Template talk:Automatic archive navigator

Should we add diff and histoffset parameters?
Archive is being merged here now and has two parameters that this template doesn't hav, diff (~73 uses in this very unreliable search) and histOffset (~68 uses). These add a link to the original revision of the page and the appropriate part of the history respecivly. I could easily add these and carry them over without any issue, but I find these links completly useless. I want to keep unnecessary complexity at a minimum to keep the template easy to use and removing this in my view useless feature used by under 0.1% of transclusions seems reasonable. Pings to TfD participants and the 4 people who use this feature on their user talk pages and have edited in the past month. --Trialpears (talk) 02:02, 17 December 2023 (UTC)


 * You can add a tracking category to find usages if the search isn't good enough. Regarding your question if the parameters are that underused, then either editors don't know about them and might be useful or they just aren't useful. If they aren't useful there is no reason to carry them over. Gonnym (talk) 07:46, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm in favor of omitting them. They are not useful, for at least two reasons. No one needs to see the talk page in the exact state it was when the archive page was created, since that just shows the same threads, just in their original context (it provides no additional information). And archive pages are usually added-to over time until they get so long that a second (third, etc.) archive page is later created, so the two "snapshotting" parameters are not going to relate to the archive page's contents for very long in most cases and will just end up being confusing to anyone who tries to use them. In the weird case that someone does feel a need to look at the original talk page in the state it was in when the archive page was created (e.g. because the archive page was created by someone who later turned out to be a subtle vandal), this is what the page history feature of the website is for. Look at the dates and times of the archived discussions, and go back in the orignal talk page history to whatever date and time is of interest to you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:20, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * I have no objection to removing these parameters, as one of the (apparently very few) people who use them. I think they provide some convenience but I recognize that this may not be worth the added complexity.  Anon 126   (notify me of responses! / talk / contribs) 08:15, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Later archives are not linked
no longer shows later archives, see e.g. MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 21. The list stops at Archive 21, even though Archive 22 and Archive 23 both exist. I don't know when it stopped working as intended. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 09:39, 26 May 2024 (UTC)


 * @Redrose64, the root cause of the issue is that at Special:PrefixIndex/MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive, pages MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 3, MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 4 ... MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 13 don't exist. This causes Module:Highest archive number to fail in the middle of its search.
 * Archiving was done in following ways:
 * Manual – Archive 1 and Archive 2
 * Automatic by User:Shadowbot3 – archiving config was added in Special:Diff/113175592. Per-month archives from March 2007 (Special:Diff/115775580) till January 2008 (Special:Diff/183517497) were archived this way.
 * Automatic by User:MiszaBot II and later User:lowercase sigmabot III – archiving config was added in Special:Diff/289456060 on 12 May 2009, starting with 14. Subpages from Archive 14 till Archive 23 were archived automatically according to this config. Latest increment of counter was done in Special:Diff/1180664388.
 * A solution could be to unify the archival numbering system. Move:
 * MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive Mar 2007 → MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 3
 * MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive Apr 2007 → MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 4
 * MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive Dec 2007 → MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 12
 * MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive Jan 2008 → MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 13
 * —⁠andrybak (talk) 12:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Implemented the proposed moves in these edits. The links to further archives at MediaWiki talk:Common.js/Archive 21 have been fixed. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:11, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * , although it would be great if AAN could handle gaps in sequence. For example, if used on /Archive 22 it should always check for the existence of /Archive 23, regardless of whether /Archive 3 ... /Archive 13 exist or not. The pre-Lua version did this, IIRC. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * , although it would be great if AAN could handle gaps in sequence. For example, if used on /Archive 22 it should always check for the existence of /Archive 23, regardless of whether /Archive 3 ... /Archive 13 exist or not. The pre-Lua version did this, IIRC. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Overflowing
I've noticed that on Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 439, while logged out and in the new Vector 2022 skin with the "standard" text appearance, the horizontal list of archives overflows off the right edge for certain screen widths. Can this be fixed? PBZE (talk) 22:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It's not specific to Vector 2022, it happens with all skins when the available width is less than the width required. It just shows up more obviously with Vector 2022 because of the patronisingly-narrow width that has been forced on us "because people have difficulty reading long lines of text". -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The "current talk page" link will break for "/YEAR/Month" archives.
Check out these two pages:
 * aan
 * User talk:EuroCarGT/Archives/2013/July (red link to User talk:EuroCarGT/Archives/2013)


 * talk archive
 * User talk:EuroCarGT/Archives/2013/July (blue link to User talk:EuroCarGT)

I came across this while converting pages that use archive+archive navigation to aan in order to merge archive. I haven't looked into solutions yet. Rjjiii (talk) 21:26, 6 July 2024 (UTC)


 * Pinging folks I see have edited the lua modules:
 * Template:Archive constructs the link as  This template is calling  .  Rjjiii  (talk) 12:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Rjjiii: Special:Diff/1234343052 seems to fix it (see User talk:Hilst/Archives/2013/July). Since you're a template editor, could you please sync the main module? –  21:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this seems to break one of the testcases at Template:Automatic archive navigator/testcases/TestArchive1. —⁠andrybak (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * ! Is this really intended behavior though? –  22:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've just pushed it live, Rjjiii  (talk) 08:14, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Getting ready to merge
There are now only a handful of pages left with both archive and archive navigation and they are locked to admins. The other uses of both have been converted to only aan. Some pages are user talk pages like User talk:Alison/Archive 80. I think you are an admin and can update your own pages? Feel free to ask questions about the transition from two templates to one. The user talk pages for like User talk:SirFozzie/Archive 10 are also locked and will need an admin to update. This page is also understandably locked: Wikipedia talk:Administrators open to recall/Archive 1. An admin will need to update it. Rjjiii (talk) 23:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)