I think it is great that we have new advanced features, and the previous mediawiki system is great in that perspective
but, it is too complicated.
the wiki system should be simple.
A newbie gets here, he looks at the page, click on edit, makes his changes, save, and hop ! here it is. Amazing and powerful ability for all of us.
For templates, the newbie edit the page, then wonders where the little part he wanted to update is; then perhaps figure out that it is this little {{blahblah}}; then wonder how he may edit it. When he find out, he has to remember next time. and if he jumps in another language, he has to figure out which little text to put before the blahblah. And if he wants to edit it, he must edit the http link itself.
This is too complicated. I think, that just as in any wiki page, there should be automatically a little "edit" link, as there is for any section. Click on this little "template edit" and here it is, you access the edit page.
Of course, sometimes, right now, editors add the little edit link themselves, but that is not automatic. I think it might greatly improve ability for all editors to manage these template thingies to have it automatic.
Additionnaly, to prevent very very newbies to edit templates without realising these are common to many articles, we could add a little warning message for all templates, above the edit form. As well as a reminder of how to add them (the {{}}).
What do you think ? We should really try to keep participate simple.
Anthere schrieb:
What do you think ? We should really try to keep participate simple.
Another possibility would be to put links to all the template edit boxes above the edit box of the article with a short explanation.
Kurt
Kurt Jansson wrote:
Anthere schrieb:
What do you think ? We should really try to keep participate simple.
Another possibility would be to put links to all the template edit boxes above the edit box of the article with a short explanation.
I tried to program that once, but it's not that simple. Currently the edit box just simply displays the source text and that's it. In order to sift out the {{template}} tags, you have to actually parse the page again. Yes, I know you could just use a regexp, but then you get problems with the famous {{blahblah_{{CURRENTDAY}}_{{CURRENTYEAR}}}} thingie.
I think it would be simpler to make it so that things in the Template namespace can contain something like {{editlink}} to make an edit link.
Alternatively, when transcluding a {{msg}} thingie, the parser could automatically check whether it begins with either a table or a <div>. If the former is the case, it can calculate the number of table cells per row and insert a row at the top containing something like:
<tr><td colspan="number_of_cells" style="text-align: right; font-size: smaller;">[<a href="...(edit link)...">edit</a>] </td></tr>
If the latter is the case, it can just insert a
<div style="text-align: right; font-size: smaller;">[<a href="...(edit link)...">edit</a>]</div>
after the first div.
Of course, this is a bit hacky. I prefer the option where authors can place the edit link themselves; it gives better control over how things will appear, and will allow us to cater for aesthetic desires.
Timwi
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