Template talk:italbrac

Template name suggestion

I like the flexibility this offers. Its name set of a programmer's red flag for me, though, since it descrives its style instead of its function. Maybe that's not a bad thing for this template, though. Would it be better or worse to call it something related to the topic markers it is supposed to format? E.g. {{topic}}, taking a variable number of topic names as arguments, which, when multiple topics are given, it displays with commas, the serial "and" (I can't recall the template name), and the serial comma (i.e., {{,}})? We could then even automatically add the corresponding categories in the output. Rod (A. Smith) 21:56, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

It's better to discuss this on the Beer parlour where I just posted but believe in KISS, so this does just one thing well. It is a formatting template only. It can certainly be used inside other templates though such as the one you suggest. In my experience I have seen this kind of formatting in various places including the translation section where you want the same formatting but not always the seem addittional stuff. I think Connel and possibly others have already discussed or even constructed templates like you suggested {{topic}} though so definitely ask him or the Beer parlour generally about the idea. Just don't make it part of this simple template. — Hippietrail 22:04, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. No need to discuss it there, as I'm convinced by your argument that this is strictly a formatting template, not a functional one, so the name is appropriate. Rod (A. Smith) 23:44, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Update: Following some confusion and explanation about where this template should and should not be used, I documented its purpose above and suggested a rename at WT:GP#Template:term and Template:italbrac. Nobody objected, so the template is now called {{qualifier}}. Rod (A. Smith) 22:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

ucfirst:

Why isn't the first keyword capitalized using ucfirst:? And, what happened to making the parenthesis go away by default? --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I've added captialization to cattag as it's appropriate there if not here. Davilla 16:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Undone. See my talk. Davilla 12:21, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• Why isn't the first keyword capitalized using ucfirst:?

  Because this template is designed to do just what it says: "italicize and bracket", nothing more. It does that and only that because it is designed only to replace current inline text that does (this) or (that). For anything beyond this function I would recommend making a new template and advertising its use. — Hippietrail 18:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• What happened to making the parenthesis go away by default?

  That was never to be the default. As above, this is a formatting/personalization template only. You can edit your CSS file to hide the parentheses but this should never be the default. If you feel we should have some standard type of text which is italicized without parentheses for some function in some context I recommend bringing up the topic in the Beer parlour or the formatting talk page. — Hippietrail 18:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I thought even you understood the parenthesis are wrong, in all cases. Oh well, I suppose it will have to got back to the BP then, as you say. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:22, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

    Not at all. My Oxoford Pocket Spanish dictionary uses this kind of formatting, as does one of my dictionaries or grammars of an American indigenous language and the Collins Word Exchange online dictionary - just to name the last 3 places I remember seeing it for sure. This template is for all contexts. If it's decided to never use (this) or (this) and always this in all contexts, we would need a new template with a new name that reflects it's function. This may or may not include redirecting from italbrac but only if it's decided for all contexts. If it's decided only for restrictive sense labels, that's only one context for example. — Hippietrail 19:42, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

non-breaking space makes horrible formatting

Look at the article computer. This template is used for longish lists of countries which use each of the three Spanish words in the Translations section. Because there is a   these lists can only wrap at normal spaces such as those in "Costa Rica" and "Puerto Rico". This is very ugly. The lists should be able to wrap at any old place.

I noticed that {{italbrac/separator}} contained the nbsp and tried to change it to a regular space. It seems that trailing spaces are trimmed by the wiki software! I thought "oh that's why it's an nbps". I tried putting an empty HTML comment after a real space to prevent it being trimmed. It is not trimmed but unexpectedly, computer is still rendered as though there are non-breaking spaces. What is going on here? I'm stumped. — Hippietrail 02:16, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Must be solved now. Don't see any problems. — Vildricianus 14:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does seem to be OK now though I can't find what has changed. Perhaps it was some weird caching thing with Firefox that I was using yesterday. Today it works as it should with both Firefox and MSIE. — Hippietrail 20:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Good fix, thanks for covering my errors. DAVilla 14:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It is usually better to use &#32; rather than &nbsp;. The other way is to use <nowiki/> (which does nothing) so the space isn't the first or last in the parameter. Robert Ullmann 11:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is this so complicated?

What's wrong with a simple template syntax like this:

<span class="ib-brac">(</span><!--
--><span class="ib-content">{{{1}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{2|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{2}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{3|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{3}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{4|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{4}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{5|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{5}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{6|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{6}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{7|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{7}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{8|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{8}}}}}<!--
-->{{#if:{{{9|}}}|<span class="ib-comma">,</span> {{{9}}}}}<!--
--></span><span class="ib-brac">)</span>

? — Vildricianus 10:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. It did used to look pretty much like your version but several people have "improved" it. Perhaps just to teach themselves the parser functions and various tricks? — Hippietrail 22:56, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

What is this template good for?

