Template talk:Infobox book

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Italic title

I am informed by Gerda Arendt and Jmar67 that some books do not customarily use italic titles, for example, Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. This template presently allows suppression of italics in the article title, but not in the infobox title. I've therefore implemented a switch in Template:Infobox book/sandbox2 that sets both titles italic when |italic title=yes, neither title italic when |italic title=no, and just the infobox title italic when |italic title=infobox (it's a hack, but does the job as described). Jonesey95 has uncommitted changes in the main sandbox, Template:Infobox book/sandbox, so unfortunately that is unavailable for use. I'm happy to commit the sandbox2 changes to the main infobox, but we would need to be aware that changing the behaviour of the parameter might lead to unexpected consequences. What do others think? --RexxS (talk) 02:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

You are welcome to wipe out my changes to the sandbox. They didn't work and I am not smart enough to get them working. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:55, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• I support the variables for the parameter, as suggested. Probably "yes" should be default. Present usage of the parameter has "no" with a different outcome, but as that outcome leads to inconsistency between article title and infobox title, I don't see any case where that would be a problem. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
• Support – a good improvement, and the proposed template code changes seem straightforward and effective. ‑‑Yodin^T
• Comment: the content in "Followed by" and "Preceded by" is always in italic. An option like followed_by_italic_no should be implemented. Veverve (talk) 04:43, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

  Volume 2

  Preceded by	Volume 1
  Followed by	Volume 3

  While you're waiting for a new feature to get consensus, you can use a workaround. --RexxS (talk) 13:31, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

  @RexxS: is there a workaround to avoind the italic for the "wikisource" parameter? By the way, the "wikisource" parameter is never suggested when using the visual editor (i.e. writing "wikisou" does not display any search result). Veverve (talk) 14:09, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

  @Veverve: There's no workaround that I can see, sorry. The displayed text depends on the |name= parameter or the PAGENAME magic word, and messing with that parameter would have repercussions in other parts of the infobox. We could re-use the |italic title=no to turn off the italics, but that would require another change to the infobox code. I could knock that up in the sandbox if you wanted? --RexxS (talk) 15:28, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

  @RexxS: Well, it may help. Veverve (talk) 15:43, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

  Volume 2

  Text	Volume 2 at Wikisource

• The version in the main sandbox Template:Infobox book/sandbox now implements the fix from sandbox2, and applies the same fix to the |wikisource= field (i.e. {{para|italic title|no}} will set the display in that field to plain text. I've also implemented two new parameters |preceded_by_plain= and |followed_by_plain=, which set the style of those fields to plain text. I've used it in Sixto-Clementine Vulgate to test it. It needs some checks by previewing (change to Infobox book/sandbox and set {{para|italic title}}) in more real articles.
  Thoughts? --RexxS (talk) 18:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, I do not see any problem and would encourage merging the changes. Veverve (talk) 18:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The title of this talk page isnow in italic. Does anyone know how to fix it? Veverve (talk) 20:09, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Could potentially use {{main other}} or a related template in the infobox if you only want the title to be italics in mainspace articles, but I don't think it's causing any major problems. ‑‑Yodin^T 21:30, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The talk page title problem was resolved by Jonesey95. The instances of IB book on this page were italicizing by default. Jmar67 (talk) 08:15, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• See the separate thread concerning preceded by and followed by. If we decide against expanding their scope, the "plain" option may not be necessary or desirable. Jmar67 (talk) 08:39, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

• @RexxS: @Gerda Arendt: @Veverve: After thinking about Veverve's comment above, I've just realised a current use case that might be the reason why |italic title= only affects the page title and not the infobox. Sometimes these infoboxes are used in later sections of an article (for example, in media franchises, where a book isn't deemed notable enough for its own article) – in these cases, it's helpful not to have the article's title to be italic, while keeping the infobox title italic. One idea would be to keep |italic title=no as it currently is, and add another option to the parameter, for example |italic title=none for absolutely no italics in the infobox heading or the article title. What do you all think? ‑‑Yodin^T 21:38, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

@Yodin: Support: it sounds like a good way to solve everything. Veverve (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

As I said in the opening post, using |italic title=infobox sets italics for the infobox title only. --RexxS (talk) 12:24, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: Yes, that's right, and there are existing use cases which your proposed change would break (for example, as I said in my comment above, media franchise pages, or another example would be author pages with book infoboxes in subsections, where they want the infobox to have an italic header, but not the article title). |italic title=no should keep italic title for the infobox itself, unless you'd like to check and update every existing instance of |italic title=no! ‑‑Yodin^T 13:58, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Yodin is right: changing the behavior of italic=no might create some problems of this type. Creating a new parameter is, I think, the best way to make everyone happy. Veverve (talk) 16:04, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Yodin is wrong: "author pages with book infoboxes in subsections, where they want the infobox to have an italic header, but not the article title" – that's exactly what |italic title=infobox does. It is counter-intuitive to set |italic title=no to generate an italic title. Are you suggesting that there is actually a need for that behaviour? If so, what are the examples?

