Template talk:Archives/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Suggested change

The current template is using a table for layout, which is generally frowned upon within web design. I have made another design (with some slight adjustments) using layers. My version of the template is available at User:AndreasBlixt/Sandbox/Template:Archives.

– Andreas Blixt ☺ 16:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Image

What about using this image File:Wiki archive cpu.png —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Walter Humala (talk • contribs) 17:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

Optional stuff doesent work

I'm getting: [{{fullurl:User talk:Darkest Hour/Archive|action=edit&preload=Template:Archives/Preload}} edit] in my archive box corner. --Semper Fi, Darkest Hour 23:18, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• I took out one option and it works just fine. See above. --Semper Fi, Darkest Hour 23:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Need help fixing use of this template at...

Talk:Child sexual abuse Please help if possible. Thank you. Joie de Vivre 20:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Only 20 archives visible?

I would like to put this template on the Talk:Circumcision page but there are 27 archives there and only 20 show up with this template. Can this be fixed? Joie de Vivre 20:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect default archive list on archive pages

When I put {{archives}} on an archived page, the default /archivelist file is as a subpage of that archive page, not the main page. For example, the archivebox on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/archive01 uses Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/archive01/archivelist not Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/archivelist. Seems like if the goal is to have a unified and semi-automated archive list for the archives of Foo, the archives should default to using the same archivelist as Foo itself. Should the archivelist parameter default to {{NAMESPACE}}:{{BASEPAGENAME}}/archivelist instead of ./archivelist (essentially {{FULLPAGENAME}}/archivelist)? DMacks 17:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

#ifexist limit

This template needs to be adapted, see w:Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)##ifexist limit.--Patrick (talk) 14:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Something is wrong with the template

If you "edit" the default contents and create an archivelist, initially, the template will not change from its default appearance. However, if you click edit again, and save, the template then changes to the list you created. Very weird and I don't know why. That was my experience on two pages.

I don't know if this is relavant, but my watchlist added watches for [the article's name]/Archive 1, as opposed to [the talk pages name]/Archive 1, which I thought might be a clue. I'm sure someone could play with a sandbox and replicate this error. TheHYPO (talk) 07:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Heading, help, edit, index

Archived discussion (Index)
Archive 1   Archive 2
About archives • Edit this box

Hi, all. I've got some ideas that I think would make this template better. (1) Make the heading inside the box read "Archived discussion", instead of just "Archives". That makes it clearer to newbies what the archives are for. (2) Unlink the heading. I would expect a link to the archived discussion, not a link to help about archives. (3) Make the link to the help read "About archives", and put it at the end, so the archives themselves come first. (4) Move the edit link to the end, also. This conserves vertical space. (4) Make the index link (when present) a parenthetical, to connect it to the heading, and also to conserve vertical space.

Something like the mock-up that appears in this comment. (Note that the non-small option, auto features, and the rest of the layout would be preserved; I just wanted the mock-up code to be compact.)

Comments? Suggestions? Objections? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 00:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, nobody spoke up, so I did it. I figure that will attract any objectors.  :) If anyone does have objections/problems, please feel free to revert (although I would appreciate an explanation here). I did have one problem, something kept eating the space between the "Archives" title and the "(Index)" parenthetical (when index is used). I eventually gave up trying to figure out why and stuck an empty SPAN block in there. That's a kludge, of course; if anyone knows what's going on, please let me know what I'm missing and/or fix things! Cheers. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 23:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Option to disable "Edit this box" link

Well, disable or rename it (the target, too). I just had MrKIA11 subst my list into my talk page, saying the archivelist parameter is going away. I did some playing, and found that if I redirected User talk:Voyagerfan5761/archivelist to User talk:Voyagerfan5761/Archives/List, I could have the same behavior as before, but without the extra parameter.

Now, of course, the link to "Edit this box" points to a redirect. Does anyone know of a way to change the template so the edit link's target pagename can be changed, or the link removed altogether? Removal isn't the ideal for me, but if that's really a lot easier than making the link target changeable, I'll go for it. Just wondering, since I didn't see a problem with having archivelist in there...

Why's archivelist getting nuked, anyway? Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 21:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think I was a little quick, so this shouldn't be a problem. Sorry, MrKIA11 (talk) 22:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The part of this regarding archivelist has been resolved on my talk page. Tuvok[^T@lk/_Improve] 22:31, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm wondering why the edit link is shown even if archivelist sub-page doesn't exist. Could it be made to only show the link if archivelist page exists? example --Kslotte (talk) 12:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

What about editbox=auto that is default? --Kslotte (talk) 09:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

The solution here is to use parameter editbox=no. --Kslotte (talk) 09:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

New Archive Box

I have designed a new archive box that incorporates everything from {{archives}}, {{archive box}}, and {{archive box collapsible}}. I propose that this be the new code for {{archive box}}, and that {{archives}} and {{archive box collapsible}} translude it. Would people please test it out and see if there are any glitches or problems. I think I have tried every possible combination, but there might have been something that I missed. Comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. There has been some discussion about it, so you might want to look there first. Thanks. MrKIA11 (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

auto-start for "auto=long"?

Firstly, massive thanks for this template. It's great.

Using auto=yes for pages which don't currently have any archives automatically adds a handy redlink to /Archive 1 - but this doesn't work for auto=long. I'd dive in, but there's some mighty template-foo in this one. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

box-width parameter

{{editprotected}}

|box-width= isn't being used, see Category:Archive boxes with unusual parameters. ({{Archive box}} uses |style= instead.) Could it please be removed? —Ms2ger (talk) 12:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, that category isn't empty, and hasn't been for a day. Seems to be still in some use? --Amalthea 17:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Template:Archives/sandbox

At my whining protest, Thumperward (talk · contribs) made some proposed changes in the above linked sandbox to remove some seemingly unnecessary padding that was needlessly bloating the archivebox. When I suggested we go ahead and implement it, he said "Seems fine to me, but I'd like to hear from others regarding whether losing those classes is okay (they shouldn't be doing anything except adding default styling, but there might be some semantic or other value I'm missing)." So... thoughts? I've also removed the line "About archives" (moving the about instead to the title) which makes an unnecessary line when the archives are set to auto or specified in the parameters of Template:Archive box. –xeno (talk) 21:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Diff. Looks good to me. --Amalthea 21:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I've made a change to the sandbox so that it now accepts all kinds of image parameters, per the section below, using the brand new {{Image}} template. The test cases are looking good. --Amalthea 16:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

we should go ahead with implementation, if the changes I mentioned above screw things up royally, I'm sure we'll hear about it=) looks ok to me. –xeno (talk) 16:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

this is  Done. shoot me, i'm impatient. –xeno (talk) 21:23, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Optional image parameter?

