediaWiki pages that I'm watching, then followups to anything I posted to newsgroups, then followups in any newsgroup threads I'm watching where it's not in direct response to what I posted, etc. As it is now, most of the time I check any of these categories I discover there's nothing new since the last time I checked, making me tend not to check for weeks at a time, causing me to be very belated in noticing new items when they finally do occur. At present the only way anyone can alert me that anything important has happened that I should notice, is to connect to my Web-alert system and deliberately notify me of the important change, i.e. *manually* alert me. http://shell.rawbw.com/~rem/cgi-bin/LogForm.cgi?f=WAP&id=guest1

On your talk page is the link user contributions (Special:Contributions/198.144.192.42). "top" means it has not been edited afterwards.--Patrick 21:40, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

How to make a new section at the very end?

That section asking about how to find my ip-number page was supposed to go at the very end, not way up at item #2 as it did, sorry, I must have clicked the wrong \[edit\] button, sigh. I wonder if this apology will go where it should, or be another misplaced section?

You succeeded. Use the link "+" to make a new section on a talk page, or edit the last section, appending content starting with a header "==..==", and replacing the preloaded edit summary.--Patrick 11:19, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Layout problem in Hilfe:Bearbeiten

Hi!

If I'm reading the history right (I'm rather new to all things wiki) you added that little box in the end of Hilfe:Bearbeiten. It renders fine in IE, but it breaks in Firefox: the right-hand side table overlaps with the box. Somehow we'd need to add a clear: both to the box in the end, but I don't know how to do this.

--DanielZKlein 12:59, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Try {{clr}}.--Patrick 21:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Help:Starting a new page - Spam Alert

Spam Alert:

I cleaned out a spam attack on Help:Starting a new page posted 10:44, 12 September 2005 by 86.104.17.160

This may not be an isolated event.

--Jwalling 20:08, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Meta Capitalization

English sentence-style capitalization, not title-style. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll keep a closer eye on it. --SV Resolution(Talk) 10:50, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Templates for translating language names

Hello! I've seen what you wrote in Templates for translating language names. But why don't you use 1 template, translating any language name into any other? Will it be better? Or there is no way for one to write a large 2d array with less than 5 templates? I'm interested in the project recently. And if that kind of array templates don't exist, maybe I can help. So can you tell me if it is necessary and possible to use a few (less than 5) templates to solve the problem? Thank you for your response! Upssdr 13:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

If you make a very large array, points of attention are:

• possible technical limitations
• convenience of editing

Note that most people know at most just a few languages, so they are only concerned with a few templates like Template:N en.--Patrick 22:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

But why not integrate all the "p{{{1}}}" templates into one or two? I have a way to do that. upssdr ^talk 12:45, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

How?--Patrick 00:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Please see User:Upssdr/array. In that way, modifying and copying will be much easier. upssdr ^talk 03:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Very clever!--Patrick 00:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

So it seems that the method to set up arrays which is introduced in help:template must be changed. upssdr ^talk 05:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes you can develop a C or Delphi program to generate the three templates. I'm not professional, so I use Pascal. upssdr ^talk 08:54, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I added Help:Template names, variable names and parameters depending on a variable or parameter#Alternative_way. Using unnamed parameters does not seem practical. Typically data are entered gradually by different users, so using a program is not applicable except perhaps for the framework in which users fill in the data. That would be interesting to try, for example for the names of n languages in these n languages, where users can fill in e.g. "deen=German", "enfr=Anglais". This way we can also see what the technical maximum is.--Patrick 09:33, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there isn't a clear upper limit of parameters, since I once created a template with 86400 parameters which makes other templates in the same page don't work and show e.g. "{{templatename}}". Another example is that 13 templates containing "{{ln|{{{1}}}...{{{1}}}}}" (x=1,2...13) make the page including it show "Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded...", because the length of parameter increases exponentially.
The reason why to use a program to generate templates is because program can automatically generate hundreds of "{{{}}}" rather than manually type them. The sequence of parameters doesn't matter so it's also easy to enter new data to the templates. upssdr ^talk 12:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I see. That seems to answer your own question "Why not use one template, translating any language name into any other?". That seems to give problems.--Patrick 09:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

But many languages are inactive and there is no need to offer translation for them. I believe a template with less than 10000 parameters can work normally. Maybe sometime I can write a template to test the limit. upssdr ^talk 14:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

That would be interesting.--Patrick 21:49, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It failed. The template template:ptest containing 10000 parameters doesn't work. upssdr ^talk 13:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

The realtimecolor template (your timedepcolor) has a disadvantage: its value do not change until you purge it or someone edit the page. upssdr ^talk 14:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Also, it's possible to write a "LocalTime" template which gives the local time of some time zone. But it has the same disadvantage as timedepcolor. {{CURRENTTIME}} will be calculated only when it is displayed, but templates using it will be in cache. That's really awful. upssdr ^talk 14:26, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Some other functions can be offered with templates e.g. RandomCategorizedElitePage or RandomElitePage. Special:random can't determine whether it's linked to a featured article or a stub. That work has to be done manually. So template is a method. upssdr ^talk 14:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Test page for stub feature 3 characters

Hi, while doing cleanup and fixing redirects, I found Test page for stub feature: redirect to short page which redirects to the above article. Another admin had deleted it, as it only contained "abc". Just wanted to let you know, incase you still wanted to have the test page there for learning purposes. Otherwise the redirect page is broken. In case you recreate it, a note on the talk page may help with it not being deleted in the future. Thanks. «»Who?¿?^WP 12:03, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks.--Patrick 23:37, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Please explain things to Wikiquote

Please explain the sense of having the same help across all projects, and how they can write their own project-specific help if they want project-specific stuff, to q:User:MosheZadka and q:User:Jeffq. They don't seem to be getting it when I explain it to them. This is your system, after all. Uncle G 14:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• The system is meant as a service to the various projects, but a project community can decide that it prefers its own set of help pages. It is up to them. If you see that a project has already its own help pages, it is wise to discuss the system first before replacing the pages. (On the English Wikipedia many help pages used to be in the Wikipedia namespace, so adding help pages did not clash with those, they could be gradually integrated.)--Patrick 16:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Only one of the projects already had its own set of help pages, Wikinews, and it's not permissible, because of the copyright licencing, to copy the pages from Meta to Wikinews anyway. (I'll skip over the fact that that was how Wikinews actually got its current collection of help pages in the first place.) Are you going to explain your system to them? Uncle G 19:29, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
    • It seems from q:User talk:Uncle G that they understand it, but do not like it, at least not for q:Help:Starting a new page.--Patrick 23:39, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

subst

Perhaps you want to know some findings I made about subst.

