Template talk:Outdent/Archive 1

Content removed
I've removed this content of this template. I've been encountering the most horrible and unsightly graphics amid text conversations for some time, and wondered what on earth could be screwing things up so comprehensively. Please do not restore the content. It is absolutely unnecessary, we're all capable of recognising the need to unindent, and the graphic itself is hideous and makes the text of discussion more difficult to follow. --22:40, 16 December 2009 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony Sidaway (talk • contribs)


 * And I've replaced it, I don't think it's your decision to make.  pablo hablo. 00:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Indeed not. As noted above, a deletion discussion has taken place recently and there is overwhelming consensus for this template to be kept. Also, Tony, if you'd care to read the template documentation, you'll see it is a matter of the utmost simplicity to make the template invisible to yourself, without the need for unilateral changes affecting everyone else.  AJ  Cham  09:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, I think this is a slick usability enhancement. It very clearly indicates an outdent from a specific indent point, a point that is otherwise missing from an outdent, frequently leading to communications problems. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 21:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) tag
@ Pablo X: I disagree with your point on aesthetics, but rather than fuss over it I reimplemented it as a conditional. we can wait for other users to chime in on it. I've also removed the page-width link, which annoys me because I keep clicking on by accident. -- Ludwigs 2 21:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * ooookaaaay - but I wasn't making a point on aesthetics; perhaps you meant Tony Sidaway?  pablo hablo. 22:47, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"t" parameter
I feel that the 2nd parameter should have been unnamed, as its value is irrelevant, and typing "t=y" is not as memorable as, say, "text" or "t". I'm not sure this can be safely changed now -- it would be dependent on whether anyone has used the t parameter before the indent #.--Father Goose (talk) 08:41, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * it's a recent addition, so it can be safely changed, no worries - I'm probably the only person who's used it to date. the reason I made it a named parameter is that I was trying to accommodate the possibility that someone might neglect to supply an indent value (first parameter), which would give unexpected results (the switch statement would default to a width of 10 and no label would be used).  but that might be specious reasoning.  If you think it would work better as an unnamed parameter go ahead and make the change, or let me know and I'll do it.  I'm not concerned about the effect on my old posts.  -- Ludwigs 2  08:57, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Done. "link" was the most memorable example value I could come up with to put into the docs, while noting that it doesn't matter what you type.


 * I have to admit that it's a mincing change, but sometimes you just get bitten by a notion: "hey, that would be (marginally) better if..."--Father Goose (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


 * lol - that's pretty much my rationale for adding that option in the first place, so no worries. I'd say that once good mince deserves another, but that would sound...  wrong.  -- Ludwigs 2  16:20, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Keeping some indentation
Would it be a good idea for the new line following Outdent to be indented one space? Having a new line outdented fully left (as is the norm now) seems more disruptive of the thread structure, and might discourage new editors from learning to correctly thread conversations.

I'm not sure many will agree with me on this, but thought I'd try asking. / edg ☺ ☭ 17:07, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The template works fine if you indent it directly - :: . I considered adding an indent parameter when I last revised the template, but I couldn't think of a way to do it without making the (stupid little) template more trouble than it was worth.    -- Ludwigs 2  19:18, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, this is helpful. Would it be worth including an example of in the documentation for this template? / edg ☺ ☭ 23:52, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Done: .--Father Goose (talk) 08:02, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Great. Thanks. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Any time I've seen people outdent without using a template, they've gone all the way to the left margin. So the template ought to just mimic that behavior anyway.--Father Goose (talk) 22:24, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Agree the template should mimic and go all the way. Anyway I don't think it would visually convey any clear meaning to have a space. (What do you think? I threw a few spaces in here to try it out; one space on its own wasn't really noticeable.) I don't like it and I can't see that it achieves what you're aiming for anyway. And before anyone suggests not taking the line itself all the way back to the left, I think that would be even worse. Sorry, but I think outdent is outdent, and once someone outdents by any means, they have trashed the options for anyone to selectively align further replies with the preceding comments, and that's just one of the charms of this somewhat barbaric but often very appropriate practice. PL290 (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The space I'm thinking of would be an indentation for entire sentence/paragraph, as is produced by a (the way my reply here is), not just a few  -spaces in the first line. That said, I guess no one feels this is necessary. Thank you for replying. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Broken?
In looking at manifestations of this template with IE as well Chrome, it doesn't seem to draw the line far enough in, not even in the examples given here. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm indented this far. Now I will outdent.

Does the line go far enough? --Born2cycle (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See? It only goes half-way to the "Okay". --Born2cycle (talk) 18:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Goes to 'indented' here. (FF 3.6.10) (IE8) (Chrome 6) (Safari 5) --  [[ axg  ◉  talk   ]] 19:04, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting. Here is another test.

