The Sims Wiki talk:Development Portal

New playability types
I've added  and   as acceptable values for the   parameter in infoboxes with GetPlayCat. --a_morris (talk) 02:50, August 8, 2010 (UTC)

added development portal
Finally made The Sims Wiki:Development Portal, put it to good use :D Duskey ( talk ) 12:01, August 9, 2010 (UTC)

Tooltips
Artistic

Hover over the link above. What do we think about this? Yes? No? I'm thinking mostly about the table on Trait. Duskey ( talk ) 21:36, August 11, 2010 (UTC)
 * Cool! It does take a bit of time to load, though. --a_morris (talk) 21:47, August 11, 2010 (UTC)

Directing to the forum
I made some minor bloopers recently. On the whole "Late Night speculation" and "Twitter interviwe questions" and "Did you know" I should have redirected people to the forum like we did with "The Sims 4 predictions". Now we know, direct people to the forum and not the talk pages unless it's about the ARTICLE not about what the article is about. Duskey ( talk ) 16:19, August 13, 2010 (UTC)

DPL
I've had DPL or Dynamic Page List enabled for this wiki. It is an 'available on request' extension. So far it's only being used to count the number of files in Category:Articles for moving to color the background in the Admin Portal if there are any :p
 * Help:DynamicPageList
 * Help:Using DynamicPageList Effectively
 * DPL webpage

It has many other uses though:
 * List uncategorized images (even if they belong to a copyright category)
 * Find image duplicates (maybe, not quite sure)


 * Things to remember:
 * Use it sparingly
 * Do not use it in templates
 * Allow cached results

Duskey ( talk ) 08:42, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

I added The Sims Wiki:Special pages & The Sims Wiki:Special pages/uncategorized media. If you have any ideas for other custom special pages, do tell. Duskey ( talk ) 15:11, August 17, 2010 (UTC)

Added more custom special pages, see the main article about them. Remember you can always check where DPL is used with the Tag report. Duskey ( talk ) 04:55, August 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Lovin' it! --a_morris (talk) 04:12, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

Multiple types for T:Object
I have added parameters  to Object. They work in the same way as the traits and  can still be used. --a_morris (talk) 23:01, August 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * So it's to automatically include more categories to objects? Duskey ( talk ) 04:53, August 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. --a_morris (talk) 04:11, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

New templates
'Roguebfl' over from templates.wikia has added some new templates to the wiki. Here's his message as I requested some more information:


 * Well I started with Infobox because it was on this wiki's wanted templates list, before I noticed this wiki's customized ones, but it's upshot is it will change color scheme wither their user's choice of monoco skin. but that resulting in the following:
 * Documentation: This is an updated version that among other things will not break when you have a floated template.
 * t: Also an updated version, that is both easier to port and causes less server load.
 * tocright: this template moves the table of contents to the right side of the page safely.
 * Wikitemplates: this template Solves the CC-BY-SA license requirements of templates ported from Wikia Templates just like Wikipedia does so for Wikipedia.
 * From Wikimedia: is also a source template, a lesser version is now part of all new Wikia wikis.
 * Information: Is modeled after how Wikimedia marks up Images information, and extensive use promotes providing all the information the various licences need, and helps document when an image will become public domain.(the date)
 * --Roguebfl Talk 07:29, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

The documentation, t and tocright templates are nice upgrades. Wikitemplates should be used when/if a template is copied from templates.wikia. 'From Wikimedia' and 'Information' are actually being discussed in the Message template standardization project and Images project respectively. Duskey ( talk ) 10:56, August 24, 2010 (UTC)

RTE editor
As some of you may know the Rich Text Editor can break tables and templates like there was no tomorrow. I believe I've found part of the reason why. The RTE deletes single lineskips since wikicode requires a double lineskip in the simple editor to produce on lineskip in the article. This wouls also be why the horizontal line keeps breaking in archive navigation boxes on user talk pages.