Has the option to use an image other than the default been removed from this template? If so, why and can it please be added back? Thank you. – ukexpat (talk) 03:37, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

It has been changed half a month ago to take in a full image link, instead of the image name. Changing the signature of a template is usually a bad idea, especially if it's that highly used, but since it's been a while already I don't know if changing it back would make things better.
I've fixed it for your talk page, and will prepare a version in the sandbox that can handle both input forms. --Amalthea 12:51, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply and the fix! – ukexpat (talk) 13:28, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

protected edit request

{{sudo}} "Edit this box" link should only be displayed if "archivelist" parameter is set; most of the time the list of archives in this template is generated automatically and thus showing an "edit" link which points to an empty page is confusing, and may lead people to create said page for no reason, ending up with redundant pages. Gurch (talk) 21:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems the option auto=no is specifically provided to avoid checking for that subpage and displaying that link. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

If that's the case, I'd think we would want that to be the default. I agree with Gurch in that that it's rare to have a "manual" archive list. If we put an "edit" redlink there by default, people are going to click it thinking they should. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 22:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

No, the link is hidden for any value of "auto". auto=no turns off automatic display of archive list, auto=long or auto=short display the list in long or short form . "long" is the default. "no" shouldn't be the default, because most of the time an automatic list of archives is all that's needed. Rather, the "edit this box" link should only display if auto=no, because that's the time when you'll need to edit the subpage to update the box. At other times adding a new archive will appear not to update the box, until the page is purged, then the new archive will appear in the list. You could even put a "purge" link in place of the "edit this box" link when auto is something other than "no", but it's not necessary. Gurch (talk) 13:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

How's that now? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:03, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

better. Gurch (talk) 22:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Now it has shown up in Template:archive box, which passes the non-auto generated list in a paramater rather than a subpage. –xeno ^talk 22:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Is there actually any difference between this template and that one other than that that one has different default values? Perhaps that one should just be a redirect. Gurch (talk) 22:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Erm, dunno. I just know I was quite cross when they got enjoined and then someone fixed it for me and I wasn't quite so cross, and now that "Edit this box" showed up, I'm starting to get cross again. Yes, anal-retentive ftw ! –xeno ^talk 22:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC) add: I believe the difference is, as I intimated above, archive box can take the customized archivelist without needing a subpage. (cf. User talk:Xeno/header) –xeno ^talk 22:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

eh, when you want something, do it urself and all...  Fixed, but someone double check my work... –xeno ^talk 23:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Archive template problem caused by page move

I know this is not the usual place to post a help request, but I've run into a problem directly related to this template (caused by a page move) so I thought I might give this a try.

If anyone watching this page could help, that would be much appreciated. If there's a better place to post this request, please let me know - here or on my talk page.

Here's the background: on an article archived by MiszaBot, there are 18 archive pages. The article was moved, along with its talk page, but the 18 archive pages did not move along with it - they still exist as subpages of the prior talk page (that is now a redirect).

My question is: is there a way to list the old archive pages in the archive box that uses {{archives}}? Or is it necessary to move all those subpages to the new page title?

If the links can't be added to the archive box made by {{archives}}, is there another template that would be better suited to this use? Would that require changes to the setup for MiszaBot?

Thanks a lot. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 02:36, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The proper thing is to move all subpages as well. Anything else would only cause problems with archiving down the line, unless you want to maintain two separate groups of archives. Amalthea 04:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, understood. Thanks for your help. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 07:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Red link

It would be great of this template included a red link (perhaps just a "+" sign) for the next-needed archive page, especially the first. It would certainly save time when archiving. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:16, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not opposed, but make it optional -- a lot of pages are archived automatically by bots, so there's no need for humans to do the grunt work. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 00:11, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Accessibility improvement for image

{{editprotected}} For WP:ACCESSIBILITY by visually impaired readers, this template should provide alt text for functional images or should specify "|link=|" for purely-decorative images, as per WP:ALT. Whether the icon here is purely-decorative depends partly on what the caller wants, so I have added into the sandbox support for new alt= and link= parameters to let the caller specify this. The default is to use the archive icon with no link, as that is the most reasonable for plain archive boxes. I have tested this with the testcases and have documented the new behavior. Please install this sandbox patch. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 23:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done Let me know if there are any problems. Plastikspork (talk) 01:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

search broken

Is the search parameter function broken in this template? I added "|search=yes" to the archives template in Talk:Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard but although it created a Search field and button in the Talk page, the search acted as a strange wikipedia "prefix" search and not a search of the Talk archives. I vaguely remember the search parameter working some months ago, so has something changed recently? I have also added search to this talk page to determine if and whether it works here. 84user (talk) 16:08, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Update: I find the search function for Template:Archive box also does not work, but I wonder if the fix mentioned in Template talk:Archive box is or was relevant? As a test, to this talk page I have now added search=yes to talkheader and Template:Archive box. 84user (talk) 16:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to work OK other than the strange offer to create the redlink at the fully expanded search input (prefix:FULLPAGENAME/ is how to search archives...) . That page with a single archive might not be in the search cache yet, you should try with an older talk page archive. –xeno^talk 16:57, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the search works for older archives. But the single page archive I linked above is over 2 days old now. Is there a way to force the archive page into the search cache? It must confuse readers that click on search for an apparently existing page and get the message that it does not exist. 84user (talk) 17:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Update 2: search is still broken for this Talk page where the associated archive page was created 7 days ago. But search worked when I added it to Talk:Agatha Christie on September 2 where Talk:Agatha Christie/Archive 1 was created August 22, some 11 days previously. Does this mean the time needed for an archive page to enter the cache is between 7 and 11 days, or is there another cause for this problem? 84user (talk) 21:23, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

It  Works for me. I searched for the word "yronwode" [1] and got the result:

" You may create the page "Yronwode prefix:Talk:Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard/", but consider checking the search results below to see whether it is already covered.

