Help talk:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/1
 | Wikipedia Help | |||
| ||||
Help:Wikitable
Help:Wikitable (most recent version) was redirected to this page (MfD, decision: "Redirected to Help:Table/Introduction to tables. The content will remain in the history, if there's anything someone wants to merge.")
I don't think any merging has been done - just noting it here in case it's useful, and so the existence of the old page is not forgotten. --Chriswaterguy talk 02:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
Introduction to tables/2
It would be helpful to have the sample table, shown here in layout format, actually shown as it would appear. As is, it is not clear what exactly is text and what is formating instruction.--174.7.56.10 (talk) 01:01, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Sortable and collapsible?
I am working on the Dead Sea Scrolls article. Does anyone know if it is possible to create a table that's both sortable and collapsible? Mercy11 (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
Possible other sections
The tabs currently present are just the ones that Ironholds completed when he first made the page in 2012.
- Intro
- Creating tables manually
- Sortable tables
- HTML
At the same time were created stub pages for the following, though they were never completed and have now been deleted:
- Collapsible tables
- Colour
- Creating a table
- Other formatting
- Table placement
The above list is probably a bit too much detail, but if people have opinions for what the important topics to add the current set could be expanded. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 08:45, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
- Having though about it, I reckon 'HTML' should be renamed to 'advanced formatting', since that's the important part. We should also have a section on tools to convert spreadsheet data (e.g. CSV) to wikimarkup, since that'll be a pretty common requirement. T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 10:35, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
- NB: add Wikipedia:Advanced table formatting to eventual summary tab.
"Dumbing down" of guide
@Evolution and evolvability: why are you removing lots of necessary detail from this guide? You're making more difficult to follow if anything, these details are very necessary to explain. Please stop from removing details, which in my view are very necessary. Also moving the basic markup to page 4 makes no sense to me. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:42, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, I'll stop editing for the moment whilst we discuss. I've been trying to bring it into line with the level of detail of other "introduction to" pages. A lot of the inforation was repeated on multiple sections, and much of it was superfluous to a new user's understanding of how to actually use of romat a table. In the same way the intro to pages for references or editing don't explain how heading wikimarkup is really a set of HTML formatting. I reckon that that level of detail is better left to the more detailed help pages (e.g. [[[Help:tables]], [[[Wikipedia:Advanced table formatting]], Help:HTML_in_wikitext#Tables). What are your thoughts on what the intro to table pages should cover? T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 13:00, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- I think it is best explained if we examine what's happened here:
- 1: too short on details for my liking. Why make the intro so short?
- 2: it is confusing to show alternate table formatting without some rudimentary explanation of basic markup, which has been moved to page 4.
- 3: No changes here really.
- 4: this table is too late in the explanation. Also no examples on that page, the user would have to flick between page 2 and 4 to see how these examples are used in practice.
- 5: Now I originated the "HTML and tables" section. The basic idea was to fully explain how HTML attributes are inserted into tables. Now you've removed some of the details, which as a new user I found extremely confusing. There is no explanation of inserting HTML attributes on single lines with multiple contents. There is no explanation of adding HTML attributes with contents on new lines. The purpose of this section has been subverted. You're adding other HTML attributes, which I feel is unnecessarily for this section as it complicates things. I deliberately used a single attribute to keep things simple. These should be added to a new section at the very least.
- --Jules (Mrjulesd) 14:10, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the feedback Jules, I appreciate the thought you've put into it. A actually agree with a lot of it so I'll also respond point-by-point.
- 1: I'd intended it to be vaguely inkeeping with Intro to images and editing pages, providing a basic background for someone almost entirely unfamiliar with what to do (e.g. new editor only wants to add a single table)
- 2&4: I agree that sections /4 and /2 should be merged. I was aiming at a user that may just want to change a single cell in an existing table, or add a new, simple table. However, you're right that the information does fit logically together. The reason that I think that explanations of the individual components should be after the whole table, is that a lot of newcomers to markup edit by pattern recognition, rather than understanding the functions of the elements, e.g. a lot of people add a table row by copy-pasting a the one above and editing it.
- 5: I think this section was a bit too long and detailed before. My aim was to remove some of the alternative equivalent formatting options to do the same thing, to show what markup to use, even if you don't understand it's function. E.g.
! HTML! |! header1makes it look like you literally write "HTML" (oldID). For people that just want to colour in some table cells but have no knowledge of HTML, I had intended to make it more fool-proof. That all said, I realise that maybe it swung too far into oversimplification, and a middle ground could be found!
- Your help here is really helpful. It's easy for a page with too few contributing editors to end up skewed by one person's angle. I hope at least now it's clear what content level I was attempting so that we know whether we disagree over the aims or implementation! Let me know what you think of my suggestions.
- As a final note, I think the only remaining sections really need to still be added are placement (inc. floating and collapsing, parhaps as the new section/4) and a final summary (inc. links to the more thorough help pages). T.Shafee(Evo﹠Evo)talk 11:39, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
- 1 I see: you're trying to make all the guides look the same. And making it worse as a result.
- 2&4: I'm glad you see your mistake. How about just changing them back to how they were?
- 5: how the heck were they too long and detailed before? They were about one issue: how to insert HTML attributes into content, headers, captions, tables and rows. And to remove details of this is going to cause confusion. This is a BASIC TOPIC that is FUNDAMENTAL TO TABLE CONSTRUCTION. Introducing further attributes is a MORE COMPLEX TOPIC that is explained in great detail at Help:Table. JUST REDUCING THINGS BECAUSE THEY "LOOK TOO LONG" is not a good way to approach these issues at all. I included HTML in the descriptions because this is what the section is about: ADDING HTML ATTRIBUTES.
- Look this guide has been built up over a long period of time, and reflects consensus and the input from a good many editors. How about just reversing these changes and starting again. For major overhauls you need build consensus otherwise you're just going to piss people off. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:09, 7 December 2015 (UTC)