Wikibooks:Reading room/Feature requests

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Welcome to the Feature requests reading room. On this page, Wikibookians are free to talk about suggestions for improving the MediaWiki software to better suit the needs of Wikibooks.

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Please title your request and sign your name and date (by adding four tildes thus: ~~~~.


[edit] Books as a Unit

I would like some kind of meta-organizational ability for books. This means that we specify a list of pages for a book, in reading order on one page, or in a form or something. With the list in place, the software can, optionally, do stuff:

  1. Create an automatic table of contents. Consider a page like Special:Tableofcontents/Book, which we could also transclude into another page if we wanted to.
  2. Create an automatic print version. Something like Special:Printversion/Book. this should, of course, integrate with the upcoming click-to-print extension that people have been talking about
  3. Create automatic forward/back links on subpages, possibly at top and bottom of pages

We could also do things like

  1. "delete all", button to delete an entire book at once, not page-by-page.
  2. "move all", rename all pages in the book at once, if the name of the book changes.
  3. "protect all", to protect or unprotect an entire book, if necessary.

--Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:24, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You forgot "watchlist all" -- this should include watching pages added to the book, and un-watching pages which are removed from the book.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 19:28, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, and similarly, Special:RecentchangesBook (to see all the recent changes in a particular book without adding it to your watchlist). --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The key difference between recent changes (linked) and watchlist is that watchlist tracks the page even when it is removed from a book; recent changes (linked) only tracks changes to pages still linked (as I would imagine a recent changes by book would work). I think that in general, a recent changes that tracked all sub-pages of a book would be more useful, but note the difference. (As a side note - Atom feeds are really good for tracking changes to books that have each page in a category - better would be Atom feeds of RecentchangesBook) Webaware talk 02:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Features for books

Some additional features that I would like to see (some of which are currently in the works):

  1. a {{NUMBEROFBOOKS}} magic word (or template, or whatever)
  2. Special:RandomBook (go to a random book, not just any random page)
  3. Special:SearchBook (search inside one particular book only)

--Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 19:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Some more thoughts:

  1. per-book CSS - allows for book-specific styling
  2. per-book JavaScript - allows for book-specific gadgets (although I don't see it as anywhere near as useful as the CSS - and it has the potential to create more work for admins with JS skills)
  3. navigation tools - say, top-level pages available to a JS script for generating inter-chapter navigation, next level pages for intra-chapter navigation

--Webaware talk 03:04, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

"Search Book" should probably be an option on Special:Search, not a separate special page. I don't know about per-book js (though css is good) -- what use do we forsee for that?  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How to represent books in the database

MediaWiki was designed for Wikipedia initially, so it's hardly a surprise that these features are not in the core software. We're now faced with various feature requests that need to know what pages are grouped together so we can perform actions on the group of pages. It's been suggested that a property parent_book is created and indexed so we know what book a page belongs to. Pages without that property are the book "main pages" and every other mainspace page would have it identify what book it belongs to. When performing a "book action" that property would be used to determine what pages are affected. This property would be automatically determined initially, but should perhaps be editable through a special page, like WK mentions above. Assigning a page as belonging to some book would set the parent_book field.

There is a question of whether it's worth creating these database structures... Simetrical has said that this is redundant since the page title already tells us what book a page belongs to. Unfortunately, that's only true when pages are correctly named. As well, performing some test on the page title each time you need to know whether it's a module or a book seems highly inefficient. Simetrical's suggestion is to instead create a new namespace for the book contents, and retain the main namespace as only a way to keep track of the books themselves. I don't understand how that helps the software know what book some module belongs to, but it's very likely I'm not understanding this in full. I look forward to any knowledgable discussion of how best to implement the book/module distinction within the database.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 19:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems to be there are only two approaches that have been thought of so far:
  1. require all books to follow specific rules in order to be considered a book which allows automation for any that follows the rules and
  2. use a system where anything could be a book, but which would require some manual identification on the part of users.
A third approach might be to allow both automatic and manual identification. The FlaggedRevision extension could, if more generalized maybe, be thought of as a tagging system. In that setup pages could be auto-tagged as a book if they follow the rules set out for there identification, while also allowing people to manually tag pages as books too. This would provide the best of both approaches, with most books being automatically tagged, and the few that don't follow it still being able to be identified as books as needed. --darklama 15:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the namespace idea was to put all the submodules in a separate namespace and leave the main module of each book in the main namespace. This might make it easier counting the number of books, by tagging each books mainpage and counting, or tagging the other pages such as Main Page and then counting whats left. But if the pages don't follow the naming policy then this still requires manually tagging the pages of the book to group them with the book.
I like darklama's idea and the parent_book property idea, because it would get most of the books done automatically. I would prefer using a template instead of a special page to change the parent_book property, so that I could put templates on pages to override the softwares parent_book property for pages created as main modules in the main namespace which are actually pages of books. Doing it automatically and then checking over it manually would be like painting the background and then painting the foreground (sort of), and that is usually the easiest way to do it. rawrawrer (talk) 10:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I have submitted bugzilla:15071 for a custom database schema for Wikibooks. This bug should block most other feature requests (though most are not in bugzilla as of yet). Please help out by putting them in the system, and marking the depends on and blocks fields appropriately.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 18:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Requirements for PDFs

