Testwiki:Reading room/Archives/2009/November

Get Browser to remember where I left off reading - How to?

I checked FAQ and reading room. I found nothing on this subject so far.

I am actively working my way through a how-to book with many chapters. How can I tag or bookmark where I leave off reading within the tools available on Wikibooks. I know I can bookmark a page with my browser or google bookmarks, but I keep having to reset this every time I am forced to stop reading by other demands on my time.

Is there a better way to get Wikibooks, on log in, to remember (i) what I am actively reading and (ii) where I left off? If this is explained already somewhere, sorry I missed it. Ashokdad (talk) 12:42, 19 October 2009 (UTC) ashokdad, 10/19/09 ~8:45 AM Eastern US time.

To understand why it is difficult, let us look at the nature of the interface to Wikimedia products, like this wiki. You page through the book, by pressing links that move you from page to page within the book. These links, in turn, are similar to HTML anchors, in that they contain only the information on which page you have selected. Your browser can therefore buffer only the page URL, and if you bookmark it, it can return you only to the page you were reading. Books with long pages, will tend to demand more from the reader, because they will cause the reader to have to window down the page to the area where they were reading, in much the same way you have to scan the page of a book you have put down, in order to find where on the page you left off.

If there is a printable version or an PDF version of the book, your problem can be solved by downloading the printable version or PDF to your home computer where you can leave it running in its own window, and only have to scan the screen to find where you left off. For the PDF a free PDF reader is available from Adobe, which you will find invaluable if you want to read lots of books, and articles.--Graeme E. Smith (talk) 15:19, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends on the article/book but if the article you're reading is divided into lots of sections then you could simply bookmark the section each time as each section contains the URL for that article but also an anchor to the section.--ЗAНИA ^talk 00:38, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Protect Featured Books listing

I propose that we increase the protection placed on Featured Books so that it can be edited only by admins. There have been several edits to this page in the past where people have added books that have not been officially featured. These are usually caught and rolled back, but not always. In one case, a book was added that doesn't even exist here, and it was not caught until today. Since promoting a book to FB status requires a discussion and consensus, I really don't see a reason why any registered user should be able to edit the official list. This suggestion was prompted by an anonymous user who noted that there are several books on the list that do not indicate their status on their own pages (which is fine). I did some digging and found that most (perhaps all) of these books actually are featured, but the authoritative source of that info is in the archives. We could have a lot more trust in WB:FB if it were protected. --Jomegat (talk) 13:38, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

What went wrong with your edit to that page? The description says you were removing "Proakis" (though what that is, I'm not actually sure), but in fact you removed two books that, honestly, I thought were legitimately featured, and added a random word to the bottom of the page. If the former weren't mistakes, the latter surely was. (And you want to protect the page such that only an admin could fix little flubs like that? ... asked the non-admin.)

It does seem as if ideally the page would simply be subject to review, which should limit editing to registered users with a bit more maturity (or if not, then perhaps they should lose that bit). Might we move Featured Books to a reviewable namespace (or, more radically, make the Wikibooks: namespace reviewable)?

(BTW, in composing this note I actually had some of my edit buffer get garbled somewhere in process, which makes me wonder if that could have happened to the edit to Featured Books.) --Pi zero (talk) 14:47, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what went wrong with that edit. I rolled it back. I can also not find any trace of the Proakis entry. (Proakis is the author of several books on Digital Signal Processing, but of course, none of those are available here. Someone had at one point added one of his DSP books to WB:FB.) Maybe I was hallucinating, but I am somewhat relieved of that notion by your note that you too have experienced a bit of weirdness. --Jomegat (talk) 16:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

How to contact editor of a page? Or make comment to clarify issue on page.

I am just getting started with wiki-books and need a bit of help. I don't want to go editing another persons hard work needlessly.

There is a page whereon the editor used a term midway with no definition of that term. I would like to contact them to ask for a definition of that term.

Is there a way to contact that person without "editing" his/her page?

I cannot "edit" the page because I do not know the intended use of that word.

Mindbender 10 NOV. 2009Mindbender (talk) 17:48, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Usually the thing to do is to ask your question (about the meaning of the term, in this case) on the talk page of the page in question. Click on the "discussion" tab when viewing the page; that will take you to its talk page. --Pi zero (talk) 18:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

COMPARISON POEMS

Nobody has posted bout comparison poems!!! HELO?!

