Help talk:Table/Archive 15

This is an archive of past discussions about Help:Table. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

how to make CDE and test2 not jump in order (wikitable sortable)

— RAFAEL RONEN 13:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Rafael Ronen: I am not sure that is possible for the CDE row by itself. Unless you start it off at the top or bottom, and then use class=sorttop or class=sortbottom.

You can make both CDE and test2 rows use class=sortbottom since they start off as consecutive rows on the bottom.

By the way, your signature color and text size is not very accessible. It is very hard to read for me.

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|-
!A
!B
|-
|test
|test
|-
|test1
|test1
|- class=sortbottom
!colspan=2|CDE
|- class=sortbottom
|test2
|test2
|}

--Timeshifter (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)

@Timeshifter if we use mw-collapsible mw-sortable mw-collapsed, press "show" then press order 🔼🔽 then press "hide", so sortbottom is shown

Rafael Ronen 01:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

class=mw-sortable is not needed since class=sortable is there.

Looking at the wikitext:

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"
|-
!A
!B
|-
|test
|test
|-
|test1
|test1
|- class=sortbottom
!colspan=2|CDE
|- class=sortbottom
|test2
|test2
|}

What do you want to use this for? Totally collapsed tables aren't allowed in articles except in the collapsed tables at the bottom of articles. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Let's say I have a table with 5 columns. I want only one column to be sortable (others are unnecessary). To do that it seems the only way is to make table class sortable and then add class=unsortable to other 4 columns. I think it would be good to make it possible to make a column sortable with class=sortable independent of table class. It doesn't have to be 1 column, it could be 2 columns in 5 column table. Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 14:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

@Setenzatsu.2: Jroberson108 may have some ideas on whether this is feasible. I think it would be confusing if people start seeing class=sortable in different places in tables. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:36, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

@Setenzatsu.2 and Timeshifter: Highly unfeasible. Sorting is not implemented through a template that might be easy to manage, but instead through the backend with highly vetted changes geared towards optimal performace. A class has to be added to the table regardless. Changing the default behavior of the table's "sortable" class from sortable to unsortable would not only be less implicit, but is not optimal since most if not all columns in the majority of the uses are sortable. In addition, the change is not backwards compatible and all the current uses would have to be modified by adding sortable classes to columns and removing the now obsolete unsortable classes. Jroberson108 (talk) 16:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think Setenzatsu.2 asked for it to replace the current usage, but to supplement it. Gonnym (talk) 09:33, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

The table class makes all columns sortable with an optional column class to make specific columns unsortable. Wanting it so the table class does not make all columns sortable with an optional column class to make them sortable changes the current usage to something opposite. Jroberson108 (talk) 04:07, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

When a non-technical person asks a code-related request you shouldn't get too hang on the specific code name they used. Using a new and different class name makes it so there isn't a conflict. Gonnym (talk) 08:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

I didn't mention anything about code name or conflicting class names. Jroberson108 (talk) 09:58, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Setenzatsu.2, Gonnym, and Jroberson108:. I guess something like class=sort could be used for single-column use. But for it to be used without a template would require modifying the backend code. That would require a feature request at Phabricator. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:01, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

The problem is that the table class is what is used to add the ability to sort columns by moving rows, applying styling, add sorting to column headers, collapsing rowspans after sorting, etc. Regardless of the new column's class name, it is already sortable because of the table class, therefore redundant unless you change it so the columns are not sortable from the table class, which creates issues with the current usage. The second issue is that they optimize the code due to its sitewide usage and are highly unlikely to add extra or change it to reproduce something that is already possible with the current classes. But you are welcome to ask. Jroberson108 (talk) 14:57, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Sounds like it would be a nightmare to code. Especially when the wikitext for a table has both class=sortable and class=sort. And that would happen often as different editors work on a table. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:47, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Wiki syntax is not optimized. That should be a priority as is the code optimization. One shouldn't be more important than the other. If I have a table with 9 columns, and only 1 (or 2 or 3) makes sense to be sortable and I have to put 8 class=unsortable attributes - that's not optimized. I haven't expressed myself clearly in my proposition. As Gonnym said I didn't mean to replace usage, but to supplement it - that doesn't mean the change how class works is neccesary. Now we have table of sortable class and that is fine as it is. Another (sub)class could be implemented let's say "wikitable sortable-specific". It could be done that in the backend there is a translation layer to turn it into "wikitable sortable". "sortable-specific" would allow to point out specific columns to be sortable and other columns would be unsortable by default. It would be used when 50+% of columns is unsortable. Translation layer would just turn "sortable-specific" into "sortable" by adding attribute unsortable to non-specified columns and applying sortable to other columns, in the backend (and that's important). That should be less than 30 lines of code. Just a pseudoclass and translation layer. But it would optimize wiki syntax (from editors' perpective) and save some KBs.Setenzatsu.2 (talk) 21:27, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

In the table to the right if you put very small fractional number in first 5 rows and add asterisk somewhere, it breaks sorting.

