View source for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design/Archive 3

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= Discussions about possible cool new features =
{{notice|Please dream up new features, and post threads for them below...}}


== Excerpt slideshows ==
Maybe we should try to do away with the purge links altogether. Slideshow galleries allow content to be changed just by clicking on arrows, and it is possible to get it to work with prose too:
{{Box-header|title=Selected animal|EDIT=yes|noedit=yes}}
{{Random_slideshow
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Cat|files=1}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Dog|files=1}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Mouse|files=1}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Horse|files=1}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
}}
{{Box-footer}}
When [[WP:TemplateStyles]] get enabled, we should be able to hide the blank filler images entirely, as well as the middle button that toggles the standard gallery view. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 13:59, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

: Cool results. A worthy objective. Though, that's some heavy-duty code...

: <syntaxhighlight lang="Lua">
{{Box-header|title=Selected animal|EDIT=yes|noedit=yes}}
{{Random_slideshow
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Cat}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Dog|files=1}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Mouse}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
| File:Blank.png | <div style{{=}}text-align:left;>{{#invoke:String|replace|{{Transclude lead excerpt|Horse}}|%c|<br>||false}}</div>
}}
{{Box-footer}}
</syntaxhighlight>

: {{ping|Evad37|Certes}} To simplify this for editors, and AWBers' sanity, can this be turned into a template, that accepts the same parameters as the {{tl|Transclude random excerpt}} template? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
::Sure, but I think we should wait until we actually have TemplateStyles – otherwise you can end up at [[:File:Blank.png]] unexpectedly, or end up with a huge amount of text in narrow columns if the "toggle thumbnails" button in the middle is clicked - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 05:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

:::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} I've started {{tl|Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}, see [[Template:Transclude_excerpts_as_random_slideshow/testcases|testcases]] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
::::
::::Like much. I was thinking of asking whether this could be done, but it looks like you have preempted me. I will use this when it is ready. Awaiting with antici..........pation! Kudos. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 11:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
{{od}}
{{ping|Certes|The Transhumanist|Pbsouthwood}}: {{tl|Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}} is now ready to be used - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 04:10, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
: Cheers. See my response two subsections below. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

=== The excerpt slideshow above has stopped working ===

{{ping|Evad37|Certes}} It doesn't work anymore. Oddly, though, it still works when in the page preview. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:37, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
:Still works for me. Is it still not working for you {{ping|The Transhumanist|p=?}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 17:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
:: Doesn't work. I'll track it down. It's probably a script or gadget conflict. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:49, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

=== Transclude excerpts as random slideshow ===

[[User:Evad37|Evad]], this template is brilliant!

Here is a test using the same article titles as above.

{{Box-header colour | Selected animals | colour=DarkBlue | EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1| fileargs= | more= | errors= 
| Cat
| Dog
| Mouse
| Horse
}}
{{Box-footer}}

Very nice. Much easier to work with.

By the way, what does this display in mobile devices?

Good job, keep up the great work. Now I'm off, to test it in a portal... <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:36, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
:On mobile devices, only one excerpt is shown. You can test this on desktop by making your browser window very narrow and going to the mobile website, i.e. <nowiki>https://en.m.wikipedia.org</nowiki> - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 06:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
:: Nice. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

:: {{ping|Evad37}} I tested it in [[Portal:Reptiles]] [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Reptiles&oldid=851118338 here], and it only displays about half of the portal.  <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:31, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
::: Probably too many articles being passed through. There is a technical limit to the number of "expensive functions" in Lua modules that can be used on a page. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
:::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{Fixed}}. The template now limits the number of excerpts shown to 50. If there are more than 50 pages, then a random subset of 50 will be chosen (and the subset will change with each page purge). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 05:26, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
:::: {{ping|Evad37}} Excellent. One error message said something about exceeding a limit of 500 expensive calls. I like the randomization upon purging. Nice touch. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:57, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
:::: {{ping|Evad37|Certes}} It is working on my laptop. Kudos. I checked the mobile version, just in case, and it is displaying the excerpts in tiny columns:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Reptiles  <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:37, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
:::::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} You have to make your browser window very narrow like it would be on a mobile device (less than 720 pixels). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 08:55, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
:::::: {{ping|Evad37}} What I meant was, that there are 4 timy columns showing 4 excerpts, followed by 4 more excerpts in tiny columns, followed by the rest of them, all in 4 tiny columns. Above, you mentioned that it should only being showing a single excerpt in mobile view. Displaying all of them, the section is super long. Just a heads up. I'll report more glitches as I come across them. Thank you for all these wonderful templates you are developing. We would be nowhere without you. Sincerely, <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 19:38, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
:: {{ping|Evad37}} In Portal:Lithuania it [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Lithuania&oldid=851121820 caused the pictures in the picture slideshow to disappear]. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:02, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
::: {{Fixed}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

:: Turning {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}} into a slideshow analogous to {{tl|Transclude files as random slideshow}}, would be awesome.  

:: Perhaps call it {{tl|Transclude list item excerpts as slideshow}}. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)
:::That's on the to-do list, along with a slideshow equivalent for {{tl|Transclude linked excerpt}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:13, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

=== Linked/list item excerpts ===
Now available as slideshows! See {{tl|Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow}} and {{tl|Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}. Pinging {{ping|The Transhumanist|Pbsouthwood|p=.}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
: Ooh. One moment, while I recover from hyperventilating....
: There. I'm going to search/replace "Transclude list item excerpt" to "Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow" right now in [[Portal:Lithuania]]. {{done}} <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 04:51, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

: {{ping|Evad37}} I reverted it. See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Lithuania&oldid=851719990. It seems to truncate the page, right after Municipalities of Lithuania. No error messages were showing up either. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:14, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} Several of the municipalities are stubs without any section headings. This means the lead-section transclusion includes navboxes and other end-of-page content, which seems to mess up the gallery syntax. So all the articles will need to have at least one section heading, unless we find a way to fix it in [[Module:Excerpt]]. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 06:05, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::: {{ping|Evad37}} Can you screen for that? Like if they have stub tags/cats? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:11, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} Stub templates are named fairly consistently, so it should be fairly easy to identify stubs. Identifying what part of a stub is actually end-of-page stuff is much more tricky. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 06:19, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::::: {{ping|Evad37}} What about skipping the stubs, and making the list of pages for the slideshow without them? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:51, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::::::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{Fixed}}, more or less. See [[Template:Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow/testcases/Portal:Lithuania]]. Fixing the Municipalities revealed that having all the excerpts in all the slideshows was taking up too much time in Lua, and giving "The time allocated for running scripts has expired" errors, so I introduced a {{para|limit}} parameter and set it to 15 on all the slideshows. There was also a weird problem with the gallery for the politics section being broken, but preventing non-mainspace pages from appearing and setting {{para|paragraphs}} to <code>1</code> instead of <code>1-2</code> fixed that. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 05:49, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
::::::: {{ping|Evad37}} The limit parameter is excellent. On your Portal:Lithuania test case, I like how the 15 are randomized each time the page is purged. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 08:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

== Transclude section leads ==
{{resbox|{{done}}|This feature has been implemented. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}
{{ping|Evad37|Certes}} The templates so far transclude excerpts from article leads.

Could we have one that transcludes excerpts from a specified section of one or more articles, by section title? (Section number would be fine for a single page, but probably wouldn't work right if multiple pages were included).

For example, the [[Portal:Prehistory of Oceania]] doesn't have a corresponding article from which to pull a lead excerpt. The material about it is in the [[History of Oceania#Prehistory|Prehistory section of History of Oceania]].

Thoughts? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 10:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
:Identifying sections by section title is possible, but what happens if a section gets renamed? - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 15:39, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
:: Same thing as with {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}}: error message.
:: A comment after the section title may help to prevent it from being changed. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 09:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
:Enhancement: you can now specify [[History of Oceania#Prehistory]] as the source. The template will transclude the section's "lead", i.e. everything before its first subsection heading.  However, in this case, the excerpt will be blank, as the section has no significant text before its first subsection on Polynesia theories.  The enhancement also covers links in lists.  For example, if Foo links to Bar#Baz, then {{tlx|Transclude linked excerpt|Foo}} displays not the lead of Bar but the start of its section called Baz. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 00:12, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

== Random portal link ==

A link that leads to a random portal would be nice.

It could be placed at the end of the [[Template:Portals browsebar]] that is displayed at the top of most portals.

What would it take to create such a link? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 11:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
:Just need a [[:Category:All portals]] category (which could be added by {{tl|Portal maintenance status}}), and then [[Special:RandomInCategory/All portals]] would link to a random portal. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 11:41, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
:{{Done}}, except for editing {{tl|Portals browsebar}}. It may take some time to fully populate the category, as of now there's only a few portals there - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 11:50, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
::That template is template-protected, so I made a proposal at [[Template talk:Portals browsebar#Proposed new random portal link]]. If no one objects I'll make the edit in a couple of days time. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 14:09, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
:::{{Done}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:28, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
:::: I like it! It adds a new dimension to portal navigation. It shows up at the same location on the page in most portals, so you can just keep clicking it until a topic catches your interest. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 08:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

=== Most portals aren't showing up ===

{{ping|Evad37|Certes}}

[[Special:RandomInCategory/All portals|Random portal]]

The only country portal that shows up, for example, is [[Portal:Canada]]. It looks like a rather small subset of the whole collection. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 01:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:That link randomly selects a page from [[:Category:All portals]], which has {{PAGESINCAT:All portals}} pages. So not that small, plus it includes other country portals like [[Portal:Australia]], [[Portal:New Zealand]], and [[Portal:United States]]. The only portals the link won't go to are those that are missing {{tl|Portal maintenance status}}.  - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:Once (a first pass at) the assessment process is complete, would it be better to show a random good portal, rather than any random portal?  Country portals tend to be good.  There are some vastly improved pages out there, and some that were already wonderful before we started, but there are still a few that aren't showpieces. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 12:07, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

== Refdesk section ==
{{resbox|{{done}}|This feature has been implemented. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}
A portal section that displays a link to the [[WP:REFDESK]] that is relevant to that portal.

There are 8 reference desks.  How could this be made to automatically display the appropriate link out of those 8? 

Thoughts? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 11:44, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

: A simple section with a reference to the main RefDesk page is sufficient. {{done}}

: For an example, see [[Portal:Lithuania#Need help?]] and [[Portal:Monaco#Need help?]]. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

== Self-adjusting "Get involved" section ==
{{resbox|{{done}}|This feature has been implemented. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}
Portal that adjusts layout depending upon what content is available.

For example, displays a news section only if there are news items to be displayed.

Another example, displays a "Did you know" section, only if there are DYK entries to be displayed.

Thoughts? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 11:49, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

:That would make automated construction easier. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 17:00, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

{{ping|Pbsouthwood|AfroThundr3007730|Evad37|Certes|Dreamy Jazz|Waggers}} Okay, found it. One way to do this is covered at [[mw:ifexist]].

For example, to make a "Get involved" section only appear if the corresponding WikiProject exists, you could use code similar to this:

<syntaxhighlight>
{{#ifexist: Wikipedia:WikiProject {{PAGENAME}}
 | {{Box-header colour | Get involved}}
For editor resources and to collaborate with other editors on improving Wikipedia's Lithuania-related articles, see [[Wikipedia:WikiProject {{PAGENAME}}|WikiProject {{PAGENAME}}]].
{{Box-footer}}
 |
}}
</syntaxhighlight>

It has been placed in [[Portal:Lithuania]], where it works.

I'm not sure what other features could be handled with this, or if there are better or similar methods.

Thoughts? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

== Lining up box section bottoms ==
{{FYI|Previous discussion at: {{slink|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design/Archive 1#Automatic balancing of columns}}.}}
{{resbox|{{done}}|This feature has been implemented. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}
The tops of boxes at the top of the 2 columns line up. The bottoms don't, which leaves awkward white space between boxes.  The box bottoms should line up too.

Then, white space would appear inside a box rather than outside it. This is more aesthetically pleasing, and is how the Main page is designed.

Portals with side-by-side box arrangement, like [[Portal:Lithuania]], would look a lot better.