Feel free to fix that oversight. I don't even know what comparison poems are. BTW, please end your posts with ~~~~ so we can see who said what, and when. Those four tildes will be replaced by a customizable signature →  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 15:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Source Tag is Changed

Hello,

I notice that the source tags have changed. They no longer wrap long lines in the numbered mode. As such the change now invalidates much of the content of the section in Source Tags.

Can an administrator please advise on the matter?

Thanks, Armchair (talk) 16:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This is an issue you'd need to discuss at Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi as administrators do not have control over which extensions are installed or their source code. Only the site's JavaScript and CSS can be edited by administrators and I do not see anything directly applicable to this extension, nor do the installation instructions on the above page request any changes be made to Mediawiki:Common.css to implement the extension. I can only conclude then that the extension itself changed, putting it beyond administrators' reach. -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 17:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Adding new Geshi syntax file

How do I go about getting a Geshi syntax file added to Wikibooks so that I can format source code using the <source> tag? Not sure where/who to ask... The file is already written, it just needs adding/inserting somewhere... Newlisp (talk) 17:13, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm asking in the wrong place... Newlisp (talk) 17:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You would want to visit Extension:SyntaxHighlight_GeSHi to contact the author to have additions added. -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 18:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I notice that the software now does not wrap long lines when line numbering is selected. Can somebody please fix that, since it affects quite a lot. Thanks, Armchair (talk) 13:20, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

You should submit a bug.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 18:22, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Are there admins out there?

Hi,

Is there is anybody out there? Where have all the admins gone. Responses are conspicuously lacking, and there is a general lack of activity on the blog.

Is there something that we should all know?

Hellooooooo.....!

Regards, Armchair (talk) 13:11, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes there are. Several are quite active but being an admin doesn't necessarily make one an expert on the technical matters of the Wikimedia software - hence the likely delay in an answer. For my part, it takes a couple of hours a day just to clear up the vandalism created each day, leaving little time to do much else here. Unusual? Quite ^TalkQu 14:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

If you're referring to http://wikibooks.blogspot.com then you should know that as far as I know, only Whiteknight has the ability to post on that website and it is not operated by the Wikimedia Foundation or affiliated with Wikibooks. -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 17:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey Armchair! I have this page on my watchlist, and when I saw that you were the one who edited it, I assumed you were answering someone's question rather than asking one. Also, I assumed that if you were asking a technical question, it would have been beyond me to answer (because you seem to have a better handle on MediaWiki than I do). For the record, my latter assumption was correct. --Jomegat (talk) 21:31, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary Hover: a JavaScript on double-click

Wikinews proposes a script to display the Wiktionary definition in a small board, when one double-click on a word. It's already been installed in the following Wiktionairies gadgets: in French and in Italian. The interface of the board depends on the user's language preferences.

To add it here, we should vote for an administrator, in:

1. MediaWiki:Gadget-dictionaryLookupHover.js, copies without the guillemets : "importScriptURI('http://en.wikinews.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-dictionaryLookupHover.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');"
2. MediaWiki:Gadgets-definition, adds "* dictionaryLookupHover|dictionaryLookupHover.js"
3. MediaWiki:Gadget-dictionaryLookupHover, describes the gadget. JackPotte (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I am a new commer

I have some doubts regarding differential equations. could you please try to solve my proble.

I dont know how to write the problem here

Hello. Unfortunately we do not have a system setup to offer people help with specific subject matter. I might suggest the wikipedia help desk, or perhaps the #math IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. If you have a specific doubt about something written in one of the books here that is something that can be discussed here on on the books talk page.

If you want to ask a question that involves some mathematics (on any of the wikimedia pages) you can place LaTeX code between <math>...</math> tags. For example to make a formula like $\int x^{2}dx=\frac{x^3}{3}+C$ you would include the code <math>\int x^2\,dx=\frac{x^3}{3}+C</math> If your unfamiliar with latex you can find some examples of commands that yeild useful symbols at m:Help:Displaying a formula. Thenub314 (talk) 10:10, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

For homework tips, and support for highschool students, you might want to try the wikiversity at en.wikiversity.org and search for your level of education (secondary school) or (University) I am aware of a project that allows you to ask your questions and get actual teachers to answer them. Unfortunately I don't know the page name or I would direct you there. --Graeme E. Smith (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Please I need help!!

