Help:Books/Feedback/Archives/2011/July

Sorry about the above lengthy section--Ignore it! :)

Hi. It's me again. Referring directly to video game articles was too narrow of scope, so I'm going to restate this in a more generic sense so that it is clear. I have observed that when in Wikipedia, there are certain Infoboxes in articles that have a "show" button that you click on to show more information in the Infobox. Well, if you expand or show the info by clicking on it, then use Book Creator to turn the article into a .PDF, when afterward reading the PDF, the Infobox doesn't show the expanded information; only the original info remains. Is there some solution to this problem for the PDF's and Infoboxes? I understand this may be a tricky fix that is easier said than done. Thanks! :) 67.182.237.57 (talk) 21:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Query - does this happen with collapsed navboxes? (Or are they suppressed entirely in books?) Rich Farmbrough, 14:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC).

Good question. From what I observe, the navboxes don't exist at all in pdf's. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 22:26, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I might have misinterpreted the question, Rich. The navboxes do exist when 'creating' books in Book Creator, but the navboxes aren't present in the pdf's themselves. Hopefully I addressed your question properly. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 22:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

The show feature is not the problem, it's the specific templates that use the show button that are the problem. Some templates, such as {{Help! tracks}}, work (mostly) but {{Collapsible list}}, which is used for video game infobox release dates, does not. McLerristarr | Mclay1 11:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Mclay1. I'm wondering if there is any course of action to take to propose changes within Wikipedia at the "Village Pump: Proposals", or do I just need to reluctantly accept these problems as unchangeable? If I were to go to Village Pump Proposals, would you agree that I could propose that these templates could have the option of being "toggle-able" so that the "Show" button can be nullified in order to make it display correctly in a PDF book, or perhaps that would be too difficult/unusual to implement? Would you recommend a different approach for creating a better proposal that makes more sense if my first solution doesn't seem suitable? If this question does not fall under your areas of expertise, I understand; and also apologize for using up your time you could be using to answer more relevant and noticeable questions about bugs. Thanks for being able and willing to help. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 22:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps I need to go to the Discussion Page for Collapsible list? (Sorry, couldn't figure out how to properly use the wikilink. Maybe "Collapsible list" doesn't have a Discussion Page.) 67.182.237.57 (talk) 22:55, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I looked on the Help:Collapsing page just barely; I read in this section that "This functionality requires the end-user's browser to have Javascript enabled. If Javascript is disabled, the default behaviour is to show the content". So I tried disabling JavaScript in Firefox settings, and it showed the video game release dates; however, when I downloaded the PDF, there was still blank space under the "Release dates" field. I don't know if I'm getting closer to a solution or just over-complicating things. I just thought I'd mention this, though, since it did show the release dates without any actual "show" button after I refreshed the page. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 23:13, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the best course of action would be to make a print version of the template which uses a different show template or none at all. Make an edit request on Template talk:Collapsible list. Either {{Print version}} can be used or a separate page can be created at Template:Collapsible list/Print (only admins can create print pages). McLerristarr | Mclay1 15:52, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

• Thank you very much for checking into that. I'm not certain I understand, but I'm sure I'll figure it out, and I'll try to do so before this post becomes part of the archive--so that if I don't understand, I'll be sure to respond in this section beforehand so that it's still visible to you or someone else. On the other hand, I may not know what to do if this gets archived unexpectedly.
• I'm not the best at determining where to ask a question of this nature (e.g. I usually have a general idea of where to post, but if it's by chance the wrong section, I don't want to make someone read this whole section (if I link to it) and then be told I'm in the wrong section). I feel kind of guilty because I have mid-to-high functioning Apsergers' Syndrome (that's not what I'm ashamed of, but rather that I can't summarize my thoughts very quickly at all) as a result. I hate having people read long blurbs, because if I was more efficient at summarizing my thoughts they wouldn't have to be bored to tears. Anyhow, I should probably take a ? like this to the (Help Desk?) & see if they can give me a little advice on how to best deal with my summary problems to avoid eyesores like this. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 00:24, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Render server errorFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search An error occured on the render server: RuntimeError: command failed with returncode 256: ['mw-render', '-w', 'rl', '-c', 'cache/e0/e07cedb5e6ebcf1b/collection.zip', '-o', 'cache/e0/e07cedb5e6ebcf1b/output.rl', '--status', 'qserve://localhost:14311/e07cedb5e6ebcf1b:render-rl', '--template-blacklist', 'MediaWiki:PDF Template Blacklist', '--template-exclusion-category', 'Exclude in print', '--print-template-prefix', 'Print', '--print-template-pattern', '$1/Print', '--language', 'en'] Last Output: ing out Wikipedia:Introduction28.2631578947% laying out Wikipedia:Introduction2011-08-02T15:00:05 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=407954881' 28.2631578947% laying out Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines29.5614035088% laying out Help:Introduction to policies and guidelines2011-08-02T15:00:05 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=417388139' 29.5614035088% laying out Help:Introduction to talk pages30.8596491228% laying out Help:Introduction to talk pages2011-08-02T15:00:06 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=442170459' 30.8596491228% laying out Help:Logging in32.1578947368% laying out Help:Logging in2011-08-02T15:00:06 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=425829422' 32.1578947368% laying out Help:Navigation33.4561403509% laying out Help:Navigation2011-08-02T15:00:07 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=434872181' 33.4561403509% laying out Wikipedia:Plain34.7543859649% laying out Wikipedia:Plain2011-08-02T15:00:07 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=434594145' 34.7543859649% laying out Wikipedia:Plain and simple36.0526315789% laying out Wikipedia:Plain and simple2011-08-02T15:00:08 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=430437990' 36.0526315789% laying out Wikipedia:Power37.350877193% laying out Wikipedia:Power2011-08-02T15:00:08 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=409858221' 37.350877193% laying out Wikipedia:Press Kit38.649122807% laying out Wikipedia:Press Kit2011-08-02T15:00:09 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=437771059' 38.649122807% laying out Wikipedia:Principles39.9473684211% laying out Wikipedia:Principles2011-08-02T15:00:09 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=439376494' 39.9473684211% laying out Wikipedia:Quality control41.2456140351% laying out Wikipedia:Quality control2011-08-02T15:00:09 rlwriter.info >> rendering: u'http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=434030939' 41.2456140351% laying out Wikipedia:Questions41.2456140351% error Wikipedia:Questionsremoving '/tmp/tmpGhSFyr' Traceback (most recent call last): File "/home/pp/local/bin/mw-render", line 9, in <module> load_entry_point('mwlib==0.12.14', 'console_scripts', 'mw-render')() File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib-0.12.14-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/apps/render.py", line 214, in main return Main()() File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib-0.12.14-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/mwlib/apps/render.py", line 177, in __call__ writer(env, output=tmpout, status_callback=self.status, **writer_options) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 2153, in writer r.writeBook(output=output, coverimage=coverimage, status_callback=status_callback) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 470, in writeBook art_elements = self.writeArticle(art) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 804, in writeArticle elements.extend(self.renderMixed(article)) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 1081, in renderMixed res = self.write(c) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 323, in write res = m(obj) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rlwriter.py", line 2015, in writeTable t.colwidths = rltables.optimizeWidths(t.min_widths, t.max_widths, avail_width, stretch=stretch) File "/home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib.rl-0.12.8-py2.6.egg/mwlib/rl/rltables.py", line 243, in optimizeWidths return [ w+w/total_current*remaining for w in max_widths] ZeroDivisionError: float division in function system, file /home/pp/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/mwlib-0.12.14-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/EGG-INFO/scripts/nslave.py, line 37

