User talk:Darklama

I believe discussions should continue where they started. If you leave messages here, I will reply here, so please watch this page. If I leave messages on your talk page, I usually watch it, so please reply there. If I haven't responded to a discussion elsewhere in a week or so, don't be afraid to remind me.

Things to fix or look into

• PDFs ignore "noprint" class for interwiki templates. This is a big problem.
• Not certain that full consolidate of all citation templates should be done.
• Change Template:Cite web to not require "title", URL should be sufficient.
• Autofill "accessdate" for citation templates when not provided and substituted.
• Are tabular boxes not showing content when clicked sometimes?
  Do tab items with no content need to be disabled or displayed differently?

Understanding C++

One of the most fundamental decisions to make when teaching C++ programming is whether to deal with high-level or low-level details first. My personal leaning, for most beginners, is to start with high-level constructs (e.g., use std::string before talking about arrays and pointers). No doubt there are many people who like bottom-up approaches (and, when learning, I may be one of them), but my experience is that most of those who start learning C++ from a low-level viewpoint never progress to master its high-level aspects too, whereas a good fraction of those who handle the high-level pieces first can fill in the details later (and many never need to). Besides, there are many books that try to teach low-level C++, but relatively few that cover the "modern" C++ style. -- James Dennett 20:17, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Template or script problem

history of {{Editnotices}} suggest this new implementation has a problem per this post. Very annoying. But I can't blank the template while you figure it out, but do debugging tests before going away from the wiki, won't you please! // FrankB 01:39, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, no answer here, but... saw your answer in the reading room. The objection is to the messages being shown on a preview... I need all the screen space I can get, and anyone doing a spate of edits would get that over and over and over and... Best regards, FrankB 02:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I think new and potential contributors were able to find the help they needed, and there was more community involvement when Wikibooks had an edit message years ago. I've seen edit messages at Wikipedia that use more screen space. Sometimes multiple messages are shown when editing at Wikibooks. The message system at Wikibooks has been the same for years. I might propose changes in the reading room. Messages could be made collapsible, shown/hidden based on usergroup, only shown when mouse is hovering over something or such, etc. with javascript. --darklama 04:12, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

User creation

I just noticed this in the recent logs:

• (User creation log); 22:44 . . User account Benmike12 (discuss | contribs | block) was created by Benmichael120 (discuss | contribs | block) ‎

What is it? How can another user create a new user?--ЗAНИA ^talk 20:48, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

When a logged-in user creates an account through Special:CreateAccount, it is logged that way. You can test it for yourself. PiRSquared17 (discuss • contribs) 21:05, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

A person can goto the login page to create another account, which will be logged like your example. Normally anyone can create another account. One of the options when blocking an account is to prevent account creations which stops this. Does that explain what you want to know? --darklama 21:06, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

OK now it's clear. But why would a new user without any edits want to do such a thing? I can see that for established editors it might be useful for creating bot accounts etc. With regards to blocking account creations - I'd always thought that that setting was to prevent the user creating any new accounts from the IP address they had used most recently.--ЗAНИA ^talk 21:14, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

You are probably thinking of another separate option available when blocking. --darklama 21:29, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Indeed I was. I just noticed the Automatically block the last IP address... option. Thanks.--ЗAНИA ^talk 21:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Besides creating bot accounts, a teacher planning to start a class project might create separate accounts for all their students in advance. Other reasons will reveal themselves in time. --darklama 21:41, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Test template etc.

