Template talk:Table help

Related discussions, sandbox, and previous discussions: Help talk:Table/styles.css User:Timeshifter/Sandbox276 Help talk:Table/Archive 10#Help table header Help talk:Table/Archive 10#Search table help pages Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 216#How to block part of page from Wikipedia search engine Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 218#TemplateStyles not just for templates anymore

Sdkb. See diff.

What OS and browser are you using? After I compromised on the padding I saw plenty of padding. You chose 10px. I chose 7px. I originally had it at 4px just on the left and right.

I do see the need now for the padding on the bottom. But not on the top. I see plenty of padding (without adding more) at the top. I am on Windows 11 Pro. I checked in Firefox and Chrome.

Real estate at the top of help pages is very valuable, and so keeping banners narrow, but still easily legible, is important. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

See File:Table help template padding.png for how it displays for me on Windows 11 Chrome, with no padding on top. If you haven't already, perhaps check in Incognito mode to see if it's some user setting you have. Sdkb ^talk 22:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK. See this version of the template, and tell me what you think:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Table_help&oldid=1257241009

--Timeshifter (talk) 23:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I find that acceptable, although still definitely on the denser side. Sdkb ^talk 23:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

{{Ombox}} is never used like this. The current and sandbox template's styles clearly don't look like they're from Wikipedia. Better metatemplates for this include the commonly used {{Sidebar}}, {{Side box}}, and {{Helpbox}}. @Timeshifter and Sdkb:, if a better metatemplate was used from the start, padding would've never been an issue. 172.97.141.219 (talk) 06:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

{{Ombox}} in not currently used in the template. See current version of template. It is currently in the sandbox. But sandboxes are just tests by various people.

{{Sidebar}}, {{Side box}}, and {{Helpbox}} would not work well. They are all side boxes. That would not work well with some of the table help pages. And it would be more of a problem in cell phones. Especially in portrait view.

--Timeshifter (talk) 06:50, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ah, previously a header was explicitly requested. The reason I didn't recognize this as a legitimate header is because it's missing the tabs/columns of {{Village_pump_page_header}} and {{AutoWikiBrowser}}. Let's see if I can organize this into basic/advanced/other columns to make this look right. 172.97.141.219 (talk) 07:15, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Timeshifter: How does /sandbox look? I chose {{AWB}} as a base seeing {{Village_pump_page_header}}'s tabs seemingly require separate pages. It looks like this:

{{table help/sandbox}}

172.97.141.219 (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I copied the wikitext for the 2 versions above and below in case anybody edits the template or sandbox further.

Sandbox version above:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1260350359

Template version below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Table_help&oldid=1257241009

Real estate at the top of help pages is very valuable, and so keeping banners narrow is important. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:10, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

OK, I took your feedback into account. Here is the new version:

I shrunk the 2nd row from 5 to 2 content lines plus 1 heading line, and merged the 1st and 3rd row. I believe the columns provide the advantage of organizing info and looking similar to the other headers, and replacing 1 2 3 4 5 with spelled out titles is a friendlier introduction for readers.

Further shrinking

Fitting this on 1 line is possible but potentially too informal: "Intro Edit Expand TLDR, Intro Edit Add Expand TLDR, Basic Create Locate, Format Collapse Sort #if, Cat {{}} MOS A11y".

172.97.141.219 (talk) 09:12, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

I like to work in my own sandboxes: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox277.

The problem with the table format with columns is that it does not compress well in narrower screens. Narrow your browser window to see. It becomes around 2 times as tall as this below when screen is narrower, especially in cell phones.

I like this below (added your names for 1,2,3,4,5). Help:Table needs to be first because it acts as an index too.

--Timeshifter (talk) 23:39, 30 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Narrow your browser Oh sorry I wrongly assumed Template:AutoWikiBrowser/styles.css would display more like your version on mobile. I fixed that line break and Help:Table needs to be first:

It's no longer twice as tall on mobile, being merely 1 line longer. If that doesn't work, here are some other ideas:

• Show the original on mobile and the columned version on desktop using templatestyles. It doesn't feel weird for headers on mobile to lack columns
• Add descriptionless tabs like {{Village_pump_page_header}} (whatever color) above the original and add the bgcolor #f8f9fa to make it look like Wikipedia

172.97.141.219 (talk) 00:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

I can get more topics this way below. And it compresses better. Especially in portrait mode in my iphone SE 2020. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

--Timeshifter (talk) 05:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Lemme stop designing. My concern is simply that the style and placement of that looks neither like a header, sidebar, sidebox, nor navbox. If there is some other established category of templates that that can be made to look like, then that'll also be fine. 172.97.141.219 (talk) 07:19, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Some of your ideas have been incorporated into the above example.

{{flatlist}} is the internal template. It is used in many places, inside other templates, and by itself. Moxy came up with the {{flatlist}} idea, and the idea of shortening the longer names that I was using here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Table_help&oldid=1253414915

--Timeshifter (talk) 08:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Found it! Your design is nearly something called a {{browsebar}} (or header bar). It's full-width and goes at the top like your design currently does. Another example is WP:START.

The only thing missing is that we should use text-align:center;border:none. I'm no longer insisting on my overthought columns idea. Not sure how the searchbox'll turn out or if it can be a link. {{browsebar}} uses the {{flatlist}} you mentioned. Thank you for having incorporated some of my other ideas above.

Alternatively, the border can stay if a bgcolor is set like {{Help_pages_header}} (but still need centering). If we go this route (probably called a header navbar), ideally Help:Table should be on its own line like {{Maintenance_departments}} and {{Header_navbar_community}}.

172.97.141.219 (talk) 09:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

I like the centered text. I added it to the template. I don't think Help:Table should be on a separate line for a couple reasons. It takes up valuable vertical space at the top of table help pages. And it is not really a comprehensive index. Most of the other pages were spun off from it. And so there are some links to some of the topics in the new pages from within Help:Table. But many topics are not linked from Help:Table. But it is a good starting point that many people are used to, and so it should be first in the list.

I don't think it needs a background color. That just makes less color contrast between the link color and the background. Not having a background color also makes it less complicated for dark/light mode of Wikipedia and browser addons. See: Help:Table#Colors in tables and its subsections.

The border is needed to pull together the search form with what it is searching. And it just looks better with a border. It is easy to tell what one is looking at, especially if one is bouncing around various table help pages. Here is the version of the template with centered text:

--Timeshifter (talk) 10:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

Looks good! 172.97.141.219 (talk) 12:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

It definitely looks better than where we started from. Thanks for the help! --Timeshifter (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Mathglot: Are these changes by Waddie96 done correctly? This is where I got the idea for my aria change to Template talk:Talk header#Timeshifter's suggested RFC intro. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:07, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Mathglot: See latest diff. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:04, 2 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

OK. I see that mw:Extension:InputBox uses arialabel, and not aria-label. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:40, 4 September 2025 (UTC)Reply