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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Book" Personal toolsLog in / create account NamespacesSpecial page VariantsViewsActionsSearch NavigationMain page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia InteractionHelp About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia ToolboxUpload file Special pages Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Mobile View I had exactly the same error multiple times while I was trying to create a book consisting of Wikipedia basic information and Wikipedia FAQ articles. I get the following message:

Licence

Is it possible to have "License" display as "Licence"? I really don't want American English in my books, especially if the rest of the book consists of articles written in British English. Also, the Licence page seems a bit excessive – an entire page for a tiny bit of writing. McLerristarr | Mclay1 10:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

A couple of things to say about your comments:

• I wonder if Wikipedia lets users with accounts create pdf books after they've edited the sandbox on their user page. What I mean by that is you paste the source of the original article onto your own sandbox page, then make the changes and create a pdf directly from your sandbox. That would solve the problem for individual pages with American English where there should be British English and vice-versa (or even based on personal preference), but wouldn't do much when you want many, many pages changed that way. I know it's not really a solution per se, but would be a nice, perhaps mildly unrelated feature nonetheless.
• I also agree that the Licence/License page seems a little bit much. Perhaps another feature that Wikipedia could incorporate into books is to have the option before you convert to PDF to keep or to completely omit the licence from the books. It might even make the really large books with lots of articles in it load properly. I can't count the number of times I've tried to load a book created by Wikepedia that has multiple articles in it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Book-Class_Wikipedia-Books_articles) -- that won't load because it's too large. The burden on the server (and computer) is already huge. I think maybe if Wikipedia requires these silly licences, why not download the book itself separately and then the licences as a separate pdf or odf? I've looked at some of those licences. They aren't small at all, so I'm really glad you mentioned the licences.
• I apologize about the formatting. I tend to write really long spiels no matter how hard I try to condense them & still communicate my ideas, so this was the best way I could come up with to make it somewhat legible and not too dull. Also, my screen is 1080p, so it probably looks even worse on 1024X768 monitors than I can see personally. 67.182.237.57 (talk) 20:48, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Download as PDF - quite a laugh

I post this comment here because the "Rendering finished" page has no Discussion tab. I find it ironic that the combination "Printable version" + a decent PDF printer driver does an immensely better job at producing a PDF file of a Wikipedia page (try for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Design) than the "Download as PDF" function (although it's not perfect either); you would think that Wikimedia would know its stuff better than Adobe... --AlainR345^{Techno-Wiki-Geek} 15:36, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Bug: Created chapters included in PDF but not OpenDocument Text

If in the Book Creator I create some chapters to organize my book, the chapters are included in the PDF but not included in the OpenDocument Text. You can use my small test book (and I would guess any other book) as an example. Unjedai (talk) 21:05, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

I also see that they aren't included in the openZIM file either. Unjedai (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Feature Request - Custom chapter titles

I created several adapted pages of larger articles for inclusion in a book, and hosted them on my User page. Unfortunately, the title shown in the book is the path, looking like "User:Name/Subdomain/Article" rather than "Article". This ruins an otherwise nice-looking ToC in the PDF *and* the printed book. :( Cathal (talk) 17:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Exporting specific sections of an article

It would be nice to be able to export only specific sections of an article to PDF. Thanks. --jonsafari (talk) 04:54, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this could help create books that contained just the material you wanted. There is a Mediawiki extension that can do something like this but it is not currently installed in Wikipedia. (see Labeled Section Transclusion) Perhaps the question is whether there is sufficient user demand to include this kind of function in the book creator. Recent Runes (talk) 10:17, 30 July 2011 (UTC)