Topic on Project:Support desk

I have an all-core RTL (Hebrew) MediaWiki 1.34.0 website with Cite and ParserFunctions loaded in LocalSettings.php.

To create article footnotes in that website in an RTL manner I try to use the following template:

<includeonly>{{#תנאי:{{{שם|}}}
    |
        {{#tag:ref
            |<noinclude>1=</noinclude>{{{תוכן|}}}
            |<noinclude>name=</noinclude>{{{שם|}}}
        }}
    |
      {{#tag:ref
          |<noinclude>1=</noinclude>{{{תוכן|}}}
      }}
  }}</includeonly>

To which I call in articles by this pattern:

* בדיקה ראשונה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה ראשונה}}
* בדיקה שנייה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה שנייה|שם=שם_ראשון}}
* בדיקה שלישית{{הערה|שם=שם_ראשון}}

• The first call describes an unnamed call.
• The second call describes a call with creating a name (as a second parameter call)
• The third call described calling the second call by name (as a first parameter call)

The first call works fine: [1] clickable footnote number and <ol><li> 1 under <references /> are both created.

The second call works fine: [2] clickable footnote number and <ol><li> 2 under <references /> are both created.

My problem is with the third call: The clickable footnote number is [3] instead [2] and <ol><li> 3 was wrongly created under <references /> (it should not have been created in the first place because 2.0 and 2.1 should have been created instead).

Please share with the MediaWiki community how would you solve that problem.

With much respect for all his contributions in this context so far (including developing the core of the above template): @קיפודנחש

@IKhitron if the above single problem is solved - finally there would be a Lua/Scribunto-free RTL template out there.

@AhmadF.Cheema maybe you are already able to suffice a solution for this community.

@Ciencia Al Poder I tag your profile here only because in that post you said:

MediaWiki supports RTL natively. See Directionality support. Just set up $wgContLang correctly.

Mixing RTL and LTR content may be hacky, though.

Well, here is an opportunity to make it very not hacky.

@Amire80 if the single problem described in that post is solved than I really don't recognize any other possible derivative problem for people who start their own Lua/Scribunto-free MediaWiki RTL projects and do not copy anything (or at least not anything they didn't wrote and will rewrite) from a given Wikipedia.

Humbly,

Bumping after more than 24 hours

Next bump should be after 48 hours - I guess.

Bumping

Well, because none of the gentlemen replied,

Is there another Lua/Scribunto-free RTL cite alternative template from some community?

@Bawolff do you know of any plausible alternative?...

@Malyacko every time I create a new thread it's (at least by hope) in a "Unix philosophy" manner of a very narrow defined context;

I did a ***** job in the start but I slowly do it better;

I think you're trying to use a template just so that you can use Hebrew words (in the template name, and "name" parameter), instead of having to use the English "ref" tag and its "name" parameter - is that right?

@Jonathan3 I am not sure I understood you but if so than yes - I do want to use Hebrew terms (הערה for ref and שם for name) Instead the English one to preserve an RTL flow in typing.

@Jonathan3 I am not sure I understood you but if so than yes - I do want to use Hebrew terms (הערה for <ref> tag and שם for name attribute) Instead the English one, to preserve an RTL flow in writing.

Ok. Would you be willing to give a name to the “reference detail” (non-“name”) parameter of your template, instead of using {{{1}}}? I’ve not thought it through but imagine it would be possible to replicate the ref tag using a template.

@Jonathan3

Well,

If giving a name to a “reference detail” (non-“name”) parameter requires installing Lua/Scribunto than I guess I do mind :)

I want this website to stay all core;

Sorry if I misunderstood anything !

@Jonathan3 please tell me if I seriously misunderstood you somewhere along the lines;

I am stuck with this issue perhaps a few months now.

And if I may add;

I hope for a broader communal support because as of May 2020 this community doesn't have any Cite-RTL (let along Cite-RTL-Lua) documentation, as described here:

Topic:Vml2a3v8fyb0c7j0

did not dig too deep, but it seems as if #tag or <ref> causes problems when given empty content, which the template listed above does when it finds name w/o content.

in the #if hunk where parameter name is not empty, you may want to test for תוכן, and if this is empty, use {{#tag:ref | name = whatever }}, i.e., drop the | 1= , and only use it when content is not empty.

something like so:

{{#תנאי:{{{שם|}}}
    |
      {{#תנאי:{{{תוכן|}}}
        | 
        {{#tag:ref
            |1={{{תוכן}}}
            |name={{{שם}}}
        }}
        |
        {{#tag:ref | name = {{{שם}}} }}
      }}
    |
      {{#tag:ref | 1={{{תוכן|}}} }}
}}

(untested outline. btw, i do not understand all the "noinclude" in your outline - they may be harmless, but they are useless, and maybe harmful too)

peace

Can you try out the code suggested above and let us know how it went? From memory, your logic didn't cover the third case (i.e. when only "name" supplied) so maybe the suggestion will work for you.