There has been some talk today about automatic PDF generator programs. What I would like to do is try to flesh out, in one central place, all the necessary requirements for a PDF generator tool that we can use here at Wikibooks to create PDFs from our books. Here are some requirements that I am thinking of:

  1. PDFs should contain the full text of the GFDL. Any PDF generator should check for this, and add it if it wouldn't be included otherwise. Notice that some books do include the GFDL in their TOC, and we don't want it to be included twice.
  2. Attribution. We don't currently have an automated tool for doing this at all (although I had heard that one such tool was being worked on). The GFDL requires that we list authors on the cover page of the book, which means we need a way to identify authors.
  3. Ability to pick and choose which pages get included into the PDF. Some automated tools will try to transclude nonsensical pages into the PDF, such as "Book/Print version". Some automated tools may also include pages out of order, especially if the TOC is arranged in a table. You should also be able to remove certain pages from the PDF, such as "/Print Version", "/For Contributors", "/Book Policy", "/LMOS", etc.
  4. PDFs should show all templates that aren't classed as "metadata" or "noprint". I've seen too many PDFs generated that leave big blank spaces where a {{TextBox}} should be, or whatever.

Given these requirements, I think that the be best way to create a PDF is the way that I have been doing it for a while: Create a Print version for the book, and then convert the raw HTML of the print version to PDF. When creating a print version, authors will include material in the proper order, will typically include a link to the GFDL, etc. Also, in the print version, all templates will display like normal. One tool that I've been using personally (and I don't know how it compares to any other alternatives) is PrimoPDF. It's free, but it's not open source that I'm aware of. If there is a similar open-source alternative, I would love to hear about it. PrimoPDF installs like a printer, and you can "print" to it from any program. Instead of going to a physical printer, the output is a PDF file that looks exactly how it does in your browser's "print preview" screen.

Anyway, this would be a good time for us all to sit down and think about PDFs, how we make them, and how we can make them better. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 21:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I used LEd and LaTeX for First Aid. It required tons of manual editing, so unless you're willing to put in some effort, I would recommend using an automatic PDF creator. There is one on the toolserver, and several extensions we may want to push: mw:Extension:Pdf Book, mw:Extension:Pdf Export, mw:Extension:Pdf Export Dompdf. There is also one on WikiEducator.org that may warrant a look. Also, Brion has some notes on his blog.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 23:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I know the WMF had said something about making a PDF creation extension part of the default software install. In fact, the extension at Wikieducator is precisely the extension that the WMF has said it is going to use for all it's projects. I am not yet certain whether the extension will be automatically GFDL compliant (will it include a list of authors, will it include a copy of the GFDL by default, etc). Maybe we should file a bugzilla report asking for the extension to get installed here since we really need something like it and we're small enough to test it without the feature having to go live on Wikipedia. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Separate "recent changes" feed for each book

In general, books on wikibooks stay in "work in progress" status for a long time. In such a state, the books are neither complete nor they are uninteresting to neglect all together. New content additions and enhancements are often made to such books. Some books are never really finished even after being voted featured. I think there should be a RSS/Atom feed per book to track the recent changes to it. Currently, I believe, the recent changes feed is a cocktail of the changes happening all over the place on wikibooks. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It is annoying at best and of least use for those who are tracking development of a small set of nice books. Moreover, such a feed can give an approximate idea of the count of interested readers through independent services like FeedBurner. What do you think?