* Talk:Kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Dugard/Archive 1 cat yronwode Catherineyronwode (talk ) 01:08, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

(slightly truncated for readability). –xeno^talk 21:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

And I can confirm it now  Works for me too. Strange. I had been adding search=yes to several Talk pages of various ages to discover what the delay might be. See my contributions on September 8 from [2] to [3]. 84user (talk) 13:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Slight change to bot notice

Firstly, major kudos for adding a bot notice to the template.

The text is a little small, and also wasn't fully compatible with {{auto archiving notice}} (it omitted the word / parameter "days"). I've changed this in the sandbox: comments? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:05, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} No comment in six days, so requesting sync. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Not done:. I think this would break existing uses, i.e. we will get sentences like "Threads older than 30 days days are archived." — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The functionality is fairly new and as of yet not widely deployed: better to change it now and then fix the few existing uses than to leave it vaguely incompatible with the old system and make it harder to adopt IMO. If you want to add a hidden category like category:bot notices on archives then I'll fix any existing deployments myself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

requesting sync with the sandbox to fix this: pages using the age parameter will be temporarily added to Category:archives with bot date notice. I'll fix any which have age=30 days as opposed to age=30 myself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

We could add some detection for whether the input is just a number of it it contains some text as well? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Less than a hundred transclusions picked up so far, and I doubt that half of them have the problem. I'm happy to fix it manually over the next day or so. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Synced.  Skomorokh, barbarian  20:02, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} All done. Please sync with the sandbox again to remove the temporary cat (and delete it too, please). Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

• I preferred it <small>, so I added backwards compat. Feel free to tweak it if desired, but update User talk:Xeno/header if you do. Thanks! –xeno^talk 15:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Index link placement

I think it would look better if the (Index) link is on it's own line, rather than next to Archives. I changed the sandbox to reflect this. Any problems with changing it? MrKIA11 (talk) 19:17, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather this template were kept compact if possible. It's very heavily deployed now, and a lot of editors get antsy about minor layout changes to it. Could you add an example to the test cases page? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 22:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I added a testcase. MrKIA11 (talk) 23:51, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Full size option

Hey all. I would like to add a feature to this template. An option to have the archive box to appear full sized -- the same size as the other "banner boxes" on talk pages. Suggested paramaeter name box-style=<compact|full>, defaulting to compact. (Reason I'm looking to do this is entirely asthetic. Talk:Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy doesn't want {{talkheader}} (it's got banners covering everything it wants), but the side-style archive box squishes stuff.) Before I put template code work into it, does anyone have comments/objections/suggestions/etc? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 13:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Could we just simplify it to |class=tmbox, similar to style=float:none; but replacing the existing classes instead of adding? — Dispenser 05:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I generally prefer to expose "application semantics" in templates like this, and leave CSS classes, HTML attributes, and the like hidden as an "implementation detail". I think it makes it easier to use. Many people have no idea what the CSS classes are. Plus, this way, if the CSS classes change, we don't need to change every template call. Standard "abstraction" programming concept. No? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 01:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect, that page is something of an edge case. I dare say it would look cluttered no matter how it were laid out. That said, if a parameter is going to be added then the name should be small, which is the prevailing name for templates with this switch. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:05, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

You make a very good point. Forest, trees. Never mind. Thanks.  :) —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 14:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Prefix need, root doesn't cut it

{{editprotected}}

Moved from Template talk:Archive box

At WT:FAC we need to use {{{root}}} without the trailing slash that it add to the search field. We need this because we have other talk subpages that aren't archives. I suggest that we add a new parameter named prefix. — Dispenser 05:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Could you sandbox the code and then seek consensus for the change? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:20, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I've added {{{prefix}}} to the sandbox. This is needed for sub-talk pages which are not related to parent page. Most of the featured article/list process pages operate in this way. If this cannot be added a fork will be needed to accommodate these pages. — Dispenser 05:54, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks fine, I will add it. By the way, do you know of any current uses where {{FULLPAGENAME}} is different from {{BASEPAGENAME}}, and {{FULLPAGENAME}} is actually what is wanted? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 17:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and could you update the documentation? Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 17:28, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the documentation. Try the magic words on Talk:/dev/null, {{FULLPAGENAME}} produces Talk:/dev/null while {{BASEPAGENAME}} produces /dev. — Dispenser 15:31, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, but I was wondering if there are cases when people do just want to search the subpages. I suppose if that is the case, they can just use the prefix option. Your example, would be one such case. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

There's an interesting bug that's come up on Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests that the {{FULLPAGENAME}} is passed escaped. — Dispenser 21:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. I will take a look. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:21, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Could this be fixed by moving the nowiki logic into this template? I have run into similar such problems before with the prefix option, but I can't remember the exact context. I believe it had to do with special characters in the pagename. Good catch with using the {{#tag}} parserfunction. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 16:27, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes it appears it can. The problem seems to be that {{FULLPAGENAME}} internally escapes some characters, {{#tag:nowiki|{{FULLPAGENAME}}}} undoes that. I have changed to using just the string on that page. However, I think we should file a bug about this. Anyone got a Bugzilla account? — Dispenser 21:07, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Padding?

{{editprotected}}

How about we add some padding to this template, say 5 px? I have a sandboxed version. This can be achieved by simply replacing

{|

with

{| cellpadding="5"

Then, we won't have these boxes with text in them that touch the edges anymore, which doesn't look very good. Centered text will look the same. Gary King (talk) 00:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Eh? Where do we have boxes with text which touches the edge? Maybe I don't understand what you mean... could you please explain? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 05:26, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

This will break existing uses; it would be better to allow for customization of this if desired. –xeno^talk 12:41, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Padding was manually removed from the template in the past because editors who have existing deployments of the code (Xeno was one of them IIRC) didn't want this being specified for them. Do you have particular common test cases where this is currently a problem? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

In the following example, the text is touching the edge:

Gary King (talk) 16:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

When you say "touching", do you really mean "touching", or just "there are only a few pixels of padding"? In Firefox 3 here there is certainly still distance between the text and the border. And just to pick the example I brought up earlier, this is the desired effect in some cases. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