1. Subst ignore pre and nowiki.
2. Subst expand all code, but only substitutionable(?) code gets replaced (like subst:-calls and tildes)
3. if you add <includeonly>subst:</noinclude> before template to call, the call will only be expanded if someone subst: the outer template, and the call will be substed.

AzaToth 14:20, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I will look into that.--Patrick 03:08, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Foreach

I updated the foreach on wikipedia now, so it can be used to call incomplete templates (templates containing incomplete wiki markup) AzaToth 15:11, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I know that some templates contain incomplete wiki markup, like table syntax for one row, but I do not see a change related to this.--Patrick 01:09, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

if defined calln

made a generic version as w:Template:If defined, AzaToth 21:51, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

lc/uc

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#lc.2C_uc_modifiers_etc... AzaToth 22:25, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Interesting. I tested them at template:colon function ( talk edit history links ).--Patrick 00:41, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

See http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/wikipedia/phase3/includes/Parser.php?view=markup

For example:

		# LCFIRST, UCFIRST, LC and UC
		if ( !$found ) {
			$lcfirst =& MagicWord::get( MAG_LCFIRST );
			$ucfirst =& MagicWord::get( MAG_UCFIRST );
			$lc =& MagicWord::get( MAG_LC );
			$uc =& MagicWord::get( MAG_UC );
			if ( $lcfirst->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				$text = $linestart . $wgContLang->lcfirst( $part1 );
				$found = true;
			} else if ( $ucfirst->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				$text = $linestart . $wgContLang->ucfirst( $part1 );
				$found = true;
			} else if ( $lc->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				$text = $linestart . $wgContLang->lc( $part1 );
				$found = true;
			} else if ( $uc->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				 $text = $linestart . $wgContLang->uc( $part1 );
				 $found = true;
			}
		}

and

		# GRAMMAR
		if ( !$found && $argc == 1 ) {
			$mwGrammar =& MagicWord::get( MAG_GRAMMAR );
			if ( $mwGrammar->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				$text = $linestart . $wgContLang->convertGrammar( $args[0], $part1 );
				$found = true;
			}
		}

		# PLURAL
		if ( !$found && $argc >= 2 ) {
			$mwPluralForm =& MagicWord::get( MAG_PLURAL );
			if ( $mwPluralForm->matchStartAndRemove( $part1 ) ) {
				if ($argc==2) {$args[2]=$args[1];}
				$text = $linestart . $wgContLang->convertPlural( $part1, $args[0], $args[1], $args[2]);
				$found = true;
			}
		}

Mistake in the help page

Patrick - the Help:Talk_page has something that says, "www.www.matthewehrlich.com" at the end of the See Also list. I wasn't sure how it got there or how to go about removing it, but thought you should know. Cheers! Metlin 17 December 2005, 16:46 (UTC)

I do not see it.--Patrick 22:14, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

If you mean the spam on w:en:Template:H:f Help, that has now been removed.--Patrick 23:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Help

Hello Patrick!

My user account in the English wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/User:Getoar has been messed up. I switched from the default skin to one available there and can not restore to the previous skin. Can you please help me? I can not even open the skin menu. Please reply here or on my talk page http://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/User_talk:Getoar!!! - Getoar

Which skin do you have now? You mean you cannot find a "preferences" button, or what?--Patrick 12:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello! I think I have the "Chick skin". When I go to the "preferences" and move the pointer to the "Skins" link, I can not click on it. It is simply inactive. I can only click on User profile, Date and time, Editing, Recent changes and Search. The other options are unavailable. Is there any chance to restore the default skin? I even tried with the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#prefsection-1, but it did not work. Thank you in advance for your help! - Getoar --70.240.223.150 03:23, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Strange, I tried the chick skin, changing back worked normally.--Patrick 08:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Upssdr

Halló!
I leave Wikipedia recently. When I return, I find some new feature like parameter default and template nesting, and a saying that we should avoid using meta-templates. So I rewrite some templates, maybe useful for you.

• Template:Revisedtime //still need purge to update
• Template:Timedepcolor/newway

Upssdr

Very good. Thanks.--Patrick 08:33, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

conditional templates (my two cents)

Hi Patrick,

• I saw that AzaToth and you wrote high-level templates : condition and loop. I also read that they should not be used. I am not quite sure with that strong talk between wikipedians. Can you tell me ?
• If we need to wait for a new MediaWiki implementing those templates, when will it come ?
• I work for a small Wikipedia and the use of those templates looks good to me. Without them, I need to create a whole article, ie, when I use a template in an article, I must indicate and fill all of its parameters. If I do not do that (without templates), the article shows the internal syntax of the template or unfinished sentences (as from, since, etc., without a value after this kind of word).
• With conditional, writers do not have to know all the parameters of a template. They can even not give any parameter value at all, just indicate that this article needs this template. And the article does not look weird. The article can be filled on several steps.
• With loop, writers will just have to give a list of data and the template will take care of the presentation of that list. The lambda user will not have to take care of the wiki or html syntax. Just a list with | as a separator.

Experimenting and gaining experience with these techniques is interesting, but with possible future MediaWiki extensions and/or changes in Wikipedia policies be prepared to change it again if needed or useful. However, policies of the English Wikipedia need not apply in another Wikipedia.--Patrick 01:10, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

New implementation of array for substing and a BUG

I've been thinking of the situation of templates like template:timedepcolor and template:revisedtime for some days. It's a great pity that wikimedia's cache mechanism makes those templates need purges to update. The only use of they is to give fixed localized timestamp for signature or some wikinews projects. So substing is appropriate. Because of some technical restriction, methods using parameters whose names depend on other things can't be substed. The following is a optimized method from old method for substing: (note: [a]={{{a}}})

a={{a/aux|1In1=Out1|2In2=Out2|...}}

a/aux=[1In1|][2In2|]...