Examples:

• Table of specific heat capacities: the article's table values under Isobaric volumetric heat capacity get sorted improperly

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 09:47, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

@Alexander Davronov:

data-sort-type=number is a quick fix:

! data-sort-type=number | Fract 
! data-sort-type=number | Bazzz 

Fract	Bazzz
0.001297	1.5
0.00121	0.0
4.422	0.35
3.263	8.0
3.7*	8.4*

The very small numbers don't seem to be a problem if I remove the asterisks, or remove the asterisks from the first 5 cells in a column. I added a row, so there are 6 data rows in this table. And I moved the asterisks to the 6th row:

Fract	Bazzz
0.001297	1.5
0.00121	0.0
4.422	0.35
3.263	8.0
3.7	8.4
3.8*	8.5*

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:15, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I did. Somehow that bug puzzled folks for 3 years in the article I've linked above. I suggest we put the case into Numerical sorting problems subsection. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:44, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

I added: "Asterisks (*) in the first 5 cells break numerical sorting."

Feel free to add more info to the help page. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:29, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

There's no information about the fact that tables are not sortable in the mobile app and why. Akira 2340 (talk) 16:07, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Jroberson108 may be able to help here. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:11, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

@Akira 2340 and Timeshifter: See Help talk:Sortable tables/Archive 4#Mobile Sorting. Jroberson108 (talk) 21:29, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks Jroberson108. I added a note to the top of the help page:

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

I found an article that has two adjacent columns that sort identically by necessity. Is it possible to have an elegant way of joining the two columns up at the top with a single set of sort arrows? Not important, but it could be nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States#Major_metropolitan_areas

Misha Vargas (talk) 22:30, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I moved the MSA and State(s) columns next to each other. I think your only option is to put them in the same column. Titled: MSA and State(s). MSA = Metropolitan Statistical Area. I put this in the caption too.

Jroberson108. Do you have any other ideas? --Timeshifter (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

Misha Vargas. Forgot to ping you. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:10, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

@Misha Vargas: Do you mean something like this where the column header spans two columns? It sorts according to the MSA data, not the states. It's the same as keeping the column headers separate and making the State(s) column unsortable.

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) ranked by population size

Rank (Mid­west)	Rank (USA)	MSA and State(s)		Population­
1	3	Chicago	Illinois Indiana Wisconsin	9,449,351
2	14	Detroit	Michigan	4,392,041
3	16	Twin Cities	Minnesota Wisconsin	3,690,261
4	21	St. Louis	Missouri Illinois	2,820,253

Jroberson108 (talk) 23:21, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I was actually talking about the far left side of the table, sorry. The ranks (by population) are always going to be in the same exact order whether you click "Rank (Midwest)" or "Rank (USA)".

I'm not sure there's a way to do this that looks nice. It's fine enough, I suppose. —Misha Vargas (talk) 23:31, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking clearly earlier. For some reason I thought the MSA and the State(s) in a row would separate during sorting. Not true. The individual rows stay exactly the same during sorting.

So I don't really see the need now for combining columns, or using colspan. The reader has more sorting options if each column can be sorted individually. Nothing unsortable except the image column. I don't see a purpose in keeping it sortable.

It is useful to keep the 2 rank columns separately sortable. People may want to know how MSAs rank in the Midwest versus the USA. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

That last bit...doesn't really make sense. You can click on either of the two columns; try it. They don't do anything different. You can go back and forth between them. Nothing changes. Anyways, don't worry about it. —Misha Vargas (talk) 00:11, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

But people don't know that ahead of time. The only way to know for sure is to try it. So they both need to be sortable. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:53, 29 October 2025 (UTC)

Help:Sortable tables#Default data type of a column → number says that [the string] is regarded as zero if it is empty. Yet from what I observed, for data-sort-type="number" empty string appears to be −∞, like other non-numeric strings. Also I see that mediawikiwiki:Help:Sortable tables#Controlling sorting and display mentions An empty cell sorts as "-Infinity". May I know if I understand the documents correctly, or if the behaviour has changed?