Sutambe (talk) 23:41, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

You can use Special:RecentChangesLinked to approximate this.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 00:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but it is not a RSS feed. I'm looking for a push-based technique (RSS) rather than a pull-based technique (query/search). Thanks for pointing to the search interface anyways! ---- Sutambe (talk) 16:30, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe Mike is referring to the RSS feed associated with RecentChangesLinked. For instance Related Changes For More C++ Idioms --darklama 00:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah!! That looks more like it! Thanks folks! ---- Sutambe (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking more on this. The default link tag that I see in the wikibook pages points to the general "all inclusive" feed. How about changing the default link tag in the generated page to something like darklama has shown. I mean, a page specific link tag. It will allows browsers to detect the page specific feed. ---- Sutambe (talk) 15:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Why not use a versioning scheme to identify significant updates when each book is packaged as a pdf etc... then it would be easy to keep up to date using existing tools like apt-get or other package managers. I introduced this idea on Ubuntu's brainstorm site with a very positive response especially amongst educators.
Something like that is about to be implemented: mw:Extension:FlaggedRevs.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 09:05, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Separate Upload forms for different users

I propose that Wikibooks use a different upload form based on what users wish to upload, a bit like how Wikimedia Commons handles uploads. So for instance we can have a form for works created by the uploader which recommends uploading to Commons instead and includes only licenses for original works, or a form for fair use which includes Wikibooks requirements for fair use and recommends searching Commons before uploading.

In order to be able to use a different license drop down menu for each form a request has to be made to bugzilla asking for the developers to add:

$wgForceUIMsgAsContentMsg[] = 'licenses';

So if people like this idea, a show of support is needed before making this request. --darklama 16:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, and there is always the chance that I am thinking of the wrong thing, I like this idea. A better and more informational upload mechanism will help to answer a lot of questions that users have, and will help to correct a lot of errors that new uploaders produce. I Symbol support vote.svg Support this. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Symbol support vote.svg Yes, I've long advocated stealing borrowing the new javascript for the upload form that Commons is developing. While we don't need multilingual support, we do want a streamlined process that will help new users in the direction of making good uploads (complete info, uploaded to the right place etc...) To do that we'll need this change.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 17:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The only thing I worry about (and admittedly it's a small worry) is that if we make the upload process too comfortable here, it might discourage people from uploading commons. I think it's generally preferable for many reasons that users upload images over there instead of here. Anything that we steal borrow should be modified to show emphasis on uploading to commons. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Well that is the idea to emphasis uploading to Commons for works which can be freely used and to emphasis searching Commons before uploading fair use images to Wikibooks. Just want to make it easier for uploaders to understand that and make it easier for them if they choose not to for whatever reason (such as not having an account and not interested). --darklama 18:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd be happy enough having the freely-licensed options simply point folks to Commons and fair use options point here. Commons is obviously much better equipped for handling media uploads - there is no reason anything except fair use should be uploaded here rather than there, and every reason for the opposite. Again, depending on how hawkish we want to be on fair use, it may be worth allowing admin uploads only - free media to Commons, and you may ask an admin to upload fair use media for you. Either way, we should be encouraging free media to be uploaded to Commons.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 00:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Navigation Popups Gadget

User:Ramac requested that we install the Navigation Popups Gadget here, it's a javascript gadget for use with Special:Gadgets. See [1]. I think WV might have this gadget as well, so we might want to look at their files to see how to install it. I dont have time to do this myself today, but if anybody else can that would be awesome. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

This gadget basically provides a preview of a page when you roll over a link. I think Wikibooks would benefit more from a gadget to preview a book when you roll over a book link. For instance using good book templates to show a summery of what a book is about. --darklama 18:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, it also provides links and other information about the page, whether book or module (it is nice for patrolling).
Installing is very simple. In the gadget script you have just to put this:
document.write('<script type="text/javascript" src="'
   + 'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/popups.js' 
   + '&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript&dontcountme=s"></script>');
or importing this from Wikiversity (the page takes a few minutes to open).
Next, individual configurations has to be made on personal monobook script. --Ramac (talk) 18:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, please do not have the gadget load it from elsewhere, I will bring the source over later today, and you'll be using it by tomorrow.  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 19:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
He didn't say anything about it here, but Mike installed the gadget. It's now available for use here. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 00:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing with Special Symbols

When editing a page in Wikipedia there are more special characters shown for immediate insertion than are provided in Wikibooks. i.e.