---

With this method, I rewrite template:revisedtime as template:RTSubst (for details, see template talk:RTSubst). When debugging, I found a fatal error occurred at template:RTSubst/h: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 52428800 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 12310125 bytes) in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.5/includes/Parser.php on line 2202. The line 2202 is located in braceSubstitution function in Parser.php. The situation is this: first I created RTSubst templates with a method using empty-preassigning instead of parameter default, and they worked normally. After I turned them to parameter default, error occurred. Then despite what I reverted, error kept occurring. I'm confuse about this. I don't believe just thousands of parameters can do this. Do you have any idea? Please inform me at the first time via my email. Thank you! Upssdr 01:51, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Error occurs at the end of this statement:

		
# Template table test

# Did we encounter this template already? If yes, it is in the cache
# and we need to check for loops.
if ( !$found && isset( $this->mTemplates[$part1] ) ) {
	$found = true;

	# Infinite loop test
	if ( isset( $this->mTemplatePath[$part1] ) ) {
		$noparse = true;
		$found = true;
		$text = $linestart .
			"\{\{$part1}}" .
			'<!-- WARNING: template loop detected -->';
		wfDebug( "$fname: template loop broken at '$part1'\n" );
	} else {
		# set $text to cached message.
		$text = $linestart . $this->mTemplates[$part1];
	}
}        //line 2202

Deleteme

Hi, the page Template talk:For is uncluded in the category "Deleteme" because of the use of the "delete" template on that page. Sooner or later it will be deleted by mistake that way. --Walter 10:21, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I changed it.--Patrick 10:07, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Text next to table

Patrick, I used your instructions in Help:Table to develop this section, and was wondering if you could help me with one thing: is there a way to prevent the next section from starting until after the end of the current section? I used br as a workaround, but figured that there's got to be a proper way - and you'd know how. Thanks; Leo

We have a template for that, use {{-}}.--Patrick 23:30, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing the article Patrick, and for showing me how. I updated Help:Table with this information, deleted references to {{clear}}, <br style="clear:both;">, and {{clr}}, and tried to make that section a little easier for novices like me to understand. But I couldn't figure out how to increase the space between the table and the adjacent text - the right-aligned table is too close to the text (although the left-aligned table looks okay). Leo 17:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Template:H:h

Hi, I see that you're also fighting with the overlong Editor toc on some pages. On Substitution you or somebody else picked H:hns instead of {{H:h|editor toc}} to get rid of the sidebar. That works, I've added Category:Editor handbook explicitly.

On Calculation you or somebody else picked {{H:h}} without parameter, and that didn't work, H:h passed {{{1}}} to H:h_Help resulting in an ugly {{{1}}} - less ugly than the sidebar on this page but still. Therefore I tried to fix H:h_Help with parameter default and other tricks, but all attempts failed. While I was at it it was already clear that H:h shouldn't pass a literal {{{1}}}} (= undefined parameter) to H:h_Help, it needs a default. Anything with an empty default failed later in H:h_Help.

Eventually I found ns:0, that works: H:h_Help then interprets {{ns:0}}, but that's the name of the main namespace, an empty string, causing no {{{1}}} artefact. It's probably still more straight forward to use H:hns directly, but H:hns is limited to the English docu, while H:h without parameter affects all. I've documented that modification on Help:MediaWiki help policy in the H:h section, and I've also updated the H:f section. -- Omniplex (w:t) 02:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Good. I modified template:H:h Help ( talk edit history links ) so that it now by itself also allows an undefined or empty parameter (hence in the Help namespace template:H:h ( talk edit history links ) allows not only an undefined but also an empty parameter).--Patrick 11:33, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Cute, I've reduced the {{{1|ns:0}}} trick in {{h:h}} to a normal {{{1|}}}, help page also simplified. And I found a simplification of your if-construct in {{H:h Help}}, it's now
{{ {{#if: {{{1|}}} | {{{1}}} | ns:0 }} }}. In that form it could be used generally: Either {{{1}}} is defined and non-empty, then it's taken as name of a template, or not, then let ns:0 return nothing. -- Omniplex (w:t) 20:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is better.--Patrick 22:52, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

How to trim

Hi Patrick,
I am looking for a template to trim a string. This would be useful in template constructing urls. For example fr:Modèle:ITIS currently requests that the first param be provided without leading whitespaces. This could be done by the Template Modèle:ITIS with this trim feature.
Could you answer on my page, thanks in advance, Streissel 11 mai 2006 à 13:23 (CEST)

external link printing problems

Hi Patrick,
due to the CSS, when you print a page with an external link like this, the URL is also printed under parenthesis. This is due to the HTML attribut class='external text' in the <a href.../>.
This is usefull in pages, but not in Taxobox. In a taxobox, the printing of the url makes the taxobox to be much wider than usual. To test it, simply try to printPreview the page Carnivora.
Is there a way to make an external link, without this url printing feature? Perhaps simply by doing a simple html link like <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org" rel="nofollow">urlDisplayLabel</a>. But I don't how to make HTML in wikipedia.
Could you answer on my page, thanks in advance, Streissel 11 mai 2006 à 14:00 (CEST)

Hi Patrick, I investigated your solution, but it didn't help much.
Your proposition wikipedia is not printed at all, when I just wanted to get rid of url, not the label.
Streissel 16 mai 2006 à 11:26 (CEST)

Well, that is a start. I do not know the details, but a similar mechanism as for "do not print" can probably be made for "do not display, print only", and the combination would be the solution.--Patrick 10:25, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

URL demo (dot dot slash)

See Help talk:Link/a#URLs, the "../" magic is done by the client for URLs, not the server. -- Omniplex (w:t) 10:19, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Optional subst

You are aware that in most cases, <includeonly>subst:</includeonly> will do the trick? When a template is just called, it behaves normally, but when the template is substed, it inserts the contents. For example, if {{Example}} contains {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>PAGENAME}}, it will behave as though it only had {{PAGENAME}}; meaning that if a page containing it is moved, it will change accordingly. However, if one substed {{Example}}, the page name would stay the same even though the page is moved. Jon Harald Søby 14:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Did you try just calling such a template? It does not seem to work: using template:T include only subst ( talk edit history links ) we get Patrick/Sep 2003 - July 2007.--Patrick 14:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Darn. I was 100 % positive it worked, but I must have done something wrong testing. Darn. Sorry for the inconvenience. ;-) Jon Harald Søby 14:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a bug, maybe a developer can fix it.--Patrick 15:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Help namespaces

The list in WM:HELP claims that 106 and 108 are empty, while Bulgarian and Greek might be waiting for a proper Help namespace. How about changing 106 to Greek, 108 to Bulgarian, and somebody just started Basque (eu). I'd really love to get rid of foreign language pages in the English Help namespace. -- Omniplex (w:t) 02:27, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps adding namespaces is as easy as changing them, so we can better keep Esperanto and Swedish. We have to ask a developer.--Patrick 05:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Meta's customized help namespaces need a developer? Tough, I thought it's for admins, add it somewhere to "localsettings" or what else, then wait for the next reboot when it's enabled. -- Omniplex (w:t) 09:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Until now, Eloquence created custom namespaces. When Special:Namespaces is enabled, you can also ask a bureaucrat, see Help:Namespace manager.--Patrick 09:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Calendar computations

Moved to Template talk:MJD.