I agree that the noinclude parts need to be removed.

@קיפודנחש

About the code: I have tested the code; sadly it didn't work;

Input

* בדיקה ראשונה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה ראשונה}}
* בדיקה שנייה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה שנייה|שם=שם_ראשון}}
* בדיקה שלישית{{הערה|שם=שם_ראשון}}

==הערות שוליים==
{{הערות שוליים}}

Output

ללא גרשיים בקריאה לפרמטרים

• בדיקה ראשונה[1]
• בדיקה שנייה[2]
• בדיקה שלישית[3]

הערות שוליים

1. ^ 1=בדיקה ראשונה
2. ^ 1=בדיקה שנייה
3. ^ name = שם_ראשון

About the noinclude tags: They help me get rid of the 1= and name= preliminaries in the <ol> which appear above due to testing the new version without them.

@Jonathan3 My report is ready above.

Please ensure to horizontally scroll to read the <ol><li> 1. 2. 3. as these can be elusive.

@קיפודנחש

הייתי נותן לך פרס יקיר הקהילה על כל הפיתוחים האלה כי ברור לי שכוונתך טובה מאד ותרומתך עצומה למרות התנאים הצרים של דו כיווניות כיום

אנא לתשומת ליבך - המספרים לפני שלושת הערות השוליים נעלמים למעלה משום מה

#flow-post-vmr6ivvg99pmsfqg > div.flow-post-main > article > section:nth-child(2) > div > section:nth-child(2) {
    position: absolute
}

מסדר את זה

אבל בכל מקרה הינם:

1.

2.

3.

ככה שלצערי עדיין אין התחלקות ל2.1 ול2.2

שלום

What is

w/o content

?

without תוכן

peace

@קיפודנחש I guess your last comment was an answer to my question

without תוכן

If you meant to suggest to remove a תוכן= in parameter calls then the above describe problem remain in testing pages without this parameter calls and another problem is added; references become empty.

i meant that w/o === without, content === תוכן

i gave your output a 2nd look, and this looks strange:

^ 1=בדיקה ראשונה
^ 1=בדיקה שנייה
^ name = שם_ראשון

clearly, this is not what was meant - first footnote supposed to be "בדיקה ראשונה", not "1=בדיקה ראשונה".

what it tells me is that the #tag believes parameter #1 of first ref is 1=בדיקה ראשונה. (which would happen, e.g., if the template had something like 1=1={{{תוכן}}}

i doubt that the template literally contains something like that. my first guess is that it's an artifact of the "noinclude" you generously pepper all over the place. i doubt you really understand the noinclude tag. i suggest get rid of it - if you found that it's magically solves some display problem you encounter, it's an illusion. make it work first, then deal with straightening the display ("horizontal display" usually means that somewhere in your CSS chain you defined some explicit behavior for either ol, li, or both - methinks "list-type". you don't necessarily have to change this globally: usually reflist has a "reflist" class, so it should suffice to define .reflist ol and/or .reflist li).

if you wiki is public (with no-nonsense registration, a-la wikimedia wikis), maybe post a link to it, i'll try to see if i can put there something that works.

peace

Man, sometimes I cannot understand you; not only this is an extremely confusing field in an extremely unintuitive coding language and you intentionally add more confusion by w/o.

לבלבל את האויב?

הייתי חייב

Thank you for the clarification.

@קיפודנחש

I understand that noinclude tags makes their contained content to not be included in output; would you say it's incorrect?

Anyway, I no longer use them; the current output is what I got directly with the template you last pasted above:

1. ^ 1=בדיקה ראשונה
2. ^ 1=בדיקה שנייה
3. ^ name = שם_ראשון

This output is wrong because number <li> 3 (or link [3]) shouldn't exist.