What is the best way to accomplish this? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 12:00, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

:Making parallel boxes the same height (in pairs) might be a way, but has disadvantages. It could be done as a table or column of tables, which will maximise whitespace. Otherwise it becomes rather complicated, as both columns must be rendered to estimate total height as the maximum of both columns, then the shorter column must have the right number of blank lines added to all the boxes until it is the same length as the other. The height of a box will also be affected by screen size if there are images. Each time a slideshow is operated, tho whole rendition must be repeated. I think it will be slow, expensive in resources and jumpy. Or am I missing something? I gave up on the concept and changed to a single-column layout which avoids the problem altogether &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 17:17, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
::This should actually be possible with [[CSS flex-box layout|CSS flexbox]]. It would work better with the current standard layout of a few sections on the left followed by a few sections on the right, with the CSS then ensuring that any extra space in either column is distributed evenly between the contents of the shorter column. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:08, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::{{ping|The Transhumanist|Pbsouthwood|}} {{done}} by making {{tl|Flex columns}}. See [[Template:Flex_columns/testcases]] for an example. It currently requires the portal components to be made with either {{tl|box-header colour}} or {{tl|box-header/lua}}. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:47, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::: Brilliant. I've applied it on [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Lithuania&oldid=852041475 Portal:Lithuania]. Works great. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:46, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::::Amazing. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 15:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

== Fitting panoramas to the width of the frame ==
{{resbox|{{done}}|This feature has been implemented. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:26, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}
We've started putting panoramas at the top of intro sections. For example, see the panorama at the top of [[Portal:Lithuania]].

The problem is, they shrink when you zoom out.

Could they be fit to the width of the frame, and stay that way, even after each zoom change? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:53, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{tl|Portal image banner}} to [[Special:diff/852055959|the rescue]]! (thanks to {{U|FR30799386}}). But it should probably provide a link by default, and only omit or change the link if parameter specified to do so. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:06, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
:Maybe it needs to be a bit more complicated to do it properly; there should probably be a minimum height with the overflow available through scrolling. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:11, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::Would that be a user defined minimum height? Would it handle mobile gracefully? &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 10:37, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
:::{{u|Evad37}} - Would it be okay if the overflow where to be hidden from view ? Scrolling through a narrow section in my opinion is never really graceful.&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 10:58, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::::I have made the template scale the image to fit each and every size of screen. However the size at which the image overflows must be set by manually.&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 13:45, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

This looks good! It has been put to use at the following portals.
* [[Portal:Lithuania]]
* [[Portal:South Sudan]]
* [[Portal:Thiruvananthapuram]]
* [[Portal:Perth]]
* [[Portal:Melbourne]]
* [[Portal:Monaco]]
Our WikiGnomes are going to have fun with this! <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:10, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

= Discussions about overall portal design =
{{notice|General portal design discussions go here.}}


== New portals construction time ==

I've been experimenting with the creation of new portals, to see how much editor effort is taken up by the new automated and semi-automated components.

The following portals took me about an hour to create each, though I had to return to fiddle with the Did you know section of Portal:Reference works for another half-hour or more, as the search terms I initially chose were matching off-topic topics. The template, {{tl|Transclude selected recent additions}}, is quite powerful, and even has a do-no-match feature to help target searches more precisely. Here are the new portals I mentioned:

* [[Portal:Algae]]
* [[Portal:Reference works]]

The previous typical creation time on portals like this used to be 6 to 10 hours, and so the tools are a great improvement, reducing creation time about an order of a magnitude. We should keep on with development of tools and components, and perhaps we can reduce creation time down to single digit minutes. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:54, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
: What a great improvement! Great job everyone. [[User:Wpgbrown|Wpgbrown]] <sup><i>[[User_talk:Wpgbrown|talk]]</i> &#124; <i>[[Special:Contributions/Wpgbrown|contribs]]</i></sup> 21:56, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
::I predict a target of a few minutes eventually, based on a good outline article with a good gallery section. At the moment that takes a lot of work, so not yet a huge gain yet. However a good outline article ias also a useful thing for other reasons, and more automation may be possible there too. The toolbox is growing. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 07:56, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

::: {{ping|Pbsouthwood}} The following portals draw most of their data from outlines, using the {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}} template. They are listed along with approximate creation (or conversion) times:

:::: [[Portal:Munich]] &ndash; 22 minutes
:::: [[Portal:Dresden]] &ndash; 19 minutes
:::: [[Portal:Athens]] &ndash; 17 minutes
:::: Did [[Portal:Florence]] &ndash; 13 minutes
:::: [[Portal:Stockholm]] &ndash; 13
:::: [[Portal:Palermo]] &ndash; 12 minutes

::: Most of the time was spent gathering and adding pictures. If we automate that, say, with another template that pulls all the pictures off a specific page (or page section), the creation time for this type of portal would drop to 3 minutes or less.

::: Therefore, I now firmly believe we can get portal creation times in general down to seconds, rather than minutes. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 04:49, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
::::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} A {{tq|template that pulls all the pictures off a specific page (or page section)}} already exists: {{tl|Transclude files as random slideshow}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 05:03, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
::::: {{ping|Evad37|Certes}} I was thinking of a template to power a "Selected article" section, that shows a single random picture upon each page purge, rather than a slideshow. Like {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}}, but for images instead of list items. I'll experiment with {{tl|Transclude files as random slideshow}}, and will get back to you. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 05:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

:::::: {{ping|Evad37}} Hi! I'm trying {{tl|Transclude files as random slideshow}} on [[Portal:X-ray astronomy]]. The slideshow is great but its only showing five images randomly instead of all of them. What am I doing wrong? --[[User:Marshallsumter|Marshallsumter]] ([[User talk:Marshallsumter|talk]]) 03:41, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
::::::: It seems seems to be finding images using the <code><nowiki>[[File:...]]</nowiki></code>, and not those using the older <code><nowiki>[[Image:...]]</nowiki></code> syntax. That's likely a bug in [[Module:Excerpt]] that needs fixing. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 04:35, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I thought that the picture slide show would be the biggest time consumer in portal construction. But, I discovered in building city portals that sourcepages for pics are easy to specify in a generation template. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 09:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

== [[Portal:Alabama]] ==

{{ping|Evad37}} I was trying to convert this portal to {{tl|Box-header colour}}, but, when I added the color from the <code><nowiki>{{/box-header}}</nowiki></code> subpage, it didn't match.

The page uses the colors of their flag, like this:

{{Box-header | title=Alabama portal
|border=#000000
|titleforeground=white
|titlebackground=#BF0A30             
|background=FFFFFF
|foreground=black
|EDIT=yes
|SPAN=yes
}}
[[Image:Flag of Alabama.svg|border|right|130px|Flag of Alabama]]
{{Box-footer|'''[[Alabama|Read more...]]'''}}

The X in the flag is color code #BF0A30.

But, when you indicate the exact same color code in {{tl|Box-header colour}}, it turns out like this:

{{Box-header colour| The Alabama Portal |colour=#BF0A30|EDIT=yes|TOC=yes|SPAN=yes}}
[[Image:Flag of Alabama.svg|border|right|130px|Flag of Alabama]]
{{Box-footer|'''[[Alabama|Read more...]]'''}}

Whoever designed the portal, wanted to match the colors of the state flag.

Can we do that with {{tl|Box-header colour}}? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:46, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} Having an exactly-specified colour kind of defeats the purpose of having Box-header colour, which is designed to choose a similar colour to the input, but adjust it to be accessible if needed. If you want a darker red similar to the flag (but not exactly the same), you can set {{para|mode|dark}}:
{{Box-header colour| The Alabama Portal |colour=#BF0A30 |mode=dark |EDIT=yes|TOC=yes|SPAN=yes}}
[[Image:Flag of Alabama.svg|border|right|130px|Flag of Alabama]]
{{Box-footer|'''[[Alabama|Read more...]]'''}}
:If you really want to specify an exact colour, then you need to use {{tl|Box-header}} or {{tl|Box-header/lua}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 14:37, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
:: I didn't know about that second one. Thanks! <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:52, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

== [[:Template:Portal tag]] to be placed on all article talk pages ==
IMO, the benefits of such a tag would be immense. For example, we could use it to automatically generate categories of articles related to each portal. This is especially beneficial to portals which do not have a corresponding WikiProject, extricating ourselves from a reliance on said projects. For example, the [[Portal:1980s]] has no corresponding [[WP:WikiProject 1980s]].

The tag template would say something like, 
:{{tq|This article is related to the following Portals:}}
::[[Portal:Biography|Biography]], [[Portal:1980s|1980s]], [[Portal:United States|United States]], [[Portal:United States Army|United States Army]], [[Portal:War|War]]
To call this new template for say [[Fred K. Mahaffey]] we add <nowiki>{{</nowiki>[[:Template:Portal tag|Portal tag]]|Biography|1980s|United States|United States Army|War<nowiki>}}</nowiki> just below the other WikiProject templates already on its talk page. Each parameter in this new template would automatically include the article in a category like [[:Category:FA-Class articles related to 1980s Portal]]. The rest I believe easy to imagine.

I can imagine dozens of automated features for which specific portal-related categories would be a great boon.---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 09:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

One example of a use is an adapted form of [[User:JL-Bot/Project content]] that generates lists of Quality content on the portals talk page. This list can then be used in our random selected article/biography/picture templates to maintain the portal.---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 09:12, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
:I support this idea in principle, however, it may be easy for editors (by accident or deliberately) to link non-relevant / not appropriate articles to a portal. Also, new articles on a topic may not have this proposed tag placed on their talk pages, due to editors not knowing about this tag. I, however, see that this tag would be useful in making portals fully automatic. [[User:Dreamy Jazz|Dreamy <i style="color:#d01e1e">'''Jazz'''</i>]] <sup>''[[User_talk:Dreamy Jazz|talk]]'' &#124; ''[[Special:Contributions/Dreamy Jazz|contribs]]''</sup> 09:23, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Pinging {{ping|Evad37|AfroThundr3007730|The Transhumanist|Certes|Lee Vilenski}}

:Something that automatically detects the portals linked to from the page would be better than having to input them manually. Maybe even as part of {{tl|talk header}} so that it can be deployed to a huge number of talk pages at once. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:29, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
::Many editors including myself do not like portal links on articles. With your idea, we are still going to have to add portal links to the vast majority of articles lacking portal links. I think you underestimate the resistance we will face if we attempt that. But tagging the talk pages will generate little resistance and can be easily done using [[User:Evad37/rater]].---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 12:44, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
::Funny, I only just realized you are the creator of the user script. I love that script!---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 12:48, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

:::I'm not sure why so many would be opposed to linking to portals from a related article. If the portal link is at the bottom of the article, what harm is there in including it? The primary purpose of portals is to serve as a gateway to articles and other content related to a particular topic, and portals can often provide better topic area navigational facilities than just a few "see also" links or a category would. Anyone objecting to the presence of a portal link, despite the clear benefit they provide to readers, would be missing the point of the portal namespace entirely.
:::The alternative proposal of manual talk page tagging is infeasible, if the wider community doesn't adopt it the same way we currently do with WikiProject Banners. There are far too many articles being created for this project's members to chase after them to add a portal tag to each talk page. It would be a nightmare to even handle the existing articles ourselves. I think if we want this functionality, we're going to have to leverage the existing {{tl|portal}} that most editors are at least vaguely aware of (and might be convinced to help us with), and build the needed functionality around that - either through the template directly, or detecting it from the talk page.
:::The problem with talk page detection is leveraging an existing template that is already ubiquitous on talk pages. This could include lobbying the relevant WikiProjects to ensure that their project banners all have the portal detection code embedded, or perhaps we could propose additional logic to {{tl|WPBannerMeta}} (or a submodule) that would do the detection and categorization for us. The {{tl|talk header}} modification is an interesting idea, though I'm not sure how well that would go over with the community, since portal detection is an unrelated function that we'd be trying to piggyback into a high use template.
:::The better method might be to modify {{tl|portal}} directly to tag the article with the necessary (hidden) categories. The benefits of this method include:
:::* Not needing to run extra Lua on every article talk page to detect the portal template
:::* Not depending on the presence of the relevant talk page templates (even though they should be there)
:::* Not needing to get mired in protracted discussions with the other projects/wider community regarding our {{tooltip|1=ever-expanding scope|2=Why do we need portals again? Git off mah articles...}}
:::* The modifications we make would be mostly contained to one template (and a boatload of categories)
:::In addition to the above, we could further limit the scope of the tagging feature during the pilot phase (for example, the top-level portals only) as we refine the process. The impact to articlespace would be minimal in this scenario, and leave little room for complaint (provided we can get the template modifications pushed without major issue).
:::Just my thoughts on the matter. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 20:48, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
::::{{Re|AfroThundr3007730|Evad37}} I am not going to argue against the grain and hold us up. Let's go with modifying {{tl|portal}} to add hidden categories and see if we can achieve wide acceptance. We can always move the code to a talk page template if that fails. I am not a good template coder. Can someone else take the charge or point me to a template to emulate for the addition of hidden categories.---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 22:32, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
::::P.S. {{tl|Portal}} uses {{tlu|Module:Portal}}. So we need a Lua coder. Not me.---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 22:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

== Short descriptions ==
{{Resolved|[[Template:Portal description]] has been upgraded.}}
Where are these coming from?  I see an inadequate one at [[Portal:English]] (needs to say "the English language", for clarity), but there is no {{tlx|Short description}} at that page, so it's being injected from some other transclusion or something. While I can go dig it out, I want to ask whether this standardized, or being standardized, or just being done randomly on a per-portal basis?