0000000001111111111222222222233333333334444444444555555555566666666667

1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
 * Indented with 12 colons.

How far does the line go? --Born2cycle (talk) 19:09, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * 'With' --  [[ axg  ◉  talk   ]] 19:10, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * So 69 using the numbers? For me it goes to 41 (Chrome 6.0.472.63).  --Born2cycle (talk) 19:13, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For me it goes to 46 using the numbers, which is above the 'w' in 'with' (IE8). Maybe it's a font issue? VernoWhitney (talk) 19:17, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
 * On safari (Mac) this goes to the last 67, and the above one goes out well past the word outdent. -- Ludwigs 2  19:21, 14 October 2010 (UTC)


 * For me, the "I" in "Indented" is at 61. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Bug report
This template seems to have a bug that changes text colour to green and then red if used in a page that is very long (>700 kb). Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Sock_puppetry/Archive_7&oldid=392842314 (scroll all the way down). Bug is observed in both Chrome and Firefox. --Tagtool (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

parameter default value
What is the default number of outdents when you use the template without supplying a parameter?

The documentation neither says you can do this (which you can) or states the default.

Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 09:57, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Late reply, but the current default is 10 indents. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 15:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Swedish translation
I can't edit the page due to it being protected, but someone else should put in a link to the new Swedish translation. - quispiamtalk [Anton Nordenfur] 18:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Changes made
Can I say that only in Chrome does '┏╍╍┛' render correctly, in Firefox, IE and Safari the end brackets and and broken dashes do not align, whilst the previous did. --  [[ axg  ◉  talk   ]] 17:05, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - This looks like it has something to do with the reason I'm here myself. This template used to render a thick black horizontal line, with a small vertical piece at either end... which made good visual sense for its application. It now appears as a string of empty square boxes, as if to represent non-English typed characters. What's up with that? -- WikHead (talk) 13:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I tested it in all browsers, but I may have missed this. I used all 'heavy' variants of the box drawing characters so it would trigger a unicode font, but some browser apparently decide to use the 'light' variant from the default font instead. I'll get this figured out. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 13:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I've put the standard 'light' variant characters back. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 14:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, I'm not sure that I fully understand what you did, but the appearance of the template has indeed returned to normal. Thank you for addressing this so quickly. Seasons greetings! :) -- WikHead (talk) 14:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was just experimenting with different characters. To see those (if you have Windows), open charmap, select Lucida Sans Unicode and view the Box Drawing unicode group. Viewing this group in Arial shows many variants missing, which apparently caused the mismatch. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 14:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Fully understood, thank you for the explanation. Should I notice anything out of the ordinary with this in the future, I'll make certain to let you know. Stay well, and happy editing! :) -- WikHead (talk) 15:37, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

When should one Outdent?
The documentation page states that one should Outdent when intending gets too deep, but for me, that's a bit arbitrary and ambiguous. Is there a set numerical range that calls for Outdenting? Illegitimate Barrister (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No. Obviously, it is set to a default of 10 levels, but you should outdent whenever the indenting become onerous or confusing. VanIsaacWS Vexcontribs 05:30, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Broken on mobile
This template is broken on mobile. (And just going by memory, it has been this way for quite a while.) Instead of one horizontal line, I am seeing many horizontal lines on top of each other. See the test cases page in mobile view to see what I mean. The horizontal lines seem to be the correct width, but the  CSS doesn't appear to be doing anything. Has this been overridden in the mobile site code somewhere, and is there any way of fixing it? — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 04:30, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it is simply as if overflow does not work in mobile. But I cannot detect any interference from MobileFrontend. I am completely stumped. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 12:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Perhaps TheDJ might know what's going on here? — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:15, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's because the content in mobile has word-wrap:break-word set. I have fixed this in the template now, by explicitly resetting it to the default value. However, this template is not really suited for mobile websites, it's not designed to be responsive to different screen sizes. 00:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Reset to 'normal' so IE can share in the fun (and works everywhere else). I agree we could do with hiding this template in mobile. How about setting up a .nomobile class? — Edokter  ( talk ) — 00:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the fixes, both of you! — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:35, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, I agree that hiding the lines on mobile is probably for the best. It would be good to still have some indication that the comment in question has been outdented, though. Template:Outdent2 would be a good model for how to make it behave instead, but to make that work I imagine we would need to make an ugly CSS hack... — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Parameter reverse
I am adding a named parameter to this template called "reverse". It turns to two ends upside down (from ┌─┘ to └─┐) so that this template can be used for indent.

-- PBS (talk) 11:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * This is very unintuitive; we also have indent.  13:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree that this is unintuitive, and I can't really think of a place it would be useful to use this instead of just indenting with colons. PBS, what kind of usage did you have in mind for this? indent indents actual text (with spaces), and outdent points to already-indented text (with CSS), so it wouldn't really work as a replacement for PBS's new parameter. Indent would be a good name for a template that did the opposite thing to outdent, but it looks like it's too late to use the name for that. — Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 13:30, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Indent does not do the same thing. Indeed I used     at the start of this line and I an not at all sure what it is meant to do!