The whole point of this section was that editors were complaining that setting |italic title=no still left the infobox title in italics and they wanted it in plain for articles like Sixto-Clementine Vulgate. You need to make your minds up. If we add yet another parameter, somebody is going to have to add it to articles, which is just as much effort as using a third available value for the existing parameter. --RexxS (talk) 18:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: Have you or anyone else checked any of the existing uses of |italic title=no ? All that I'm saying is that there are many examples out there which currently use |italic title=no would need to be changed to |italic title=infobox in your proposal (again this name doesn't seem intuitive to me... perhaps |italic title=infobox only or something would be clearer). My guess is that this is a significant majority of the current uses, and that there are not as many examples like Sixto-Clementine Vulgate; in either case these would all probably have to checked manually. A different name for the new functionality (e.g. |italic title=none as suggested above) would mean that we wouldn't have to do that work. There's also a pretty decent case to make that |italic title= in {{Infobox}} is referring just to the article title itself, and you're actually conflating that and the infobox title by using the same parameter. But as for making up minds, I think there's consensus that it's a good idea, but we've just realised that there were actually some unforeseen consequences that you mentioned in your original post – and it's good to discuss this and make sure it's done right. For a way forward how about this: adding a tracking category for |italic title= so we can look at all the current examples of its use (unless there's a better way to do this for templates & parameters these days?) Also not sure where the aggro is coming from! Thanks for working on this and hope everything's alright over there! ‑‑Yodin^T 20:05, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

There are 264 uses of |italic title=no in articles using {{Infobox book}} - search on hastemplate:"Infobox book" insource:/\| *italic title *= *no/

I checked the first 20. I found 12 of them incorrectly italicised the infobox title, so my guess is that a minority of them would need to be changed to use |italic title=infobox. Fixing the bug that I was asked to fix originally would fix more articles than not.

If my sample is representative, then introducing |italic title=none as you suggest, would mean more work than the scheme I suggest, as more than half the examples are like Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.

|italic title=infobox only works exactly as |italic title=infobox does, so you could pick whatever you wanted.

I don't see the case to assume that |italic title= refers only to the article title. If so, why would Gerda Arendt and Jmar67 (at User talk:Gerda Arendt #Infobox book) be stating that "There is a parameter to force it but it doesn't seem to work"?

I don't think there's any need to go to the trouble of adding a tracking category, as the search I gave above should immediately list all of the uses of |italic title=no without asking the server to re-render 42,000 pages.

I'm quite upset at your suggestion that I'm being aggressive. I'm certainly frustrated that I offered a fix for a single issue, only to find little interest in forming a consensus for it, but instead receiving requests for six or seven further fixes and extra parameters. I suggest that you leave me out of this from here on, and work out between yourselves exactly how you want the infobox to behave. --RexxS (talk) 02:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I for one appreciate the immediate help by RexxS in resolving the original problem (infobox title forced italic). As I read the above discussion, it would seem much simpler to introduce a separate parameter |italic name=no to handle the infobox title (book name) separately from the article title. The parameter for the IB title is |name=. Jmar67 (talk) 07:02, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Yep, same here, sorry about that RexxS. (And yes, Jmar67's solution sounds good to me; could maybe draft something in the sandbox over the next few days and put in a template edit request when it seems alright – I'd be up for going through the 264 pages once it's in place). ‑‑Yodin^T 19:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

And what would you prefer to control the behaviour of the wikisource field? At present the sandbox version uses |italic title= to control that as well. --RexxS (talk) 22:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I was drafting a doc update and wondered the same thing. I have added |italic name= for testing and discussion. Jmar67 (talk) 08:21, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Upright

Alte Liebe

Elke Heidenreich and Bernd Schroeder interviewed, Das Blaue Sofa, in 2001
Language	German
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Carl Hanser Verlag

Can we please add a parameter |infobox_upright= to the template, as in {{infobox person}}? - See Alte Liebe, - I'd like the image a tad larger, but don't want to use fixed pixels. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

@Gerda Arendt: You mean |image_upright=. Jmar67 (talk) 13:14, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, mindreader ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:47, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry to disagree with you somewhat, Gerda, but the point of not using fixed pixel widths is to allow users to specify their own preferences for relative image sizes (as you know). However, the image inside an infobox, which is normally 220px wide, sits inside a container (the infobox table itself) whose width, 22em (around 250px), is independent of users' preferences. I worry that users who have set larger default thumbnail sizes in their preferences would then see larger width infoboxes as well (possibly well over 400px wide), which may not be what is wanted. Have a think about it.