Symbols: ~ | ¡ ¿ † ‡ ↔ ↑ ↓ • ¶ # ½ ⅓ ⅔ ¼ ¾ ⅛ ⅜ ⅝ ⅞ ∞ ‘ “ ’ ” «» ¤ ₳ ฿ ₵ ¢ ₡ ₢ $ ₫ ₯ € ₠ ₣ ƒ ₴ ₭ ₤ ℳ ₥ ₦ № ₧ ₰ £ ៛ ₨ ₪ ৳ ₮ ₩ ¥ ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ m² m³

Cyrillic: А а Б б В в Г г Ґ ґ Ѓ ѓ Д д Ђ ђ Е е Ё ё Є є Ж ж З з Ѕ ѕ И и І і Ї ї Й й Ј ј К к Ќ ќ Л л Љ љ М м Н н Њ њ О о П п Р р С с Т т Ћ ћ У у Ў ў Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Џ џ Ш ш Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю Я я

IPA: t̪ d̪ ʈ ɖ ɟ ɡ ɢ ʡ ʔ ɸ ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ ʝ ɣ ʁ ʕ ʜ ʢ ɦ ɱ ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ ʋ ɹ ɻ ɰ ʙ ʀ ɾ ɽ ɫ ɬ ɮ ɺ ɭ ʎ ʟ ɥ ʍ ɧ ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ɨ ʉ ɯ ɪ ʏ ʊ ɘ ɵ ɤ ə ɚ ɛ ɜ ɝ ɞ ʌ ɔ ɐ ɶ ɑ ɒ ʰ ʷ ʲ ˠ ˤ ⁿ ˡ ˈ ˌ ː ˑ ̪ • { {IPA|} }

I am particularly interested in the IPA symbols which would be useful in writing foreign language lessons, although I suppose previous authors have been managing OK with the current set up. I would just like to start a discussion really, on whether there is sufficient demand to make some more symbols available in Wikibooks. Perhaps there could be an option in a user's editing preferences to show more special symbols, or to show fewer with a larger font size. Recent Runes (talk) 18:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I dont remember where to find it exactly, but I will mention that this request, should people agree on it, will be as simple to implement as copy+pasting some code from WP to here. I don't personally have a use for these symbols, but I see no particular reason why we couldn't have them if other people wanted them. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 18:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it is ok, you could also add some templates or wiki formatting tools. It is the system message MediaWiki:Edittools (on wikipedia w:MediaWiki:Edittools). --Ramac (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I was wondering whether there are any drawbacks, perhaps only that you would have to scroll down a bit more to click on links right at the bottom of the page. Except the only things further down look as if they would only be used very infrequently. Provided the new symbols are below the old ones, I think there should not be any inconvenience to users of the present symbols. Recent Runes (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes check.svg Done I've gone ahead and copied stuff over from Commons. The solution used by Commons and some other wikis, avoids having to scroll down a lot. I think this has been asked for many times--darklama 19:22, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Er, it doesn't look quite right to me at the moment. Recent Runes (talk) 19:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
You may need to purge your cache to see the effects. It involves using some javascript to generate a menu just above the list of characters to switch between Standard, Symbols, etc. --darklama 19:36, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Hey, I call that a major improvement! But perhaps the text that hovers over the drop-down should say "select special character set" instead of "click on the wanted special character". Recent Runes Recent Runes (talk) 20:34, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I had the old one hidden with css: 
#editpage-specialchars { display: none; }
Any suggestions on how to do that with this system?  – Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia now has a more compact symbol-insertion tool which only occupies one line on the screen by default, but it does not provide as many symbol sets as we have currently. I think it just splits the Standard symbol set into 2 sets Insert & Wiki Markup. Perhaps a hybrid between the Wikipedia tool and our present one could be made, with the benefits of both? Recent Runes (talk) 11:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of empty books and orphaned pages

See: 68% of books have only a title page RobinH (talk) 09:52, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see this discussion, is it archived? --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 01:58, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] SSS (Some Stupid Suggestions)

There are many potential Wikibook authors who have already created courseware and it might be possible to attract some of them if they didn't have to rekey their work.