Template:evaldemo/3

Merging evaldemo with either evaldemo/2 or /3 is in theory possible with a named parameter sep= or similar, but then it would inherit the overhead of either this or that, and in the case of /3 the restriction "no optional subst" (works for /2 and evaldemo, but not /3). There are also already several pages here and on w:en using these templates as they are. -- Omniplex (w:t) 12:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

To avoid interfering with current use I used the new name template:evd ( talk edit history links ). I am experimenting a bit.--Patrick 12:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

If you use {{evd|up to 4 parameters|optional s=}} on "production" pages like Calculation please copy it to w:en:, and add it to the list of templates required for handbook pages (in addition to stuff covered directly by the two Help on Help pages).

Then let's get rid of {{evaldemo}} (replacing some &#61; or 2== by s==) and {{evaldemo/3}} (s/5==/s==/ and similar), and to keep the zoo together we could also upgrade evaldemo/2 to s= and copy it to evd/2 (in theory move, but copy makes it easier to fix the separators). As is TRANSWIKI of Help:Calculation to en:Wikipedia won't work.

We really must limit templates used on help pages to a well defined small set, see Rob's comment on the infamous "shift all this crap to mw:" talk page. -- Omniplex (w:t) 06:56, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

ACK, looking at the new code, allowing no parameter at all in evaldemo/3 is identical to what evaldemo can handle, but it makes the non-subst-able evaldemo/3 code longer. Maybe remove this feature again. There are a few simple cases not yet covered by /2 and /3, nested templates like your MJD2Weekdate examples using the output of MJD, I guess we need a 4th variant sooner or later. A general solution is in theory possible, but in practice the result would be so monstrous that it won't survive any TFD. -- Omniplex (w:t) 12:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I copied template:evaldemo/2 ( talk edit history links ) to template:evdn ( talk edit history links ) (n for nested). Also template:evd ( talk edit history links ) has this functionality, but with named parameters, see examples. That could be expanded for nesting in the 2nd parameter, etc.--Patrick 08:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I also copied the two to en: and added them to the list.--Patrick 08:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Okay, while you did that I upgraded the evaldemo zoo to support s= in addition to the former 2/4/5 hack, "undocumenting" this on Template talk:evaldemo.

If you have no plans involving a 4th parameter we could use the upgraded /2 code for evd and redirect /2 to it. Otherwise it's better to fix s/4=/s=/ based on "what links here" for /2, can't be much, probably I never used it on w:en:

Same procedure for a 5th parameter and /3 wrt evd, but in that case I used it already in several cases also on w:en:, I'll deprecate /3 there. For evaldemo itself I'm not sure, evaldemo and /2 (unlike evd or /3) support a kind of optional substitution, do we need this?

The code of evaldemo is also less convoluted than /3 or evd, is that important? -- Omniplex (w:t) 12:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Date and time computing

I noticed that you're a heavy editor of date and time computing templates. I have commented about the general usefulness of such templates on Talk:Date and time computing and would greatly appreciate it if you helped clarify the situation. Thanks! — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 00:11, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Orddate2YMD

Hi Patrick, i see you made a lot of great date templates. I'm looking for Orddate2YMD (or perhaps Orddate2Day, Orddate2M and Orddate2Y since the result is a single value), can you make those templates? Thanks Borgx 07:50, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

If you mean counting from New Year, Orddate2Y is not applicable. You can use MJD of New Year, add orddate-1, and apply MJD2D and MJD2M.--Patrick 08:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Template question, willing to help?

Patrick, thanks for all your work maintaining meta and en. I'm running MW1.7.1 on my own site and having some trouble with HTML tags in templates. If you'd be willing to help I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks --Jimmy 23:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the problem?--Patrick 23:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. In MW 1.7.1, if I try to create header and footer templates (like w:Portal:Box-header and w:Portal:Box-footer, any open <div> tags are automatically closed at the end of the template, and the </div< tags are converted to HTML entities. I know this is expected behaviour of Sanitizer.php, but is there a way around it? Nothing I did in Sanitizer looked decent at all, so I reset it. I'm trying to make this work for a few types of pages, but even if I just copied Box-header and Box-footer from WP, it still fails. You seem to do a lot of worth with templates, that's why I asked, but if you know someone who knows more about it, I can find them. Cheers. --Jimmy 03:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I am not very familiar with automatically closing div tags and how this depends on MediaWiki version/settings.--Patrick 07:24, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks anyway, cheers. --Jimmy 07:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Multi-column numbered list

You created Template:Multi-column numbered list for Help:List#Multi-column numbered lists. I reverted your edits on the help page (see edit) and would like to propose the template be speedily deleted. It was not created for use in an article but as a proof of concept.

A template as a proof of concept is fine on Meta.--Patrick 23:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Sorry. I acted too fast. --Swift 12:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Its name is akward

That has nothing to do with deletion. I think the name is fine, what other name do you prefer?--Patrick 23:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

and currently multiple columns are a pain to maintain (even with this template).

To keep things simple one can avoid multiple columns, but sometimes they are actually used, and this template makes maintenance easier because only one number has to be changed when an item is added or deleted.--Patrick 23:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been editing quite harshly so I thought I'd be polite, give you time to look over my recent edits and ask your of your oppinion on the template. --Swift 22:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I see now that the template is more sophisticated than what I remember from when I looked at it before. I seem to have only noticed the two-column part of it (but there is actually an optional third column). That, along with my impression that generating a columned layout specifically for ordered lists without generalizing to unordered lists, sparked my impression that it was far too specific. I see now that generalizing to unordered lists would be difficult without sacrificing simplicity unneccessarily.