How about adding padding as an option? Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me, as long as existing uses stay the same or can be made to stay the same. –xeno^talk 19:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes there's about one pixel of space between the left border and the text. Compare with the following table, which has more than one pixel:

header
cell

This is because of the border-collapse: collapse; style that's only applied to templates like ambox, ombox, tmbox. Gary King (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

How about this, which assuming the sandbox version is still the same as when I last edited it, would result as show, when used like this: {{archives/sandbox|auto=no|test|padding=5px}}. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

The layout looks better to have like 5px padding. The 5px should be default. --Kslotte (talk) 10:18, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Content

It is possible to put content into the archive box like in this case with topic archives. How can I make the content centered? --Kslotte (talk) 10:32, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Wrap the content in <center></center>. Gary King (talk · scripts) 17:02, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. --Kslotte (talk) 17:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Auto yes vs. long

Compare this and this. Archive numbering has gone wrong and archive number 10 was moved to number 2. The "long" algorithm shows the redirect but "yes" doesn't. I think the algorithm should be the same for both "long" and "yes". And, I would preffer that number 10 isn't shown. --Kslotte (talk) 11:13, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Deprecate template Archive Box

It exist two templates for making archive boxes {{archives}} and {{archive box}}. {{archive box}} is legacy wrapper of {{archives}} with the same features. The only difference is two parameters (editbox and auto) that has different default values. We don't need two similair templates. We should merge the templates into one. Opinions?

Ths following discussion may be of intrest at Template talk:Archive box:

• Meaning of deprecated
• Migration and merging with template archives?

--Kslotte (talk) 10:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Will eliminate one or the other default functionality for no added benefit. –xeno^talk 19:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Auto-detect index subpage

It should. –xeno^talk 19:26, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Tracking for auto=long where archives are dropped

I'm inclined to propose this edit to Template:Archive list long, so there is an indication when there are more archives than the box supports. Since Template talk:Archive list long nonexistent and probably not watched, I'm bringing it here for discussion. Comments? Anomie⚔ 17:34, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Help!

I'm not sure if this is a bug or what but I can't seem to get this thing to work like I want it to. I want to be able to use /archivelist but also still have it display the "Edit this box" link so that I may be able to easily edit my archivelist subpage when I want to update it. Is this possible? The code I'm using is in User talk:OlEnglish/top, at the very bottom. (Adding the |auto=no parameter seems to make the archivelist disappear, and make the edit link reappear, kinda contrary to what the docs say at Template:Archives/doc#Additional_notes, so this is further confusing me.)

Also one other minor thing I want to report: when the |collapsible=yes parameter is used, it throws off-center the filing cabinet image. -- œ^™ 15:26, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Does this help?[4] It should appear correctly in your user talk, but not the /top subpage. --CaC 174.52.224.148 (talk) 01:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! Very clever! -- œ^™ 06:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Only most recent archive is showing

At Talk:Toplessness there are four archive pages, but only archive 4 is showing up in the list of archives. You can find the earlier archives from the navigation, but they should be listed on the main talk page. I can't see from the code why this is happening. Thryduulf (talk) 10:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

 Done Since the links are in groups of 3, the template looks to see if the first of each line exists, and since the archives were started at 3 instead of 1, it didn't show the first line of 3 archives, but when it checked for the first of the next line, which was 4, it existed, and therefore showed up. I moved the archives to be 1 and 2, so everything is good now. MrKIA11 (talk) 12:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Links in the box

I use this template on my talk page with a link to the archive index page. Rather than having the word "Archives" (which links to Help:Archiving a talk page) I want the link to my archives index in the prominent central position, and the link to Help:Archiving a talk page in a 10 point font off to the side somewhere. It would be the case for most talk pages that the index is more important than the link to the archiving help page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree 103 per cent, except for messing with the font size. I consider it to be a terrible Easter egg link, even worse than for ordinary articles because it’s part of the user interface for navigation. (Template:Old AfD has a similar link that trips me up, but I’ll leave that for another day.) The link was placed there in revision 280636171 in 2009. I propose changing the header from

Archives or Archives (Index)

to

Archives (About) or Archives (Index, About)

Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC).

See also #Heading, help, edit, index above, from 2008. The Easter egg link keeps bugging me every now and again, so I made my change to the sandbox (transcluded on the right). Any suggestions or complaints? [Sandbox since reverted; diff of my changes. 03:23, 14 April 2012 (UTC).] Vadmium (talk, contribs) 05:40, 11 February 2012 (UTC).

Excellent proposal. And, to keep the layout compact, could the title parameter (which defaults to "Archives") be made the index link itself? As in these examples using Template:Archives/sandbox2:

with title and index "|title=Archives_withIndex | index=...":

with index but no title parameter "| index=...":

with title only, no index "|title=Archives_noIndex ":

-84user (talk) 12:27, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Since when is linking "Archives" to the help page about archives an "easter egg link"? Anomie⚔ 15:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Often when I want to look at past discussions on a talk page I look for this “Archives” box near the top of the talk page, to see what past discussions are (easily) available. Currently the primary link in those boxes is Archives, which looks useful on the surface, but it does not lead anywhere that I expect. That is what I meant by “easter egg link”. Perhaps it is intuitive for someone who does not already know about talk page archives; I don’t know. I was hoping my proposal was a good compromise.

 Personally, I would equally be happy with the proposal of 84user, since if there is an index available that’s usually the first thing I want to look at. I guess it’s a compromise between making it compact and making the links useful to all people. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:28, 19 February 2012 (UTC).

Edit request: Link title to index

Please apply the changes from Template:Archives/sandbox2 (diff). This includes my “About” link, and 84user’s link to the index under the “Archives” title.

Vadmium (talk, contribs) 08:43, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done, although the About looks a bit ugly. Perhaps a more discrete question mark would be nicer, e.g. Archives (?) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:07, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there is a problem with that so I requested attention again. I haven't had time to work out exactly what is going on, but have described the issue at User:Johnuniq/Sandbox. Johnuniq (talk) 23:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

If it is causing too much trouble, just undo the change for now. I did some digging; I think the problem in {{Archive box}} is caused whenever the index parameter is given, in combination with the default title parameter passed to {{Archives}}:

| title = {{{title|[[Help:Archiving a talk page|Archives]]}}}

A solution might be to clear the default title parameter in {{Archive box}}. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 01:32, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

 Reverted for now. Please test thoroughly in the sandbox and try again. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:50, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I figured out the problem was that {{Archive box}} manually inherits the default parameter value; see Template talk:Archive box#Edit request: Update default title. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 05:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

FYI, I had to make this edit to break a template loop. It appears the template is no longer robust when |title= and |archivelist= exist but are blank. so, if more of these pop up, just remove the parameters completely (or fix this template). Frietjes (talk) 16:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

“About” link ugliness

I’m happy for “About” to be changed to a question mark, or “Help” or even use a small font size; whatever other people think is appropriate. I’m even happy for this link to be removed by default; my main goal was to separate it from the “Archives” heading. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 05:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

Okay, perhaps just delinking is the easiest/best solution then. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I don’t have a preference either way. I thought keeping the help link would be less controversial. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 11:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC).