An example:

Here's some code written in the simple text editor: Which will look like this: When someone using the RTE edits the same article, even if they edit another part of it, it becomes... ...breaking the list: I believe a solution would be to remember double lineskips for people using the basic text editor, like so: Resulting in... As you can see there's no difference from this, to the first table. This should result in break-free tables and templates. Duskey ( talk ) 21:50, August 25, 2010 (UTC)

Editnotice
Just created Help:Editnotice. Feel free to add some more if you think they're needed. Duskey ( talk ) 16:18, September 1, 2010 (UTC)

Blocked image file names
I blocked file names beginning with screenshot and snapshot from being uploaded ^^. I also had Wikia add the disclaimer to the buttom of the screen which you can now see. I updated the appropriate warning messages and notices already. Speak up if I forgot one. -- Duskey talk 05:42, September 8, 2010 (UTC)

Orphaned page
Why is DeMayo family/Player stories orphaned when it's linked to through the Family template? -- Duskey talk 23:46, September 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well duh it's not orphaned today since I linked it now, but it'll probably be orphaned tomorrow again. -- Duskey talk 09:14, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

Object buy types
I have edited all object articles that had "yes" as a buy type and changed it to "buy mode", "community lot", etc., as I felt that "yes" was not specific enough and removed it from GetObjectCats. --a_morris (talk) 18:54, October 30, 2010 (UTC)

Conditional categories in templates
When making a new edit the editor is moving all categories to the bottom of the article. This is a problem in templates like GetTraitCat because the categories are conditional and it removes them from the if or switch statements. I'm going to contact wikia about it. In the meantime I don't think we can make any edits to them without messing them up. The only way around it that I can see is to create a template for each category and call it in the if/switch statement. --a_morris (talk) 19:32, October 31, 2010 (UTC)
 * Response from Wikia Nov 2, 2010

A bug happened that turned this extension ON for namespaces where it shouldnt, like Templates:

This has been fixed, and will be corrected tomorrow. -- Regards,

Chris "Uberfuzzy" Stafford, Wikia Community Support Team
 * I did some template editing earlier and it does seem to be fixed. --a_morris (talk) 22:25, November 2, 2010 (UTC)

Family2 and Family3
I think I finally have Family2 and Family3 fixed so they can show family connections without breaking anything else. Dharden (talk) 07:55, November 29, 2010 (UTC)

Tsm-stub
I added this as a stub template for articles related to The Sims Medieval. (I took Tss-stub and replaced "Stories" with "Medieval", and "tss" with "tsm", so it should work.) Dharden (talk) 14:52, March 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you Dharden. --Guilherme Guerreiro (talk here) 16:14, March 31, 2011 (UTC)

Topnav template
Within the past day or so, Wikia has updated something which ever-so-slightly widened the top navigation bar on the wiki. This caused our six dropdown menu options to begin wrapping (dropping down to the next line), which visually is horrible to look at. As a stopgap measure, I pulled the Fanon dropdown menu out and put it under the community dropdown, but I don't think that's a long-term solution. Is there some way we can re-add the sixth menu without causing word wrap? If you have a plan, please give it here. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 15:52, March 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Simple, remove the (A-Z) from the Content tab. — Random Ranaun ( Talk to me! ) 03:32, April 1, 2011 (UTC)
 * I would like to, but for whatever reason that (A-Z) doesn't come off... it's not even on the MediaWiki:Wiki-navigation page. I have no idea why the (A-Z) is included there. -  LostInRiverview talk · blog 03:35, April 1, 2011 (UTC)

Layouts
There is a problem with some wikitext (ex. links, categories) not being rendered properly when used with layouts. You may want to refrain from using them until the problem is fixed. For articles that already use them the only way to "fix" the problem is to copy the page content, delete the page, and create a new page with that content without the use of a layout. --a_morris (talk) 18:00, April 16, 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we should completely refrain from using the layouts. Wikia has taken in the complaints, and we should start using it when most of the kinks are fixed. -- Zombie talk • blog 18:44, April 16, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but a lot of pages use those templates, in particular new pages and fanon. Should we remake them on a new page or something for the time being, or just leave it? -- WoganHemlock (talk) · (blog) 09:28, April 17, 2011 (UTC)

Navigation bar glitch
I'm sure quite a few of us have noticed that the navigation bar looks "different". I have noticed this here and on the Call of Duty Wiki. After contacting Wikia about the issue, Merrystar has replied with:

Hi,

Thanks for contacting Wikia. The problem on the two wikis you mentioned has to do with the customization they have done to the skin layout.

For call of duty, they have added a lot of padding to the menus in the Mediawiki:Wikia.css file, with the code ".WikiHeader li a { padding: 0 28px; }" This does not leave enough space to fit the arrows on the same line as the words.

For Sims the issue is simply that with 5 menus instead of 4, and the amount of text in the titles, there is not enough space to leave the arrows on the same line.

Ultimately in both cases (and any other wiki where you see this) the menus simply exceed the available space.