I've beeen looking at templates quite a bit recently and have become annoyed a little by the proliferation of specialized templates. I'm sorry I took it out on you, an innocent editor. :-(

If you haven't lost all faith in my oppinion, I might mention that as for naming, you might want to change the "numbered" to "ordered" as per CSS.

I apologize for my hasty actions and sincerely regret the extra work that I've caused you. --Swift 12:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay. I added a list-style-type parameter, with value "none" we have an unnumbered list. If you want to change "numbered" go ahead.--Patrick 22:39, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Query.php

Hi, thanks for starting the doc page about the query, but I am afraid that this is not the right format - query is constantly updating its features, so having a verbatim copy of the interface does not make much sense - you can always get it from the live query. What we do need is a installation and usage documentation that explains how to use it from the begining. Users can always look up the specific parameters, but its the "getting started" walkthroughs that will be of the most value. Also, most of the info is located at en:User:Yurik/Query API - i am not sure we are ready to move it to the meta just yet - there are still a few bugs that needs to be fixed. --Yurik 00:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

My compliments for this useful program. The page is just a start, more explanation can be added. My initial reason for copying the info was that in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/query.php the lines are rather long, without wrapping. Is it not possible to make the lines wrap?--Patrick 09:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I added a note that up-to-date info is in query.php. I think a wiki page outside the user namespace is useful to allow people to add and clarify explanations, add examples, link from another page to a section of the page, etc.--Patrick 09:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Sidebar

Could you take a look at MediaWiki talk:Sidebar#Substitution? Thanks. stv ✉ 21:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

DynamicPageList2

Hi. About your last contribution on the DynamicPageList2 content page - //meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=DynamicPageList2&diff=410864&oldid=410688 - what do you mean by that? If you meant to report a bug, obvisouly you can't use the DynamicPageList2 extension there (or anywhere on this server) because the extension is not installed on meta.wikimedia.org (unlike the OTHER extension called DynamicPageList). See Special:Version for installed extensions. If you want to try DynamicPageList2, read DynamicPageList2#Source_and_Installation to install it on your favorite mediawiki server. If you really mean to report a bug (or request a feature), use the appropriate sections on Talk:DynamicPageList2 and there, contributors of the extension will reply to you. Thanks. (I removed your edit again, I hope you understand.) --Dangerville 13:14, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I made that edit to inform the reader that it has not been installed on Meta, and also to allow the reader, including myself, to see at a later time whether it has been installed in the meantime. It is the first thing a user without his own wiki-installation wants to know. Do you know where it has been installed, and whether it will be installed on Wikimedia?--Patrick 16:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. I apologize, I got you wrong. There is a list of sites where the extension has been installed under Sites using DPL2. Any hint about how to get it installed on Wikimedia? Ask Brion? --Dangerville 15:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I would ask Brion.--Patrick 16:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Anticlimax

Hi again! re: //meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:I&diff=0&oldid=415008
   What a waste of email notification! <g>
   Maybe you want to fix the other six? <g> Well, it was worth a try! // FrankB 11:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussing a page can better be done on a talk page than by email. Anyway, it is not very clear what you are doing and asking.--Patrick 13:23, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I was passing a pleasantry with what I use with a sense of humor. The email reference was that I'd clicked to be notified if the files I editted changed in my preferences... so, a few moments later, there it was. Sorry if I didn't make you grin... I did! A spelling error forsooth!. Best regards // FrankB 15:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I see, okay. Referring to a diff with the current version, which changed, caused confusion.--Patrick 23:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Template:Ut

Huh!, Ooops... I thought I'd ported this, missed the genesis blinded by the redirect.

Since it's redirecting, I'll 'cure those' and bring in the interwiki template template:Ut to keep compatibility.

... this is an common interwiki template name, and appears not to be working whatever you intended.

Wrong number<g>

... but still a good thought! Suggest you asking me by e-mail before making changes incompatible with other sisterprojects Thanks! // FrankB 16:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That is fine, Template:Ut as redirect was no longer needed.--Patrick 22:40, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Your cleanup request in Help:Moving a page

Greetings! I have a question for you regarding your request for a cleanup of Help:Moving a page, which I pose at Help talk:Moving a page. Your response there would be much appreciated. —LX (talk, contribs) 06:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

#if: with HTML-Tag's

I have MediaWiki 1.82 running. I'm trying to make a template with a table. I'd like to use #if so if there is a value to add an table-line. If there isn't, I won't print a blank line.

<table class="standard">
<tr><th>test:</th></tr>
{{#if: {{{Name1|}}} | <tr><td>{{{Name1}}}</td></tr> | }}
{{#if: {{{Name2|}}} | <tr><td>{{{Name2}}}</td></tr> | }}
</table>

The problem is, that #if: parse the content as TEXT not as HTML! The result is <tr><td>Name1</td></tr> Whats wrong? Emergency144 11:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It works here on Meta. Can you give a link to your attempt?--Patrick 01:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I am having the same problem, here is my example: [removed, not accepted by spam filter] Mnyakko 17:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not know the answer, but it seems a setting regarding HTML in wikitext needs to be changed to allow td-tags etc. even if not within table-tags, because this seems to be checked within #if instead of for the full wikitext after evaluating #if.--Patrick 13:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Messy site

Hi! I need your help and know how. I don't know how to enable the use of Article/Subpages in this wiki I'm hosting and the infoboxes are messy.

Check it out if you want:

• http://189.151.13.252/Wikitainment/index.php/Main_Page
• http://189.151.13.252/Wikitainment/index.php/Super_Mario_Bros._3

here is a copy of my LocalSettings.php User:T-man/Wikitainment's LocalSettings.php where you could write me some help.

Thaks for your time!!

--T-man 21:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandal

hello patrick I now you are a sysop in meta :), there is a problem could you help me and 88.149.140.45...thaks --dario vet (talk) 10:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I blocked him/her.--Patrick 11:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:ASCII

Hey there. Can you review this, and perhaps undelete. Amgine has moved on and I had no email notification that it was up for deletion. Amgine wasn't comfortable with templates from what I discussed with him (Her?), and a code lookup table is hardly using a lot of resources.

