On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 01:08:18PM -0500, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
The contents of the table IS IN THE ARTICLE, whether you hide it off in another page or not. The tables are part of Wikipedia's content, and if they aren't easily editable, they aren't useful.
That said, I'm still open to the idea of transclusion in general: that is, having pages whose whole contents are included into a referencing page. That would allow us not only to separate things like tables, but also things like boilerplate text. A syntax like [[include:xxx]] could be used. That would also get us nested tables (and it might also be a performance nightmare!)
We discussed this on #wikipedia some days ago. There would be another namespace for HTML-Snipplets. Those snipplets can contain variables, e.g. enclosed by %%. A snipplet might be a piece of code to include an image with a label, it might be a table, or a boilerplate text. The snipplet ImageFloatingRight might perhaps look like this:
<div style="float: right"> [[Image:%%Image%%]]<BR> <center> ''%%Label%%'' </center> </div>
In an article, it can be used by its name:
{{ImageFloatingRight Image=Eiffel tower.jpg Label=The Eiffel Tower in Paris }}
A Countrybox might start like this: {{CountryFactBox Flag=usa.png Motto=In God We Trust Capital=Washington D.C. ... }}
This is more flexible than just stylesheets: - More features of HTML can be used. - More users can edit the HTML snipplets than edit the CVS-based stylesheets. - It's easier to edit than having various stylesheet elements in the text. - Layout and Content are strictly divided.
Possible later additions: - Factsheet wizard that users without HTML-Skills can use to generate the normal factsheet tables used in so many variants - Fill-in wizard that shows the rendered snipplet and has input fields where the variables are.
Regards,
jens