Template talk:Shortcut

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Template:Shortcut is permanently protected from editing, as it is a heavily used or visible template. Substantial changes should be proposed here, and made by administrators if the proposal is uncontroversial, or has been discussed and is supported by consensus. Use {{editprotected}} to attract the attention of an administrator in such cases. Any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes, categories or interwiki links.

Archives

Archive 1

Contents 1 Extend use from 5 shortcuts to 10 2 Autolinking 3 Expand param list 4 Suggestion: enhance {{Shortcut}} to drop anchors 5 Clear right 6 New version 7 Error 8 More problems 9 Signature removed 10 WHY ALL CAPS? 11 Double-bullet problem in lists 12 Shortcut links

[edit] Extend use from 5 shortcuts to 10

Here we have an example, 7 shortcuts and its not working because the limit is 5:

{{shortcut|WP:NOT#INFO|WP:NOT#FAQ|WP:NOT#PLOT|WP:NOT#LYRICS|WP:NOT#STATS|WP:NOT#NEWS|WP:NOT#TRIVIA}}

Please increase this to 10 shortcuts, that should be enough. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 18:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

That situation calls for the {{policy shortcut}} template, which I just expanded to accommodate up to ten links. I can't think of a situation in which the standard {{shortcut}} template should require this change. (It seldom should contain more than three links.) —David Levy 19:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! works now. --Matt57 ^{(talk•contribs)} 01:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autolinking

This template currently uses #ifexist to indirectly detect whether the passed parameter is already linked, and if it is not, it links it. In the near future, the limit on the number of #ifexist calls per page will be limited to 100. Although this template only adds 1 itself, it can build up on pages that use multiple templates, all with their own calls to this template. After fixing up current usages, is there any reason to maintain this functionality and not autolink the shortcut in all cases? --- RockMFR 17:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

no – Gurch 12:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the brackets [[ ]] for the first parameter should be deprecated and removed in the future. I took the liberty of stating in the /doc that brackets are deprecated. I started to use shortcut boxes fairly recently and I found it confusing that the different parameters could be entered in different ways.

Should we ask some bots to add that to their tasks so they fix it while they go around?

--David Göthberg (talk) 18:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added handling of this to the new version, see below.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Now all pages that used brackets in the shortcut parameter have been fixes. And I have removed the #ifexist from the code of all the shortcut templates.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Expand param list

More params please!

Please add: {{#if:{{{6|}}}|<br />[[{{{6}}}]]}}{{#if:{{{7|}}}|<br />[[{{{7}}}]]}}

immediately before the </small> tag. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:34, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind, see two sections above! -- Kendrick7^talk 21:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:WOTTA has 8 shortcuts, so they aren't all being listed. Policy shortcut makes no sense for this article, so can the number of params be increased? (I'd also prefer if {{essay}} also got the extra params so I can stick the box in there and not worry about it!) nneonneo ^talk 02:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hahaha! I can see why Wikipedia:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! needs so many shortcuts.

1: You should not stick that many shortcuts into the essay box since that would look very strange, so we should not increase the number of possible shortcuts in the essay box. Try sticking the current five shortcuts into that essay box and then preview the page at a screen resolution of 1024×768 or higher and you'll see what I mean.

2: Instead all those shortcuts should be shown in a separate shortcut box flowing to the right, like they are now in that essay. And in this very special case you are right, that page needs to show lots of more shortcuts. But on the other hand, the reason this shortcut box has not been extended before was that we don't want pages to show many shortcuts, we want people to choose the best 2-3 shortcuts for a page and show only them.

3: So I fixed an alternative solution for that page. I substituted the shortcut box and then hand edited it. You now can add any amount of shortcuts to that page. By the way, I checked "what links here" for that page, there are already more shortcuts to that page than the 8 currently shown. You should consider adding them too.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It has 16 shortcuts. I've left out "CAPITALIZEDGIBBERISH" and "CAPITALISEDGIBBERISH" because they would probably distend the box and make it take up a nice chunk of the page. Anyway, the other 14 shortcuts are on there now :P nneonneo ^talk 15:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hahahaha! I just took a look, hilarious! That ought to get the point through why we should not overuse shortcuts.