All the best

Jugandi (talk) 14::38, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I've split your suggestions up into the sections below, along with some comments on each.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 17::49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Technical

  1. Create scripts allowing easy imports of other file formats doc. pdf. html etc. requiring minimum editing afterwards.
  2. Create a script for automating basic tables. (complex tables can be done later)
  3. Create a simple method of controlling page size.
  4. Create an automatic next link on pages
  5. Create textbook-like templates (for those of us who are computer illiterate)
I think automated conversion of OOo, html, and PDF should be do-able. Not sure whether we would consider doing coversion to/from proprietary formats like .doc though.
WYSIWYG is a long-term goal for us, but the technical hurdles are massive. So massive, we haven't begun and will not begin for the forseeable future, working on such a system. However, tables are a reasonably simple thing to do, and that should be requested from the developers.
I don't understand what you mean by "a simple method for controlling page size" -- isn't adding or removing content from the page the absolute simplest method?
Automatic navigation has been requested, but work on that has not begun as there is nobody interested in doing the coding for it. We can currently use templates to mimic this.
Textbook-like templates... would you expand on what you want here?
 — Mike.lifeguard | talk 17::49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
A simple table automator script could be doable. We could have some kind of interface for making basic tables that would write out the syntax automatically. The problem of course is finding a simplified interface (either a markup that we translate into wikitext or a GUI that does some of it). WYSIWYG is being worked on at the MediaWiki level and isn't something we're working on here. If you are looking for a tool to help with creating new books quickly, you might be interested in my Book Designer Javascript. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:01, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Content

  1. Make alliances with these companies to allow the free use of their material.
  2. Request funding form these companies
  3. Find some way to tap into the large numbers of now under utilized high tech workers
Alliances are great - go ahead an pursue them! I'd love if the Foundation would put some effort into this sort of thing, but I don't know how much (if any) interest there is in doing so at the Foundation level. I suspect they would view it as a task for the volunteers to do.
Funding should be handled through chapters or the Foundation.
Recruitment (and not just in the area you mention) is something I've been meaning to put some effort into studying for some time now. I simply don't have the spare time to look at it in-depth and come up with any robust solutions to maintain recruitment.
 — Mike.lifeguard | talk 17::49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Partnerships

  1. Make alliances with colleges which have online courseware on Moodle and similar open source systems to support easy import.
  2. Promote each others work (logos, links etc.)
This is probably an excellent idea. Again, volunteers interested in this should pursue it. Unfortunately, we're all limited by time and resources. This is yet another thing some help from the Foundation would be good for.
We don't do link exchanges, and we don't do advertising. We can't offer that sort of thing in return for services from other organizations, but we can do other kinds of outreach. Again, I think this is best handled through the chapters or the Foundation.
 — Mike.lifeguard | talk 17::49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Marketing

  1. Settle on a logo & an assortment of tag lines, and merchandise them online & at college book stores (coffee/beer mugs, sweat shirts, etc)
  2. Make some funny Wikibook videos and post them on YouTube.
Well, the logo selection process has stalled almost completely. I'm hoping we'll get it done this year. It is really utterly stagnant at this point, and we need someone to push it forward -- and fast. Perhaps some other admin would take that on? We do have a limited number of products on Cafepress. I wonder what Kul and Sue would have to say about expanding that part of our business strategy...?
Wikibooks videos is a great idea. I think promotional and educational videos are an excellent idea. Anyone who can do so is certainly welcome to.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 17::49, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Java enhancement by book in the recent changes...