I've got a new version on the sandbox. I've gone with a question mark for now, we can see what others think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:58, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The image parameter no longer seems to have any effect; I presume you didn’t mean to do this. See Template:Archives/testcases. Can’t see anything else wrong though. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 01:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Fixed the image issue. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 02:21, 1 June 2012 (UTC).

Thanks ... and deployed. Hope there are no problems. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Long-needed fix for broken line-initial wikimarkup

See Template:Archives/testcases; the top test demonstrates the fix, which is to prevent the value of {{{1}}} being mangled when it uses wikimarkup that is dependent on line-initial position, such as list markup with "*" and indentation with ":". The sloppy workaround for this has always been to use <br /> or <nowiki /> before the archive list:

 {<nowiki />{Archives|<br /><br />
 * [<nowiki />[/Archive 1|Archive 1]]<br />
 * [<nowiki />[/Archive 2|Archive 2]]<br />
 }}

This kluge is now no longer necessary. The trick was a 1-character change: Insert a linebreak in the code just before {{{1}}}.

The updated code to use is ins Template:Archives/sandbox.

PS: Cases where the br-or-nowiki kluge has already been used will not be negatively affected. The sandbox has drop-in replacement code that won't affect anything negatively from what I can tell (all the old test cases, for example, on the /testcases page).

— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 17:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Done Anomie⚔ 19:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

search=yes as default

In connection with discussion at Template talk:Talk header#RE: New feature for Template:Talkheader, I've boldly tried to implement that functionality here too, in the sandbox. The code structure differs from theat at {{Talk header}}, and I'm not a template expert. Therefore, I have two questions:

1. Can someone please amend the sandbox code so it works like the proposal for {{Talk header}}? (Currently, the search box is displayed even where there are no archives.)
2. Do we need to achieve consensus support here too, or just boldly go ahead and see what happens? (There was an RFC over there, and it's also been posted at WP:VPT.)

Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 10:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Sandbox behaviour If I understand you, then you’ve changed the sandbox version so that search is always yes by default, but that means that if there are no archives then there is nothing to search. I suggest that this Archives template is not really useful in that case, so we shouldn’t worry about it.

Consensus For what it’s worth I think I support your change. There doesn’t seem to be much traffic on this page though; there was another change I still want to implement up under #Links in the box. Maybe we should just ask an admin to make the changes? Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC).

Two months later Hi Trevj, I reinstated your idea in the sandbox, and fixed it so an explicit search=yes works (which was highlighted in the Template:Archives/testcases). [Was: so search=no works. Also added a test case for that.] I’ll let someone else push it to the live version though. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 07:33, 28 June 2012 (UTC).

If the sandbox code now correctly caters for both cases, then an {{Edit protected}} template can be placed (in both discussion sections?) to highlight the issue to a bold admin who's conversant with tempates. -- Trevj (talk) 13:39, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Numbers listed oddly

User talk:Drmies (edit | user page | history | links | watch | logs)

When I look at the box, I see this (centered):

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
20
21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29,
30
31

Why?--Bbb23 (talk) 16:17, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

The template seems to force a line break instead of a comma after each decade, and presumably your browser is wrapping the line before it gets to the end of the decade as well. I don’t see any reason to force a line break; why not just have one big list and let the browser do the wrapping? Vadmium (talk, contribs) 02:23, 27 May 2012 (UTC).

I agree.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:28, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

FYI It looks like {{Archive list}} is the culprit for breaking the list into decades; it even says so in the documentation. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 14:06, 28 May 2012 (UTC).

You'll have to help me out here as I'm not a template coder. Does Archives invoke Archive list? I'm assuming you're talking about the number of links per line (links=) in Archive list? If the default is 10, why is it not displaying 10 per line on some lines (because of the browser point?)? And, regardless, couldn't the parameter nobr= be used to eliminate line breaks?--Bbb23 (talk) 14:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, {{Archives}} invokes {{Archive list}}. My guess is your browser is using an unexpectedly wide font, or it’s something else to do with your browser’s idea of font, pixel, etc sizes. I couldn’t make your extra wrapping happen with my Firefox though (I did try changing the zoom and using different Media Wiki skins).

 Anyhow I wonder if anyone thinks the forced line breaks are useful. If not, get rid of them in {{Archive list}}. If they have to stay, we can still disable them in this template by adding “nobr=yes” to the list invocation. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 07:33, 29 May 2012 (UTC).

Question mark

The title of the archive box, below the filing cabinet image, is "Archives (?)". This could be a mental lapse on my part, but I don't recall seeing the "(?)" in the title before, nor can I think of what utility it serves. Is this some kind of bug? Or is there a purpose to the parenthetical question mark in the archive box title? — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:39, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

It was added on purpose a few days ago. See #Links in the box above. My goal was to stop linking the heading “Archives” to a help page, others suggested extra changes, and we ended up with the question mark linking to the help page. It sounds like you may not have even noticed it is a link; perhaps it should be made more obvious, or even deleted? Vadmium (talk, contribs) 00:56, 4 June 2012 (UTC).

Thanks for explaining. You're right, I didn't notice that it was a link. My initial reaction is that it's confusing -- or at least it confused me. It makes it look like we're not sure if the archive box has links to the archives or not, if you know what I mean. I'll ponder this and try to think of a more constructive suggestion. But I for one would not mind if the archive box was put back the way it was. It seems to me that most editors who are experienced enough to want to adjust the archiving of talk pages would also be experienced enough to edit the article, see that the {{Archives}} template was being used, and then look at the template page for more information. Perhaps a prominent link from the template page (i.e. the template documentation) to Help:Archiving a talk page would be sufficient. But at any rate I appreciate that people are trying to think of ways of making this whole thing more editor-friendly. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:48, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm... Maybe if the title in the archive box looked something like this?