--David Göthberg (talk) 16:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: enhance {{Shortcut}} to drop anchors

I suggest that the following be added at the beginning of {{Shortcut}}:

{{#if:{{{1|}}}|{{Anchor|{{{1}}}}}}}{{#if:{{{2|}}}|{{Anchor|{{{2}}}}}}}{{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{Anchor|{{{3}}}}}}}{{#if:{{{4|}}}|{{Anchor|{{{4}}}}}}}{{#if:{{{5|}}}|{{Anchor|{{{5}}}}}}}

(or that equivalent functionality be implemented inside the existing conditionals). Discussion which led up to this suggestion can be seen here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone see a problem with this? Does anyone have an objection to this? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I took a look at your suggestion and the pages you link to. And I ran some tests. Technically it seems to work well. The anchors this would create would look like this: "Article name#WP:SOMETHING", if a shortcut is named the usual way "WP:SOMETHING". I tested and anchors named "#WP:SOMETHING" do work. Thus the shortcut "WP:SOMETHING" should be redirected to "Article name#WP:SOMETHING", not just to "Article name". That the new anchors will have such a rather unusual look is probably a good thing, since that means they will not collide with existing anchors.

I also took a look at the {{anchor}} template. I suggest we do not use it since it would cause a lot of unnecessary code and make this widely used template dependant on the {{anchor}} template. Instead simply use <span id="{{{1|}}}"></span> or if we are lazy: <span id="{{{1|}}}" />. (To not use an end span is kind of against HTML wikimarkup, but currently MediaWiki does support it.)

So what do the rest of you in here think? Is it time to code this up in the /sandbox and test it carefully in /testcases?

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added this to the new version, see below.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

This was funny: I needed to link to this section from another talkpage, but the section name is too complex. So I added an anchor to the section title. So if anyone wants to see how anchors work, take a look at the code for the section title above. Now this section can be linked as Template talk:Shortcut#anchors.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Clear right

Is there any specific reason why this template only uses "float:right;" instead of using "clear:right; float:right;"? I had trouble making this template float correctly over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cryptography until I checked the code and then had to code like this to work around it:

<div style="clear:right; float:right;">
{{shortcut|WT:CRYPT}}
</div>

I would like to add "clear:right;" to this template.

--David Göthberg (talk) 17:45, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have added this to the new version, see below.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:57, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

And I removed it again some days ago. Since it caused more problems than it solved.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New version

I have created a new version of this template in its /sandbox. Also see the /testcases. I have added several of the things that have been suggested on this talkpage.

• I have not changed its visual appearance.
• I cleaned up the CSS and HTML code.
• I added a "clear:right;" so it falls below any boxes before it that uses "float:right;" such as archive boxes, instead of positioning itself to the left of them.
• I changed its class name from "Template-Shortcut" to "shortcutbox" since that is more in line with the naming used in MediaWiki:Common.css. In case we would like to move the style code for this template to MediaWiki:Common.css later on.
• I made it so that it places anchors. So if a shortcut box is placed in a section further down on a page then shortcuts can more easily be pointed to that section. Similar to how now WP:NBSP points to a subsection.
• Anchors do not work if the first parameter to the shortcut box is fed with brackets or as several bracketed links with <br> tags in between, so I made it so the template detects when a page feeds it a faulty first parameter and then lists that page in Category:Wikipedia shortcut box first parameter needs fixing. So we can easily find and fix such pages. This also means that when all such pages have been fixed, then we can remove both the old and the new "#ifexist" from the code, which will be a good thing since the MediaWiki developers have announced that they are soon going to lower the number of "ifexists" that can be used on a page.

I will wait some time for your comments and tests before I add this code to {{shortcut}} itself.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:27, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and updated {{shortcut}} with the new code.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The "clear:right;" caused more problems than it solved. So I removed it.

The anchor span tags caused very ugly rendering with pages that feeds the shortcuts with <br> tags. So I removed the anchors, but only temporarily. When we have fixed all pages that are reported into Category:Wikipedia shortcut box first parameter needs fixing, then we can add the anchors back.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:30, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

All pages that used brackets in the shortcut parameter have been fixed. And I have removed the old #ifexist from the code of all the shortcut templates. But I am keeping the CAT:SHORTFIX reporting for a while, just in case.

I have added the anchor functionality to all the shortcut templates. See documentation at {{shortcut}}.