You can currently use that nifty Java enhanced recent changes where it groups edits by page. It might be neat if the recent changes could group by book as well, and then under that by page. It could maybe be an extra sub option in preferences. Does that make sense? How does something like that seem? Emesee (talk) 01:51, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I like that idea alot. Being able to get all the recent changes to the pages in a book in a single click is a feature that many people ask for. Extending the watchlists to automatically group pages together for all books would be cool. Being able to add entire books at once to the watchlist would be better. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 02:03, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alphabetical order method for DynamicPageList

The extension Dynamic Page List is used for automatic creation of bookshelves but books can be only listed in chronological order. So I developed a simple review of the extension to implement alphabetical order method. If you are interested you can find the bug here. --Ramac (talk) 12:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Serious shortcoming of "toolbox" > "Printable version"

I think there is a serious shortcoming in the way the "Printable version" is generated with the link in the "toolbox": it shows text within <noinclude>...</noinclude> but it doesn't show text within <includeonly>...</includeonly>. I consider this a serious shortcoming because a) it is inconsistent with the traditional "Print version" mechanism and b) it is inconsistent with the way the "PDF version" and the printing of collections work. Would it be possible to fix this problem, i.e., to show the printable version of the "included" page? Also, if a "Print version" of the current page exists, could the link show a printable version of the "Print version" page? --Martin Kraus (talk) 14:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Eventually the Print versions and PDF versions as we know them now will disappear and only collections will be used. It doesn't make sense to support all three, especially if completely different and opposite conventions are used between them. We can try to put in a bug report with the PediaPress people, but I suspect that the behavior they are using is the behavior that we would prefer to use in the long-run. If you have a book or see a book that uses old formatting to support a printable version, it would probably be a good idea to delete that print version and create a collection for the book instead. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 14:02, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
The use of <noinclude>...</noinclude> and <includeonly>...</includeonly> is also supported by the collections extension, thus, I don't think this is "old formatting", is it? --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category Redirects

I think changing how redirects are handled for categories could be helpful for Wikibooks. Imagine if instead of having to manually go to every page or book and change a category a category redirect would result in the books and pages appearing in the other category instead. This could solve some problems for us like:

  • Mixing American and British spelling of category names. One could redirect to the other and all books would show up.
  • Mixing different terminologies could be done (silly examples: Toilet, Lobe, John, Crapper, etc.) without a problem.
  • Mixing singular and plural names could be done (e.g Science, Sciences) without a problem.

Right now without this books are split between categories and people aren't likely to agree which is better to use. With this change, it wouldn't matter because they could all be used without causing an incomplete picture of what books or pages exist. --darklama 20:48, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Stuff like this has been desired for some time - I don't know that anybody has put any thought into how to accomplish it effectively. A bugzilla search might reveal some past efforts.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 01:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Chemistry Symbols

I am working on placing a chemistry book online and with all the 'fun' characters in chemistry, I am having the hardest time figuring out how to post an ion. Example: SO\textstyle{\frac{2-}{4}}, is the closest thing I can get, but I would like the middle line removed. Is there another way to do this? Elo 1219 (talk) 22:14, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Elo 1219

SO^{2-}_{4} — Mike.lifeguard | talk 22:21, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
How about in front of the element, like this \textstyle{\frac{37}{17}}Cl ?Elo 1219 (talk) 22:47, 7 January 2009 (UTC)elo_1219
3717Cl — Mike.lifeguard | talk 22:52, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
Ya that is all that I am getting as well, but I do need them one on top of each other. Also, is there a way to make font smaller for NH^{+}_{4} ? It is not matching well with the text. Elo 1219 (talk) 22:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC)Elo_1219
I don't know about changing font size. You might check m:Help:Displaying a formula.  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 22:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe \begin{matrix} 37 \\ 17 \end{matrix} Cl or _{17}^{37}Cl? --darklama 23:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Requirements for +Editor autopromotion

the follow section has moved to Wikibooks talk:FlaggedRevs Extension#Autopromotion requirements

[edit] Book stylesheets

This has actually been brought up at least twice before; in September and November 2007. The former points to (now) n:MediaWiki:Pagecss.js for an implementation and there is good support for the idea. The latter includes it in a wish-list, but there is no further mention of it.

Has there been any progress on this? I would be extremely interested in getting this implemented. --Swift (talk) 06:49, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

This has been implemented already as two separate gadgets. A per-book gadget and a personal per-book gadget. --darklama 08:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
These gadgets aren't quite what I'm thinking about as they require users to register and opt-in. I take it there has been no further progress past enabling these gadgets. How do people feel about enabling style-sheets that would be used by default? --Swift (talk) 09:50, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A way to number sections and subsections and can we get the Labeled Section Transclusion extension installed?