Is there a general Template talk page here, and can you post a link to it if so. Thanks. // FrankB 20:35, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I have restored it for now. If someone wants to delete it this can be discussed at Meta:Requests for deletion.--Patrick 00:22, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, looks like I need to clear the redlinks with link fixups. I think I would have deleted it too, had I looked in on it after porting. And the answer on a general template talk page. Anything here like wikipedia's? // FrankB 04:28, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

There is Help talk:Template, but I suppose you mean about policies for creating and using templates on Meta? I don't know.--Patrick 23:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

My project

I want you to check out and comment on the new wiki project I have appealed to be established. Called Wikinortheast Nitro calibur 18:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

--Patrick 13:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Language selector

Thanks for your fast action..but I have a question, "enname=Minor edit" what happens if I change its value to arabic one? or this should be used with english only?--Alnokta 12:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Templates like Template:H-langs:Minor edit have an English name but they are suitable for help pages in all languages. The value of parameter enname is always the English name. You could make an Arabic version of Template:H:h Help.--Patrick 13:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Help:Sorting

Have you brought up your adapted version on mediazilla? Try http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8115

Done.--Patrick 17:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Calendar template

In the Template:Calendar I started using Template:Week2 (see examples there) which correctly returns the Week according to international standards (ISO 8601). Why should the calendar use the Week function instead? There is no such thing as week 0 !? Nsaa 00:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The intention was that week and week2 are the same except that week2 has a leading zero for week numbers less than 10. Assuming this, in Template:Calendar I changed week2 to week because both as intermediate result and as displayed result a leading zero was not needed. Feel free to correct Week or, for now, avoid using it in favor of Week2.

Special:ExpandTemplates

Patrick.. do you know where one can find the source code for Special:ExpandTemplates page? I see it functional on wikimedia and wikipedia, but not in v1.9.0 download. Thanks!

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ExpandTemplates

I found http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ExpandTemplates/ and http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ExtensionFunctions.php , but got

   Fatal error: Call to a member function getNamespace() on a non-object in W:\www\wi\includes\Parser.php on line 1895

Patrick 01:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Content vs Help

Hello

I did as you said in the talk page, but it is saying that it is content page(content namespace), how to make it like the French one? a "aide" page. the help namespace in Arabic is "مساعدة".--Alnokta 14:18, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

You can ask Eloquence or another developer. Or use the main namespace, as is done for a few other languages, see MediaWiki help policy#Internationalization.--Patrick 15:04, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Brion created it. [2]--Alnokta 23:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Good, that's fast.--Patrick 00:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Help, again

hi

i wanted to translate the right navigation bar like here so i went here and copied the content of the English version to a new Arabic page, then i got lost.. i don't know where to translate..there are many templates..i would appreciate any help...--Alnokta 23:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

In مساعدة:صفحة الصورة translate "reader toc" in the first line of the wikitext, and create a template with that name containing the translation of Template:Reader toc.--Patrick 23:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, it is working! :)--Alnokta 00:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Advice needed

Hi! In your copious spare time, can you let me know, or fix why this displays so differently here. I suspect a .css file missing line, but I don't know scripts for beans being a hardware/firmware guy. Sigh.

1. template:template doc page viewed directly ( talk edit history links )

That seems to be due to class=messagebox, defined in w:MediaWiki:Common.css, but not on Meta.--Patrick 01:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

1. Also think we need to put up the Template doc page pattern here at Meta. Some people on some of the sister projects are really anti-wikipedia! Must be some politics, or edit war scars or something! <g> Where should that kind of thing go? You can reply here, I'm watching. Thanks // FrankB 17:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The corresponding name would be Meta:Template doc page pattern.--Patrick 01:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

On (2) Works for me... there was, as I understand it some debate or such about whether it belonged on Meta or Mediawiki, so nothing was decided! (That was during the most of four months while I was wiki-away--though I've been giving a steady push to better self documentation from day one!)

Actually there is Help:Template documentation (which may need to be updated), a separate page like "Meta:Template doc page pattern" about usage on Meta itself may not be needed.--Patrick 10:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

On (1) isn't there some synchronization on such changes to the .css, or is it always catch as catch can, when somebody gets bugged by someone else like me bitten by it? <g> You'd think someone watching .css changes on wikipedia would have email notification on here, and see the same changes weren't made! (Grouse, grouse, grouse! <G>) Thanks. I'm not going to mess with it, but Wikisource and Wikibooks are even worse off, and I think Wikiversity or Wikispecies, perhaps both, are 'tied', as it were. Sigh. Thanks // FrankB 07:39, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Worse in what regard? What do mean by "tied"? Tied to Wikipedia, or tied, therefore not capable or willing to conform to Wikipedia?--Patrick 10:16, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

"worse" as in things like class sisterproject and table elements and such are missing. Also have a strong suspicion there unicode font loading is very differently ordered. See B:Wikiversitytmp I had to work around like: {{Interwiki class-sisterproject|<div class="sisterproject">}}, where the second part is what usually works elsewhere -- it does nothing as a pass parameter, it's just legacy documentation should the occasion arise to simplify. {{Interwiki class-sisterproject}} is 'div style= boilerplate, so such complicates getting things to work the same with identical code.

<BSEG> - Didn't like 'pass parameter', eh... probably a legacy term then -- unfortunately writing usage I tend to use it instinctively. I kind of settled on that as 'Argument' is more computerese that needs defined to the lay-person. Somehow 'Numbered parameter' seems very unclear to me. 'Ordered parameter' makes a bit more sense or 'Auto-parameter', perhaps. (I suffix parameters with 'numbers' all the time! <G>) I guess it's just "Yet another school of thought 'club' thing".

I guess my thought is that there is no clear definition of the term in that intro which would delineate them as being different than the named parameters. Since the latter all need '=', there should be some way to 'give a picture' to the lay or young reader early on... at least draw the distinction as to how they appear differently when viewing pages. Yeah, I suppose it comes up later on, and kind of 'concludes out' of the rest, but terms need set up or defined in introductions to my way of thinking. Maybe the famous 'Hello world' beginners 'C' program is a paradigm-- put in a 'template name' example using both kinds of calls, close enough together to give a taste of the difference. Just rambling now. Goodnight! (I'm up way late!) // FrankB 11:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The syntax of both is shown near the top of the section.--Patrick 00:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

re: More on that page:

Help:Template you mean.--Patrick 10:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a typo, but since you're expanding and working the page, I'll let you fix it if necessary: Terms Terms to general to be used with "page", therefore only used with "template": to be used with "page", therefore only used with "template":-- surmise "too general" is meant, so a typo? (A top Section has 'General' in the section header.