 * (Back to 3 colons). It is useful because it reduces the need to re-factor a page if instead of replying to the outdent an editor places a comment indented immediately before the outdented comment.

I think the sources are just fine. Oh no they are not

Then someone inserts another comment

I think the sources are just fine. I think they are very poor examples. Oh no they are not

How to fix this? Well one can refactor to this

I think the sources are just fine. Oh no they are not I think they are very poor examples.

but the reason for the outdent was presumably because the first editor thinks that they need outdenting. Another choice is:

I think the sources are just fine. Oh no they are not I think they are very poor examples.

but in which case in my opinion it is more elegant to do this:

I think the sources are just fine. Oh no they are not I think they are very poor examples.


 * The point is it is an option that means that refactoring does not need to be done to a third party edit and another editor can see at a glance the sequence of edits without having to scrutinise the time stamps every time someone uses od.


 * There is no point duplicating this code if a parameter can turn it into a indent (forking code means less ease of maintenance). I would have created a wrapper called "indent" or "id", that passed in the parameter "reverse" preset (along with the two optional "unnamed" parameters), but those template names are taken.
 * -- PBS (talk) 14:15, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Response
Where did this came from? I last saw it by Lucas Thoms to outdent talk pages after they left a reply there. -- Allen (talk to me! / ctrb / E-mail me) 01:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Tag
A tag has recently been added to the template. However it has been added in way that causes it to appear on every instance this template is used across the entire Wikipedia. That causes more disruption than anything else. Could someone take a look a this and try to fix it so that the tag only appears on the template page? Tvx1 (talk) 21:53, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Bugs? Template "features"
Refer Template:Outdent/doc


 * param1 = 0 gives a long bar
 * Not a "BIG" problem, but ... (i.e. but I wouldn't have thought it hard to reset it to the default of 10.)


 * param1 > 40 places the bar over several lines
 * Again, I wouldn't have thought it hard to reset it to the default of 10.

Far more important : param1 may not be null. Sadly, this is outside my area of expertise.

Cheers, Pdfpdf (talk) 10:12, 18 January 2015 (UTC)


 * I fixed the null error, which was quite trivial; I didn't think to fix the other two, which would be slightly less so. (And I suspect that the "param1 > 40" error depends on screen size and browser as to whether it actually happens at above 40, or might happen at other values instead, but don't actually have any evidence to support this suspicion.) 「 ディノ 奴 千？！ 」? · ☎ Dinoguy1000 12:41, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * And I went ahead and fixed the other two problems, too. Regardless of whether the template's behavior with large inputs is dependent on screen size or browser, values above 40 probably shouldn't be used, since if you need that kind of indent for a discussion, you should probably refactor the indenting more generally anyways. 「 ディノ 奴 千？！ 」? · ☎ Dinoguy1000 12:54, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I think that zero should just give a vertical line, example:


 * 1
 * 2
 * <- vertical line
 * response to --89.25.210.104 (talk) 12:16, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Responding to outdents
There's nothing here that tells you how to respond to an outdent that isn't yours but is part of a conversation that you're included in - how many colons should be used etc. That would be really helpful. Yb2 (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's normal indent rules. One greater than the post above yours, or that you are replying to. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Fully protected edit request on 3 December 2016
A protected redirect, Template:Od needs a redirect category (rcat) template added. Please modify it as follows:


 * from this:


 * 1) REDIRECT Template:Outdent


 * to this:


 * 1) REDIRECT Template:Outdent

The Redirect category shell template is used to sort redirects into one or more categories. When pp-protected and/or pp-move suffice, the Redirect category shell template will detect the protection level(s) and categorize the redirect automatically. (Also, the categories will be automatically removed or changed when and if protection is lifted, raised or lowered.) Thank you in advance!  Paine Ellsworth  u/ c  16:05, 3 December 2016 (UTC) >
 * WHEN YOU COPY & PASTE, PLEASE LEAVE THE SKIPPED LINE BLANK FOR READABILITY.
 * ✅ -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, zzuuzz, and for changing the protection level, as well!  Paine Ellsworth   u/ c  13:04, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 October 2018
Replace the entire page with This offers several advantages over the current version


 * 1) Support for a unlimited number of colons
 * 2) Support for *
 * 3) When limit is surpassed, it stays at the limit (40) rather the going to the default (10)
 * 4) Limit can be easily increased
 * 5) Accepts more parameters that cause it to reverse/indent (indent,reverse,r and in as of now)

Edits can be see at the sandbox and testcases are at the testcases. – BrandonXLF   (t@lk)  19:44, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 6 October 2018 (UTC)