PS: If you don't know what I"m talking about, see [[WP:Short description]], especially [[Template:Short_description#Testing]] for the CSS to make all the short descriptions visible to you (I recommend this – many of them need work, in the mainspace, too).<br /><span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 03:58, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
:I tracked it down to {{tlx|Portal description}}, and upgraded it with a {{para|topic}} parameter to resolve this issue. Also fixed the documentation to stop mis-recommending that people add a separate {{tlx|Short description}} to override {{tnull|Portal description}}'s default behavior; it won't work and will instead create two conflicting short descriptions. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 04:20, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
:: Good work. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 00:31, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
:::{{tl|Short description}} should override any automatically generated short descrioptions in the article.&middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 18:11, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

== Portal:India ==

I have recently tried to tidy up [[Portal:India]] to a automated state. I have run into some questions.
* Is it allowed to use TemplateStyles directly on the portal main page ? (Especially to improve placement and of the images at the top and to modify the box-header template)
* Is it okay to scrap the dead [[Portal:India/Selected articles]] and [[Portal:India/Selected pictures]] processes in favor of automated processes ?
* Is there a way to completely automate the Selected Pictures selection process ?
* Can we include a selected list in the portal main page ?
Finally, Could some one advice me on thing that can still be improved in the portal&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 07:32, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
:'''P.S.''': What should be done with [[Portal:India/Quiz/Archive33]] and such semi-talk pages ?&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 10:50, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

:*It should be OK to scrap selected articles and selected subpages in a portal after replacing with autmated processes unless someone objects with a good reason not to do so. If there are no editors claiming to be maintainers of the potal, I would sugeed boldly doing the chnge, and if no-one objects within a reasonabe interval, say a week, then cleaning up the redundant subpages. If you feel less bold, suggest doing this change on the talk page. If there is no response within a week, assume that no-one cares, and do it. 
:*It is not clear what you mean by completely automating the selection process for pictures. If you mean finding pictures from commons, not at this stage. If you have ideas for how it might be possible, let us know. It would be a very useful tool. 
:*Adding a selected list should be possible, but I am not sure what you mean. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 18:25, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
:**It looks like the quiz is defunct. You could tag it for deletion and see if anyone wants to keep it. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 19:09, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
::::{{U|Pbsouthwood}} - I have nominated the quiz pages for deletion. I have answered some of your questions below :
::::*Yes, I meant finding images from commons. Will it be possible to get all the featured pictures related to India from Commons and then feed it to the random slideshow along with an excerpt from the relevant articles (in an automated way)?
::::*I was asking whether including a selected lists would put the portal into [[:Category:All non-standard portal pages]]
:::::Also, can TemplateStyles be used directly on [[Portal:India]]?&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 09:22, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
:::::*{{U|FR30799386}}. As far as I know it is not possible to get all the featured images in a Commons category automatically and feed them into a random slideshow yet. I think there is a technical problem, but hope it can be resolved as this would be useful. It should be possible to manually create a list, but it would not update automatically. It may also be possible to get a bot to update a list on a weekly or monthly basis, but I am not skilled with bots. 
:::::*Combining a featured image with an excerpt from a relevant article may be more tricky. How would you know which article to use, and which excerpt? 
:::::*I know nearly nothing about Template Styles, Maybe {{U|Evad37}} could advise.
:::::*I don't know about selected lists and [[:Category:All non-standard portal pages]]. I see no obvious reason why it should, as there will be several new templates used in the new standard portal structure, which has not yet been finalised, but I will try to find out. Why does it matter? 
:::::*You might also want to sign up with the project at [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Portals#Specific_portal_maintainers]], and fill in a few parameters on the portal maintenance template on Portal:India. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 10:13, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
::::::TemplateStyles are really meant for templates, as per the name. If you have them as part of a template, then any cool features you come up with can easily be applied to other pages, without unnecessary duplication. Plus the style pages themselves can only be created in the template namespace (by default anyway). See [[WP:TemplateStyles]] for further information and usage guidelines. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 13:14, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
{{Outdent}}{{U|Evad37}} - I created [[Template: Portal image banner]] as a rough implementation of my idea&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 08:45, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
:{{like|{{nobold|Looks good}}}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 08:56, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
::Also like. Has potential for some interesting applications. I have commented on the template talk page. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 18:02, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

==Regarding template talk pages==
{{ping|Evad37|Certes|The Transhumanist}} Much like all of the templates that depend on [[Module:Excerpt]] have had their talk pages redirected to [[Module talk:Excerpt]], I think we should do that for all templates that depend on a module, to keep the discussion centralized. Or perhaps all of the "lower traffic" templates should have their talk pages redirect here? As for me, I watchlist all of them whenever I see a new one, but it might make any issues posted more visible if we consolidated most of them (excluding the excerpt ones probably). What do you guys think? — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 02:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
: Good plan. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:05, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
: Sure, go ahead with template→module talk redirects. I already did so for the excerpt slideshow templates as well. Not sure about redirecting other template talk pages here though, especially since some templates may or could have usage beyond portals (e.g. in Wikiprojects). Maybe they just need a message box saying that to attract editors attention, a note should be left here (with a link to the template talkpage discussion). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:18, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

== Add "not" to [[Template:Transclude files as random slideshow]] ==

When the page [[Wiltshire]] is specified as a source for files, the slideshow gets clogged up with icon images from its [[Wiltshire#Places of interest|Places of interest]] section.

It would be useful if we could specify sections that the template is to exclude from the slideshow. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:50, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

== Discussions about selected image sections ==

=== Tip: "image" instead of "picture" ===

Tip: Many files aren't pictures, and so the title "Selected picure" is a slight misnomer when a non-picture is displayed. The word "image" is more general, and covers them all. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:55, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

== Discussions about news sections ==

=== Automating news support ===

Dear [[u|JJMC89]] and Portals Project techies,

There was a huge debate over possible deletion of the entire portal system, including the portal namespace itself. One of the main objections to portals raised during that debate was the prevalence of portals that were extremely out-of-date and unmaintained, a condition that was noticeable, in large part, from their out-of-date news entries.

One of the outcomes of the debate was a rebooted Portals WikiProject, with a new team of editors dedicated to revamping and automating the entire portal system.

Accordingly, the portal system is undergoing a complete overhaul.

Each portal section type is being redesigned for automation, one-by-one, including the news section.

The problems we've been having with news sections on portals include:
: 1) Unmaintained news sections with news items that are years out of date
: 2) Empty news sections
: 3) Reliance upon subpages (portal subpages are being phased out)
: 4) Manual set up of news support, and its unscalability (due to lack of available human labor)

I'm interested in a type of news section that automatically appears in portals only when there is news to be reported. That is, when there is news within the past 30-days (recent news), there's a news section on the portal reporting it. When there is no recent news, there is no news section. How can this be done?

We are converting portals to a one-page design, with zero sub-pages. Therefore, I'm looking for ways that news support can be controlled externally from outside portal pages, based entirely on portal titles. Automatically. How can this be done?

Thus, portals would be automatically matched with their corresponding news categories on Wikinews, with zero human intervention. How can this be done?

That is, we need the set up of news support, and ongoing updating of news, on every portal (except those that have dedicated maintainers), to be fully automated. How can this be done?

There are currently 1500 portals, with 8500 or more additional portals likely to be created over the next year or two.  News support for existing and new portals should initiate automatically. How can this be done?

Are there any other free and open news sources besides Wikinews that can be supported on Wikipedia portals? If so, what are they?

I look forward to your replies. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:44, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
P.S.: Please {{tl|ping}} me in your reply. Thank you. ''-TT''
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{tl|transclude selected current events}} is aware of when it doesn't find any matching items. It should be possible to modify the module, such that if news items are found, it displays whatever's in a {{para|header}} parameter (i.e. a box-header template) plus the news items plus whatever's in a {{para|footer}} parameter (or just {{tl|box-footer}}); and when no news items are found, it leaves out the section entirely. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:52, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:: {{ping|Evad37}} That sounds exactly like what we need! That way, we wouldn't have any empty or out-of-date news sections. As long as the days parameter isn't set too high. :) <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 08:08, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

:Example with items:
{{Transclude selected current events|Europe|header={{Box-header color|In the news|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}|max=4}}
:Example without items:
{{Transclude selected current events|dsufgvsiugv|header={{Box-header color|In the news|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}|max=4}}
:(no output) - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:15, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:: For a minute there, I thought the output was "(no output)". :) Thank you! I'll start putting it to use. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 10:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

== Discussions about did you know sections ==

=== Automating DYK support ===

{{ping|Evad37}} Can you do the same for DYK as you did for news above? That is, make it display if it has output, and not display if it has no output? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 10:53, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:Related: {{section link||New template: Transclude DYK}}. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 12:25, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:There is also a surprisingly relevant ten-year-old page: [[WP:DYK for Portals]]. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 20:03, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{Done}}, {{para|header}} and {{para|footer}} will now also work for {{tl|Transclude selected recent additions}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
I believe that I've now fixed all links to disambiguation pages on the source text at [[WP:Recent additions/2018/July]] etc., unless you request pages from before 2010.  If you see any such links coming out, please post a link and ping me, as I may have missed a page or misunderstood where the source text comes from.  There are still a few anachronisms in there ({{tq|this year's parliamentary poll}} etc.) and some redlinks to deleted pages, but it might be disruptive to remove them as the pages also constitute a historical record. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 13:03, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

== New template: Transclude DYK ==

{{ping|Armanaziz|Pbsouthwood}} I have edited {{diff|Portal:Bangladesh|851947225|prev|Portal:Bangladesh}} to select DYKs automatically using a new template, {{tl|Transclude DYK}}.  [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 16:30, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
:Not really important, but should we make the canonical name {{tl|Transclude Did You Know?}}, for which {{tl|Transclude DYK}} would then be a shortcut? This would apply to the module too. Is there even a naming convention for templates? Didn't see much in [[WP:NAME]]. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 02:28, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
::I don't know if there are template naming conventions. Either option looks OK to me as both are reasonably meaningful and likely to be remembered and understood, and are not over-long. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 06:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)
Many older DYKs now link to disambiguation pages because the target articles have moved.  A few editors are kindly fixing the portals, but JL-Bot undoes this work by restoring the original text each weekend.  I'm working through the dab links in the source pages, so this problem should go away soon. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 16:14, 28 July 2018 (UTC)
:Update: Done 2010–2018; still working on older pages.  I'm also noticing a few DYKs with links to deleted articles ({{tq|Did you know… that [[Spam Inc]] has an office in Ruritania?}}) and factoids that have been overtaken by events; particularly where something happened "this year" meaning 2011 etc.  I'm not sure how best to weed these out without damaging the archives. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 12:32, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
:I now have confirmation that JL-Bot uses the blurb in the {{tl|DYK talk}} header on each article's talk page.  As these rarely get updated to fix links etc., I think it's better to continue using {{tl|Transclude selected recent additions}}, which uses the updated monthly pages, instead. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 14:16, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

== Random page titles from category? ==

Okay, here's the next item on my portal maintenance wish list.  I would like a way to list a random selection of article titles from the various maintenance categories populated by WikiProject:Trains.

On [[Portal:Trains]], the "Things you can do" section lists various tasks that readers can jump into. Many of the tasks have associated maintenance tracking categories. For example, the assessment task is related to the [[:Category:Unassessed rail transport articles|unassessed articles category]], and the infobox needed task is related to the [[:Category:Rail transport articles needing infoboxes|infobox needed category]]. Other tasks are also closely related to tracking categories like this.  What I would like is a script that would randomly select and list a specified number of article titles (usually I pick five article titles) to populate the task in this portal section.  The closest tools that I can find right now are [[Special:RandomInCategory]] and {{tl|Random page in category}}, but both of those will jump to the article and not return just the article title.

Thanks! [[User:Slambo|Slambo]] [[User talk:Slambo|<small style="color: black;">(Speak)</small>]] 17:23, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

As a side note, many of the WikiProject:Trains maintenance tracking categories will list the talk pages because that's where the project banner is placed. So the script I want will remove the Talk: namespace identifier and link to the article. [[User:Slambo|Slambo]] [[User talk:Slambo|<small style="color: black;">(Speak)</small>]] 17:26, 15 July 2018 (UTC)
: {{ping|Slambo}} Unfortunately, Lua can't currently return members of a category. So, this task would require a [[WP:BOTS|bot]]. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 03:19, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

== [[Portal:American football]] ==

{{ping|Waggers|AfroThundr3007730|Godsy|Rockmagnetist|Dreamy Jazz}}

The text is centered in [[Portal:American football]], and I can't figure out why.