I have searched and searched (and even tried to hack something myself), but there seems to be no way to automatically generate numbers for sections and subsections in a book. By section/sub-section numbering, I mean the common numbering convention whereby a section is numbered X and its subsections X.Y, where both X and Y are integers. This type of section labeling appears in a page TOC, but I can't figure out a way to utilize those numbers in the actual book text. Yes, I know there is a way to turn on numbering in a user's preferences, but that starts the numbering process from 1 on each wiki page. This doesn't work well for books. If there is way to do this that I have just missed, then tell me and I will move this discussion to technical assistance.

Rather than create a separate section, I will also mention another request. Is it possible to get the Labeled Section Transclusion extension installed on Wikibooks? I have created a references template for a book I am planning, but it isn't as efficient as I would like. If the Labeled Section Transclusion extension was installed, I could significantly improve its efficiency. Also, I could support Harvard style references.

One possible way to solve the section numbering problem would be to use Labeled Section Transclusion and wrap each section number in the TOC with something like <section begin=TOC_<<section name>> /><<section number>><section end=TOC_<<section name>> />, where <<section name>> is the section's name and <<section number>> is its number. It would then be possible to reference the number in another page by {{#lst:<<book TOC page>>|TOC_<<section name>>}}, where <<book TOC page>> is the name of the page on which the book's TOC appears. If there is a concern that making these changes to the TOC mechanism is risky, another magic word might be added (say, __TOCEXPORT__) that formats the TOC in the way just suggested, rather than using the standard TOC text format.

Thanks for anyone willing to comment on these requests. Dnessett (talk) 17:38, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a reasonable way to do section numbers. Of course, I guess you could have one additional page for each section and subsection which just contains the number. In your table of contents, in the section headings and for any references you would just transclude these pages to show the numbers. Problem is, of course, that you have to edit these pages with section numbers manually, which can get cumbersome if you have to change the numbering of many sections. More generally spoken, the problem appears to be that Wikibooks is not a good place to write textbooks that require section numbers, instead most authors use hyperlinks. --Martin Kraus (talk) 08:21, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] E-Book Reader Support

I'd love to see a way to create an "easy to import" file to popular e-Book readers, with support for the different capabilities of the individual readers. I'd image it as follows:

Click on e-Book download

Next appears a list of supported e-Book readers. Right now the big two (or three if you want to count them as separate) would be:

  • Sony
  • Kindle
  • Kindle DX

(The second Kindle has a larger screen and supports a usable version of PDF)

Once you select the reader, a list of the supported formats appears.

Select the format you want.

Finally, a link to the download file (generated on the fly) appears. This file should include the entire e-Book, not just the page being viewed. If the format chosen supports navigational aids (table of contents, etc.), then they should also be included in the file.

For those devices which support wireless and/or email delivery, give the option of entering an email address at this point (in accordance with the Terms of Service for the various devices).

This would make WikiBooks much easier for the those people who aren't great on technology. Most of this is probably already doable, assuming you know what you're doing. But it would be much easier for those who bought an e-Book reader but are not technologically sophisticated.

fcoulter (talk) 16:32, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Some do support PDF and RTF, but not all do. Amazon Kindle did not support PDF formats until Kindle DX, and the Amazon DRM format AZM violates open source licenses which prohibit DRM technology. Amazon.com has a web service that can copy PDF to AZM format so they can download the PDF on a computer, use the web service, and put it on their old Kindle ebook reader. I doubt an open source license would allow porting to a proprietary format as it is not apparently an open source format that I know of and would be no different than printing out to MS-Word DOC formats. Orion Blastar (talk) 02:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm sceptical. Don't these e-book readers support PDFs? What I did to support reading on an iPod touch, was to create PDFs using a large font for each chapter of a book such that you can read it comfortably even on a small display: [2]. --Martin Kraus (talk) 08:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bookmarks

Hello!, I was just browsing the cookbooks, I really liked many recipes and began to copy them to some text document and save them unto the hard disk. So, I just had the idea of making some kind of tool to bookmark the pages you like by clicking on an icon on the top of the page or wherever, and all that without moving from the page you are on, I mean just like the bookmark tool in Firefox or Internet Explorer. I hope my idea is useful, Thanks.--;Hiba;1 (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