Thanks, I fixed it.--Patrick 10:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I hate the term 'tag' <BSEG>... but it is convenient to talk about tagging a page with such! I slipped up myself and used that phrase today! And just a general sense, to me 'calling' a template generally means getting a link or links back like lc/lcs/la/lts gives, vice a display message. In that sense, you're right-- one would never call a page, but include it or embed it. Good expansion! Cheers! // FrankB 04:29, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Help page formatting badly

Hi-- Saw this] and seems to come right from Help:Image#Image_at_the_left (And right -- the section following). Submit (at the least) needs more latin and a bigger image to demonstrate the effects.

Was going to post this to an W:WP:AN, page instead of bothering you, but Help doesn't seem to list any here. Best regards // FrankB 18:35, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I think there has been a software change such that an image is no longer enlarged. Why an Administrators' noticeboard? The page is not protected. Feel free to replace the image and/or add more dummy text.--Patrick 00:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Well there's always lorum ipsum sum or whatever... I always seem to have to search for that.<g> Looks like raiding the commons for a few good iconic images might be a good move too. I'll keep an eye out, as I'm over there several times a day. // FrankB 06:36, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

AN/I because I'm too timed pressed to follow a lot of VP pages and such, and lurking on one, one can usually get some quick help... I'm trying not to pick on YOU too much as a courtesy, and getting to know other admins just makes sense as much as I'm over here.

Speaking of need -- this one's hot, so please reply on my talk. re: this, note the category I added... I'm exporting that and probably will need some other templates here, so if they are categorized, is there a better category that already has the purpose. Category:Handbook templates MIGHT be right, but I'm assuming this one was left out for a reason... or was by oversight, or ???. The page in question is Help:Link being copied to wikinews. Thanks // FrankB 01:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Category:Handbook templates is fine.--Patrick 11:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Round 2: Need {{cms}} (a move generated redirect) deleted. Despite the linkshere list, shouldn't break anything here but documentation and having the redlinks will help me fix up that. Later, I'll be moving {{W2c}} there, as part of a long planned double renaming and cleanup process... but the system software here evidently reserves that to you admins, so wouldn't let me take that route first. Policing the resulting red-links given an empty template page should actually be easier on me... though not on YOU. <g> I expect I'll be working those circa 9-10 hrs from the timestamp on this message if you get to them by then. Thanks. // FrankB 06:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Done.--Patrick 12:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks... Alas, I'm way behind cleaning those up. // FrankB 21:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

New Biz

I embedded a comment by W:User:CBDunkerson in this, but also reworked it, as frankly, the coverage on onlyinclude sucked. So look it over. I'm going to ask CBD to do the same, as his comment makes me almost certain there's a 'wild situation' that occurs if someone uses two onlyinclude blocks on a page well separated by other text, includeonly's, noincludes, etc. In sum, the Help ought to either warn or document that. (It's unlikely he's wrong... but my interpretation of that conversation may be.) Anyway, I'll have him take a look too. Best regards // FrankB 21:45, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Help talk:Searching

You may wish to read my follow-up to your comment in Help talk:Searching#Link to a specific Google search. --Teratornis 19:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Template:Ca and Template:Es which you created a long time ago

Patrick, when I came across Category:Language icons and noticed that not all the language icons were named as Template:<ISO_language_code>, I proceeded to try to move the two that were not. I noticed, however, that the two templates -- Template:Ca and Template:Es -- already existed, created by you in 2004. If they are unneeded, and since you are an admin, would you consider moving Template:Ca icon and Template:Es icon to those two names? I would sincerely appreciate it. Thanks, Iamunknown 07:33, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Done.--Patrick 23:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!--Iamunknown 01:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Template YMD2MJD

Good day, Patrick. In my Windows installation of MediaWiki 1.9.3 (PHP 5.2.1, Apache 2.0, MySQL 4.1) template YMD2MJD produces incorrect result when called without parameters: {{ YMD2MJD }} = -84259259259205000. I have relatively correct local date on my computer. With following parameters it works correctly: {{ YMD2MJD|{{CURRENTYEAR}}|{{CURRENTMONTH}}|{{CURRENTDAY}} }} equal to result of {{ YMD2MJD }} on this site

The source code is a bit cryptic to beginner. subst looks strange, is that recursion? I still haven't figured out how to replace {{{1}}} non-existing call parameter with {{CURRENTYEAR}}. Probably should be {{{1| {{CURRENTYEAR}} }}}, but where it's to put? Can you give a hint, what's broken in Windows, because the template produces incorrect result when called with no parameters :-( QuestPc 11:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Subst is for optional substitution, see [3]. YMD2MJD without parameters reduces to {{Timestamp2MJD|({{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} round -6)|subst=}}. Here {{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} round -6}} gives 2.0080125E+13 representing the date. If you get the same we have to look at template:Timestamp2MJD ( talk edit history links ).--Patrick 12:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Here {{#expr:{{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} round -6}} gives 2.0070321E+13. Looks the same! That means, there's something wrong with template:Timestamp2MJD ( talk edit history links ) - I check an example, it produces a wrong result:

{{ Timestamp2MJD|18581115223344}} as template page states should give -1.05990740741, on my computer it returns -32.038928895998. I've removed the long <noinclude> section though because it requires to import many other templates. But it probably shouldn't change the behavior of <includeonly> section?

QuestPc 12:39, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I have the same problem on my windows computer. As I added to the documentation, Template:Timestamp2MJD applies mod to numbers which apparently are too large for mod in php on Windows.--Patrick 14:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Bad luck :-( Aren't Windows PHP compiled with the same GNU C compiler as UNIX/Linux ones? Maybe they use a different compiler (MVC)? Because the processor usually is the same - I hope it will work in Linux, because Solaris is hard to find. I will try to move to Linux hosting, though there I have used old PHP 4.4 as the old scripts are incompatible with PHP5 (old sites would break).. Too bad.... QuestPc 06:53, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

See also the template page for ways to make it work.--Patrick 09:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It's me again. Unfortunately I've found this bug "popping up" in linux as well, with the same PHP 5.2.1 (installed from RedHat RPM). While Windows installations can be considered a joke, I believe that the linux ones shouldn't. By looking at the http headers, this (meta.wikimedia.org) site uses PHP 5.1.2 (a different version). Because I want to use standard templates and don't want to use float expression extensions, I've patched the expr.php itself, by replacing $stack[]=$left%$right with $stack[] = fmod($left,$right); After that the templates seems to work. I'am still a little in doubt whether the patch wouldn't break something else :-( Don't know whether the Template:Timestamp2MJD should be patched, to me it seems that it's PHP itself.QuestPc 13:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