Looks awkward. Can someone fix this? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:21, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

:{{reply to|The Transhumanist}} After some extensive investigation, I found a solution: adding "|text-align=left" to [[Portal:American football/box-header]] fixes the alignment (see [[Special:Diff/854285968]]). As to why that was necessary, I cannot say. <small>—&nbsp;[[User:Godsy|<span style="color:#39A78E;">'''Godsy'''</span>]]<sup>&nbsp;([[User_talk:Godsy|TALK]]</sup><sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">[[Special:Contributions/Godsy|<span style="color:Goldenrod;">CONT</span>]])</sub></small> 06:56, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:: Very clever. Thank you. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 06:59, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
::Yeah, their box header subpage is using {{tl|box-header-round}}, which defaults to {{para|text-align|center}}. I'm guessing it's normally used for the intro and not every section. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 11:55, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

== Random portal link seems broken ==

The random portal link doesn't appear to be random.

If you click on it, and then click on that link on the new page that displays, and keep doing that, the same set of portals appear over and over.

Does anyone have any idea of why this is happening? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 03:06, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} I've just done that 25 times, and a few duplicates did show up:
:{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed"
!Click number
!Portal
!Duplicate
|-
|0
|Portal:Algae
|
|-
|1
|Portal:Herbalism
|
|-
|2
|Portal:Philately
|
|-
|3
|Portal:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
|
|-
|4
|Portal:Australia
|
|-
|5
|Portal:Scottish islands
|
|-
|6
|Portal:Taipei
|
|-
|7
|Portal:Carry On
|
|-
|8
|Portal:Monaco
|
|-
|9
|Portal:Webcomics
|
|-
|10
|Portal:New York roads
|
|-
|11
|Portal:History of science
|
|-
|12
|Portal:Scottish islands
|yes
|-
|13
|Portal:Dresden
|
|-
|14
|Portal:Military of Pakistan
|
|-
|15
|Portal:Limited recognition
|
|-
|16
|Portal:Prague
|
|-
|17
|Portal:Singapore
|
|-
|18
|Portal:China
|
|-
|19
|Portal:Limited recognition
|yes
|-
|20
|Portal:Lithuania
|
|-
|21
|Portal:Stockholm
|
|-
|22
|Portal:Railways in Pakistan
|
|-
|23
|Portal:Singapore
|yes
|-
|24
|Portal:Australia
|yes
|-
|25
|Portal:Saudi Arabia
|
|}
:But that's basically because each time you visit the link, the software has no idea what portals you've already seen. Each portal always has a 1/{{PAGESINCAT:All portals}} chance of being the next random portal, and the odds of it being a duplicate is (number of unique portals you've seen)/{{PAGESINCAT:All portals}}. It's basically equivalent to rolling dice – there's no way to guarantee the next roll won't be the same as any previous rolls. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:47, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

{{ping|Evad37}} Those are the same ones I keep getting (plus about double again that number). What I'm saying is, that around 75 portals (including the ones you posted above) are the ones that keep showing up. Click 200 times, and you'll see what I mean. There's a subset of a few dozen portals that is displayed, beyond which it does not seem to go. How do we pop this bubble? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 07:58, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

{{ping|Evad37}} This appears to be most, if not all, of the bubble:
{{cot}}
# [[Portal:1910s]]
# [[Portal:Algae]]
# [[Portal:Alieu Ebrima Cham Joof]]
# [[Portal:Alpine Rhine Valley]]
# [[Portal:Amsterdam]]
# [[Portal:Android]]
# [[Portal:Archaeology]]
# [[Portal:Artsakh]]
# [[Portal:Athens]]
# [[Portal:Australia]]
# [[Portal:Barcelona]]
# [[Portal:Carry On]]
# [[Portal:Cetaceans]]
# [[Portal:China]]
# [[Portal:Civil rights movement]]
# [[Portal:Community of Christ]]
# [[Portal:Cryptography]]
# [[Portal:Dresden]]
# [[Portal:Edinburgh]]
# [[Portal:European Union]]
# [[Portal:Europe]]
# [[Portal:Example]]
# [[Portal:Florence]]
# [[Portal:H. P. Lovecraft]]
# [[Portal:Herbalism]]
# [[Portal:History]]
# [[Portal:History of science]]
# [[Portal:Hong Kong]]
# [[Portal:Humanism]]
# [[Portal:Kyoto]]
# [[Portal:Limited recognition]]
# [[Portal:Literature]]
# [[Portal:Lithuania]]
# [[Portal:Malayalam cinema]]
# [[Portal:Mandatory Palestine]]
# [[Portal:Medicine]]
# [[Portal:Milan]]
# [[Portal:Military of Pakistan]]
# [[Portal:Monaco]]
# [[Portal:Munich]]
# [[Portal:Nautical]]
# [[Portal:New York roads]]
# [[Portal:Pac-Man]]
# [[Portal:Palermo]]
# [[Portal:Philately]]
# [[Portal:Poland]]
# [[Portal:Prague]]
# [[Portal:Quantum computing]]
# [[Portal:Quebec]]
# [[Portal:Railways in Pakistan]]
# [[Portal:Reference works]]
# [[Portal:Religion]]
# [[Portal:Reptiles]]
# [[Portal:Rio de Janeiro]]
# [[Portal:Rivers]]
# [[Portal:Sacramento]]
# [[Portal:Saint Petersburg]]
# [[Portal:Samsung]]
# [[Portal:Saudi Arabia]]
# [[Portal:Scottish islands]]
# [[Portal:Singapore]]
# [[Portal:Stockholm]]
# [[Portal:Taipei]]
# [[Portal:Telephones]]
# [[Portal:Turin]]
# [[Portal:United States]]
# [[Portal:Vienna]]
# [[Portal:Webcomics]]
# [[Portal:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]
# [[Portal:Westerwald]]
{{cob}}
With these same ones coming up over and over. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 08:45, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:Do you have a wikilink to where this problem occurs?  Perhaps whatever template you are using reads its arguments into a table, then uses only the first entries of the table using something like Lua's <code>pairs</code>.  The order within the table isn't guaranteed and can vary between Lua interpreters but may tend to match the order given when invoking the template.  You could mix things around using code similar to that near the end of [[Module:Transclude DYK]] (search for ''random entries''). [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 15:28, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
::The template isn't using Lua, just the simple wikilink [[Special:RandomInCategory/All portals]], which is equivalent to entering that category on the [[Special:RandomInCategory]] special page. Lua can't be used since it can't see pages within categories. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 20:36, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the clarification.  [[mw:Extension:Random In Category]] says that {{tq|The core version gives much more biased results than this extension}}.  [[:mw:Category:Extensions used on Wikimedia]] suggests that Wikimedia doesn't use the extension.  So I assume we're using the core version which gives biased results.  I doubt that we can do much about this. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 20:48, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:::... unless we (or a bot) were to maintain a subpage with a list of portals, and use a better random selector to pick from that.  That would allow us to limit the display to certain portals only, which may or may not be desirable. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 20:56, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
:::: {{re|Certes|Evad37}} Well, we need something better than a subset of 75 portals. If you create that something, we'll use it! ;) <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 08:01, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
::::: "That something" would need a list of portals.  As we know, there's no way for Lua to list a category, and I don't think it can do any sort of search within a namespace either.  So we'd need to dump Category:All portals onto a page.  (If we want new portals to have a chance of appearing then a bot would need to update that page.  Does anyone know of such a bot?)  Then the relevant page ([[Portal:Contents/Portals/Intro]]?) can use a new template which produces a wikilink like [<nowiki/>[Portal:Alpine Rhine Valley|Random portal]] to a genuinely random entry from a list.  That template should be easy to write but it would keep showing the same portal until someone purges the page, which (surprise, surprise) you can't do from Lua.  I do feel that all of this is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.  Perhaps we should just be submitting a [[WP:Phabricator|Phabricator]] ticket to have Special:RandomInCategory made more random.  I suspect that, for efficiency, it is just pulling out the first page of the category, just as [[:Category:All portals]] does until you click "next page". [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 12:14, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

== Convert template body into portal body ==

I've been using {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}} and {{tl|Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}} to pull items out of templates, like [[Template:Counties of Denmark]], like this:

{{Box-header colour|Selected counties of Denmark | color=#1034A6 | mode=light | EDIT=yes | TOC=yes | SPAN=yes }}
{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow |  1=Template:Counties of Denmark | paragraphs=1-2 | files=1 | fileargs= | more= | errors= }}
{{Box-footer}}

This got me wondering about templates like {{tl|Daytona 500}}:

{{Template:Daytona 500}}

Could a tempate/lua script be written to convert templates into portal guts (after the intro, alongside the image slideshow, and before the support sections (WikiProjects, Topics, Wikimedia, etc.), with a section created for the portal corresponding to each section of the template?

Thus, for Portal:Daytona 500, it would generate sections called "Selected track article", "Selected Statistics article", "Selected lore article", "Selected notable race", "Selected related event", "Selected related area" and "Selected Daytona race report".

The implications for portal creation would be stratospheric!

I look forward to your replies. Sincerley, <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:21, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

== Menu item or special: link that generates a portal when you click on it ==

Taking things to their logical conclusion, how feasible is it to have a portal link on the sidebar menu, or in one of the tab menus at the top of every page, that generates a portal for the current article's subject when you click on it?

So, if you are reading the article on chimpanzees, and you click on "Portal", a "Special:" page called "Special:Portal:Chimpanzees" is generated and displayed right then on chimpanzees.

I look forward to your replies. Sincerely, <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

:Quantum portals that exist only as a probability function (algorithm) until you collapse the wave form by observing through the portal button (run the script), and disappear again after use? &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 15:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

:More seriously, what do you envisage as the structural foundation for such a portal? I can see an instant portal generator possibly working using a navbox or an outline list or a category as the source of the selected article set. The root article would presumeably be the one from which the portal is called, so how would it work if there is no similarly named category or outline list? How would it deal with orphan articles and others which don't have many associated articles? Would one just accept that instant portals would often be relatively low level and sparse of content, or would it only work for articles with the required associated structures? Some features commonly used in regular portals may be difficult to produce, or could be quite run time intensive to build. I like the idea in principle as a very user friendly introduction to a topic, but is it technically plausible for current technology within the Wikipedia environment, or would this be more appropriate as an external tool drawing on Wikipedia for the content? (just brainstorming here) &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 15:28, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

:: I believe it is feasible to build such a system, over time, but it is not a short-term project (maybe a year or three). However, I can't help but notice that we are heading in this direction, and the distance we've traveled in just the past 4 months.

:: With the right source pages (or other data sources), portal creation goes quick. Prior to the portals project reboot, portal creation typically took 6 hours or more, each.  This morning, from 12:16am to 7:34am I created 51 portals. That's about 8 minutes each, on average. Now I'm thinking that portal creation could eventually be nearly instantaneous, via a universal gadget or Mediawiki extension, with the right data foundation. 

:: But, we want human effort and computer power to intermingle, and so there would need to be a way for human contributions to be included. For example, if you wanted to add a particular section to a portal, or do most of it yourself. The tool could go off of existing portals, where they exist, augmenting those, and generating portals from scratch for subjects for which they don't exist. Or, users could control portals by editing the underlying data sources, perhaps with some special ones reserved for users.

:: Also, it's not feasible to do a portal for a stub article's title. So, there would be some formula for deciding whether a topic is extensive enough to even have a portal. See [[Portal:Quidditch]] for the lower end of the spectrum.

:: I'm not sure that initially, all of the instructions would be in the program, or if much of it would be in templates that were called, or other components. For example, in [[Template:Box portal skeleton]], "In the news", "Did you know?", and "Get involved" are all conditional, appearing only if there is underlying data to populate them. So the portals that have a correspondingly named WikiProject, get a "Get involved" section automatically.

:: Focus might shift from building portals to standardizing the other navigation systems (navboxes, outlines, categories, etc.) from which portals would draw their data.  We've yet to crack the categories egg, but so far, outlines and navigation footer templates have proven to be highly useful for populating portals. So, it doesn't have to be a single data source type. Tables look especially juicy and ready to harvest. :)

:: But, we're overlooking Wikipedia's database itself. I'm sure there are ways to mine that directly, to build portals. There are a myriad of data tables in there, for example.

:: The point is, that it's coming. We just need to remain alert as to how we can make it happen as we go along, and so this conversation should continue. Eventually, all of the resources will be available to click into place. But, what resources?