Archives  ^[Help]

Just a thought. I'm still not convinced a link from the title to the help page is really necessary. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:38, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Here's what that would look like. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:58, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Let’s just remove the link then. It is a simple solution and already suggested in #“About” link ugliness. The link is typically at the top of each archive page due to {{Talk archive navigation}} anyway. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC).

I have removed the link altogether. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:13, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. And, good point about {{Talk archive navigation}} having a link to Help:Archiving a talk page anyway. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 10:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Specific archives

Is it possible to make this template allow archives for specific, titled topics, like 2011 reform proposals or something? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

You can just use the list parameter I think? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:53, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

That might work, but won't it break the automatic archiving? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry yes, you can use an unnamed parameter for this. Hmm, it seems the documentation is not really up-to-date! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:02, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

• Most of the documentations aren't. Alright, as long as the automatic archiving isn't broken. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
• You aren’t the only ones being tricked by list and forgetting about the unnamed parameter. I had a go at improving the documentation. In the process, I noticed that the “Edit” link for the archive list subpage only appears with auto=no. This is broken, because the archive list subpage only works when auto is not specified. I wonder if these features are actually needed any more. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 04:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC).

Yearly archive

I propose advertising my new Template:Yearly archive list as a possible value to pass to the list parameter of Template:Archives. On low traffic page, I find that annual archives are more intuitive than standard incremental or monthly archiving. You can see how I've managed to do this on Talk:Ionizing radiation and on my own talk page.--Yannick (talk) 02:25, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Support - I think this is a great idea. Template:Yearly archive list should at least be included in the documentation. - tucoxn\^talk 01:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Bug: content does not render when using <span> with style parameter

 New:: this template is bugged when you use <span style="does_not_matter_what_goes_here">text</span> inside the content.

Example:

{{archives
|
<span style="does_not_matter_what_goes_here">text</span>
}}

will render an archive box without the text specified:

No idea how to fix this.

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Not a bug, this is normal behaviour for any Wikipedia template which uses positional parameters. When any positional parameter contains an equals sign, you must prefix all of them with the parameter number and an equals, thus:

{{archives
|1=
<span style="does_not_matter_what_goes_here">text</span>
}}

--Redrose64 (talk) 21:18, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Not Recognizing All Archives

For some reason this template is not recognizing my newly created Archive 3. Any ideas? -- Thane ^{formerly Guðsþegn} (talk) 19:41, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's in the wrong namespace. It should be at User talk:Thane/Archive 3. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

That was it. Thank you. Thane ^{formerly Guðsþegn} (talk) 22:48, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Give the archive box an element ID

I suggest giving an element ID to the main table, like archivebox, archivelist, etc. The ID helps scripts to parse the archive box, and provides users definitely uninterested in archives with a way to relieve (using ad blockers). Example diff here. Zhaofeng Li [talk... contribs...] 08:58, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Ad blockers are a bit OTT, you can use personal CSS within Wikipedia. If we added an id like id="archivebox" to the <table> in this template, you could then add a line like

table#archivebox { display: none; }

to Special:MyPage/common.css --Redrose64 (talk) 10:11, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Done —cyberpower ^Chat_Online 18:19, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Search function not working on my talk page

I've created an archivebox on my talk page by simply adding the parameter {{Archives|auto=yes|search=yes}}. However whenever I enter anything in the search box of my talk page no result ever appears even though that specific word which I typed in the search box exists in my archive. I can't understand why it is happening nor how to solve this problem. Please help. KahnJohn27 (talk) 07:38, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Template:Archive list long is being considered for merging

Template:Archive list long, which is currently employed by this template, is being considered for merging here. Tony Tan⁹⁸ · talk 18:02, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 May 2015

Please migrate my changes from the sandbox to mainspace. On line 37, the new code will be

|long = {{Archive list|{{#if:{{{root|}}}|root}}={{{root}}} |auto = long }}

which will complete the merging of {{Archive list long}} into {{Archive list}} as called for in this TfD. Associated changes to Module:Archive list have already been deployed. All testcases look identical. Mamyles (talk) 14:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Done Alakzi (talk) 15:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Redlinks

Since whatever recent modifications, the links to newly-created archive pages more often than not appear as redlinks, even though the archive page can still be accessed just fine. In one case, I changed {{Archives}} to {{archives}} on the page, and the previous redlink started appearing as blue. That wasn't the case with another page, though in that case, the link appeared as blue in preview mode, but appeared as red when I saved the page. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 18:02, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

@RadioKAOS: It's not a fault in this template. There has always been an issue with redlinks not turning blue immediately upon creation of the linked-to page (and also with bluelinks not turning red immediately after a deletion). Usually, all you need do is WP:PURGE the page that has the wrongly-coloured link. An edit (even a WP:NULLEDIT) will also work, but unless you actually need to change the page, a purge is preferable. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:07, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Stops at "Archive 48"

In Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style, the last link is to #48, but there are 125 archives. I can't visit the latests archives from the template because they are not linked at all. Talk:Homeopathy already has 48 archives and will hit this problem soon.

Is this a technical limitation of loops in wikipedia templates? Is there a go-around that doesn't involve a hand-made list of archives?

(By the way, the template uses "&preload=Template:Archives/Preload" in a link, but Template:Archives/Preload is a red link. Looks like old code that could be removed safely.) --Enric Naval (talk) 12:53, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Note that {{Talkheader}} displayed all 125 links. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm here to note that too. I see the limit was expanded from 20 above. Just get rid of the limit altogether. We can collapse it if we want to. There is never any valid reason to hide the most recent archives.