--David Göthberg (talk) 01:24, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error

Something recently changed about this template that causes it to show code. "span id" and all of that jive. That a look at WP:PHILO. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Using <br /> inside the tag causes it to do that. Many of the shortcuts need to be fixed. See CAT:SHORTFIX. nneonneo ^talk 20:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I think I took care of it on my end. Thanks & be well, Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 21:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you guys are right, and the edit you did to that page fixed it. I didn't realise it would be that ugly in that case. (Never enough testing...) This makes me wonder if we should remove the anchor span tags again for some days while people are handling the CAT:SHORTFIX? Since pages that feed the parameters in that way are now reported and handled. Then we can add the anchor span tags back when all pages have been fixed.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More problems

{{Wikipedia category}} is now broken -- it can't take multiple arguments for the shortcut (see CAT:U for an example of this). nneonneo ^talk 21:31, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I took a quick look. I'll handle that.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, do you think a similar category for catching broken shortcuts can be used for {{policy shortcut}}? nneonneo ^talk 21:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes. But I thought we would start with this template, and when this one is done go on with {{shortcut-l}} and {{policy shortcut}}. Just to split up the workload a little if we get weird bugs. And we did get weird bugs. I knew I should have started with the lesser used {{shortcut-l}} or so, but I got bold...

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Template:Di-no fair use rationale and Template:Di-replaceable fair use should be using the {{Template shortcut}} template, but it's fully-protected, so I can't make that change. nneonneo ^talk 23:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Y Done. Ouch, that was a mess. I suppose you meant "should not be using". Oh, and thanks for helping out with this stuff! --David Göthberg (talk) 00:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

One more thing. Can User_talk: also be excluded from the template? nneonneo ^talk 03:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I assume you mean "excluded from being reported to CAT:SHORTFIX"? And I agree, the boxes should normally not even be on such pages, so we don't want to spend work on fixing them. And I'm way ahead of you, I already excluded them from being reported. The code I added for user space exclusion "#ifeq:{{SUBJECTSPACE}}|User" means that both "User" and "User talk" are excluded. Since {{SUBJECTSPACE}} returns "User" for both spaces. (Just like {{TALKSPACE}} returns "User talk" for both spaces.) The MediaWiki devs have made a very nifty set of magic words for us to work with! The few user and user talk pages you still see at CAT:SHORTFIX is because the Wikipedia servers rebuild categories very slowly. (Its a low priority task, which seems right. My experience is that it takes about a week for a complete rebuild of a big category. I think I heard it has to do with that pages that don't get visitors don't get re-rendered in several days.)

But I think that once all the other pages are fixed we can turn on reporting of the user pages so that the users themselves see the category at the page foot informing them of the boxes needing fixing.

--David Göthberg (talk) 09:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Signature removed

This was showing up on WP:ANI, and probably elsewhere, with a user sig. I;ve removed it and hopefully it's OK now. If it isn't, I'll get me coat. --Rodhullandemu (Talk) 21:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I just noticed it too. Very very very embarrassing. I must have clicked the signature button by accident. I just showed my signature on 11,042 pages. I bet this talkpage will be flooded with questions now. Thanks for fixing it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Something is still wrong with this template. Fix the code or restore the 11 March version. --Secisek (talk) 22:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Secisek: Can you point to a page that has problems with this new code so we can see what it is about?

--David Göthberg (talk) 22:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed as well... WP:PJ seems to hold a good example of the problem, though there are several others. -- SonicAD (talk) 22:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ignore the above, I didn't notice the above section regarding this. -- SonicAD (talk) 22:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The latest revision has fixed the problem, best, -- Secisek (talk) 00:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WHY ALL CAPS?

WOULDN'T IT BE SHORTER TO NOT HAVE TO KEEP SHIFT IN, OR USE CAPS LOCK???!!11 -- Jeandré, 2008-04-19t20:37z

What are you talking about...? nneonneo ^talk 21:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the search box to the left on Wikipedia pages is case insensitive. Try it, type in say wp:short or wt:short and press enter and see what happens. But when used in text like this it is clearer that it is a shortcut when we use WT:SHORT instead of wt:short.