:: We've cut human input time on portal creation by a factor of about 36. If we do that again, in our ongoing development, portal creation will be down to around 13 seconds of human effort, for each portal. And from there, we'll probably see how to drop it by a factor of 36 again. :)

:: The fun part is, that we haven't even scratched the surface on the features that can be provided in this medium/venue. The future appears very bright for portals. (And for the other navigation systems, as much of this technology will be applicable or adaptable to them, as well. Self-building outlines, indexes, glossaries, books, navigation boxes, lists, tables, and categories, would be nice, for example). <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:31, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

== What would you want a portal tool to be able to do? ==

There are lots of tools that let editors do various things to pages on Wikipedia, like [[WP:AWB|AWB]], [[WP:WikEd|WikEd]], and [[WP:TWINKLE|TWINKLE]]. There's now another one, called [[WP:PTOOL|PortalTool.js]], intended to work on portals, that currently does nothing.

What it will be able to do, will be in part up to you. What do you want this tool to be able to do to portals for you? Use your imagination: you click a menu item, and what happens? I look forward to your replies. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 12:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)
:A user script is probably best for one-off tasks, like a portal creation wizard, or converting a section to use one of the automation templates {{small|(though that may be redundant to just using AWB?)}}. Ongoing maintenance-type work, like fetching category members for use in excerpt templates, would be better done by a bot, so it can be kept up to date by regularly repeating the task (e.g. on a daily or weekly schedule) across hundreds or thousands of portals. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:56, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
::I also prefer user scripts. I am on a system that won't allow installation of AWB. I suspect I may not be the only one.---&nbsp;[[User talk:Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#CC2200">Coffee</span>]]<nowiki/>and[[Special:Contributions/Coffeeandcrumbs|<span style="color:#663366">crumbs</span>]] 05:17, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
::: {{ping|Coffeeandcrumbs}} By the way, much of the functionality of [[WP:AWB]] was ported to [[WP:JWB]], which runs on most computers. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 04:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
: Whatever it is, it should allow insertion of any of the automation templates we have been accumulating recently with hints for all the parameters. It would be nice if it allowed both creation of a new portal to a standard design containing one of each feature, and also upgrading by adding any of the features in a user-selected place in an existing portal. Manual portals will be with us for a while, so easy conversion aids would be useful for quite a long time, but they may well be the same thing as the tools for inserting additional features. It should encourage standardisation of components while allowing sufficient diversity of options that people will want to stick to the more automated layouts. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 10:54, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

{{ping|Pbsouthwood|Evad37|Coffeeandcrumbs|AfroThundr3007730|Bermicourt|Dreamy Jazz|Nick Moyes|Auric|Waggers|Godsy}}

Thank you for the input. Let me summarize what we have dreamed up so far, and add some ideas and details that you have inspired by your input. Each of the below are menu items, to be displayed on the sidebar menu, when the user is viewing a portal:
# '''<code><nowiki>Create Portal</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; menu item for creating a new portal, defaulting to the subject of the current page. If you are reading the article "Saturn" and click "Create Portal", it will ask if you want the new portal to be on Saturn. If you answer "no", it will prompt you for the desired title. Not sure what it would ask next.
# '''<code><nowiki>Upgrade portal</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; for the current page (if it is a Portal), presents a list of section names beside a number, and "All". You enter the number of the section you wish to upgrade, or "All". If there are more than one upgrade available for a section type, it prompts you further. 
# '''<code><nowiki>Add section</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; provides a selection of section types, by number. Specify the number to choose which type you want. If the heading is variable for that section type, it prompts for the heading title, and then prompts you for location in the portal to place it.
# '''<code><nowiki>Move section</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; provides list of sections, by number. User enters the number desired. Then script prompts for new location, in the form of a section number, and Right of, Left of, Before, After. Saves having to go into the editor and cut-and-paste-move the section.
# '''<code><nowiki>Rearrange sections</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; more elaborate move command, that allows you to rearrange the sections by number. If none is provided, rearranges to the standard presentation placement (whatever that is). Not sure what the interface would be. 
# '''<code><nowiki>Analyze</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; not sure what this would do. Perhaps, provides a list of missing sections to choose from.
#

Concerning the fetching of categories, I was thinking that would be best to handle with user scripts first, until we actually know how, and then a bot could be adapted from that part of the program. Otherwise, I'd be oblivious on how to program a bot. Interactively develop it somewhere first, and then go to bot. Unless there's something I'm missing from the whole bot process?

Well, that's all for now. I hope this stirs your thinking further. Please feel free to share any new ideas you have or provide more details on how the above features should work. This is brainstorming. Anything goes. And just for the fun of it, I've invited some more people to the party. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 02:14, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

: A [[WYSIWYG]] drag-and-drop layout tool for adding, arranging and removing sections would be very nice. [[User:Waggers|<b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b  style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b>]][[User talk:Waggers|<small  style="color:#080">''TALK''</small>]] 11:22, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion:

*Create portal
*:Looks good. Will this use a defailt arrangement, or prompt for location of components? I suggest defailt, as Rearrange sections is available below and can be used to tweak the product, while allowing an easy revert to standard if it all goes pear-shaped. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
*Upgrade portal
*:In principle, looks good. The details of what it would do are not clear yet, probably because this is still in development. I suggest that one of the things would be to fix accessibility problems with colours in the box-headers. Replace old templates with new where it does not break functionality. What else? · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
*Add section
*:Yes, useful.· · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
*Move section
*:Yes, providing it leaves clean wikicode in the result, or at least not too nuch to clean up. It may be difficult to manage comments cleanly, and should warn if there may be anomalous comments after the move. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
*Rearrange sections
*:I like the idea of reverting to a standard arrangement if we can agree on one, and allowing customised arrangement if needed. Also should leave clean wikicode. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
*Analyse
*:This feature appeals to the inner nerd, so I like it in principle. 
*:*Agree that listing missing standard sections would be useful. 
*:*Calculation of depth of template calls, Lua load, time to render etc (or whatever these things are called) would be handy if they can be called from the html, because most of our editors probably don't know that such things exist. An explanation of what these things mean/comparison with the current limits would make this useful to see when a portal is approaching critical mass. 
*:*Check on accessibility issues. 
*:*It could have links to other page analysis tools and statistics. Some of the GA, FA and peer review tools could be useful. 
*:*Analysis might include a warning that the portal is tagged for manual maintenance, but has not been changed for say 3 months or date of last maintenance edit.
*:*There could be a quality check against the criteria where reasonably feasible and a suggestion to look more closely if near a borderline or if the existing class is different. 
*:*Other things will be requested as we think of them. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

:My only hesitation about a portal creation tool is that, unless there is some sort of approval process, it could encourage an explosion in the number portals, which are either on very narrow topics or which fail to be maintained. So I'm not against the tool itself - I think it's a great concept - just concerned about this project then facing an issue of gazillions of low-value, poorly maintained portals which then put us back into a situation where portals as a whole come under attack by the community. [[User:Bermicourt|Bermicourt]] ([[User talk:Bermicourt|talk]]) 06:44, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
::I agree. I like the idea of the creation tool, but not making it available on every article. Making it available on category pages could be a better approach, as these are likely to be on broader topics. Or the script could check whether an article is the main topic of a category, and only display the "create portal" link if it is. [[User:Waggers|<b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b  style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b>]][[User talk:Waggers|<small  style="color:#080">''TALK''</small>]] 11:19, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
:::I also agree. I also like the idea of the script, but we will want to ensure that creating portals can only be done when the portal will meet the criteria (so the idea of categories idea is a good thought). It may be a good idea to ensure that a certain number of edits and time has passed before a user can use the script (perhaps checking for extended confirmed user group) so that new users cannot spam portal creation. [[User:Dreamy Jazz|Dreamy <i style="color:#d01e1e">'''Jazz'''</i>]] <sup>''[[User_talk:Dreamy Jazz|talk]]'' &#124; ''[[Special:Contributions/Dreamy Jazz|contribs]]''</sup> 14:16, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
::::If the portal creation tool worked only on a pre-existing structural framework such as an outline list, category, or navbox it could check that the framework was sufficiently complex to be suitable. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 15:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
:: Having unfinished portals in "Portal:" space is a problem. Maybe we should move them all to the "Draft:" namespace, even if they are multi-paged. And then, in the future, if we come across an unfinished or poor quality portal, all we have to do to keep the collection clean is move those to Draft: space. In this regard, Draft: space would make a wonderful quality control tool. I've added a suggested feature below, for the PortalTool tool to create new portals only in the Draft: namespace. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:21, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

=== Some more possible features ===
{{ping|Pbsouthwood|Evad37|Coffeeandcrumbs|AfroThundr3007730|Bermicourt|Dreamy Jazz|Nick Moyes|Auric|Waggers|Godsy}}

{{ping|Slambo|SMcCandlish|FR30799386|Mercurywoodrose|Dicklyon|Dthomsen8|Espilio|Greatedits1|Nigos|Wumbolo}}

Here are some more possible features for the PortalTool. See the initial description for the script and discussion of features in the previous section above. (Typescript represents menu items):

# Creates new portals in the Draft: namespace &ndash; To avoid the consequences of having unfinished portals in the portals namespace, since we are dealing with a one-page design here, creating new portals is feasible in the draft namespace. If one goes 6-months without any edits, it gets summarily deleted by someone. We just have to make sure all the templates work the same in that namespace.
# '''<code><nowiki>Change color</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; not sure how this would handle portals that use different colors on its various sections. In such cases, it should probably present a warning before proceeding. See: [[Portal:Microsoft]].
# WYSIWYG drag-and-drop interface &ndash; idea courtesy of [[User talk:Waggers|Waggers]]. This might be possible by altering the HTML directly, which would require clicking a save button or menu item to convert the HTML to wiki format and edit and save the page accordingly. 
# Unfinished portal alert &ndash; tool has discovered an unfinished portal, and asks the user if it should be moved to draft space. If answered, yes, the tool moves the portal to draft space. Is this possible?
# Portal has problems alert &ndash; in addition to displaying a notice of the problems, also prompts the user for appropriate tag placement. If the user answers "yes", the tool places the relevant tags, which in turn puts the portal in the corresponding category where our troubleshooters can spot it. Maybe we can borrow functionality from Twinkle?
# Manual maintenance alert &ndash; presents notice that the portal is manually maintained, then asks if user wishes to proceed.
# Subpages detected alert &ndash; not sure what the tool can do about subpages. Thoughts?
# '''<code><nowiki>Add to selection</nowiki></code>''' &ndash; presents a numbered list of the "Selected" sections and prompts for a number. After the user enters a number, the script prompts for the item to be added to that section. This would require use of a template that could accept both sourcepage names and excerpt article names. Is such a template possible?
# If draft already exists, loads the draft &ndash; self-explanatory.
# Automatically upgrade certain sections &ndash; news sections and DYK sections can be made conditional, so that they appear only when they have items to display. Categories section has some straightforward tweaks that can be applied. Prompts the user before proceeding on each operation.
# Check for extended confirmed user group &ndash; idea courtesy of [[User talk:Dreamy Jazz|Dreamy Jazz]].