There may be some pages that use the fact that the operands of mod are truncated, but I think that in general that has been avoided.--Patrick 13:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I've used the following method in expr.php:

function largemod($x,$y) {
  $r1=$x>0 ? floor($x) : ceil($x);
  $r2=$y>0 ? floor($y) : ceil($y);
  return fmod($r1,$r2);
}

That should correctly emulate integer's MOD behaviour (probably?). Don't know whether that one should be contributed into the actual expr.php ?--QuestPc 14:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Instead of emulating a nonstandard mod, we can better fix the few cases, if any, where this nonstandard behavior is used, when we encounter them.--Patrick 14:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Good day, Patrick. I am still having bad time with date calculations. Well, everything works in usual templates, but when I try to use date templates as a parameter of query inside Semantec Mediawiki extension <ask></ask> tag, they aren't called. I guess that's a kind of architectural (mis)feature of MediaWiki itself. Do I need to write my own PHP extension to reimplement the calculations in PHP code? I am a bit frustrated with weak date calculation support in MediaWiki :-( QuestPc 12:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I just tried using a template in an SMW query. It seems to work only if the template does not use a parser function.[4]--Patrick 14:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Also putting a parser function call directly does not work.--Patrick 14:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for bothering, maybe you happen to know - is it possible to use template parameters in SMW query? I have template with the following <ask> code: [[Category:{{{Cat}}}]], where Cat is name of template parameter. However, the value of the parameter doesn't expand. How can that be fixed? QuestPc 11:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently it is not possible. You can file a feature request [5].--Patrick 13:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Patrick, maybe do you happen to know internal structure (object hierarchy) and code of MW/SMW better than me (I have only few weeks of experience with MW). I am trying to write a patch to fix this problem, but can't get it to work. Maybe you'll take look at [name=999786835.20070410193711%40uniyar.ac.ru&forum name=semediawiki-devel my message]? QuestPc 14:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I see that you are already in contact with SMW developers. I am sorry, I don't how to fix this. I have tried out SMW but not studied the code. I am a little more familiar with the MW code, but my knowledge of PHP is still limited.--Patrick 15:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Transwiki

How do I enable this on my copy of MediaWiki 1.93. the page i wish to import is w:Volvo 850,but I can't... whats wrong?? --84.45.219.185 10:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean you exported and used Help:Import? That should work.--Patrick 10:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but I was trying to copy the full edit history, aftersetting the prefixes in localsettings.php. i was trying to copy the transwiki log here and at wikt:Special:Log/import - and it didn't work. --84.45.219.185 10:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean by "copy the transwiki log"? Just the log (note that a log is not a normal page) or the pages listed? Anyway, there are (I think) two ways, for one you have to set a variable, see Manual:$wgImportSources, the other uses export first. Did you try both?--Patrick 11:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• I set $wgImportSources, from en.wikipedia and en.wikibooks (as defined in the interwiki table) and tried to import from them using the form, but it said no import file was available.

Why does it workfor wiktinary and wikibooks and not for me?? --84.45.219.185 11:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

• as such the interwiki preferences were "w", "wikipedia" and "wikibooks". --84.45.219.185 11:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

"Import file" seems to refer to the result of exporting.--Patrick 11:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please can you ask someone to write a manual on how to use it??

Special:Makesysop

Also how do i do stewards like on here, e.g.

• Test set rights for User:JamesB@enwiki from bureaucrat, sysop to checkuser, oversight, bureaucrat,sysop
• Test set rights for User:No-one@enwiki from bureaucrat, sysop to checkuser, bureaucrat,sysop
• Test set rights for User:Jayden@nowikiquote from (none) to bureaucrat, sysop

I tried the Special:Makesysop.php but it doesn't seem to work like it does here, why?? if someone could tell me how it works that would be great! --84.45.219.185 13:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean Special:Userrights?--Patrick 13:40, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Special:Makesysop like used here for Stewards. Not working for me as it does here.

--84.45.219.185 13:15, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

User rights#Via extensionhttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_rights#Via_extension says that this is an extension. I suppose you have to use Special:Userrights.--Patrick 23:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for your help on Category:Wikipedia history. Hope to encourage folks to add/start more, so if you know of folks who can contribute, please feel free to ping them. Cheers. -- fuzheado 12:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks2! I've been engaged in RL, and your assist here and the template evolution, much appreciated. // FrankB 16:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Dummy < span > doesn't work?

It works here:[6].Hillgentleman 16:02, 18 April 2007 (UTC) And this [7] also seems to be working.Hillgentleman

Yes, you are right. I corrected it.--Patrick 00:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

template talk:iterate

Of course, Countdown already iterates, but this is what you would get without multiple edits: {{subst:#if:1|{{subst:countdown|{{subst:pipe9}}|8}}}} --->
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |

The only way that I can think of to get N genuine pipes | right away and not {{!}} is subst:if iterate countdown pipeN, provided template:pipe1 to template:pipeN exists. Template:pipe12 should have been used. --Hillgentleman 17:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I see, thanks.--Patrick 23:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki linking

How do I interwiki link to my accounts on the English Wikipedia, french, dutch, german wikipedia, and english wikibooks, dutch wikibooks, and english wikinews, dutch wikinews, norwegian wikinews.

thanks --Scenaston 12:00, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

See Help:Interwiki linking.--Patrick 13:58, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:Mlw

What is the reason for using templates such as Template:Mlw on pages such as Help:Page history? There is an effort at Wikipedia to make it possible to copy the contents of help pages from Meta to Wikipedia. Template:Mlw does not work at Wikipedia (see w:Help:Page history. --JWSurf 15:12, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I fixed it.--Patrick 22:45, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Help Pages

I know that, and I have not moved any pages in the help namespaces or to the help namespace, at least I believe so. I am always cautious. TheFearow 10:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I did not move it, I placed a tag so someone else with more knowledge of copyright status etc could do the move. TheFearow 11:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki:Autoredircomment

you are sure "Redirect to $1" should not run "Redirect to $1" instead?? greetz, oscar 10:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Why? The link works fine.--Patrick 11:01, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

if it works, it works :-) just that i am used to the parameter-format $1 without the square brackets... greetz, oscar 11:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)