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, now I see what he's referring to. Shortcuts are usually abbreviations, which customarily use upper case. There are a few exceptions here and there, but the general convention is to use upper case (besides, mixed-case shortcuts could be interpreted as being actual articles, rather than redirects) nneonneo ^talk 15:41, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Double-bullet problem in lists

I noticed a problem with {{Shortcut}}: it does not coexist nicely with lists. For example, this wikitext:

* A list item
* Another list item
* Let's put a shortcut after this item
{{Shortcut|WP:EIW#Tools}}
** Tools
*** Some more items
*** Some more items

produces this list:

• A list item
• Another list item
• Let's put a shortcut after this item

Shortcut: WP:EIW#Tools

• • Tools
    • Some more items
    • Some more items

I'm seeing two bullets to the left of the "Tools" item which has the shortcut before it. I've tried a few variations but I don't see a simple way to avoid this problem. It's coming up on the Editor's index which has long, deep lists and I'd like to stick shortcuts on some of the second-level list entries. The double-bullets aren't as bad as the shortcuts are good, so I can probably live with the ugliness, but still it would be nice if the template could slide nicely into a second-level list item. Thanks for any help. --Teratornis (talk) 21:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah yes. The left flowing {{shortcut-l}} has problems with list dots too. I had only noticed it for the left flowing one until you pointed it out. Since you wrote I did some tests. The shortcut box already uses the most robust thing you can surround anything with, that is a HTML table. I reverted the sandbox to an old version of {{shortcut}} (prior to my changes) and tested. The old code has the same problem. And look at this:

• Let's put a thumbnail image after this item

• • Tools
    • Some more items
    • Some more items

So it is not a {{shortcut}} specific problem. So I think you have to bring it up at the Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). I bet it is a well known problem among the gurus and something the devs must fix in the MediaWiki page rendering code.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking into this. Since {{shortcut}} uses an HTML table, that means it should coexist more nicely with an HTML list. Here is another test that uses an awkward mix of wiki lists and an HTML list:

That fixes the visible problem, but the editing cost would be high on a page like WP:EIW with its giant lists, and then other editors probably would not understand why the hack is there. I will may pose a question on WP:VPT if we don't resolve the problem here. --Teratornis (talk) 04:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Possible workaround in problematic pages:

* A list item
* Another list item
* Let's put a shortcut after this item
{{Shortcut|WP:EIW#Tools}}
:* Tools
::* Some more items
::* Some more items

Producing:

• A list item
• Another list item
• Let's put a shortcut after this item

Shortcut: WP:EIW#Tools

• Tools

• Some more items
• Some more items

This is top-of-the-head -- I haven't thought about it much. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:03, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried that earlier, and I discovered that the :* character sequence doesn't indent by exactly the same amount as ** does:

Since I generally only need to display one shortcut per sub-item that has a shortcut, I'm wondering if I can create a box that fits on just one line, using a <span ...> tag, and could go after the list entry:

That seems to work. Could we make a "Template:Shortcut compact" that would work on list sub-items and possibly other vertically-constrained locations? --Teratornis (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh! Nice solution. And yeah sure, since there's a need for it you should not hesitate. Create the {{shortcut compact}}. And I like the name you choose for it. If you do the basic stuff that makes it work right in those lists then I'll be happy to work it over and add the extra bling bling that the others have, link from the others and add anchor dropping and so on. Actually, this will make {{shortcut compact}} the first one with anchor dropping (see other discussions above) since we first have to clear out CAT:SHORTFIX before the others can get it.

But wait, hang on a little. I just discovered another solution. Let me test it a bit more first. It seems I can fix the existing boxes. I'll report back very soon. But perhaps you want that one-liner anyway? Then you should create it anyway.

--David Göthberg (talk) 23:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Yee haw! Problem solved. It was partially my fault. When I did the major work over and clean-up of the code 10 days ago I added some newlines between some tags in the code for code readability. But MediaWiki has problems with that. I have fixed the deployed box now. But note that it has to be placed on the same line as one of the dots, not on its own line since then the list resets and starts from scratch and that gives the double dots again. So look at this, this now works:

* A list item
* Another list item
** Let's put a shortcut after this sub-item {{shortcut|WP:EIW#Tools}}
** This sub-item wants a shortcut 
*** Some more items
*** Some more items

Which renders:

Teratornis: Thanks a bunch for discovering the bug and then making that one line SPAN variant which helped me find and fix the bug.

Now we have to document this. Note that your one liner box also has to be placed on the same line as a dot and not on its own line, otherwise it too causes double dots.

For completeness since I mentioned them above: Image thumbnail boxes seems to work correctly too as long as they are placed on the same line as a dot:

Now I have to test and fix the other shortcut boxes too.