And yes, I agree about "first make it work" and that's way I no longer use noinclude tags or includeonly tags at all, until having a template that creates correct output.

regarding "noinclude": this tags means something like "whatever is inside, affects the template page only, but is not transcluded when using the template". it is meant for adding stuff like documentation and categories to the template page, which is not part of the template itself, and have no effect on its usage.

enclosing internal pieces of the templates code, especially when those parts contain "template syntax", such as |, =, or even {{ and }}, makes it too convoluted for my little brain to comprehend, and i either avoid it, or say "i do not understand what's going on there". i can't think of a sane reason for doing so, though i'm aware it's done.

so if the outlined i posted above does not work as expected, it means it's prolly incorrect. i will write it again here, avoiding bidi, so it will read clearer, sidestepping the bidi junk. it will also allow others, esp. ppl who do not read hebrew, to point out any mistake or misconception i had.

so use #if instead of #תנאי, and ditto for param names - call them "refname" (to distinguish from "name" passed to the tag), and "content":

{{#if:{{{refname|}}}
    |
      {{#if:{{{content|}}}
        | 
        {{#tag:ref
            | name = {{{refname}}}
            | 1 = {{{content}}}
        }}
        |
        {{#tag:ref | name = {{{refname}}} }}
      }}
    |
      {{#tag:ref | 1 = {{{content|}}} }}
}}

imagine this template is called "cite", so use it like so:

• {{cite | content = how are you}} ; {{cite| refname = greetings | content = how do you do }} ; {{cite | refname = greetings }}

if your wiki is public and has no-nonsense registration, maybe the simplest thing is for you to post a link to it, and i'll try to hack something that works there.

peace

Save this to Template:Cite...

<includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{refname|}}}}}</includeonly>

... and use it as suggested above :-)

Incidentally, the comment above "it seems as if #tag or <ref> causes problems when given empty content, which the template listed above does when it finds name w/o content" seems correct. See the warning on Help:Magic_words:

Warning:

You must write {{#tag:tagname||attribute1=value1|attribute2=value2}} to pass an empty content. No leading or trailing space of the text content are permitted between the pipe characters || before attribute1.

@Jonathan3 please a bit more detailing,

I don't have a Template:Cite preexisting webpage in my website (nor do I have the Hebrew parallel תבנית:Cite.

Furthermore, I misunderstand if you suggest this code block as an alternative to something that another user suggested.

Perhaps I should also add @Jonathan3 that my MediaWiki 1.34.0 is principally all-core if there was such a template I didn't delete it.

Perhaps you meant I should create it...?

"Perhaps you meant I should create it...?"

Yes, create a new page called Template:Cite with content as set out above.

Once you have got it to work I suppose you can convert it into whatever language you like.

@Jonathan3

Creating a page named Template:Cite automatically gets translated to תבנית:Cite (not that it's a problem, just saying).

I have created such a page with:

<includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{שם|}}}}}</includeonly>

שם means name

---

With that template alone, or alongside תבנית:הערה (which is Template:Footnote) I still don't get footnotes created properly (same problems as before or just empty <li> children.

---

I feel lost with this problem.

@Jonathan3

Even if I stay with:

{{#if:{{{refname|}}}
    |
      {{#if:{{{content|}}}
        | 
        {{#tag:ref
            | name = {{{refname}}}
            | 1 = {{{content}}}
        }}
        |
        {{#tag:ref | name = {{{refname}}} }}
      }}
    |
      {{#tag:ref | 1 = {{{content|}}} }}
}}

In which there is only one parameter,

Than,

Per the warning at Help:Magic_words and according to your understanding, the only problem in this template is the lack of

{#tag:tagname||attribute1=value1}}

Somewhere,

?

I think I gave too much time trying to create named footnotes in an RTL MediaWiki without success.

If MediaWiki doesn't have an efficient all-core built-in solution for creating named footnotes and creating them is so complicated and requires such deep knowledge in wikisyntax than perhaps I should just not use them at all.

It is interesting to note that @Amire80 wrote in Hebrew Wikipedia:

אילו היה אפשר לתרגם לעברית את תג ref, לא היינו נזקקים כל־כך הרבה לתבנית {{הערה}}, שהרי הסיבה העיקרית לזה שהיא קיימת היא שהאותיות הלטיניות ref מתערבבות עם כתובות URL ועם שמות לועזיים שנמצאים בתוכן של המון הערות שוליים.

בוויקיפדיה העברית {{הערה}} היא אחת התבניות הכי נפוצות, אבל ברוב השפות האחרות היא נדירה.

Which I would translate as:

We wouldn't need so much of template {{הערה}} because the main reason for its existence is that the Latin letters <ref> gets jumbled up with URLs and with non-Hebrew-originated names prevalent in the content of many footnotes;

In Hebrew WIkipedia, template {{footnote}} is one of the most common templates, but in most other languages, it's rare.

Because no built in {[הערה}} exists and maybe would no never exist, than, I think I it's time for me to try to look for an alternative, which is developing a front-end alternative with JavaScript; I need this JavaScript practice anyway.

