Hello,
How can one generate "printer friendly" (without the left-margin sidebar, etc) pages? Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
-Matt
On 6/12/05, Matt England mengland@mengland.net wrote:
Hello,
How can one generate "printer friendly" (without the left-margin sidebar, etc) pages? Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
Yes, do a print preview or print a page (different style gets used)
On 12/06/05, Matt England mengland@mengland.net wrote:
How can one generate "printer friendly" (without the left-margin sidebar, etc) pages? Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
Press "print" in your browser. No, really - try a "Print preview" - there's special CSS which should work on most browsers. See also http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1577
Rowan Collins (rowan.collins@gmail.com) [050613 03:17]:
On 12/06/05, Matt England mengland@mengland.net wrote:
How can one generate "printer friendly" (without the left-margin sidebar, etc) pages? Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
Press "print" in your browser. No, really - try a "Print preview" - there's special CSS which should work on most browsers. See also http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1577
It's increasingly obvious Monobook needs an explicit "Printable version" link. Casual browsers are used to these links, and they *expect* them. The automagic printing CSS trick is clever but sufficiently nonobvious to put people off even trying to print.
- d.
On Jun 12, 2005, at 3:27 PM, David Gerard wrote:
It's increasingly obvious Monobook needs an explicit "Printable version" link. Casual browsers are used to these links, and they *expect* them. The automagic printing CSS trick is clever but sufficiently nonobvious to put people off even trying to print.
My workaround for this is to just use a little JavaScript notice for the "printable version" link, that just specifically TELLS people to print the regular page, and it'll come out properly...
Dan
Dan Carlson wrote:
My workaround for this is to just use a little JavaScript notice for the "printable version" link, that just specifically TELLS people to print the regular page, and it'll come out properly...
My favoured solution is similar to this but doesn't involve telling the user that their intuition is wrong, it just does the intuitive thing. The solution is to use a print icon, which when clicked, uses JavaScript to request that the page be printed. In most browsers this will immediately pop up a print dialog.
By the way, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, printing a Wikipedia page from Firefox does not cause the page to come out properly, the left margin is too small.
-- Tim Starling
Tim Starling (t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050613 09:06]:
My favoured solution is similar to this but doesn't involve telling the user that their intuition is wrong, it just does the intuitive thing. The solution is to use a print icon, which when clicked, uses JavaScript to request that the page be printed. In most browsers this will immediately pop up a print dialog.
That's quite good, and may even appease those who think a top-50 website should indulge in breaking user interface expectations for the sake of geeky cleverness.
- d.
On Sunday June 12 2005 4:43 pm, David Gerard wrote:
Tim Starling (t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au) [050613 09:06]:
My favoured solution is similar to this but doesn't involve telling the user that their intuition is wrong, it just does the intuitive thing. The solution is to use a print icon, which when clicked, uses JavaScript to request that the page be printed. In most browsers this will immediately pop up a print dialog.
That's quite good, and may even appease those who think a top-50 website should indulge in breaking user interface expectations for the sake of geeky cleverness.
Though an explaination as to why a "printable version" is not necessary on a properly designed website may be a good idea as well.
On 13/06/05, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
My favoured solution is similar to this but doesn't involve telling the user that their intuition is wrong, it just does the intuitive thing. The solution is to use a print icon, which when clicked, uses JavaScript to request that the page be printed. In most browsers this will immediately pop up a print dialog.
This is all very well, but unless it pops up a print *preview*, the user will still be thinking "but it's going to print a load of rubbish on the side, how rubbish". They'll be pleasantly surprised if they go through with it, but whether a link to their print dialogue would be sufficient to persuade them to try, I'm not sure. Whether we like it or not, people are going to assume our software is rubbish (where "rubbish" = behaves in the obvious manner even where that is unhelpful) until proven otherwise. :|
On Sunday June 12 2005 12:27 pm, David Gerard wrote:
Rowan Collins (rowan.collins@gmail.com) [050613 03:17]:
Press "print" in your browser. No, really - try a "Print preview"
- there's special CSS which should work on most browsers. See
It's increasingly obvious Monobook needs an explicit "Printable version" link. Casual browsers are used to these links, and they *expect* them.
But they shouldn't, and the vast majority of sites in existence get it right. Why should we make a deliberate decision to get it wrong? They should change, we're not the ones who suck. 8:o)
The automagic printing CSS trick is clever but sufficiently nonobvious to put people off even trying to print.
For "people" == sponges and lower forms of mammilian life with IQ < 70?
Paul Johnson (baloo@ursine.ca) [050613 06:37]:
On Sunday June 12 2005 12:27 pm, David Gerard wrote:
The automagic printing CSS trick is clever but sufficiently nonobvious to put people off even trying to print.
For "people" == sponges and lower forms of mammilian life with IQ < 70?
For people = the general public, i.e. those who have made Wikipedia a top-50 website. They are used to webpages with "Printable version" links and they can't necessarily work computers. You obviously find it hard to believe, but this doesn't make them otherwise stupid or comparable to sponges, any more than your own 'l33titude makes you a Cat Piss Man [*].
- d.
On Sunday June 12 2005 10:11 am, Matt England wrote:
How can one generate "printer friendly" (without the left-margin sidebar, etc) pages?
You already are.
Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
Yes, it's called CSS. Having to make a seperate, "printer friendly" version of a page is for people who don't know what they're doing.
Cologne Blue skin has a printable version link at the top right. It would be easy to create one in Monobook, too. Yes, I think that there should be something that will show people a printable page in the monobook skin (since it's the default) unless there's a specific reason against it.
Surprises may not be good in terms of usability.
Paul Johnson wrote:
Does MediaWiki support such a feature?
Yes, it's called CSS. Having to make a seperate, "printer friendly" version of a page is for people who don't know what they're doing.
What should one know to get a print out of a page? There won't be a separate page just the current page as it would come out of a printer.
On 13/06/05, Muzaffer Ozakca mozakca@indiana.edu wrote:
Cologne Blue skin has a printable version link at the top right. It would be easy to create one in Monobook, too.
Yes, the pre-monobook skins didn't originally make such heavy use of CSS, so have a residual link which fakes a printable version for those expecting it.
What should one know to get a print out of a page? There won't be a separate page just the current page as it would come out of a printer.
If you read the bugzilla discussion I linked to earlier, you'll see that my preferred solution is to have a "print preview" link in both monobook *and* the older skins; thus allowing users to learn that they don't really need to link to it.
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