Thanks! — Peterwhy (talk) 06:50, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I added a line break in one of the blank cells so that the row of blank cells is more visible.

I haven't studied this, and probably won't have time. Feel free to correct anything on the help page. Others are watching for mistakes too. So don't hesitate. Please use simple English on the help page. Cause it is a help page!

-∞ baffled me on the help page in the "number" subsection here:

Help:Sortable tables#Default data type of a column

Jroberson108 may have some knowledge about this. I am baffled by how some of the sorting works.

--Timeshifter (talk) 23:03, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

@Peterwhy and Timeshifter: As far as I know, if data-sort-type is "text", then they are sorted by the ASCII values. When data-sort-type is "number", then the number cells are sorted numerically and non-numbers are sorted as ASCII, but non-numbers appear above the numbers as if they were "-Infinity" as a comparison to numbers. Jroberson108 (talk) 00:00, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you both for checking. I am new to the deeper behaviour of sortable, so I am not sure enough to edit this help page. But if I may (and if the −∞ behaviour is correct), then I am proposing to remove it is regarded as zero if it is empty; and change its following text to

in other cases (including if the string is empty) (parseFloat returns NaN), the element is positioned like -∞.

under Help:Sortable tables#Default data type of a column. — Peterwhy (talk) 01:32, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Peterwhy and Timeshifter: Sounds good. I would recommend more clarity on the sorting of non-numbers though. Maybe this or something cleaner? "in non-number cases, the order is ASCII and positioned like -∞ in relation to the sorted numbers." Jroberson108 (talk) 01:50, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jroberson108: I am not sure about your suggestion on the sorting of non-numbers. Was that still about Help:Sortable tables#Default data type of a column → number, or was that about ... → string (slightly below number), or was that about Help:Sortable tables#data-sort-type=text section (above number)?

If the quote was about data-sort-type="number", then I don't see how ASCII is considered. To me, all the non-number strings appear to be equal (to -∞) and not reordered relatively among themselves. — Peterwhy (talk) 02:29, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Peterwhy: It was for numbers. Seems like it doesn't sort non-numbers by ASCII, but rather keeps them in the same order prior to sorting? My confusion came from sorting by the text column first, then number, which sorts them differently than just doing number only. Jroberson108 (talk) 06:59, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Jroberson108 and Timeshifter: Thanks all for the input. I made the change to Help:Sortable tables#Default data type of a column according to my proposal above. — Peterwhy (talk) 06:00, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

In the section "1.3 Column and row header cells" bad html advice is being given. Proper html and proper accessibility guidelines state that you never use ! alone in the middle of a table to show a header. "! rowheader1" is wrong. If you must show a header midtable it must contain the scope="row" statement. It can cause errors in older screen readers and is not proper html. This should be changed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:30, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Accessibility guidelines have been added in various places. Jroberson108 (talk) 03:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Can someone correct the first table at 2025 Greenlandic general election? Can't figure out how to fix it. Thanks. Semsûrî (talk) 17:25, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

@Semsûrî: There were too many rowspan= and colspan= attributes. The fix is to remove them all, and then add in only those that are necessary; which turned out to be just one - the one for the "Party" column heading. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:27, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Semsûrî (talk) 20:29, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

See: United States drug overdose death rates and totals over time#Comparisons to other countries in Europe.

The rates in the US tables are per 100,000. So I want to convert the rates in the Europe table below from "per million" to "per 100,000". That means moving the decimal place one place to the left. Can someone do this for me?

Better yet can someone explain exactly how to do it step by step in Libreoffice Calc. I will put this info in a section in Help:Table/Advanced or another table help page.

