Template talk:Infobox play

Misspelling
editprotected Could someone please change the spelling of 'Seppember' to 'September' as it's irritating and makes the page seem less reliable. Sissy Marshmallow (talk) 13:19, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Is it possible you stumbled upon an article in which when someone used this template they filled in a parameter with the misspelling? There are no months in this template; the misspelling is not here. When users use the template they have to fill in the information parameters manually to populate the template and can misspell words. Go to the article where you found the error, click edit this page and search for "seppember"; it's probably in the text of the page, but it does not appear to be an error in the template itself.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:57, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

edit protected It would be nice if you could add "Fulganzio", "The Little Monk", or "Fulganzio, the little monk" under characters- he is a rather major character who shapes the play who shouldn't be left out of any character list. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.81.69.75 (talk • contribs)
 * Like the user directly above, you have apparently confused the text on a particular article that employs this template, with the template itself. This is a generic template appearing in hundreds of different articles. When it is used, a person fills in the blank parameters, manually, thus populating the template for that particular page. Go to the article at issue and make the edit to this filled out template there. If the article happens to be protected, then add your edit protected request to the article's talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

General syntax cleanup
Requesting sync with the new sandbox for various bits of syntax cleanup including the removal of the "view/edit" links as requested in the section above. Other than that one change there shouldn't be any visible impact. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅, please let me know if there are any issues. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Add an optional chronology section to the bottom of the infobox?
Morning,

I'm about to start work on creating articles for all 73 of Alan Ayckbourn's full-length plays (even if some of them have to be a stub for now) and one thing I was wondering is if the infobox should have an optional chronology section at the bottom, like we have for single and album infoboxes. Obviously this would not be appropriate for a lot of plays, but if it's a major playwright where all his/her plays count as notable and the order in which the plays were written are known, if would be useful to have a quick way on jumping to the next play or the previous play.

However, I'm not sure what the best way to go about this would be. The least drastic course of action would be for me to create an infobox mirroring this one but with the additional fields added, but would it make more sense to incorporate this into this template? (Note: that will only work if the chronology section remains hidden if the fields are left blank.)

Can you please advise me what course of action you'd prefer. (Oh, and I may ask for advice on how to add this chronology section too. The whole template falls apart when I try it.)

Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 11:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay. Good news: after much trial and error, I have successfully created Template:Infobox Play-chronological. The bad news: in order to get this to work, I had to fundamentally rewrite the whole thing (which meant adapting the Infobox Single template). Whilst you can use this template without a chronology section, the layout's a bit different and it might cause other articles using the Infobox play template to break. Anyway, it's there if you want it, feel free to improve it as you see fit. Chris Neville-Smith (talk) 19:21, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Character list
I suggest deleting the character list from the infobox. It makes the box very long, and a better character/role list can be presented in the body of the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 16:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Awards section
Perhaps it would make sense to add an Awards section, similar to that of the one? GorillaWarfare talk 04:08, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with GorillaWarfare, it does make sense to include a section labeled "Awards," which is used in the infobox musical template. It would also be helpful to add a "Productions" section, also seen in the musical infobox. --Bialytock&amp;Bloom (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Racepacket, 12 November 2010 image_alt parameter should be added
| image     =

Most infoboxes have an image_alt tag so that one can comply with FA criteria. Because this template uses the image_size parameter but not the image_alt parameter users may be mislead into not understanding that all three can be incorporated and pass through on just the image parameter. The image_alt would be a optional parameter. My full proposal is: | image     =

Alternatively: | image     =

Racepacket (talk) 21:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I added image_alt. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  16:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Italic title
Could someone add  to the beginning of the code please per WP:ITALICTITLE? Mhiji (talk) 04:42, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Theatricalia
The template already has links to Internet Broadway Database and Lortel Archives Internet Off-Broadway database; I'd like to add a similar link to Theatricalia. Unlike the other two, it has more of a UK focus (and thus UK-completeness), and emits linked data, so is a good match for DBpedia. It also links back to Wikipedia :)

For example, consider Frozen on IBDB (one production) and on Theatricalia (Four productions, one of which is the premiere).

Everyone OK with adding the (optional) link? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 18:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, please add:

Cheers. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:14, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: This page has fewer than 30 watchers. Did you advertise this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Theatre, or anywhere else? Something else to consider is that other infoboxes, such as Template:Infobox film and Template:Infobox Television, have long since had their external links removed to the articles' External links sections. I don't know if WikiProject Theatre (or any other project related to articles using this infobox) might want to go in the same direction rather than the opposite. Anomie⚔ 02:05, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Surely up to project members to watch over relevant templates? Nonetheless, will mention it there. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 20:34, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Asked on project over two weeks ago no responses, so reactivated request. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:09, 15 November 2011 (UTC)


 * ✅. I'd still prefer a wider discussion of Theatricalia's suitability for widespread use here (I'm sure this isn't the first time Andy has proposed adding it to a template), but we can't force people to comment on things and with no dissent at the WikiProject talk page there's nothing holding this back. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:52, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Infobox drama
Can someone add Infobox drama in See also? --Tito Dutta (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Padlock-silver-slash2.svg Not done: is usually not required for edits to the documentation, categories, or interlanguage links of templates using a documentation subpage. Use the 'edit' link at the top of the green "Template documentation" box to edit the documentation subpage. -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:13, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Awards
I propose that we add an awards parameter, for plays that have won a Pulitzer prize, Tony award, or similar. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:43, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Images
Would it be possible to do something similar to Template:Infobox musical and when no image present add to a category similar to Category:Musical theatre articles missing an image in infobox. It would help and improvement drive on play info boxes.