You can fix the issue yourself if you want on Sims by making fewer menus or shorter titles. On Call of Duty you'd have to talk to the admins about why they added that padding; it's commented as a way to make the header look tidier so I assume it was deliberate.

best,

Wendy

I have bolded the parts that are relevant to this wiki. To make the navigattion bar look tidier, we need to remove one menu. Which menu should we remove in order to fix the navigation bar? 06:12, May 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed how it says Content A-Z on one of the titles. Perhaps we should try making it just content.--W H  (Talk) 09:08, May 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * Just was trying to work it out on my test wiki. I have made up two different possible MediaWiki pages, located here and here. They both work without any issues, as I have tested them. --W H  (Talk) 09:21, May 26, 2011 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki A has caused the same issue as it seems to be a copy of the original source. Currently, the nav bar looks fine as it is using the MediaWiki B code. It seems to be that the word, "Administration" was causing the issues. For now, I have changed that to admin but if anyone can think of a better word, feel free to either post it here or update it yourself. 16:13, May 26, 2011 (UTC)

Era Template
Though I do really like this template as it makes things seem slightly more 'official', if that's the word, I see a lot of issues with this being added to all articles. For one, in the Oasis skin, it obscures much of the text on many articles, which looks pretty badly done. Secondly, I see it as slightly redundant. People can easily see in what game something appears in, or if it's an article concerning real life, by just usually looking at the infobox or article lead. Plus, I see it as nearly impossible that this template can be added to everything it needs to, for example, NPC's and townies, and if only added to games and gameplay elements, people may find it confusing as to why only part of the wiki have it and the other lacks it. Any opinions? -- BobNewbie  ∞(Talk)∞  10:04, July 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with you when you say it's redundant and and nearly impossible to add to all pages, but does that mean we should delete it? I personally love the template, but it's a pity that messes up the articles in some browsers. However if we delete the game era template we should remain era for featured articles, IMO. Thank you. -- Guilherme Guerreiro [[File:Thanks rose.png]]( talk here ) 10:08, July 2, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should just keep the one for featured articles. --W H  (Talk) 10:09, July 2, 2011 (UTC)

Header changes
I've noticed that headers (including mpheader1) are no longer, by default, as wide as the page or section that they are placed in, but are now only as wide as the text that's included in them. Also, changes have been made to section headers, moving the 'edit' button and changing the appearance of the headers. I would like to ask, in general from everyone but specifically from the administrators working on Visual Improvement, what should be done about this, if anything? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 22:57, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I am unsure what impact this has on other browsers, such as Opera or Safari. Can someone with one or both of these browsers check out the issue and see if it's the same for those browsers? --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:11, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I have noticed it too, is it possible to revert to the older version. I sincerly don't know for sure what to do. But I have already asked Sarah Manley about this issue. -- Guilherme Guerreiro [[File:Thanks rose.png]]( talk here ) 23:14, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Strange... everything looks right in Firefox now. I'll keep my eyes on the issue. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:20, July 6, 2011 (UTC)

Problems with Era template
The Era template causes some strange quirks in pages, ranging from the merely annoying, to quirks which actually hamper the readability of pages using the Era template.

What's needed is an assessment of the template; we should figure out where, either in the template design or in the wiki's css, the problem is located and why it affects different browsers differently. We should then correct these issues so that it can be used in all browsers without worry. In the meantime, I'm suggesting that we temporarily discontinue use of the Era template until we can determine what is causing text problems, especially for Google Chrome users. If we can't fix the problem, then I would suggest deleting the template --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:09, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I have to agree. Whatever has and will be done to that template will always have an issue with it. I had to revert to an older version of that template the other day because it was leaving the Templates without documentation on every page that used Era. I think it would save a lot of heartache and time if we just deleted the template. 23:13, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * There's a discussion on community portal about whether Era should be deleted. -- Guilherme Guerreiro [[File:Thanks rose.png]]( talk here ) 23:14, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't necessarily know if it should be deleted outright, but I do think we need to disable it for the time being. I'm going to try to do so right now. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 23:22, July 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * As era's a complicated template, things like this are bound to happen. I think we should be ready for more things like this to happen in the future. --W H  (talk) 06:25, July 7, 2011 (UTC)