Drug-induced mortality rates per million among adults (15-64), females, males and total.¹

Location	Year	Females	Males	Total
Austria	2022	18	65	42
Belgium	2020	7	34	21
Bulgaria	2022	1	8	4
Croatia	2022	13	71	42
Cyprus	2022	3	13	8
Czech Republic	2022	6	12	9
Denmark	2021	19	60	40
Estonia	2022	34	155	95
Finland	2022	33	106	70
France	2016	3	16	9
Germany	2022	10	49	30
Greece	2020	10	58	34
Hungary	2021	3	9	6
Ireland	2020	64	130	97
Italy	2022	2	13	8
Latvia	2022	12	96	53
Lithuania	2022	10	86	47
Luxembourg	2022	5	31	18
Malta	2020	6	43	26
Netherlands	2022	13	40	26
Norway	2022	53	118	86
Poland	2021	5	11	8
Portugal	2021	4	19	11
Romania	2022	1	3	2
Slovakia	2021	3	12	7
Slovenia	2022	16	74	46
Spain	2021	7	34	21
Sweden	2022	35	102	70
Turkey	2022	1	7	4

--Timeshifter (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

I figured out how to do it in free Google Sheets, freeware LibreOffice Calc, and free Excel online.

See: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox284.

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:11, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Simplified instructions are here:

Help:Creating tables#Rates per million or per 100,000.

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:56, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

Do we really link something like Notes: User:PrimeHunter (Talk) provided the code. Ask him for help. on a help page? I have never seen something like that before. I regret reverting you, Timeshifter: I thought that you had added the information for the first time, not reinstating something that had been longstanding. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 19:04, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

Why not? It is a help page. Linking to experts is some of the best possible help. Table help is some of the most complex help there is on Wikipedia. So I am not surprised you have not seen it before on other help pages. That link to PrimeHunter has been there for years. And just because you haven't seen something before is no reason to delete it. Not if you don't have a guideline to back it up. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:11, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The problem I see with the note is there are more appropriate places to ask for help (e.g. WP:VPT). HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 03:31, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing stopping people from asking there. But it is not "more appropriate". Experts save time. They sometimes understand the history of the issue. VPT is not always helpful, and can be slow, or even useless, depending on your luck on whether an expert on a particular issue happens to be watching VPT. And if you want help in creating a similar find-and-replace with regex, then an expert who has created several of them already for tables, is invaluable. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It is more appropriate to ask at VPT, so that anyone can help. It is a fairly simple regex, so it is not like only PrimeHunter knows what to do. I will also note that at the time of this comment, PrimeHunter is the most recent person to edit VPT, and his last five edits are to VPT. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 15:24, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

OK. Knowing about more help opportunities is better. I added "Or ask at WP:VPT." I just assumed people knew they could ask there too if needed. But newbies may not know. But it is not "more appropriate" to ask for help one way versus another. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:33, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the easiest way to resolve this dispute is to ask @PrimeHunter if he wants this invitation to ask him personally, or would rather editors ask at VPT. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 19:04, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Why are you wasting everybody's time with this? It's been there for years. And editors don't have to choose between one or the other. They now have both choices. They always had both choices. But now even newbies who don't know about WP:VPT know about that choice. Do you have something against providing more help opportunities on a help page? --Timeshifter (talk) 21:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I think people are better served by asking a wide variety of experts, as opposed to picking one and waiting for him to respond. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 23:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, if that's your choice for yourself, then fine. Please stop trying to impose your choice on others. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:08, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

The regex was made for a specific article and the wikitext used there. Regex is very sensitive to the precise way wikitext is written and my regex was not designed to be likely to work on random tables. I didn't suggest it to be added here and nobody has asked me for help about it. I would probably answer quickly if it happened but it does appear odd to mention me in that way. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:27, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

PrimeHunter. I've asked you about other stuff just because your username is mentioned on the table help pages. So since I remember your username, if I see you involved in a VPT discussion, then I know that asking you questions will be productive.

You are linked from here too:

Help:Tables and locations#Add flags. Link countries, states, etc. in tables. I, and others, have used that regex info many times. So thanks.

I count 7 uses of regular expressions described in the 6 main table help pages. So it is good to have more ways to get regex help.

--Timeshifter (talk) 20:11, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

This page, "Help:Table. Advanced", has an unusual name that does not conform to any page naming scheme I have seen on Wikipedia. Is it a mistake? If not, what is the reasoning behind the name? If it is a mistake (or a rough draft name), I recommend "Help:Table/Advanced" as a more standard name. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:59, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

It is odd and looks like a typo. I see a section header with the same period: "mw-datatable. Highlight rows. White background". I recommend the same, remove the periods. Jroberson108 (talk) 21:06, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Jonesey95. See: Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Leftover subpages? Slashes are for subpages. For example:

Special:MyPage/vector-2022.css which for me is User:Timeshifter/vector-2022.css - For Vector 2022.