I look forward to your comments and further ideas. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:21, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Concerning using the draft space for portals, it screws up the use of the <code><nowiki>{{PAGENAME}}</nowiki></code> magic word. The pagename for Draft:Portal:Whatever is Portal:Whatever, which makes many of the templates not work. The only fix I can think of off the top of my head is to have a "Portal draft:" namespace. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 19:30, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
:Regarding the draft namespace portals, another factor must be considered: besides breaking the page name, some of the templates won't operate correctly outside of portal space. Having a draft step might be unnecessary for most portals though. If the portal pending creation is going to be standard layout, simply using the portal skeleton and tweaking the result would be sufficient. Since {{tl|Box portal skeleton}} tags new portals as incomplete by default, we can track them, and most wouldn't need an extended stay in draft space. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 23:47, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
::Building on this idea, if the portal creation tool will not create a portal unless it meets the minimum requirements, this problem goes away. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 15:44, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
In retrospect, it will probably be best to focus on portal editing features for now, rather than on one for portal creation. The community's concerns in the RfC focused on the inadequacy of existing portals. So fixing those up should remain our priority. Portal creation at the push of a button would be extremely distracting.  Portal creation can still be done by using the various templates designed for that. This way, we don't need to worry about push button creation of a flurry of unfinished portals. Once the templates have been developed to automatically create completed portals of high quality, then adding creation to PortalTool makes sense. The tool would simply insert one of those, and perhaps ask for parameters. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 19:37, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
:Working on a prototype for a portal creation tool can be done in parallel with developing portal fixing tools, and each may produce useful ideas for the other, but a production version is not high priority, and will not be until we have defined the minimum requirements more clearly. Eventually producing a substantial portal from scratch should be easier and less work than fixing an existing portal. When we reach that point it will be more efficient to rebuild from scratch then to patch up old portals. This point may not really be that far away if we can come up with a way to easily create a robust structural framework. Categories spring to mind, but not for long, as Wikipedias categories seem to be a bit of a mess (the ones I have looked at, anyway) Navboxes are probably too limited in most cases, and outline lists, while inherently suitable, still require a lot of manual input to create and maintain. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:09, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Detail discussion of new possible features:
# Draft space: 
#*Probably not worth the effort. Tools should not allow creation of an incomplete portal. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
# Change colour:
#*Could be useful. Select sections to change to new colour, select colour, save.· · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
# WYSIWYG drag-and-drop interface:
#* Can't comment on this as I don't understand what is being suggested. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#** {{ping|Pbsouthwood}} This: You see the portal on your screen. You don't like the placement of the picture slideshow, so you click on it, holding down the mouse button. Then you drag it to where you want it on the page, and then let go. The picture slideshow is now where you want it. In the background, the tool has edited the underlying wikicode, so that it appears that way permanently. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:50, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#***Nice if it can be done reliably. It would need to be sure of selecting all the associated code so it doesn't leave confusing fragments and comments behind. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:43, 15 August 2018 (UTC) 
# Unfinished portal alert: 
#* Part of the analysis toolset? Tag portal as unfinished, if it has not been edited in ? months, either fix using tools, tag as unfinished, or tag for deletion. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#** The tool should also be able to tell the user if the tool can fix it, and ask to proceed. Then there would be no need to tag any of them for deletion. Unless they are hopeless. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:50, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#***Agreed. Even better if it also has a way to identify the probably hopeless cases. Also what is hopeless today may be quite apprpriate next year, but the portal should not exist until it is appropriate, because this toolkit will make it quick and easy to create when the time is right. It might even provide suggestions for what additional mainspace content is needed to make a portal appropriate for the topic.· · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:52, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
#  Portal has problems alert:
#* Part of the analysis toolset, Tag, fix if conveniently possible. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
# Manual maintenance alert:
#* Should be the first thing the tool does on opening an existing portal, If true, show warning in tool UI. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
# Subpages detected alert:
#* Show on opening existing portal. If not manually maintained, fix using tool if conveniently possible, or tag if not already tagged. Not a high priority to fix if working OK, and in date, but fair game for conversion if not flagged as manually maintained. In some cases rebuilding from scratch may be less work, Leave to discretion of the editor. Tool to list acceptable options. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
# Add to selection:
#*Proposal looks good if practicable. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]:
# If draft already exists, loads the draft:
#* Not as self explanatory as claimed, as I don't know what is proposed here. · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#** There's no portal for a subject. You click "Create portal". The script checks draft space to see if there is a portal already started there. If there is, it loads that for you to continue work on. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:50, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#***OK, Obviuous once you see it. Some things are like that. That would be a useful feature, though in some cases the draft may be more work to fix than creating a new portal from scratch (the draft may be really badly structured or full of deprecated formatting). It would be even more useful if it can tell the difference and advise which way to go.· · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 05:43, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
# Automatically upgrade certain sections:
#* Proposal is for semi-automatic upgrades as user is prompted, but good idea. Disable if manually maintained? Disable tool altogether for manually maintained portals or require confirmation of edits after warning?
# Check for extended confirmed user group:
#* Portal creation tool should not be enabled unless extended confirmed, · · · [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
#** And a notice as to why it won't run, so that the user isn't left there scratching their head wondering why the script isn't working. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 22:50, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

==Discussion at [[Template talk:Box-header#Switch to Module:Box-header?]]==
[[File:Farm-Fresh eye.png|15px|link=|alt=]]&nbsp;You are invited to join the discussion at [[Template talk:Box-header#Switch to Module:Box-header?]].  <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:22, 13 August 2018 (UTC)<!-- [[Template:Please see]] -->
:I missed this, but see that you have already converted {{tl|Box-header}} to match {{tl|Box-header/lua}} and accept colour parameters. I think this makes a lot of sense, so well done and thanks. Also, thanks for updating [[Portal:Scotland]] accordingly. [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 17:01, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

== Javascript tasks? ==

Hi, I read through the main project page, and I couldn't tell which tasks require knowledge of Javascript. Could someone elaborate? Thanks! --[[User:Audiodude|audiodude]] ([[User talk:Audiodude|talk]]) 21:46, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|Audiodude}} At the moment there's just an initial design discussion, see {{slink||Discussions about a portal tool}} above - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:06, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

== Discussions about selected article sections ==

=== Maintaining portals that use transclusion ===

I've been constructing an automated page-lite portal at [[Portal:Scottish islands]], but have increasingly found that, though initially very convenient to create, it's actually harder to maintain than the old hundred-subpages format, because one can't view all the selections at once to troubleshoot, as one can at, say, [[Portal:Cheshire/Selected article/Archive]]. 

Is there a way of taking the content at a subpage such as [[Portal:Scottish islands/Island]] and using this as the portal's randomised rotation, without needing to create more than a single subpage level? This would be much more intuitive to old-fashioned portal maintainers, such as myself, and would, I believe, allow one to choose the image & image size, and to customise the number of paragraphs excerpted, without compromising the automated status or needing to fuss with creating hundreds of subpages. It would be particularly great if it could be applied to DYKs, as [[Portal:Cheshire/Did you know/Archive]] is a nightmare to update if you want to shuffle DYKs from selection to selection. [[User:Espresso Addict|Espresso Addict]] <small>([[User talk:Espresso Addict|talk]])</small> 17:38, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
: {{ping|Espresso Addict}} One possible solution is to upgrade to {{tl|Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}}. That uses the same syntax as {{tl|Transclude random excerpt}}, except for the template title, so the selections remain exactly the same. The difference is that you can now cycle through the excerpts by clicking on the {{keypress|<}} {{keypress|>}} keys. I've taken the liberty to adjust the portal to display excerpt slideshows (it looks the same except for the {{keypress|<}} {{keypress|>}} symbols at the tops of sections), so you can see the difference. Feel free to revert. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 02:24, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} It looks ok to me, if a little spacy, but I don't know whether it works yet for mobile users? 

::As I wrote above, the thing that would be most useful would be the ability to customise on an article-by-article basis the number of paragraphs excerpted and to explicitly set the image. A lot of the article excerpts still aren't finding any image, despite the fact that the selected articles all have many excellent images. [[User:Espresso Addict|Espresso Addict]] <small>([[User talk:Espresso Addict|talk]])</small> 20:17, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

::: {{ping|Espresso Addict}} Slideshows are not yet available for mobile users, nor will they likely be technically feasible anytime soon. Instead, mobile devices get a default view. To see it add a .m inbetween en. and wikipedia in the url, like this:

::: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Scottish_islands

::: Concerning your template feature suggestions, I assume you are talking about {{tl|Tranclude random excerpt}} and {{tl|Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}} (correct me if I am mistaken). Those "accept any number of page names as unnamed parameters". I've pinged our Lua gurus. Perhaps they can let us know how feasible having parameters for each page would be to implement. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 00:21, 23 August 2018 (UTC)
::::Speaking for {{tl|Transclude random excerpt}} only: yes, it could have those extra parameters but the syntax could become unwieldy.  The change would also apply to {{tl|Transclude selected excerpt}} (but not to {{tl|Transclude linked excerpt}} nor {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}}, for which the articles are listed on another page).  Here are a few options for how the entry for the 37th selectable article could look in the portal page which calls the template:
::::#… | Some article | paragraphs37 = 1-3 | files37 = 1,2
::::#… | Some article [paragraphs 1-3 files 1-2]
::::The first syntax is more standard but requires the editor to count the preceding articles and to update all parameter names whenever one is inserted or deleted.  The second one is totally non-standard and abuses the fact that square brackets [] can't appear in an article name.  (Angle brackets <> or braces {} would also work.) We can't use "[paragraphs = 1-3…" here: the = sign would prevent creation of an unnamed parameter and instead would give named parameter "Some article [paragraphs" the value "1-3 files = 1-2]".  (Theoretically, we ''could'' parse article names from such unexpected parameters, but the resulting code would be arcane and unmaintainable.)  Spacing is arbitrary in all cases.  We could implement both but I think that might be even more confusing.

::::It is tempting to look for a way of allowing
:::::3. … | Some article | paragraphs = 1-3 | files = 1,2
::::but, even if we managed to retain the parameters and detect their positions, the portal editor could get [[Help:duplicate parameters|duplicate parameters]] warnings.
::::Further comments welcome, [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 10:10, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

== [[Template:Transclude table item excerpt]] ==

For regional portals (cities, counties, countries, etc.), I've been trying to build portals by pulling items out of lists (with {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}}, but a great many if not most of the lists in support of regions seem to be tables. For example, [[List of counties in Colorado]], [[List of cities in China]], [[List of provincial parks of Vancouver Island]], and so on.

Can we get a transclusion template for pulling the main items out of templates? This would really help with creating regional portals. Here is a more detailed description, adapted from the template previously mentioned:

<blockquote>The template accepts one page name as an unnamed parameter. Wikilinked items in the first column of the indicated table are collected from that page, or a section of it. One such item is selected randomly, and its destination is transcluded. (If the selected page is invalid, the template will choose again.) Include a namespace where necessary.</blockquote>

Is this doable with Lua? 

I look forward to your replies. Sincerely, <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 20:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
:That sounds easy but could be a pig in practice because everyone formats tables differently.  For example, each row in the Colorado template uses {{tl|Countyrow}}.  It's all designed to display nicely to humans rather than to be machine readable, and any scraping we try to do may go badly wrong if someone decides to make the table look prettier in future.  [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 20:24, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
:: {{ping|Certes|Evad37}} The links we want will be in a specific column. Would it be easy to identify the column specified as a parameter? If the user wants the links in the 3rd column, for example. How would differences in table formats affect column identification? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:46, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

== Recognize sections in templates ==

For {{tl|Transclude list item excerpt}} and {{tl|Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}}, it would be very useful if they could recognize sections in a template. Such as in {{tl|Mars}}. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:15, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

: Whoa. I restarted [[Portal:Mars]] using a slight variation of box portal skeleton, and the revamp was completed in just 3 edits, complete with Did you know and In the news sections. The second edit was to refine the search string for those sections, and the third was to specify which file to use for the intro. Three edits! This would not have been possible without the portal components you guys developed. Thank you.

: I can't help but wonder what miracles you guys will perform next. Well, when I look at the topics section, I begin to drool. Access to the subsections in there would allow those sections to be used to populate ''Selected'' sections further up the page. Then an editor could break the ''Selected general articles'' section into more specific sections, for a better mapping and presentation of the subject.

: Is this possible?

: When I try this now, by trying to specify the various sections of the Mars template that is used in the topic section of the Mars portal, it doesn't home in on the desired subsets of topics. See below...

{{Flex columns
|1=<!-- LEFT COLUMN -->
{{Box-header colour|Selected atmoshphere articles|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1 | files=1 | limit=15 | more=
| Template:Mars | section1=Atmosphere
|
}}
{{Box-footer}}

{{Box-header colour|Selected regions of Mars|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1 | files=1 | limit=15 | more=
| Template:Mars | section1=Regions
|
}}
{{Box-footer}}

|2=<!-- SECOND COLUMN -->

{{Box-header colour|Selected physical features of Mars|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1 | files=1 | limit=15 | more=
| Template:Mars | section1=Physical features
|
}}
{{Box-footer}}

{{Box-header colour|Selected geology articles|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1 | files=1 | limit=15 | more=
| Template:Mars | section1=Geology
|
}}
{{Box-footer}}
}} <!-- END OF FLEX COLUMNS -->

: Each section above picks up items from the whole template, rather than the specified section of the template.