If the template must for some programming reason include a limit at all, set it absurdly high, like one or two thousand. That should get WP talk:MOS through 2013 or so. — LlywelynII 02:50, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok, found the problem. {{archive list long}} is employed by this template to do its searching and that template stops at 48. The name is a gross misnomer, since {{archive list}} tout suite stops at 200. — LlywelynII 03:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

To reduce overhead, can we add a parameter indicating the last archive number? For example:

{{archives|searchfrom=48}}

It display 48 links, then start searching and linking archive 49, 50, etc. Archival bots could be instructed to update that number. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Until anyone fixes this (I've previously brought it up at WP:VPT) the workaround noted at Template talk:Archive list long will do the job. --Trevj (talk) 18:53, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Does Lua offer a solution for this? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Fixed awhile ago by redirecting "archive list long" to "archive list" and using Module:Archive list to check for archives. The module checks every 1000, 200, 50, 20 and 1 archives and by not checking every archive the limit now is 500,000 archives.--Snaevar (talk) 15:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Edit request

Edit request to add a parameter |endnote= to the archive box, to allow users to add a custom line of text to the end of the archive box, beneath any other content (bot note, search button, etc). Modifications exist in the sandbox and test-cases. Alex|The|Whovian^? 00:47, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template.

My immediate thoughts are that this could (not assuming good faith = would) be misused and/or cause incontinuity. fredgandt 02:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Care to explain how? Alex|The|Whovian^? 02:02, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Other than being a new and exiting source of fun for passing vandals (good faith just tuned in its grave), the template is already fairly customisable. Adding another way to change the configuration (without restriction?) could render the variety of instances - for want of a better word - messy. Whilst mess isn't exactly the end of the world, it can be offputting, especially on talk pages which already have WikiProject banners, and talk page notices and archive boxes etc. all over the top (and the pages most likely to need archiving will be the busy ones which are often projectified). In these cases, yet another source of special notice that affects the use (by instruction or advice?) of the page, could be seen as practically disruptive.

I feel (and other than asking for consensus, all this is just my opinion) that if anything particularly special needs to be said about any instance of an archive, it should probably be said in a way that requires a separate template or agreed other version of this. Templating is after all, an exercise in simplified continuity. fredgandt 02:18, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion. I'll just do it how I've done it on my user talk page - basically exactly the same, just (thinking) outside the box. Alex|The|Whovian^? 02:25, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

As a fellow Wikipedia user I encourage you to seek consensus. The Wisdom of Crowds makes my opinion a drop in the ocean, no more or less valuable than all the others. And yes, I really am this reasonable. wp:IDLI covers something I hold dear, my principle that "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" is one of the stupidest things anybody has ever said. Think outside the box! Even if this exact request is not done, it could lead to the creation of something of a compromise. fredgandt 02:38, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Unnamed parameter

Can somebody provide some more detailed documentation and/or examples on how the first unnamed parameter works? Attempting to use it as for example on Talk:Caesium, where the current archive of the page is at Talk:Caesium/archive1, does not seem to work. Passing |archive1 to the template simply adds "archive1" as text beneath the automatically-generated Archive_1 (red)link. --superioridad ^(discusión) 11:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@Superiority: It's a free-form parameter, whatever you put in here is displayed "as-is" with no further processing. You can use it to create custom lists. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:10, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Edit request: table padding

Text and other content is butted right up against the borders. This is unattractive and readability suffers.

Removing border-collapse:collapse; and adding padding: 1em; would be an improvement. —Michael Z. 2013-06-21 15:28 z

Being able to add padding would make this template look better. Could someone do this? It would be such a service. A L T E R C A R I 09:11, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Add padding: 1em;. —A L T E R C A R I  ✍ 13:48, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Done Izno (talk) 18:05, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Using {{archives}} within an archive page

Apologies if this is a silly question. I've just archived my talk page for the third time, and while the links to my archived pages appear on my talk page, within the archives themselves the navbox reads, "no archives yet (create)", making navigation awkward. What am I missing? nagualdesign 09:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

@Nagualdesign: Add |root=User talk:Nagualdesign or |root=User talk:{{BASEPAGENAME}} to the uses of the template in your archives. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 09:49, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Bingo! Thanks, Jc. nagualdesign 09:56, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 September 2017

Please add .6em padding between the image and the top border, and some space between the search box and the button (with break=yes), as shown in this sandbox edit. It would make the box look less cramped, see the testcases. Thank you. Atón (talk) 21:47, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

 Done. PS: If those were your attempts to fix the "first entry in a list doesn't show up right" issue, the fix is to use <nowiki /> on the line before the list starts (i.e. {{Archives|1=<nowiki />, then a newline, then the enclosed list). This affects all templates that wrap lists that are given in WP's native * or # format.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:53, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 December 2018

Please replace the contents of this template with revision 872077031 of the template sandbox. This change keeps the image aligned in the center when the collapsible or collapsed parameter is set to yes. An illustration of the change is available in the fourth test case ({{Archives|collapsed=yes}}) at Template:Archives/testcases. Thank you. — Newslinger talk 05:09, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

 Done Cabayi (talk) 09:03, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Sandbox proposal: Check for unk parameters

{{Archives/sandbox}} is currently used to prepare a merge (discussion). Trialpears is leading the development in here, I understand.

I made two minor code changes [5], revert without discussion is OK.

I also proposed-by-edit [6] to add Module:Check for unknown parameters. It has 29 parameters now. (And I reverted this one, so as not to interfere with other editing. IOW, up to Trialpears to accept implementation).

When accepted, todo (see also test/comments in code): create Category:Pages using Archives with unknown parameters, under Category:Unknown parameters etc. -DePiep (talk) 17:11, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

DePiep, adding check for unknown parameters seems sensible. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 01:14, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Annual archiving compatibility

Is it possible to make this compatible with annual archiving? The current guidelines indicate The auto-generated archive list requires subpages to use the common naming convention. That is, "{{PAGENAME}}/Archive 1", "{{PAGENAME}}/Archive 2", and so on. If the archive starts at e.g. "/Archive_2016" then follows numerically upwards from that, would it be possible to spot those, even if pages /Archive_1...2015 are omitted? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 02:16, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Possibly via inclusion of something like {{Yearly archive list|prefix = Archive }}? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 06:43, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Broken usage

If you look at my talk page I used Archive Box in a configuration Archives doesn't seem to support. My archive page is /Archive and not Archive_1. (In anticipation of not needing to have a multi-page archive; also I was rather fresh when I decided on my scheme)

Somehow the linked "1" (or "Archive 1") was added, which wasn't there before (at least I can't remember it being there before, but now I have no way of checking. But I know I wouldn't have been satisfied with my setup if that extraneous and wrong link was there. User:Trialpears tweaked the parameters, but as you can read above, and from comparing the before and after, I don't see the point. IIRC you clicked the header itself, and yes, that still leads to the correct (and only) archive.