While not a bad idea in of itself, a tool such as this (as you mention) already exists at the user agent level. If you want to store a list of pages you're interested in here on Wikibooks, you can always add links to your userpage. --Swift (talk) 19:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Excuse my question: how and where can I find that???--;Hiba;1 (talk) 16:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Special:MyPage  — Mike.lifeguard | talk 16:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I got it!. Thanks!--;Hiba;1 (talk) 11:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic indexing

It would be useful to have a method of automatically creating an index for a wikibook. Perhaps it could be done similar to the way LaTeX does it: a user could place a tag on the page where they want the index to point to, and a bot could automatically generate the index from these tags. —3mta3 (talk) 11:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bot permissions

Per Special:UserGroupRights, Bots do not have move or reupload permissions, but Autoconfirmed users do. Is this by design, or should I request this be changed via Bugzilla? The current rights listing may cause interference in some rare cases (and only for four days, which almost makes it moot if it weren't for the min 10 edits) but given that the bot group implies that it can edit semi-protected pages, it probably should have permissions adjusted to handle other tasks possible under autoconfirmed accounts. --Sigma 7 (talk) 01:51, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

If a bot's account is four days old and has made ten edits (possibly as test edits even) then it will be a member of the autoconfirmed users and those permissions will combine with those of the bot group. Effective permissions would include move and reupload permissions due to all groups a bot would be a member of. If I had my way I'd remove the "edit semi-protected pages" permission from the bot group since that will be assigned via the autoconfirmed group. So I could actually take the inverse position to your own. -- Adrignola talk contribs 03:15, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] geology of Indonesia

i have gone through the wonderful effort of "Geology of Indonesia". I cannot, however, understand the practice of refering to figure numbers when there are no referred figures and referring to authors when there is no list of references or bibliography. Is it because of insufficience of time or space or it has something to do with copyright?

A.S.Sinha (sinha_as@yahoo.com)

This page is for discussing suggestions for improving the MediaWiki software to better suit the needs of Wikibooks. I've moved your question to Wikibooks:Reading room/Assistance#geology of Indonesia. --Swift (talk) 19:36, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sequential Reading

One thing that is not sticking out to me if it exists is the ability to read the book pages sequentially, e.g. when I get to the bottom of a page, I do not see any way to go onto the next topic without first popping up one level to the parent page. Am I missing something?

If not, then that is my suggestion. I'd like to see a next / previous page button or hyperlink on the pages to allow a more book-like read.

HJS —The preceding comment was added by 67.85.166.191 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 29 September 2009.

Each book has its own conventions for how to handle navigation, partly because there has been no one way that everyone could be happy with: the more sophisticated navigational aids have been much harder to maintain, so each book chooses a trade-off between ease of use and ease of maintenance. I've been working (very slowly, as it's in my copious free time, of course) on a set of generic tools that I hope will make maintenance somewhat easier. So far, it sets things up to look like this. --Pi zero (talk) 10:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] <source lang="sql"> needs more key words

Hi, I'm writing a German Wikibook "Introduction to SQL" Einführung in SQL where I'm using <source lang="sql"> for Syntaxhighlighting, see Extension:SyntaxHighlight GeSHi. Unfortunately, a lot of SQL key words are not highlighted. I suggest to expand highlighting onto the following key word list:

  • constraint, commit, rollback; before, after, position; begin, end, then, value
  • integer, char, varchar, date, time, timestamp, decimal, numeric
  • extract, year, month, day, hour, minute, second

Thank you for improvement! -- Juetho (talk) 08:44, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] INDIAN LANGUAGES

Why all the Wikibooks are not provided in HINDI AND OTHER INDIAN LANGUAGES ? The hindi is one of world largest speaking , reading &understanding language .

Is this what you are looking for? The books are written or translated by a community of volunteers; if there are fewer books in Hindi than in English then this is probably due to the fact that there are fewer wikibooks authors writing in Hindi than in English. --Martin Kraus (talk) 15:15, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] what about fiction?

What about fiction? Fiction should be loaded onto the wikijr. page!

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