: Can this be made to work? If so, what would that entail? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 19:49, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

== [[Template:Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow]] ==

=== [[Portal:Health and fitness]] ===

From the portal:

{{Box-header colour|Selected general articles|EDIT=yes|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes}}
{{Transclude linked excerpts as random slideshow | paragraphs=1-3 | files=1 | limit=15 | more=
| Portal:Contents/Overview/Health and fitness
}}
{{Box-footer}}

<span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 01:22, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{Fixed}}, had parameter name typos in [[Module:Excerpt slideshow]] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 04:54, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

==Dynamic sizing of images==
{{FYI|Previous discussion at: {{slink|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Archive 4#Dynamic image sizing}}.}}
{{replyto|Pbsouthwood|Evad37|The Transhumanist}} I have implemented a rough version of dynamic image sizing at [[Template:Portal dynamic image]]. I created some testcases at [[User:FR30799386/sandbox]] to show how it behaves. Please let me know if there are any other features that can be added&nbsp;—&nbsp;<b class="nowrap">'''''[[User:FR30799386|F]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|R]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup>+</sup>]]'''</b><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 05:29, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
:Looks useful. Commented on template talk, and tested centering, which will be used fairly often. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 06:13, 8 August 2018 (UTC)


: {{ping|FR30799386}} How does this differ from {{tl|Portal image banner}}? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:33, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
::{{ping|The Transhumanist}} - The underlying CSS hack is the same. But implementing it inside the {{tl|Portal image banner}} template would be a maintenance nightmare. I think this could be used to enlarge and display the accompanying extraneous images in the lead section of the portals. I am slightly involved in meatspace priorities these days, but once I get over them I'll try to convert it to lua and check for potential use-cases of the template.&nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 16:10, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
::: {{ping|FR30799386}} Cool. By the way, if IRL is "meatspace", what is the space we are in right now called? :) <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:50, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
::::<small>Wikispace;)&nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 04:57, 26 August 2018 (UTC)</small>

== [[Template:Number of portals]] ==

{{ping|John of Reading|The Transhumanist|Evad37|Certes|AfroThundr3007730|Cesdeva}}

[[Template:Number of portals]] is used to define how many portals currently exist on a couple of pages, including in [[Portal:Contents/Portals]]. However, it has to be updated by hand from database dumps, which John of Reading has been doing. The latest list is at [[User:John of Reading/List of portals]]. Could we replace it with something else? Since we have [[:Category:All portals]], <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCATEGORY:All portals}}</nowiki></code> looks promising. It currently produces {{PAGESINCATEGORY:All portals}}, which is quite a bit more than the template. However, it is also an expensive function call. If we want to replace it, we should probably replace [[Template:FPO number]] with <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCATEGORY:Featured portals}}</nowiki></code> as well. [[User:Greatedits1|Greatedits<sup>1</sup>]] <sub>([[Special:Contributions/Greatedits1|I hope so]] &#124; [[User_Talk:Greatedits1|If not, let me know]])</sub> 23:05, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
:Yes, I'd use <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCATEGORY:All portals}}</nowiki></code>.  Good idea.  I don't think one expensive call will be a problem, as the template isn't widely used.  I hope that the comma which PAGESINCATEGORY inserts after the thousands digit won't trip up any automation which uses it. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 23:25, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
::If any usage actually needs the plain number, it can formatted that way with <code><nowiki>{{formatnum:{{PAGESINCAT:All portals}}|R}}</nowiki></code> - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:37, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
:::Good. Do we even know if there are any usages which need the plain number? [[User:Greatedits1|Greatedits<sup>1</sup>]] <sub>([[Special:Contributions/Greatedits1|I hope so]] &#124; [[User_Talk:Greatedits1|If not, let me know]])</sub> 16:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
:Is it even worth having a template for this? Why not just use <code><nowiki>{{PAGESINCAT:All portals}}</nowiki></code> directly?  (it's only three letters longer). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:37, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
::I don't think so. Really, that's what I was proposing above. [[User:Greatedits1|Greatedits<sup>1</sup>]] <sub>([[Special:Contributions/Greatedits1|I hope so]] &#124; [[User_Talk:Greatedits1|If not, let me know]])</sub> 16:01, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
:::I've nominated it for deletion: [[Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 August 21#Template:Number of portals]] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 07:07, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
::::Before we delete it, we need to update [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=hastemplate%3A%22Number+of+portals%22+insource%3A%2F%5C%7B+%2A%5BNn%5Dumber%5B+_%5D%2Bof%5B+_%5D%2Bportals%2F&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1&ns1=1&ns2=1&ns3=1&ns4=1&ns5=1&ns6=1&ns7=1&ns8=1&ns9=1&ns10=1&ns11=1&ns12=1&ns13=1&ns14=1&ns15=1&ns100=1&ns101=1&ns108=1&ns109=1&ns118=1&ns119=1&ns446=1&ns447=1&ns710=1&ns711=1&ns828=1&ns829=1&ns2300=1&ns2301=1&ns2302=1&ns2303=1&searchToken=8w10ujap272emt5huf1pe2ir its callers] to use PAGESINCATEGORY.  Are we ready to do that?  I am loath to edit User: pages, especially archives, but none of those editors still contribute regularly. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 10:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
:::::Sure, but there's only actually 16 transclusions according to [https://tools.wmflabs.org/templatecount/index.php?lang=en&namespace=10&name=Number_of_portals#bottom]. Plus the TFD regulars are pretty experienced with cleaning up template usage before implementing the result of a TFD discussion, see [[Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell]] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:54, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
::::::Instead of deletion, we could also just replace the contents with the PAGESINCAT syntax. Doesn't matter much to me either way. — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 05:01, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

==TemplateStyles RfC passed==
{{tracked|T197603}}
{{ping|The Transhumanist|Cesdeva|Evad37}} Just a heads up guys, both the RfC to [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 166#RfC: Enabling TemplateStyles|enable TemplateStyles on enwiki]] and the RfC to [[Wikipedia talk:TemplateStyles#RFC: Adopt as a guideline|adopt the TemplateStyles guidelines]] were closed with consensus to implement. We may be able to make use of them soon, as soon as [[mw:Parsing/Replacing_Tidy|HTML Tidy gets replaced]]. &mdash;&nbsp;AfroThundr&nbsp;<sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]]&nbsp;·&nbsp;[[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]]&nbsp;·&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 15:31, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
:That is good news. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 07:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
::And now that we've switched from Tidy to Remex, the extension can be enabled (probably a couple weeks from now). — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 12:22, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
{{ping|The Transhumanist|Cesdeva|Evad37}} As of today, TemplateStyles are now enabled on enwiki. What's first on our agenda for these? — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 12:10, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
:There's been various posts on the project's talk pages saying "we'll have to wait for TemplateStyles", or similar wording; we should go through the archives and current talk pages and make a list of what we want to do. I think a big priority should be getting a decent fallback for stuff that is currently broken on mobile, like slideshows. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 13:36, 19 July 2018 (UTC)
::I've started a list below, feel free to add to it - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 16:15, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

===Things we need TemplateStyles for===
*Image slideshow: fallback for mobile
*:{{Done}} {{resize|1= will now show up to 4 random images in a standard gallery, instead of all the images - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 16:15, 19 July 2018 (UTC)}}
*Text excerpts as a slideshow
*:{{Done}} {{resize|1= see {{tl|Transclude excerpts as random slideshow}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 04:12, 20 July 2018 (UTC)}}
*Section editing for portals, with consistent {{tag|h2|open}} styling across skins (particularly margin/padding)
*Show different text for desktop vs mobile
*:{{Done}} {{resize|1= see {{tl|If mobile}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 12:16, 30 August 2018 (UTC)}}
*[[#Override navbox styles|Override navbox styles]]
*:{{Done}} {{resize|1= see {{tl|Plain navboxes}} - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 03:10, 30 August 2018 (UTC)}}
*[[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design/Archive 1#Automatic balancing of columns|Automatic balancing of columns]]
*:{{done}} {{resize|1= See {{tl|Flex columns}} by {{u|Evad37}} — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 14:29, 28 July 2018 (UTC)}}
*[[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Archive 4|Dynamic image sizing]]
*:{{in progress}} {{resize|1= See {{tl|Portal dynamic image}} by {{u|FR30799386}} — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 23:57, 13 August 2018 (UTC)}}
*[[#Fitting panoramas to the width of the frame|Auto-sizing banner images]]
*:{{done}} {{resize|1= See {{tl|Portal image banner}} by {{u|FR30799386}} — AfroThundr <sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]] · [[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]] · [[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 04:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)}}

===Discussion on TemplateStyles-related template fixes===
: Looking at the mobile view of [[Portal:Lithuania]], the latest "showcase" portal to be mentioned in the project newsletter, it looks like all the slideshow elements are displaying. Is the fix mentioned above automatic or does something else need to be done to the template to stop all the selected items showing as a gallery? (cc: [[User:The Transhumanist]])
: A second but related question - do these slideshow templates work by loading all of the content from all of the pictures/articles and then hiding all but the selected one? If so that means users will be potentially downloading lots of content that they'll never actually see (unless they scroll through the entire slideshow). For mobile viewers on limited data packages, that's not a welcome development. Obviously not an issue if the images/excerpts are loaded on demand by [[AJAX]]. [[User:Waggers|<b style="color:#98F">W</b><b style="color:#97E">a</b><b style="color:#86D">g</b><b style="color:#75C">ge</b><b  style="color:#83C">r</b><b  style="color:#728">s</b>]][[User talk:Waggers|<small  style="color:#080">''TALK''</small>]] 11:56, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
:: {{ping|Waggers}} {{u|Evad37}} is more qualified to answer these questions, as he developed the Lua module. I do recall that he reported that the slideshow does not work in the mobile view, and that he set at least one of the modules to default to an alternative behavior. So a fix of some sort is likely implementable... <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 12:09, 27 July 2018 (UTC)
:::{{talkquote|Is the fix mentioned above automatic or does something else need to be done to the template to stop all the selected items showing as a gallery?}} The fix is automatic, through the TemplateStyles css files at [[Template:Random slideshow/style.css]] (image slideshows) and [[Template:Transclude excerpts as random slideshow/style.css]] (text excerpt slideshows).{{talkquote|do these slideshow templates work by loading all of the content from all of the pictures/articles and then hiding all but the selected one?}} The higher resolutions images for {{tl|random slideshow}} and {{tl|transclude files as random slideshow}} are loaded via javascript, but the captions, small thumbnail images, and all the content for the text excerpt slideshows are loaded with the page. It's not great, but it makes the feature usable. As far as I know, there's no way of sending different content to mobile and desktop devices – apart for some reason for the gallery slideshow, which is missing on mobile website but present on the desktop website (along with the regular gallery, which is present on both but hidden by default on desktop). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 17:24, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

== Different text for mobile / desktop website ==

{{ping|The Transhumanist|Pbsouthwood}} Remember {{slink|Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals/Design/Archive 2|Mobile view support}}&thinsp;? Well, its now possible with a new template {{tl|if mobile}}. Its really easy to use – {{tlx|if mobile|''text for mobile website''|''text for desktop website''}} – and will allow us to call a slideshow gallery a slideshow when it is a slideshow (i.e. on desktop website) but not when it isn't (i.e. on mobile website) - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 12:37, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
: {{ping|Evad37}} Nice. By the way, why is it that slideshows can't work on mobiles? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 13:21, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
::See {{phab|T194887}} for details, but basically, it is currently not turned on for mobile. Turning it on would apparently break the media viewer, and cause severe reflow issues (content jumping around the page) - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 13:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
: Thanks, it works for me. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 16:44, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
::Could this be worked into {{tl|Random slideshow}} (or Module:Random slideshow) so that it provides a slideshow in desktop and a randomly selected single image (not a gallery) from the same set of images in mobile? The gallery view tends to be a bit overwhelming on mobile. &middot; &middot; &middot; [[User:Pbsouthwood|Peter (Southwood)]] [[User talk:Pbsouthwood|<sup>(talk)</sup>]]: 17:08, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

== Transclude files as random slideshow ==
{{cot|Initial list}}
;[[Portal:Albania]]
:{{ping|Evad37}} Slideshow didn't work. See:
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Albania&oldid=852489175

;[[Portal:Bihar]]
:{{ping|Evad37}} Slideshow didn't work. See:
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Bihar&oldid=852492332

;[[Portal:Beijing]]
:Slideshow didn't work. See:
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Beijing&oldid=852493129

;[[Portal:Buenos Aires]]
:Slideshow didn't work. See:
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Buenos_Aires&oldid=852493457
{{cob}}
{{cot |Some more slideshows that didn't work }}
:{{ping|Evad37}}
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Boston&oldid=852493303
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Chandigarh&oldid=852494101
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Delhi&oldid=852494684
:Doesn't find any images in [[List of historic places in Estrie]]
:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Estonia&oldid=852495900
{{cob}}
From an initial look, it seems that several, if not all, of the above issues is from the module getting confused by multiple images being specified on the same line (rather than with a linebreak between them), and maybe by images within tables. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 15:07, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

=== Slideshow malfunctions ===
{{ping|Certes|Evad37}}

I installed many slideshows, and most worked fine, but the following list of them are not working right:
{{cot}}
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Animal_rights&oldid=854559045
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Ancient_Japan&oldid=854561084
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Alphabet_Inc.&oldid=854561399
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aerosmith&oldid=854559011
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Czech_Republic&oldid=854563179
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Buenos_Aires&oldid=854563033
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Bihar&oldid=854562973
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Beijing&oldid=854562969
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Google&oldid=854567157
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Human_spaceflight&oldid=854567266
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Iowa&oldid=854572941
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Kosovo&oldid=854573044
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Lutheranism&oldid=854573098
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Chandigarh&oldid=854574576
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Punjab&oldid=854574591
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:San_Diego_County&oldid=854574727
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Solar_System&oldid=854574787
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Television_in_the_United_States&oldid=854578374
: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Terrorism&oldid=854578383
{{cob}}
I hope the above links help. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 09:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{partly done|Mostly fixed}}. Many of these have been fixed by an edit to Module:Random slideshow. The remaining problematic ones are:
*https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Boston&oldid=852493303
*<del>https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Ancient_Japan&oldid=854561084</del>
*https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Alphabet_Inc.&oldid=854561399
*https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Google&oldid=854567157
- <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 10:43, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
:Fixed Ancient Japan [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal%3AAncient_Japan&type=revision&diff=854905721&oldid=854561084] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span>
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{Fixed}} the remaining ones with another edit to [[Module:Random slideshow]] - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 17:37, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
:: {{ping|Evad37}} That was amazing. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 21:12, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

=== Table troubles ===

{{ping|Evad37|Certes}} The new portals are sprinkled with this problem...

