Template talk:Thermodynamics sidebar

New Template
Have a good look at this; it looks quite good, i think. Maybe User:JCraw will make changes to it? James S 01:16, 29 November 2006 (UTC) 
 * Hi - WAY too large, but otherwise kind of neat. The font size should be less than or equal to the text size for the body of the article. These navigational templates should not be obtrusive - they should not appear more important than the text. Also, this kind of thing should be discussed by more editors than just us. I will try to bring some more people in on this. PAR 06:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Bit big..

 * It's a bit big, yeah. I think smaller fonts would make it a treat!

J O R D A N [ talk ] 13:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's a mockup i did. Looks nicer? J O R D A N [ talk ] 13:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, but the beakers and chemicals are more thermodynamic. How about this? PAR 15:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

(Link to template on user page deleted)


 * I really like the current template with the same font size and no graphic because screen space is often at a premium for me. Having said that, if the other boys and girls in science are doing something similar with their templates then I guess people into thermo should also, but I'm not sure that's happening. Imagining all the entries in Template:Thermodynamic_cycles with that font and a graphic and a shaded box makes me cringe. I want templates to be small and unobtrusive so I'll use them without resenting them. Flying Jazz 00:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Never mind then. Personally, that box ALONE makes me cringe.[[Image:SConfident.gif|15px]] J O R D A N [ talk ] 09:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with Flying Jazz - Any new template must not be wider than the present template. A bit longer, ok, but only by 20-30 pixels. Font size should not be smaller than present. Things should be vertically aligned, not centered, so if somebody is searching an alphabetic list, their eyes don't have to dance around. Other than that, anything to make it look better is ok with me. PAR 13:51, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments on recent changes (7 Sept 2012)
Some changes were made today with what I am certain was good intent, but I have a few concerns which I wanted to raise. I have rolled them back because of the ill effects on the layout that resulted, but perhaps some additional discussion should happen here as well.

My thoughts / concerns ---

Some of the layout was broken. I see the use of an hlist div class instead of whatever the older method was; this seems to be fine for the simple sections (like "Laws") but did not work well for multilevel sections like "Systems", which became much less readable as subheadings were forced inline with other links.

Another technical note is that the removal of the bold attribute (3 apostrophes) in the link to Material Properties actually breaks a function of the template. When you click any of the sections, the article which comes up is meant to show the template expanded to the relevant section; in order for this to work the link name needs to exactly match the link text as displayed. Several years ago I remember having to fight with the software quite a bit to get that to work correctly. Perhaps there is a better way to do it, but at least at the moment maintaining that consistency is functionally important.

Thoughts on some of the other changes...
 * Having classical thermodynamics listed in the "branches" category was useful, I thought, in juxtaposition to the other elements of that list. Particularly for students (who I imagine are frequent readers of thermodynamics pages) I think that setting of context is particularly valuable. Just planting the seed of the idea that "classical" thermodynamics might be different from something practiced today is useful. It also seems to me just to be a more thorough way of presenting the material.
 * Similar considerations might apply to the inclusion of Thermofluids in the "branches" category but I am personally not as familiar with how that term is used, so I'm not sure if it is as valuable.
 * The image caption "the classical Carnot heat engine" may be too prominent. Though I do think it is useful to identify the image, that may be outweighed by the distraction it causes and / or potential for confusion for a reader who is not very familiar with the subject areas. Without the caption a reader can still click the image to learn more about what it means. (I suppose we should wonder if any image at all is needed?)
 * Category change from physics templates to chemistry templates... not sure really. It would seem to qualify for both in my mind..?

dhollm (talk) 03:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The use of hlist is basically mandated due to Accessibility concerns. I understand that the section headings end up lost, but again, that's for accessibility reasons. In actuality, the subheadings are a list which is not marked up as one (a definition list), and it should be. Fixed. The listnname is the value which is taken by the display; I had considered changing it to simpler values but then discovered that it was actually implemented like that in the wild, and I missed undoing that "fix". It's on my to-fix list (at some point!).  The problem I have with the link is that it is a redirect to the link in the title of the template. We should attempt not to present the same link twice. Maybe the link in the title of the template should be removed to compensate instead.  The link looks very low value and I've never heard of separating out "thermal fluids" from the main branches of thermodynamics...  I thought a caption necessary due to the fact that it isn't immediately obvious to the general encyclopedia reader (you seem to be concerned about the exact opposite!).  See text below for what I did to each category:

 <- kept <- removed as duplicate, see below <- kept <- this is the other duplicate, but was removed as it is less specific than the first category <- kept, removed unnecessary sortkey
 * so we ended with (in now abc order)

<- kept, removed unnecessary sortkey <- kept <- kept
 * --Izno (talk) 15:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Please turn it into a navbar at the bottom of the article
Hi, I appreciate your willingness to contribute to Wikipedia. However, topic sidebars are a really bad idea.
 * A sidebar generally messes up the layout of the article, and is a terrible waste of precious screen space, that should be used for images relevant to the specific article.
 * No one navigates Wikipedia through sidebars. Readers get to an article either because they typed its name in the search window, or because they clicked on a link in the body of another article.  In either case, those readers are obviously interested in that article, not on some general discipline or category to which that article has been assigned.  Those readers who are interested in the latter will go to the article on that general topic; not to some specific article under it.
 * Therefore, if a reader is looking at the head section of the Mars article, the one thing that we can bet that he will not do next is click on the "Planets" sidebar to read the article on Jupiter instead.
 * Therefore, sidebars are largely useless. The time and stress that is spent creating, updating, and inserting sidebars is wasted, and should be spent instead in writing and editing the useful contents of articles.
 * Moreover, an article often belongs to two or more topics. Even Jesus belongs to the topic Islam. Pointless strife -- and double waste of screen space -- occurs when editors from two or more different Wikiprojects want to add their sidebars to the same article.

So, please, turn this template into a navbar, to be placed at the bottom of the article with other navbars. Or just retire it altogether. I am sorry to say this, but it will not be missed. All the best,--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 02:35, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this, I am starting a sandbox to make the required changes and reformat as navbar. Original user has not objected, so I assume they do not mind very much. It will be much more useful as a full-width nav-bar on each of these pages. Which is also in accord with modern trends in the use of sidebars. Footlessmouse (talk) 07:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)