Code would be the same as in infobox musical obviously replacing with the cat chosen. Blethering  Scot  21:47, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Book of the play
Many plays are published as books. We need to cater for this, in one of four ways:


 * 1) copy the relevant fields from Infobox book to this template
 * 2) allow the use of Infobox book as a module of this template
 * 3) allow the use of this template as a module of Infobox book
 * 4) allow both 2 & 3, with the order decided on a per-article basis.

Anyone got any arguments as to which would be best? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:34, 10 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Adding: this request came up looking at Der Kontrabaß. As this play (like others) was published in a different language first, then English, it would make sense to include the module "book" twice, once for the native language, once for English, with a prominent title in English. What do you think? I tried that direction, it's not the present version. Of the above, the fourth way seems the most flexible, the first undesirable, because every change to "book" would need to be copied to "play". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Title
I miss a parameter for the original title of a play. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:16, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
 * added [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AInfobox_play&diff=610240261&oldid=610240164 here]. Frietjes (talk) 18:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Deprecated parameters
These four parameters should be removed from infobox and move to external links section: playbill, ibdb_id, iobdb_id, theatricalia_id exactly as we did with all other infoboxes. -- Magioladitis (talk)
 * Frietjes I bet you are interested about this one. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Frietjes can you please add tracking categories for this one? I could for starts remove any empty parameters. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * added Category:Pages using infobox play with external database links, will increase the sensitivity to include empty ones. Frietjes (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * if you want to remove the empty ones, concentrate on the ones sorted in section  in the category. Frietjes (talk) 14:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes I removed all the empty ones. Now category only 450 pages. Do you have any script that moves them to the external links section? -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:50, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I started something (movelinks.js), but it's not perfect. it attempts to move the links to the external links section.  if it cannot do so, it will simply do nothing.  after they are moved it's up to you to fix (1) redundant entries in the external links section and (2) fix disambiguated titles so they appear correctly in the links.  as always, check the diff, and make sure it looks sane before saving. Frietjes (talk) 20:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Image size option
I see that the option to change the infobox image size was recently removed. It seems to me that this was a useful option to have, even if the majority of articles won't need it.

Are there strong reasons not to include this option? If not, I would suggest putting it back. Let's talk about it.--Lemuellio (talk) 23:21, 20 June 2015 (UTC)
 * can you confirm why you removed the option and where it was discussed. Blethering  Scot  21:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Please see WP:THUMBSIZE. The size of the image can be adjusted as a ratio using image_upright. Alakzi (talk) 00:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Doesn't really explain why you removed the option, from this page without discussion here. It should be reverted until further discussion has taken place. Nor is that link straightforward on how to make the image larger.  Blethering   Scot  17:57, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The size of the image can be adjusted as a ratio using image_upright. Alakzi (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2015 (UTC)
 * As Alakzi says, it's a ratio - it is the factor by which the default width is to be multiplied in order to give the desired display width. 1 is "normal" width; 2 would be twice as wide; 0.5 half as wide, and so on. If the image is in portrait format, with 2:3 proportions, setting 0.667 would make it as tall as the "normal" width would be for a landscape-format image; similarly, a portrait format image with 3:4 proportions might be sized using 0.75. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:21, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Story writer parameter?
Should we have an additional parameter for the person who writes the story, in cases where they didn't write the script? I'm not sure how common this is, but Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has three story writers and one scriptwriter, who is given story credit in between the other two, and I don't think it's possible to represent this information neatly in the navbox as it stands. Template:Infobox film and Template:Infobox TV episode already have the equivalent parameters. —Flax5 13:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Style Section Problems
For some reason the "style" section of the infobox doesn't work whenever I place it in an article.

Does anyone know why this my be and how to correct this so as to fix the infobox from frequently missing out this section? —MaskedMosquito 16:00, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not a "section", it's a parameter. You to the template's documentation on 17 February this year, but I can find no evidence that it was ever a valid parameter (see [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_play&action=history template history]); accordingly, I have reverted your edit. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:31, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Basis?
Can we please add a space for basis/based on, similar to Template:Infobox musical? I've been editing Sleep No More (2011 play) for several months, and I'd like to add that it's based on Macbeth, but I'm surprised it's not in the template. 68.170.18.122 (talk) 20:41, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I know it's three years later but this would still be useful. —Collint c 20:15, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've added it. --RL0919 (talk) 04:45, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Is the use of infoboxes prohibited for some plays?
I have repeatedly included an infobox about A Midsummer Night's Dream. This box has been each time deleted simply because somebody din not like having a box at the beginning of the article and stating that it is nowhere indicated that articles should have boxes. However it is also not stated that some articles should not have boxes. Why would an infobox about the play not be acceptable for the Midsummer Night's Dream? Is it not a box which should summarize the information about the play? Are there some plays for which the box should be used or others which in which it should be not. The infobox I included contained only the standard information, nothing else. My view is that the infobox should be used for all plays. If not, there should be rules defining where it should be used and where not. It should not be left to the arbitrary views of some users. Afil (talk) 21:10, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * See WP:INFOBOXUSE: "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article." they are correct in saying that not all articles have to have boxes. I suggest you try discussing the matter with them cordially (and not as agressively as you have done on their talk page). - SchroCat (talk) 21:30, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Use the talk page of the article (i.e. Talk:A Midsummer Night's Dream) for this discussion, since it's a content matter. Same goes for King Lear - discuss at Talk:King Lear. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:41, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Code for Wikisource
Please add the following code to support Wikisource linking

| label21 = — Preceding unsigned comment added by Languageseeker (talk • contribs) 03:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
 * data21 =
 * please don't paste code blobs into the talk page. Instead, make your changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. Also, please establish a consensus for this alteration. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Set Designer parameter?
Would it be possible to add a set designer parameter to the template? This is an important creative role in many productions, having as much to do with the playgoers experience as the staging (director) and music. Saratoga Sam (talk) 22:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)