Issue with Property template
I've just noticed the property template on fanon pages doesn't seem to be appearing with the header enabled in my personal css. However, it still works fine if the header is disabled. How could we be able to fix this? --W H  (talk) 09:03, July 7, 2011 (UTC)
 * Disregard this, Property is now based off Parthenon. ~> ฬ ђ  (Ŧlยttєгรђא   ƒтω!)  08:48, July 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems there's a new issue with the template, which pushes the sim templates a bit down. I don't know, maybe I'm seeing issues where they don't exist? Thank you! -- Guilherme Guerreiro [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 08:58, July 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've noticed as well. I'll have a look at the template and see if I can do something with it. ~> ฬ ђ  (Ŧlยttєгรђא   ƒтω!)  09:03, July 29, 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, we're all good. It should work now. I'm sure the issue was it was on a different line to other stuff. If that's the case, put it on the same line of text as another template (e.g. evolve), preferrably before the template on the same line, and you should be fine. If anyone has any other issues, just post below :) ~> ฬ ђ  (Ŧlยttєгรђא   ƒтω!)  09:11, July 29, 2011 (UTC)

Pet infobox issue
As some of you may know, Special:LonelyPages was largely polluted with Player Stories pages for Pets, due to the Infobox not showing the link to the Player Stories pages. I have managed to borrow the Player Stories code from Template:NeighborhoodInfobox and ported it to the Pet infobox, which now shows links to the Player Stories pages on the actual Pet page, however if the infobox says the name of a game and it turns from grey to another color due to the game, the box with the Player Stories link doesn't change color accordingly. You can see the changes I made on Template:Pet, so if anyone knows a workaround that allows us to keep the template working as it is on the Pet pages while being able to change color accordingly, they will find it easier to add it, seeing as I'm a failure with Infoboxes myself. :P 13:34, July 10, 2011 (UTC)

Background issue
We had a server hiccup as well, and this problem could be related to general bugs and fixes; Wikia tends to tackle these issues on Wednesdays, it seems. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 19:26, July 27, 2011 (UTC)


 * Transparency (if I understand what you mean right) is not working in Chrome for me, either. -- BobNewbie  ∞(Talk)∞  19:33, July 27, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the issue was caused by an update to the Theme Designer, as it added a transparancy option. I've removed the translucent CSS for now and set the transparancy up to maximum in the Theme Designer and what you currently see is the best I can get it. I'll ask JoePlay about this issue and see what he thinks. 23:57, July 27, 2011 (UTC)

Sannse has written: Hey everyone, an update on the CSS changes for backgrounds.

We've seen that some people had set "WikiaPage" with a colour via custom CSS, which previously left the sidebar boxes and other elements showing the page colour setting from ThemeDesigner. With the switch, "WikiaPage" affects those elements too.

The fix is to move that colour to WikiaPageBackground rather than to make a change via ThemeDesigner (like this).

Please can everyone look out for this situation and help anyone confused by it? Thanks All!

Since GG has changed the settings, it should be fixed on all browsers. If it's not fixed for you, try clearing your cache and having another look. If anyone has an issue in another browser (I use Firefox and it's fine for me), please post below. ~> ฬ ђ  (tคlк ★  ς๏ภtгเ๒ร)  00:03, July 28, 2011 (UTC)

Another navbar glitch (potentially ongoing issue)
I (and probably others too) have noticed that the navigation bar keeps changing yet noone has made any modifications to it. Yesterday I removed some JavaScript from the Wikia.js file to see if that was causing the issue. It seemed to have temporarily fixed the issue but it came back within the last few minutes. I managed to fix it again with this edit to the Wiki-navigation page, which seemed to fix the issue once again. Given that our navbar is "heavily modified" in comparison to that of some other wikis, it's possible that my edit had provided a long term solution but for now, I'm unsure what it was that caused the problem. If you see any more issues related to the navbar, feel free to post them here and someone can take a look. 21:06, September 24, 2011 (UTC)

Glitching in display of vgversion templates?
I'm starting to see stuff like this:

[TS2:FT ]

in articles that use the vgversion or vgversion2 templates. At first, I thought it was just happening with Opera, but I checked again with Firefox, and saw the same thing.

Has anyone else noticed this?
 * I have noticed that too, but it may be a wikia glitch, since the template has not been edited for a long time. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 15:03, September 25, 2011 (UTC)


 * If I preview this, copy the (corrected) code, paste it into the edit box, and preview again, it properly resolves to [TS2:FT], in the correct color. But when I view it in an article, such as Computer, I still see the expanded code. Dharden (talk) 15:10, September 25, 2011 (UTC)
 * I know a lot of the MediaWiki edit notices have been showing the code rather than the content recently so I'm not sure if it's a Wikia-wide issue or something. 17:35, September 25, 2011 (UTC)