I can't see what this template might be good for, don't understand it's source code and I am not able to make sense of the above discussions. Why do we have this template and what does it do??? Ncik 21:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

When terms are italicized and inside parentheses some people such as Stephen prefer it to look like (this) while it seems that most other people here prefer it to look like (this). Rather than having an ugly mix of both styles you should always use this template and then all will appear the same. The default is what most people want but by using either Connel's extra preferences or editing your personal CSS file you can see them all Stephen's way. — Hippietrail 08:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You can even make {{italbrac|biology|genetics}} appear as biology, genetics if you prefer that style. Robert Ullmann 11:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Can you not do this with {{qualifier}}? If the answer is yes, aren't they identical? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Both allow such customization, but {{qualifier}} uses some classes that {{italbrac}} does not, with the result that you can also customize them to be different. —Ruakh_TALK 20:47, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

RFM discussion: May 2011–April 2014

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Template:italbrac

Could this redirect to {{qualifier}} as {{i}} and {{qual}} do? AFAICT it has the same function. By way of comparison, {{italbrac-colon}} already redirects to {{sense}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:16, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Have we checked that it isn't still misused? (On the other hand, does it matter if it is misused, if the display remains the same? The same cleanup will be needed.) - -sche (discuss) 14:35, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Both you (more recently) and Ruakh (in that thread) have argued that any use of italbrac is a misuse. Since nobody's objected in 11 months, I'm gonna do it. But NOT replace the redirect yet in case anyone objects. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:47, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Fine by me. :) - -sche (discuss) 16:08, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Done a long time ago. - -sche (discuss) 22:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

RFDO discussion: February–April 2016

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Template:italbrac and Template:i

These were left over from the time that this was still a separate template from {{qual}}. They were merged in 2012. I would like to delete these redirects and update pages that use them, so that there is no confusion over the purpose of the template. It's not merely used for bracketed italic text, but for qualification. The focus should be on semantics of the template rather than its presentation/output. —CodeCat 17:50, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I like the shortness of {{i}}, can we create a similarly short alias of {{qual}}? Benwing2 (talk) 18:11, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

There's already {{q}}. —CodeCat 18:21, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

(oops!) Benwing2 (talk) 18:25, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• Delete. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:15, 8 February 2016 (UTC) Delete {{italbrac}}; keep {{i}}. I've always understood the "i" as standing for "information", which is more what this template is about than "qualifier" is. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:32, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

  While I see no particular urgency to delete these, I've always disliked them so I'd delete them. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• Delete.Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 19:56, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
• Delete Template:italbrac. Template:i seems to continue to be used, and I don't see a pressing need to delete it, but I understand its "real estate" (a single letter) is probably valuable. Incidentally, I think it's bad that {{Q}} exists with a different purpose than {{q}}; almost none of our templates are case-sensitive and the fact that this one is has caused problems (including a bot erroneously replacing instances of {{Q}} while going after instances of {{q}}). - -sche (discuss) 18:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Note that Template:italbrac is still transcluded by some pages. - -sche (discuss) 18:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I've orphaned {{italbrac}} (except for three old user talk archives) and deleted it. - -sche (discuss) 20:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

• Deprecate but keep. Use AbuseFilter to deprecate it on the technical level by preventing saving pages that contain the template if possible or explain why it is not possible. Point: make page histories legible. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Template:italbrac-colon

Template:i-c

Added. Both orphaned, not used outside the main namespace even before I orphaned them. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:15, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I've deleted these two as particularly badly named, unused, and unlikely to be used. - -sche (discuss) 06:45, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

• Deprecate but keep. Use AbuseFilter to deprecate it on the technical level by preventing saving pages that contain the template if possible or explain why it is not possible. Point: make page histories legible. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:04, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

There's a limit to how many tests can be run by AbuseFilters; if there are too many filters, that limit gets reached and edits don't get checked against some filters. Using filters to regulate templates that are almost never used is a bad use of resources. I can't offhand find technical documentation, but you can find people discussing the limit and the need to reduce the number of filters in several threads here. - -sche (discuss) 17:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

Intuitively, checking for the presence of a template is an extremely cheap computing operation; it is largely plain substring matching. Therefore, I don't find it plausible that we run into some sort of a limit any time soon. In fact, one filter could handle all deprecated templates via a single regular expression. Even if we do run into a limit eventually, let's cross the river after we come to it instead speculating. Such a simple substring matching is not any obvious waste of resources. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:57, 2 April 2016 (UTC)