Please fix, as Samsung would say :)

More in general, those responsible for the Archive Box > Archives move/merge/whatev need to know their migration is not flawless.

Have a nice day CapnZapp (talk) 09:43, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

CapnZapp, fixed. Will have another look through so nothing else looks amiss at other places. Thanks for reporting the bug! ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 10:19, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Documentation issues / Archive Box merge

I consider myself baseline programming savvy but I cannot understand the current documentation.

The explanation for the "1st unnamed parameter" says Can be used in addition to automatic archiving if additional pages with other names are available. Can be used? How? Why? This explains nothing to me. It seems it has something to do with cases where archive pages have non-standard names, but it doesn't say that, and it doesn't say when you should use it and when you should not, and it doesn't say how or what values it takes.

Also, am I supposed to understand auto=no is what turns the the template's behaviour into that of the legacy {{Archive Box}} whoich just was turned into a redirect here? More context, please.

(And I don't request explanations here to me on talk, I want the documentation to be improved) CapnZapp (talk) 09:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

CapnZapp, I've done some updates to the documentation, feel free to take a look. auto=no is usually not necessary; only when the archive list is given in the title like on your talk page or some other uncommon ways. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 11:01, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Same as list parameter, but can be used together with an automatic list Am I supposed to understand the unnamed but not the named list parameter can be used together with the automatic list, or why the "but" in this sentence? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 11:43, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

The title is automatically linked to the archive index page if one is specified, otherwise a wiki link may be specified here. Isn't the logic here a bit hard to follow? The first part seems to say that the title becomes a link if "the archive index page" (is that the index parameter?) is specified; does that mean a supplied title is otherwise unlinked? (Unless you specifically include a wikilinked title, I guess). (Judging from my own talk setup, I am assuming the answer here is "yes" :) CapnZapp (talk) 11:50, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Guess my point is - maybe this was more clearly explained in the old Archive Box documentation. Even more specifically - I don't think I would have ended up with my configuration if this documentation was all I had to go on. CapnZapp (talk) 11:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Formatting error

I'm noticing a small formatting error in the way this template displays at Wikipedia:Editor_assistance/Requests. Archive 110 has its own line for some reason. Is that issue appearing elsewhere, too; could it be fixed? Sdkb (talk) 20:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

This seems to be an issue with how Template:Archive list interacts with this template. It is probably related to the merge of templates in 2019. Trialpears may be able to advise — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:21, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 16 July 2020

Makes the alignment less messed up when collapsed. See last testcase.

• Diff: Special:Diff/966723923/968002301
• Testcases: Template:Archives/testcases

ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:29, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done DannyS712 (talk) 16:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

"Template:Archive box non-auto" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Template:Archive box non-auto. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 16#Template:Archive box non-auto until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. --Trialpears (talk) 18:10, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 16 July 2020

Adds support for large box with |large=yes, to aid in merge of Template:Archive box collapsible.

• Diff: Special:Diff/968003224/968016441
• Testcases: Template:Archives/testcases (see last one)

ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:17, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Trialpears (talk) 09:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Formating when collapsed

Currently the show/hide button appears on a separate row before the picture or the title ("Archives"). Could this be combined into one line like is done with {{Archive box collapsible}}? I've tried to implement this with no success. This seems to be stemming from the conversion of the template to html table markup a few years ago. MSGJ do you think you could help me out since you made the conversion? --Trialpears (talk) 11:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Can you give me an example? I have no memory of working on this template! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

MSGJ It was a while (8 years) ago, but I thought you may have the required expertise anyway. The problem can be seen with a call such as {{Archives|collapsed=yes|image = none|[[/Archive 1]]}} where there is an unnecessary newline between the show button and the title. This is not the case for {{Archive box collapsible}} where both are on the same line. It's not really a big issue, but I thought it would be better to make this small improvement before suggesting consolidating both versions. --Trialpears (talk) 21:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

See the testcases, search for |collapsed=yes|image=none; but observe what happens to the image in the testcase immediately above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:03, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I added a conditional to only remove it when there is no image which seems to have fixed this issue. Added a new test case for non-collapsed no image boxes. Everything behaving fine. I'll implement this shortly if no one has any problems with it. --Trialpears (talk) 22:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Trialpears (talk) 20:12, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I just found {{show button}}. Does it offer a more elegant solution? It's used in {{WikiProject banner shell}}. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Common formatting errors

When this template isn't at the bottom of the talk notices it messes up talk page formatting (example: Talk:Antisemitism in the Arab world). Not sure exactly how many are affected, but I constantly run across this issue, especially on more poorly maintained talk pages. Thoughts on cleaning this up, I guess a bot would do it? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:48, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

It needs to be considered in conjunction with WP:TALKORDER. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:17, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 September 2020

It would be good to be able to go directly to the article page from an archived talk page. I suggest adding the link to the article next to the link to the main talk page, on the top left, just below "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". See for example Talk:Black_hole/Archive_14. Vpab15 (talk) 21:34, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: (not an admin or template editor) That can't be added using this template, as this appears on the main talk pages. It could be done on a template like {{Archive}} or {{Automatic archive navigator}}, but you would need to make a specific edit request (i.e. tell us how to do it) on the talk page of one of those templates. I would be happy to help. Danski454 (talk) 21:58, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I have requested it on Template_talk:Archive#Template-protected_edit_request_on_5_September_2020. Vpab15 (talk) 11:18, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 September 2020

To add the banner function from Template:Archive banner following the Aug 10th discussion to merge the templates. I added it in the sandbox and is the current version which I believe works without causing any issues.

By giving the ‘banner’ parameter any value it changes it to the same functionality of the Template:Archive banner. Terasail II^[Talk] 22:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

You just copied archive banners code and put in a switch? I think the better approach would be to improve the current |large= version so it becomes basically identical. The large version comes from archive box collapsible which didn't use image or search making the formatting suboptimal when using those options. --Trialpears (talk) 22:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Also Terasail II, please don't paste code blobs and demos into the talk page. Use the sandbox for your proposed code changes, and the testcases page to demonstrate; more at WP:TESTCASES. This will keep the talk page focused on the actual discussion. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:39, 18 September 2020 (UTC)