Or to just move to write in English.

My particular Hebrew content could be published, I don't know, at

eco-wiki dot org dot il

I guess.

did not see site named https://eco-wiki.org.il

incidentally, there is https://ecowiki.org.il (i.e., same as the name you mentioned, sans dash), and, strangely enough, this is a mediawiki wiki, which has תבנית:הערה, which seem to do exactly what you are asking, without scribuntu/lua.

maybe you want to try copying the template from this site - i expect it to work on your site just as well.

peace.

@קיפודנחש

Yes; thanks for fixing the domain;

Yes, they have - but I didn't understand anything of that "Spaghetti" if to be metaphoric for a second:

<includeonly>{{כ}}{{#if:{{{שם|}}}|{{#tag:ref|{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|<div style="direction: ltr;">}}{{{1|}}}{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|</div>}}|name={{{שם|}}}}}|{{#tag:ref|{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|<div style="direction: ltr;">}}{{#ifeq:{{{1|}}}||<div style="border: 2px solid red;">הוספת הערת שוליים נעשית באופן הבא:
:{{הערה|יש להזין הערת שוליים כאן}}

'''<span style="color: red;">שימו לב</span>''': אם הערת השוליים כוללת סימן שווה (=), יש להגדיר את הערת השוליים באופן הבא:
:{{הערה|1=יש להזין הערת שוליים שכוללת סימן שווה כאן}}
שימו לב לתוספת "1=".</div>|{{{1}}}}}{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|</div>}}}}}}</includeonly><noinclude>
תבנית זו מהווה תחליף עברי לתגי ref.

I am having a hard time to even separate the Hebrew from the non-Hebrew there but I should take the time and try to do so in a .html file for some good syntax highlight (any tip how to separate the straw from the fresh wheat in such mess would be helpful).

Okay I sat on an HTML file with that,

That's what I've isolated (I still don't understand what is going there)

How did I do?

<includeonly>
    {{כ}}
    {{#if:{{{שם|}}}
        |
        {{#tag:ref|{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|<div style="direction: ltr;">}}
        {{{1|}}}{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|</div>}}
        |name={{{שם|}}}}}|{{#tag:ref|{{#שווה:{{{שמאל|}}}|כן|<div style="direction: ltr;">}}
        {{#ifeq:{{{1|}}}
            ||
        }}</includeonly>
<noinclude>

I would translate what Amire80 said as this (sorry, I had a mistake above):

If we could translate tag <ref> to Hebrew, We wouldn't need so much of template {{הערה}} because the main reason for its existence is that the Latin letters <ref> gets jumbled up with URLs and with non-Hebrew-originated names prevalent in the content of many footnotes;

In Hebrew WIkipedia, template {{footnote}} is one of the most common templates, but in most other languages, it's rare.

---

@AhmadF.Cheema

Don't know enough to comment. I guess you can try looking at the other Wiki applications such as Tiki Wiki.

@AhmadF.Cheema please copy-paste what I wrote one post above two posts above.

I will most likely not ask anything similar because I am going to leave this topic soon; I stay with MediaWiki if a front-end alternative is not a problem:

Topic:Vmxytrfde0akupab

You said my (short) cite template doesn’t work. How are you calling it?

@Jonathan3

In the same way I called the other Cite templates; for example:

* בדיקה ראשונה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה ראשונה}}
* בדיקה שנייה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה שנייה|שם=שם_ראשון}}
* בדיקה שלישית{{הערה|שם=שם_ראשון}}

==הערות שוליים==
{{הערות שוליים}}

I see you're using Hebrew already. Did you get it to work in English first? Anyway, can you cut and paste here the current version of your Hebrew Template:Cite so that we can check whether you are using the right parameter names. They have to correspond. If you are still using <includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{שם|}}}}}</includeonly> then maybe that is the problem: the template expects "content" as a parameter and it is getting "תוכן".

@Jonathan3

This is my current Template:Cite (which I actually name תבנית:הערה ):

It is the latest development one from @קיפודנחש:

{{#תנאי:{{{שם|}}}
    |
      {{#תנאי:{{{תוכן|}}}
        | 
        {{#tag:ref
            |1={{{תוכן}}}
            |name={{{שם}}}
        }}
        |
        {{#tag:ref | name = {{{שם}}} }}
      }}
    |
      {{#tag:ref | 1={{{תוכן|}}} }}
}}

To which I call as in this example:

* בדיקה ראשונה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה ראשונה}}
* בדיקה שנייה{{הערה|תוכן=בדיקה שנייה|שם=שם_ראשון}}
* בדיקה שלישית{{הערה|שם=שם_ראשון}}

==הערות שוליים==
{{הערות שוליים}}

The output I get after execution isn't what I expect:

I get 1,2,3 footnotes and [1],[2].[3] footnote-links instead the expected 1, 2.1,2.2 footnotes and [1],[2] footnote-links.

