User talk:Glrx

Archives (Index)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Welcome!

Hello, Glrx, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• Tutorial
• How to edit a page
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Ray^Talk 19:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Broken Time-to-digital converter link

Eleven years ago you linked to a navy.mil PDF in the Time-to-digital converter article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Time-to-digital_converter&diff=prev&oldid=482781943

However, now the link is dead and sinc it was inserted without any meta information I have no clue what publication that might have been.

Do you remember? Do you have an alternative link? Gms (talk) 14:50, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

@Gms: Dig the link out from archive.org. Glrx (talk) 18:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

ArbCom 2023 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2023 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 11 December 2023. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2023 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:30, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

SVG problems

Please see: T64986. librsvg does not support fallback font set (more than one font family).

I am curious to know how all this underlying Mediawiki SVG software is maintained? Like librsvg and so on.

And why Mediawiki keeps using an old version. Is it a matter of not enough Wikimedia staff to stay on top of it? Is it a matter of money needed to keep the software updated?

Are grants needed? People? Coordination? Both in Wikimedia and outside? --Timeshifter (talk) 19:33, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I have no idea how MediaWiki software is managed.

Phab:T64986 is a regression error. It was fixed once, but now the error has reemerged.

Phab:T64986 can be fixed by updating librsvg in the current operating system. WMF has not done that. The installation may trigger problems with other systems: https://itsfoss.com/apt-install-specific-version/ says Ubuntu does not like to keep multiple versions around.

Phab:T64986 can be fixed by upgrading the operating system. The current Thumbor operating system is about 4 years old. WMF seems to prefer this approach, but I do not know the timeframe.

Glrx (talk) 20:14, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks. I looked at a few tasks and the many interconnections. Lots of work.

I am wondering though. Is there a simple way to plug in a different standard fallback font? The fallback font that is used when no useful font has been found in the SVG code of an image. See my last comment in Phab:T64986. Could a narrower font be used?

See also: SVG file upload: Allow to preview SVG file without external URLs loaded and continue upload after removal of external "@import url". People need to be able to preview the SVG file after the font substitution occurs to see if it looks right.

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:18, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

The simple approach just use CSS generic fonts: serif or sans-serif. Leave plenty of room for the text.

I'm opposed to using a narrow font. It would solve one of your problems, but it could make other illustrations look odd. Overruns look bad, but underruns can also look bad.

I'm also opposed to removing @import. If an SVG file needs an import to display properly, then removing the import will break the file (e.g., Siddham script will not display). If an SVG file does not need an import to display properly, then it should not have the import in the first place. Too many applications try to be clever by half. Web fonts are a nice idea, but they also enable tracking.

Many of WMF's SVG preview apps are broken right now.

My experience has been when people use their favorite exotic font, tweak the spacing so the text just fits, and then display it on another system (not just a WMF wiki), the result is poor. It can even be the SVG on their system looks bad at some sizes; fonts do not scale linearly. Sometimes users get so frustrated that they convert the text to curves; that is not a good result. Users who employ generic fonts, avoid complex font options such as narrow or light fonts, leave plenty of space for variations in font metrics (say 10 pecent), and choose appropriate text anchors get reasonable results. Such files are also better candidates for translation.

Glrx (talk) 22:59, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Oops. I fixed the link: SVG file upload: Allow to preview SVG file without external URLs loaded and continue upload after removal of external "@import url".

I discovered that for SVG images with links embedded in the image, Mediawiki doesn't remove the URLs. It just disables them. See:

• File:Population density map of the world.svg

When you download the image from the Commons, and then open it, you will see that the top and bottom lines are linked. So MediaWiki is just disabling them.

I had to remove the @import to get it to upload. See Phab:T351978. Mediawiki could disable (not remove) that URL too.

Maybe after the preview during the upload process Mediawiki could offer a choice between a narrow, normal, and wide font. And then further previews. Mediawiki already shows images of similarly named images, or duplicates, when uploading. Why not previews?

SVG creators outside Wikimedia create images with font families. Most people have no problem seeing them since the font families usually contain something for Windows, Macs, Linux, etc.. And finally a generic CSS font: serif or sans-serif. I think it is a little too much to expect SVG creators to go backwards and only say serif or sans-serif.

I think it is up to Mediawiki to change, not the outside SVG creators. They are usually not even creating their images with Mediawiki in mind.

OWID files don't absolutely "need" the @import font. OWID SVG files have font family lists too. I think the import is just for some special fonts they prefer. But they are not essential. One of the other fonts in the font family list will work. I know this is true because I can still open the SVG file after I remove @import. In fact all my browsers on my Windows 10 Pro PC can open the file with or without the @import file. It is only Mediawiki that is having a problem. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:19, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

MediaWiki does not block links. MediaWiki converts SVG files to PNG files when it displays them on a wiki page. PNG files do not process links. MediaWiki puts users two clicks away from a potentially malicious sites.

MediaWiki blocks SVGs with @import by design. It prevents malicious behavior and tracking.

MediaWiki is not in the business of tweaking images. That's for graphics apps.

Font family fallbacks are a good idea, and WMF used to support them. That's the Phab issue. But even that is not a complete solution. Adobe tools use Adobe font naming conventions, and that makes it difficult to do sensible font substitutions.

If a creator wants its SVG to be viewable on many platforms (which is a goal of WMF), then the creator should not be using exotic fonts or exotic CSS.

Glrx (talk) 01:44, 2 December 2023 (UTC)