If folks still do want the parameter |image_upright=, then it's trivial to replace |upright=1 with |upright={{{image_upright|1}}} in the template code to implement it. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 16:05, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I've added the parameter image_upright to the sandbox version. --RexxS (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Preceded_by, followed_by for a series of revisions or editions

The articles Sixtine Vulgate and Sixto-Clementine Vulgate use these parameters to refer to the preceding and following books in a series of differently named Latin translations of the Bible. Is this acceptable? It differs from the currently documented use to indicate (different?) books published as a series. {cc: Veverve) Jmar67 (talk) 12:04, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

No, that's not the intended use of those parameters. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:51, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I believe it does the job very well for those pages. Also, they are less a revision than two separate editions of the Vulgate used officialy one after the other by the Catholic Church. Veverve (talk) 14:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

It might be better to introduce |previous_edition= and |subsequent_edition=. Jmar67 (talk) 09:21, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Other articles use the Preceded by, followed by parameters in the info box for chronological order of works by an author (e. g., Charles Dickens works, all the writings by Agatha Christie) that are not in a series as defined for the parameter. In my view, it is a handy way to learn the next relevant publication, even if the novels were not written as part of a recognized series. That is, various editors found other logical uses for the parameters. My suggestion is to broaden the intended uses of the parameter.As I use a smart phone more often in reading Wikipedia articles, I like the many ways it is used, in particular because those handy navigation boxes at the bottom of an article are not present in the mobile Wikipedia. Plus what you are describing sounds like a series. --Prairieplant (talk) 15:52, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

The more different things you try to shove into a parameter, the less useful it becomes. If you want to address the non-display of navboxes on mobile I'd be quite happy to support that; this isn't a good solution for that particular problem. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The template documentation states "do not use to connect separate books chronologically". No reason is given, but this conflicts with the usage noted above. Does anyone know why this is prohibited? Jmar67 (talk) 04:04, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The note was added to clarify that the parameter is intended to be used for series rather than for chronological publications. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:31, 5 March 2020

There is a lot of confusion, as many editors don't read the documentation and don't realise that the |preceded_by= and |followed_by= should not be used to connect separate books chronologically. This repeatedly comes up, and having parameters with multiple inconsistent uses is not ideal. I'd suggest the following:

• Add |previous_edition= and |subsequent_edition= to cover separate editions/versions
• Add |previous_chronological= and |subsequent_chronological= to cover books published by the same author that are not in a specific series
• For clarity, change |preceded_by= and |followed_by= to |previous_in_series= and |subsequent_in_series=. (Perhaps the new parameters could be added immediately, and |preceded_by= and |followed_by= in due course deprecated and re-named by bot).

How could one would go about doing this? Is it enough to get consensus on this page? @RexxS: any thoughts? MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:29, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Michael: Consensus on this page is sufficient to make changes to this template, as long as they don't violate broader consensuses, such as policy and guidelines. Nevertheless, I'm not keen on adding extra parameters to suit a small number of exceptions. How many times would the new parameters be used? What is the reason why |preceded_by= can't be used to show previous books not in a series? If that's useful information, then it should be included. Is it just that it's considered "inconsistent uses"? It would need a bot to change the 29,632 instances of |preceded_by= to |previous_in_series=, but unfortunately that wouldn't allow checking that the book mentioned would actually be the previous one in a series. What you suggest is feasible, but there's a lot of work involved. --RexxS (talk) 15:41, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd definitely expect regular use for the second two, as there's often a conflict between next in series and next publication chronologically. They would apply (at least) to any author who has published both series and non-series books, which would include the majority of established genre authors such as crime, historical fiction, science fiction, popular fiction. It's not either/or as both would often be used. Not sure about |previous_edition=, but perhaps others could jump in with comments. I wouldn't expect any bot rename (if decided upon at a later stage) to fix existing errors, of course, such as |preceded_by= used in a way that's contrary to the template documentation, and I don't think that should be an issue. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay. So if we implemented |previous_chronological= and |subsequent_chronological=, we'd have to also implement |previous_chronological_quotation_marks= and |subsequent_chronological_quotation_marks= for consistency with the current parameters. If consensus is reached for adding |preceded_by_plain= above, then we'd also need |previous_chronological_plain= and |subsequent_chronological_plain=. We can do it of course, but I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with requests right now, especially when there's been virtually no support for even the italic title so far. --RexxS (talk) 18:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS: @MichaelMaggs: Any news? Veverve (talk) 13:28, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Not that I'm aware of. A consensus to change whould be needed, and although you and I think that change would be useful we don't have a consensus at the moment. MichaelMaggs (talk) 13:34, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Please add new field ENTRIES for dictionaries entry count

There should be a new field, ENTRIES for dictionaries entry count. For dictionaries is more informative than page count. For instance I was editing the article for a LSJ dictionary and wanted to add the entry count.--OpenNotes1 (talk) 13:21, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Photographer category

Is there a way to create a new category for this template? I want to add the photographer for a book to the infobox, but I'm not sure how. --Kaodigua (talk) 20:32, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Possible workaround: "illustrator=John Smith (photographs)". Jmar67 (talk) 21:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)