--David Göthberg (talk) 00:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to everyone for your excellent help at fixing this problem. I will start a {{shortcut compact}} when I get a chance, maybe tonight or tomorrow, and apply the various fixes discussed above to the shortcut entries in the Editor's index. --Teratornis (talk) 19:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Shortcut links

I've noticed that the links to the shortcuts when transcluding this template just link to the shortcut, meaning if you follow the link you just get redirected back to the page. Wouldn't it be more useful if you linked it using <span class="plainlinks">[{{fullurl:WP:SHORTCUT|redirect=no}} WP:SHORTCUT]</span>, which would not redirect you back but let you see the shortcut. Otherwise, there is really no point to linking it at all. — Parent5446 ^{(t n e l)} 16:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Shortcut: WP:SHORT

Shortcut: WP:SHORT

Oh, nice idea. I added two hard coded example shortcut boxes to the right. The first one with the old style direct link, and the second one with your suggested "redirect=no" link.

It seems like a useful improvement, since at least I often want to take a look at the redirect page for several reasons like checking that it redirects to the right section of the page or add section linking or reach its talk page to add a corresponding talk page shortcut. And now that the shortcut templates add anchors we might have to do such checking and editing a lot. Also, it might discourage people from the current misuse of shortcut templates on (user) talk pages just to link to other pages. (Shortcut templates can of course be used to announce shortcuts like WT:SHORT to the talk page itself.)

The only drawback seems to be that we then can not verify the shortcut by just clicking it once, instead we have to load the redirect page and then click the redirect there. But that is less trouble than now when we want to reach the redirect page itself. The links will also get a slightly different colour than the "Shortcut" heading in the shortcut boxes: Shortcut: WP:SHORT. But that probably doesn't matter.

Let's think about this for some day and see what others think about it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 20:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I always thought this idea, but never said anything since I kind of had this notion that this is obviously an idea that someone would have thought of already, and it hasn't been implemented due to some consensus. But I am happy to know that this change might finally make its way into the template. — Parent5446 ^{(t n e l)} 02:43, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, never assume an idea is "too simple". It is the simple ideas that are hard to discover. And even if an idea later is considered "bad" it might inspire others to come up with better ideas, so don't hesitate to share your ideas. Some of the best templates I have created here at Wikipedia and some of the best inventions I have made in my life started out with someone less knowledgeable (and thus still not brainwashed with tradition) saying "I wish we could do X", the rest saying "impossible" and then I saying "but hang on, if we do like this then we perhaps can do it or at least achieve the same goal". :))

And even bad ideas are good since we also learn from mistakes. But your current idea above seems really good.

--David Göthberg (talk) 03:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment copied from Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Shortcut template changes:

If I understand this correctly, implementing the proposal will make things a bit more difficult and confusing for non-editor WP users who click shortcuts in order to provide an occasional slight convenience for WP editors who are into the nut & bolt workings of wikinavigation. If I've got that right, the priorities seem reversed. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, when I was a new user I found it very confusing when I clicked the links in those shortcut boxes and just was sent back to the same page I just came from, without any explanation what-so-ever. So back then I decided to just disregard those boxes since I didn't understand what they were for. So for me it would not have meant any difference.

Shortcut to this page: WP:SHORT

But you have a point. It is sad that the explanation that {{R from shortcut}} supplies on the shortcut redirect pages only gets visible when editing those redirect pages. I don't think there is a way to show an explanation on the redirect pages without changing the MediaWiki software. But we can do like we did with the CAT:SHORTFIX, create a category with a long name that works as a visible explanation. It worked fairly well for CAT:SHORTFIX, lots of people clicked the category name at the bottom of the pages to learn more. Another option is to extend the text in the shortcut box itself. Instead of as now just "Shortcuts:" why not something like the example box you see to the right?

--David Göthberg (talk) 03:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I seem to be following you around, David... Looks like a very good idea, though.

@Boracay Bill: are you sure you've got the right idea about what this will actually change? It's not the case that when I type [[WP:SHORT]] and you click on the bluelink WP:SHORT that's produced, you'll go to the redirect page - that would indeed be silly. Instead it's simply saying that clicking on one of the bluelinked shortcuts in the box produced by {{shortcut}} shouldn't return you to where you started. Happy‑melon 17:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I proposed this a year or so tandem with the change of the parameter format, which was implemented ([[WP:A]]<br/>[[WP:B]] eventually changing to WP:A|WP:B). This still has my full support :) Gracenotes^T § 17:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)