Let’s go back a few steps...

1. Create a template in English as above (the one-line one). 2. Call that template in the way suggested above, ie naming both parameters (and for each parameter using the same name within the template as when calling the template).

At this stage, don’t use any Hebrew or conditional statements.

Does it work?

@Jonathan3 Sadly I think it doesn't work

I have created a webpage named Template:Cite where I have putted:

<includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{refname|}}}}}</includeonly>

I than created a test webpage with the content:

First check{{Cite|content=First check}}
Second check{{Cite|content=Second check|name=First_name}}
Third check {{Cite|name=First_name}}

<references />

The output I got is:

First check Second check Third check שגיאת ציטוט: תג <ref> לא תקין; להערות שוליים ללא שם חייב להיות תוכן

1. ^ ^{לקפוץ מעלה אל:1.0 1.1} First check שגיאת ציטוט: תג <ref>

Which indicated that:

Only 1 footnote was created and only [1] footnote-link was created, alongside errors.

You need either to change the template parameter from refname to name, or change it in the template call from name to refname. They have to match.

Once you get it working in English you could start trying to make it work in your language.

@Jonathan3 I am sorry - my bad;

Now it does work !

Output:

First check[1] Second check[2] Third check[2]

1. ^ First check
2. ^ ^{לקפוץ מעלה אל:2.0 2.1} Second check

And yet, I don't know how to translate it to Hebrew correctly.

@Jonathan3 an even more detailed feedback based on more testing:

Test:Cite with parameter calls WITH English naming

Template

<includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{refname|}}}}}</includeonly>

Call input

First check{{Cite|content=First check}}
Second check{{Cite|content=Second check|refname=First_name}}
Third check {{Cite|refname=First_name}}

<references />

Call output

First check[1] Second check[2] Third check[2]

1. ^ First check
2. ^ ^{לקפוץ מעלה אל:2.0 2.1} Second check

Conclusion

Calling a named-reference template allegedly succeeded.

Test:Cite with parameter calls WITHOUT English naming

Template

<includeonly>{{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{refname|}}}}}</includeonly>

Call input

First check{{Cite|content=First check}}
Second check{{Cite|content=Second check}}
Third check{{Cite|content=Third check}}

<references />

Call output

First check Second check Third check

1. ^ ^{לקפוץ מעלה אל:1.0 1.1 1.2} First check שגיאת ציטוט: תג <ref> בלתי־תקין; השם "" הוגדר מספר פעמים עם תוכן שונה שגיאת ציטוט: תג <ref>

Conclusion

Calling a named-reference template allegedly did not succeed

My problem

My problem is having one template that will allow both unnamed and named footnotes

When I have this,

I can try to translate to Hebrew.

Try this:

<includeonly>{{#if:{{{refname|}}}
| {{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}|name={{{refname}}}}}
| {{#tag:ref|{{{content|}}}}}
}}</includeonly>

Well @Jonathan3

I think it works essentially good in English;

Are here my testing outputs (corresponding to my previous post above your comment):

בדיקה:Cite with parameter calls without English naming

First check]1[ Second check]2[ Third check]3[

1. ^ First check
2. ^ Second check
3. ^ Third check

בדיקה:Cite with parameter calls with English naming

First check]1[ Second check]2[ Third check]2[

1. ^ First check
2. ^ ^{לקפוץ מעלה אל:2.0 2.1} Second check

Interim summary

As can be read, now I finally get reasonable numbering in both main testing pages

My first problem

One problem that was risen is the the brackets of the footnote-links being flipped, so as can be read above, they appear as ][ instead [];

I have no idea why that happens and I couldn't fix it even with this radical test:

document.querySelectorAll("*").forEach(
    (element)=>{
        element.setAttribute('dir', 'ltr')
    }
)

My second problem

My second problem is of course, translating this wonderful template to Hebrew correctly.

@Jonathan3

Topic:Vn595idoe5znnle1

@Jonathan3

Problem 1 is minor and I will gladly further discuss it in the linked discussion I have dedicated to it (and I seem to have misinterpreted something along the way and have explained there).

But,

Problem 2 is major and also requires a dedicated post I should open soon.