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Notes: Sandbox, and previous discussions (may need to update link to talk archives):

The above notes do not go into the talk archive. Start topics below.

Padding

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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://wiki.riteme.site/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]

Overall style

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Wrong metatemplate?

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{{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]
Brainstorming about navboxes
I realized I should have suggested {{navbox}}. There are so many links that it might as well be one, and the only thing is that it'll be hidden on mobile (is this worse or better?).
The reason I found this weird is because full-page-width templates usually go at the bottom of pages while around-quarter-page-width templates go in the lead or body. Aside from *box color standardization, we should either make {{Table help}} float:right, or move it to the footer. Speaking of the footer, could we merge this (this is mostly duplicate links) with the other navboxes?
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]

Proposed more-header-like style

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@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}}
Tables

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://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?oldid=1260350359
Template version below:
https://wiki.riteme.site/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://wiki.riteme.site/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]
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