Navigation bar limits
As you probably would have noticed, we have activated the new navigation bar. The problem is that we don't have as much customisation space with the new navbar, meaning not every field we had on the old drop-down menus will show up. I'm aware that we did kind of "modify" the old navigation bar anyway but I'm not sure how to modify the new version. Unless someone is able to find a fix, I guess we'll just have to limit the amount of links we can put on the bar, but what do we drop? Thoughts? 23:14, October 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just given this a little bit more thought...as in very little :P. I think that the "Request " pages could have their links moved to the Community Corner message or something. Yeah, that's all I've got. 23:25, October 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * By my understanding of the menu, there's additional drop-down menus available within each option in each tab. So, for example if you selected the 'Content' tab, and went down to 'Sims', the menu (I think) can be set up to drop-down additional links (Bella Goth, Mortimer Goth, etc). --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 04:31, October 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've made some changes to the navbar, as well as moving the UTC clock from a position which is overlapped by the nav to onto the top navigation bar.
 * Looks fine to me. 18:47, October 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * Wogan, editing the top bar (the Wikia nav bar) is against Wikia's Terms of Use. --  LostInRiverview talk · blog 20:26, October 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * Based on this, I've removed the timer from the JS code for now (sometimes it takes a little while for the change to be visible). 20:33, October 18, 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh, my mistake there. I'll do some scouting around for some alternate solution. I had no idea it was some violation - RuneScape wiki is where I stole borrowed it from, so blame them :D

Username highlight trial
WH and myself have decided to trial a username highlight for admins, bureaucrats and bots. Admins are red, bureaucrats are green and bots are light blue. This is a trial for now and this thread is intended for those who don't like the feature to voice their thoughts or give feedback. 23:17, October 14, 2011 (UTC)
 * I've made some tweaks to fix an issue with it not appearing on Wikia/Oasis/Whatever, and I've changed one of the colours slightly.
 * After playing a bit with Pixie, I think some colors would fit nicely.

|_Andronikos Leventis Talk 20:31, October 15, 2011 (UTC)
 *  Bureaucrats , color value #337800
 *  Sysops , color value #7FAFE1
 *  Bots , color value #AFB1C6
 * I don't agree with this implementation; we already had a discussion about this, and it wasn't clear that the community wanted this. And I don't really see the point in admin highlight. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 18:19, October 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * FWIW, it also wasn't clear that the majority of the community didn't want this, it was a generally neutral discussion with a few supports and only one vote that was anywhere close to an oppose. The feature is used on other wikis to help users identify admins/bureaucrats/bots etc. 18:43, October 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I don't believe the consensus was enough to make this trial, either. -- RoseGui [[File:Thanks rose.png]] ( talk here ) 20:07, October 20, 2011 (UTC)
 * hi guys, i have some input about name highlighting. i dont think green and red is a good choice. for green: because our background color is green, bureaucrat signature will be hard to see. for example: GG signature on the main page. for red: i think its too bright, so when many admin here active, the recent wiki activity full with red color. i think the best color is color that "calm" and not too bright. for example: Andronikos red signature or blue color on wiki "publish" button. Wir.wiryawan 01:56, October 21, 2011 (UTC)

Thirst
I've renamed the "Thirst" redirect to "Thirst (vampire)", and changed all article links that pointed to "Thirst". I have also created a disambig page for Thirst, since it is both a vampire motive in Late Night and a horse motive in The Sims 3: Pets. Dharden (talk) 23:04, October 24, 2011 (UTC)

IPs not recieving message notifications
Today I did some testing with regards to anons (such as proving they can't disable the visual editor for them). When I carried out some visual editor/signature-related tests on my talk page via my IP, I noticed I never got a message notification when my IP was welcomed. I tried leaving an individual message for my IP and there was still no notification, which I think is due to the lack of the menu bar that all users will see at the bottom of the page as they scroll down. Given the warning system we use that applies for anonymous users and registered users, the anonymous user may not realise that they have been warned meaning that if they made another disruptive edit, they may be put under the impression that they were blocked for something immediately, which would be unfair on registered users.

My question is: Is there a way of implementing the "You have new messages" notification for anonymous users without breaking Wikia's ToS? 23:14, October 28, 2011 (UTC)

Article Comments
I've noticed that article comments seem to be on for all namespaces again, and I'm honestly not sure why. While I can easily turn then off with the flick opf a switch, that would remove our fanon namespace article comments, something which was decided on some time back. So, the way I see it, we can either have them on everything (not good, since I've seen numerous pointless comments already today), or disable it completely, since I'm assuming that Wikia has altered it somehow since I can't find a log entry on the comments being altered. Nevertheless, I'll send a Special:Contact through anyway and ask if it could be restored to the previous state. Thoughts?