Notice the captions:

{{Box-header colour|Selected images of lost architecture|SPAN=yes|TOC=yes|EDIT=yes}}
{{Transclude files as random slideshow| paragraphs=1-3 | files=1 | more=|width=220px
| List of missing landmarks in Spain
}}
{{Box-footer}}

For every image that happens to be inside a table, we get the pixel size as the caption. This problem shows up sporadically in the new portals. Sincerely, <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 01:48, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} This is basically a problem with the source article [[List of missing landmarks in Spain]]. The files are specified as <code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>File:''filename.ext''|''size''px<nowiki>]]</nowiki></code>, instead of <code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>File:''filename.ext''|''size''px|''description''<nowiki>]]</nowiki></code> (or <code><nowiki>[[</nowiki>File:''filename.ext''|''size''px|''description''|alt=''alt text''<nowiki>]]</nowiki></code>. Until the issue is fixed in the article, the module ([[Module:Excerpt]]) should probably just present the image without a caption – but detecting when this situation has occurred may be a bit tricky. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:50, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

=== [[Portal:X-Men]] ===

{{ping|Evad37|Certes}} The image slideshow is not picking up the images from [[X-Men]]. Do the slideshow templates pick up on .png images? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 01:52, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|The Transhumanist}} Those images are ignored by the module because they are non-free and thus can't be used - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:28, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

== {{tl|Portal image banner}} - Some questions / requests ==
I have recently been updating [[Portal:Scotland]] with Panorama header images (several versions as {{U|The Transhumanist}} will testify). Cuirrently they rotate randomly, dependant upon a user refresh / purge or page reload.

My question is this: Is it possible to get {{tl|Portal image banner}} to behave in the same way as {{tl|Random slideshow}} ? i.e allow the user to select a new banner image by clicking on a left / right navigation arrow without having to purge / refresh the page?

This is possible at present for panorama headers using {{tl|Random slideshow}} at the head of the Portal, but it results in a truncated width banner image, with an ugly space above containing the user selection arrows. As things stand with {{tl|Portal image banner}}, the images do rotate randomly, but it's dependant on a purge or page reload. It would be nice to allow user control, similar to {{tl|Random slideshow}} / Selected Pictures. The banner image would remain full width, at the top header position with the user selectable navigation arrows showing at either side of the banner. Ideallly they would appear on top of the image at either side upon image hover. Alternatively, the navigation arrows could be static on either side of the banner image whilst keeping the image width as wide as possible and at the top header position.

Is this possible?
I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm sure the technical folks here would love the challenge.
(After all, [[U|Evad37]] got CSS Flex to work seamlessly within the MediaWiki framework -(IMHO absolutely the BIGGEST thing since siced bread and BEYOND) - surely anything is possible?

I live in hope,
Cheers     [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 19:33, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
:It should be possible to make the slideshow controls appear ontop of the image rather in a space above. I'm not sure about getting them to only display on hover though. Resizing the image take up 100% of the available width should also be possible, but with some loss of quality due to upscaling. And an appropriate fallback has to be provided for mobile (i.e. showing a regular {{tl|Portal image banner}} for mobile). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 09:30, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
:: It can be done....the only problem is the probable inconsistency in the positioning of the buttons over the image.&nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 06:39, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
:::Thanks for the replies, sounds promising. [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 07:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
::::{{u|Cactus.man}} I have put together a rough prototype [[User:FR30799386/Bipin Ganatra|here]] (the one on top). Is this what you wanted ?(It will need refinement though)&nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 05:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
:::::{{ping|User:FR30799386}} Thanks for that. it looks good and pretty much achieves what I was thinking of. My only comments are: 1) Is it possible to have the navigatonal arrows appear closer to the extreme left and right edges, in a similar fashion to a typical web gallery? 2) The navigational arrows may become difficult to see depending on the background colour where they appear, even though the image opacity lowers on mouse hover (not sure if that's technically the correct term). Is there a way of addressing this if it becomes an issue? Looking forward to having a working template. [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 08:46, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
::::::{{ping|Cactus.man}} I have added the requested functionality to [[Template:Portal image banner|Portal image banner]]. To access it add <code>|mode=slideshow</code> to the desired transclusion of the template. The template, however is configured not to work on mobile for the time being as I still have not figured out what to do {{p}}. Please ping me for feedback bugs, improvements <small>(I am quite busy IRL presently)</small>. Regards, &nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 11:42, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
:::::::{{ping|User:FR30799386}} Thanks a lot, the template works really well for navigating the panorama images. My only comments concern the effect on the associated captions: 1) A small "icon" like image appears immediately to the left of the caption text like a lower case "i" inside a circle. It's not causing a problem functionally, it's just a bit mysterious; 2) Any Wikilinks inside the caption text become unavailable because the caption text is within the area affected by mouse hovering and the entire caption text is subject to reduced opacity along with the banner image, rendering the Wikilinks un-clickable. That would be a nice thing to fix if at all possible. Other than that, it works brilliantly. You can see it in action at [[Portal:Scotland]]. -[[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 19:31, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
::::::::{{ping|Cactus.man}} The icon is added to provide attribution for the image per CC-BY-SA 3.0 . As for the other problem, it was due to my oversight  while writing the code, it should be fixed now.&nbsp;—&nbsp;<span class="texhtml">'''''[[User:FR30799386|f]][[User talk:FR30799386#top|r]]''&thinsp;[[Special:Contributions/FR30799386|<sup style="color:grey;">+</sup>]]'''</span><!--{{subst:User:FR30799386/sign}}--> 11:30, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
:::::::::{{ping|User:FR30799386}} Thanks for the explanation and the quick fix for the caption issue. All working superbly now. - [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 12:07, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
:::::::::{{ping|User:FR30799386}} I have amended the template documentation page @ [[Template:Portal image banner/doc]] to include instructions for slideshow mode. You may wish to cast your eye over this to make sure I've covered everything correctly. Cheers, - [[User:Cactus.man|<span style="color:#2E8B57">Cactus'''.'''man</span>]] [[User talk:Cactus.man|<span style="font-size: large; cursor:help;" class="Unicode">&#9997;</span>]] 12:42, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
==Override navbox styles==
The purple and light-grey colour scheme of navboxes doesn't really fit it with how other content in portals are styled. But it is possible to make navboxes plain by specifying style parameters, like at [[Portal:U.S._roads#Numbered_highways_in_the_United_States]]. So the idea is to have a Lua module that takes in a navbox, or maybe just the template name, and outputs a plain version for the portal (without having to edit the navbox itself). - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 09:18, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
:For that to work, would the module need to <code>subst:</code> the topic-specific navbox to get the original {{tl|navbox}} call, where the style parameters can be specified? Or could it wrap the navbox in a div with a style tag using <code>!important</code> to override the various <code>navbox-*</code> classes? Since we can't put in style blocks, I'm not sure if we could target the classes directly. It sounds like we'd have to use the first approach. The module would parse the wikitext to pull out the navbox template, then parse the template's source, add or change the relevant style parameters, then return the resulting template code in place of the original. Sounds like this is feasible, but I'm not certain of the limitations of Lua in MediaWiki sites. &mdash;&nbsp;AfroThundr&nbsp;<sup>([[User:AfroThundr3007730|u]]&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;[[User talk:AfroThundr3007730|t]]&nbsp;&middot;&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/AfroThundr3007730|c]])</sup> 14:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
::The first approach was more or less what I had in mind, but subst'ing shouldn't actually be necessary - it can get the page contents as a string, remove any {{tag|noinclude}} tags and their contents, and then just add extra style parameters before the last set of closing braces; finally preprocessing the resulting wikitext and return that as the output. I've already done something sort of similar at [[Module:Portal maintenance status]], so it should be possible. The second approach wouldn't be possible yet, but probably would be when [[WP:TemplateStyles]] is enabled. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 15:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
:::My current thinking is that a wrapper template like <code><nowiki>{{Plain navboxes|content=</nowiki></code> ''(navboxes go here)'' <code><nowiki>}}</nowiki></code>, which would use TemplateStyles to override the styles for the navboxes within. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:08, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
:::: {{ping|Evad37}} That sounds interesting. Have you tested it out yet? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 09:27, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

{{ping|The Transhumanist}} {{Done}}, see [[Template:Plain navboxes/testcases]] for some examples - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 02:51, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
:{{ping|Evad37}} Tried it out on [[Portal:Genesis (band)]]. Worked good. I'll test it out on some more. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 03:02, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

:{{ping|Evad37}} Okay, it is now in use on all of the [[:Category:Single-page portals|Single-page portals]]. Seems to be working great. Makes the navigation templates blend in to look like part of the portal rather than something that was tacked on. A very nice upgrade. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:20, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

=== Can TemplateStyles be used to strip out the boxes altogether? ===

Can TemplateStyles be used to strip out the boxes altogether? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:04, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

=== Can TemplateStyles be used to reformat the entries as bullet lists? ===

Can TemplateStyles be used to reformat the navbox entries as bullet lists? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:04, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

: No need. They are already bullet lists, as they have leading asterisks. <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 23:21, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

=== Can TemplateStyles be used to reformat sidebar (vertical) templates to navfooter (horizontal) templates layout? ===

Can TemplateStyles be used to reformat sidebar (vertical) templates to navfooter (horizontal) templates layout? In generating portals using a creation template, with ''<code><nowiki>{{Template:subjectname}}</nowiki></code>'' specified in the creation template to transclude navigation templates into the portal's topic section, sometimes those turn out to be vertical sidebars or series boxes rather than horizontal navigation footer boxes. It would be nice if those were automatically reformatted into the navigation footer style. Can Templatestyles do that? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:04, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

=== Does Lua look at the html? Could TemplateStyles insert headings that Lua can see as sections? ===

It would be very convenient to populate ''Selected'' sections' slideshows with entries from the sections within a navbox within a portal's topics section.

The most convenient way these days for populating a portal's topics section is by transcluding navigation templates (which in turn typically use the navbox template inside them).

If we are reformatting navboxes via CSS, and [[WP:TemplateStyles]] is used to insert h3 headings into navbox content, will the Lua-powered templates, such as {{tl|Transclude list item excerpts as random slideshow}} (which allows sections to be specified), recognize the headings as sections?  <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 18:04, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
:Lua can only see wikitext, either before or after expanding templates.  The only HTML it sees is any explicit {{tag|br|open}} etc. in the wikitext.  I've never used TemplateStyles. [[User:Certes|Certes]] ([[User talk:Certes|talk]]) 19:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)
:TemplateStyles doesn't affect the structure of the html that is is generated, only the various CSS styles that get applied to each element. So it hide things, but can't insert things that aren't already there. And it can adjust how things are displayed, e.g. colours used, and in certain circumstance perhaps even make vertical things appear horizontal (and vice-versa), but it can't e.g. remove all the box(table) markup, or change something that isn't a html list into a list. - <u>'''[[User:Evad37|Evad]]''37'''''</u>&nbsp;<span style="font-size:95%;">&#91;[[d:w:User talk:Evad37|talk]]]</span> 04:05, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

== Recognize sections in navbox templates ==

On a majority of all portals, navbox templates are used as sourcepages for populating their "Selected general articles" section.

However, navbox templates have much more potential.  Most of those templates are arranged in sections, which provides a useful opportunity. Each navbox section ("group") could support a section on the portal, if a Lua script could be written or modified to access them.

This would allow improved context browsing. A "Selected biographies section" is an example of providing specific context. 

Is this feasible? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 04:28, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

=== Could Lua extract list items from a navbox group? ===

How hard would this be? What would it take? <span class="nowrap">&nbsp;&nbsp; &mdash; ''[[User talk:The Transhumanist|The&nbsp;Transhumanist]]''&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> 04:28, 15 September 2018 (UTC)