Sorry to constantly disturb you but you seem to know what you're doing. You may have noticed that I have changes the Test template again. I did this because I had noticed for a while that when I warn a user using the warn button on my sidebar (not sure which gadget this comes from) the message gets garbled. See User_talk:64.160.149.19. I understand what the problem is but I have no idea how to change the gadget. Instead I changed the template it was using by removing one of the parameters (the one which takes a page name) leaving only one optional parameter (the signature). Do you have any idea how the gadget thing can be changed (so that it uses a different template or includes the signature as the second parameter instead of the first)? I hope I have made myself understood. Thanks again.--ЗAНИA ^talk 23:15, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

You have not disturbing me. If you also see a welcome link then it is probably MediaWiki:Gadget-Welcome.js. --darklama 00:07, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's it. Looks quite easy to change that to make it work properly then I can revert the changes I made to Template:Test. I'll do it when I'm thinking straight. Thanks.--ЗAНИA ^talk 00:10, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Not so sure that's it after all. The comments say it's for the tabs at the top of the page rather than the side bar. And in my side bar there's also a button labeled untagged which doesn't seem to be in that code. I'll have another look another time.--ЗAНИA ^talk 00:14, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

The placement of the links depends on a function from MediaWiki:Common.js/ExtraTools.js, which is also where the untagged link is added. I think at one time the links were added as tabs at the top of pages. I think the vector skin came out, broke the function, and along with fixing the function the placement was change to be more consistently across skins. The comments probably just didn't get updated. I have also meant to eventually turn the untagged link into a gadget because the gadget extension was updated at one point to let gadgets be enabled by default, and I never got around to doing that. --darklama 00:54, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

OK makes sense although I do have some links as tabs at the top of pages but these are different (the 'warn' tab there produces a menu which lets me choose the warning but I don't think it has worked for some time). While looking through the list of gadgets I assumed that the one enabled in my sidebar was User welcome script which seems to point to javascript made by WhiteKnight but I'm not sure of the location of the script (maybe in his/her userspace). Anyway, at least now when I use warn it actually produces a coherent warning.--ЗAНИA ^talk 10:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

On an unrelated note, the edit window is very slow for me. Maybe an Opera issue again. It is especially slow when clicking on any of the icons above the edit window (it can take 5 second for it to paste a signature). However when using any of the icons below the edit window (like the signature that's down there too) it is instant. Is it easy for me to disable the top icon bar from all edit windows? This would make for a much better experience especially as I have no need for any of those icons (I only need the signature because many European keyboards don't have tilde keys).--ЗAНИA ^talk 10:34, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Can you check whether the 5 second delay is present at other wikimedia projects you edit at? In editing preferences under Editor there are three options with checkboxes related to the toolbar, one to enable it, one to enable enhancements, and one to enable wizards. You may have to try both the enable enhancements and enable toolbar options, because I'm not sure what each does. --darklama 12:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

You can see from Special:Gadgets which scripts are used for each gadget. --darklama 17:00, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

It seems that it was the one described as enhanced editing toolbar which was causing the problem (the one described as edit toolbar (requires javascript) wasn't enabled. Everything is much faster now (the problem was experienced on other projects as well but to a lesser degree). Never needed the toolbar anyway just as long as I have the tildes somewhere - I guess tildes were used because they are standard on keyboards in some countries. And just as I am about to click Save I notice that I've lost the useful menu from below the edit window so I am unable to sign this message!

I had to re-enable the enhanced editing toolbar so that I can have the links below the edit window but now that means I have the slow, annoying ones above the window again. I suppose I can just copy & paste the tildes from the message that says Please remember to complete your thoughts about User:Darklama below by signing them with four tildes (~~~~). every time I need it.--ЗAНИA ^talk 18:37, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I just tried it myself. Apparently "enhanced editing toolbar" refers to both the wikiEditor that the vector skin introduced, and to the menu below the edit window, and overrides "Show edit toolbar" which refers to the classic edit toolbar. --darklama 19:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I see. It's thewikiEditor that was causing the problems. Never used it anyway. The menu below the edit window is great. I'll have to try Classic edit bar to see if that has similar problems.ЗAНИA ^talk 20:00, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Inactivity de-admin proposed

You've been inactive for more than a year, and it's proposed to remove your admin bit. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 16:18, 23 December 2015 (UTC)