How can I find a book about Chinese textbook? --Pessoa (talk) 22:02, 23 November 2009 (UTC)pessoa

You can find plenty of books on Chinese at Subject:Chinese language. -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 23:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Linguistics

Linguistics looks pretty promising, but I've been going at it solo for a while, and I really only feel qualified to work on the first few sections. The scope of the book is so wide that I think it'll be impossible to get it to a reasonable state without considerable help. Could anyone offer assistance of any kind? Mo-Al (talk) 01:11, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

We may have spoken about this previously. If I had time, I could help with some elements of the text - I am a psycholinguistics student. Sadly, I don't have the time at present. You might ask around on enwiki - members of WikiProjects are often good sources for finding collaborators.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 02:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Q:

A few questions:

1. Is there any quick way to access book-specific templates without having to write the book name every time?
2. Help:Wikibooks for Wikimedians (which is far too wp-centric in my opinion) says "Wikibooks use wikilinks conservatively". Does this mean that, for example, language wikibooks containing links to Wiktionary are a bad idea?
3. What are the extra buttons ("untagged" and "unlicensed") for?
4. Is this even the right place to ask these?

Thanks. --Yair rand (talk) 22:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for coming by Wikibooks! I'll try to provide some insights.

1. If your book's name is a long one and you start out your templates with the book's name, followed by a slash, you can use Template:Tlx as a shortcut notation. For example if you have Wikijunior:Solar System, you can call Template:Wikijunior:Solar System/Coolfacts using {{Template:Tl/Coolfacts}}. Wikibooks sometimes has to find workarounds for methods better suited to an encyclopedia in the wiki software.
2. Wikibooks tries to define terms within the book they are used, making it easier to print out a book as a self-contained item. Links to external websites make it more difficult to have a complete printed textbook and also take users off-site rather than keeping them here. Keep in mind this isn't a policy. True, too many things are wp-centric in the Wikimedia world, including the Mediawiki software itself, but we can't really avoid the 600 lb (kg) gorilla that is Wikipedia. It's expected that most people will be coming here with preconceptions formed by Wikipedia.
3. Those buttons link to some toolserver tools that check for images without proper licensing information on their image pages. Last time I checked, one of them didn't even work, and the other I don't really use because there are so few uploads, so I simply disabled them by checking the "Remove Image Tools" option on the gadgets tab of my preferences.
4. It's the perfect place to ask these.

-- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 01:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Right-hand indents caused by review status box.

hi, On all the pages i've created with a right-floating template infobox (e.g. Practical_Electronics/IC/4023) the little box showing the page review status causes it to be indented, leaving a huge and ugly space on the right hand side. Just adding a newline doesn't help, and infoboxes should be at the top of the markup.

Perhaps some sort of div element could be added to whetever code generates that box? What I know about HTML can be written on a postage stamp, so I can't give a better suggestion than that. Inductiveload (talk) 23:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Has it been fixed? I could not see anything wrong with it or the review box; in fact I wish I had made it!

Armchair (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi, no, it's still not fixed. I'm using Opera (versions 9 and 10, which have different rendering engines, on both Windows and Ubuntu all have this problem). You can see a screenshot here. The big blank space to the right of the table is the problem. Inductiveload (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This has been fixed by Darklama by enclosing the table in a div tag:

<div style="width:300px; clear:both; float:right; padding:0px; margin:1em 0em 1em 1em;">
{|
TABLE
|}
</div>

Thanks! − Inductiveload (talk) 23:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bug?

Is anybody else seen the "Read", "Edit", "View" and Star buttons in a wrong place like in this image?

I'm using vector and Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; pt-BR; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6. Helder23:06, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes! It's driving me crazy too. It's enough to make me turn off the otherwise fabulous beta for a while, but I haven't gone that far yet. --Jomegat (talk) 00:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I left Beta, and though I will miss it, it did fix this problem. I'll return to beta when it's fixed. --Jomegat (talk) 00:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

This was caused by a CSS naming collision between some site-specific CSS rules and our new collapsible tabs feature for vector. Both used the "collapsible" class name. I've made a fix in MediaWiki:Common.css which overrides the rules for vector, so please feel free to turn beta back on. Trevor Parscal (talk) 00:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought only administrators could edit in the Mediawiki namespace... -- Adrignola ^{talk contribs} 01:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Trevor works for the Foundation, so he basically has sysop access on all wikis for just this sort of thing.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 03:04, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick fix. I'm back in Beta again, and life is good. --Jomegat (talk) 15:05, 20 November 2009 (UTC)