Special:MyPage/sandbox which for me is User:Timeshifter/sandbox.

To find subpages:

Special:Prefixindex/User:Timeshifter/

--Timeshifter (talk) 05:07, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. This page appears to be intended as an adjunct to Help:Table, like Help:Table/Width. Hence the suggestion of a similar name. The current name makes no sense to me, and to at least one other editor. Again, what is the reasoning behind the name? – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:14, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

This is not a minor subpage. There are whole new areas of table info not previously discussed in Help:Table. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:28, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

It looks like the admin Novem Linguae substituted the slash. See diff. Edit summary: "Novem Linguae moved page Help:Table. Advanced to Help:Table/Advanced: periods very uncommon in titles, slash better I think".

I looked at Wikipedia:Article titles and did not see a prohibition of periods in titles.

I was mainly concerned that it may be a questionable use of subpages.

But I can live with the slash if an admin sees no problem with it. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:37, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I moved it without seeing this talk page discussion. I guess we all had the same idea :) –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:43, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

@Timeshifter: If you still couldn't find it, the restriction is mentioned at WP:TSC. Jroberson108 (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

The restriction is only for periods used in particular ways. WP:TSC links to:

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions)

A plain old period is not prohibited. As noted in the Novem Linguae edit summary: "periods very uncommon in titles". --Timeshifter (talk) 11:57, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I just discovered Wikipedia:Advanced table formatting, which is a fairly clear WP:SAMETYPEFORK of this page. This page was created because Help:Table was too long. If we merge the two pages, we will be back where we started. My proposed solution is a split followed by a merge. This page currently deals with two related, but distinct, ideas. One is "what you can do with a table": sections like Horizontal alignment in cells, Sortable tables, and Collapsible tables. The other is "how you create a table": sections like Tables and visual editor, Spreadsheet/database tables to wikitables, and Add link brackets to text in each cell in a column. I think we should split those sections out into a page such as Help:Creating tables, and then merge Wikipedia:Advanced table formatting with this page and the newly created page (I realize that page is older, but I think a help page belongs in the help namespace). Thoughts? HouseBlaster^talk 20:22, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

HouseBlaster. Feel free to do so. Please do not delete anything yet though. Let's see what the 2 pages look like first. Also, then we will have separate histories for each page to see clearly what is then rewritten or deleted. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:51, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Only two weeks later, I have created Help:Creating tables. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 21:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

HouseBlaster. Thanks. I will not be able to help much the next week or two. You still need to remove the duplicate sections from Help:Table/Advanced. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:58, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Is there help on when/how to align the body of text in table cells in css or wikipedia markup? I see this for image blocks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evanwolf (talk • contribs) 21:10, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

@Evanwolf: It's not part of table syntax; you need to use CSS styling. See below.

Documentation is here. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:00, 29 January 2025 (UTC)

See: Help:Table#Vertical alignment in cells. The CSS can be applied to a cell or a row.

Adjusted and simplified the wikitext. People using screen readers don't like breaks <br> in header text ("Three lines of text").

{| class=wikitable
|+ Demo of vertical alignment
|-
|style=max-width:3em |Three lines of text
|No alignment (default)
|style=vertical-align:top |Top-aligned
|style=vertical-align:middle |Middle-aligned
|style=vertical-align:bottom |Bottom-aligned
|}

I just found this template I did not know about:

• Template:Vertical align rows

It allows one to set all rows in a table to be either top or bottom aligned.

The HTML attribute valign is allowed, but obsolete. See: Help:HTML in wikitext#Tables. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:58, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

"Three lines of text" isn't header text. It's just another data cell on the same row that just happens to come first. I purposely didn't mention the valign attribute, because it's obsolete in HTML5 (i.e. since 28 October 2014, just over ten years ago), and was deprecated more than 27 years ago (HTML 4.0, 18 December 1997 to be exact). Nobody should be using it in new tables. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:59, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Oops. Not header text. I think though that people with screen readers also don't like breaks in data cells in the middle of a sentence or phrase like "Three lines of text". --Timeshifter (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

Let's ask an expert. Graham87, how do screen readers interpret the <br /> tag? Is it as newlines, as spaces, or as something else? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:39, 30 January 2025 (UTC)

As newlines. Graham87 (talk) 08:32, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:29, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

@Graham87: Thanks. How does your screen reader indicate newlines? I want this for the help pages so people see why that newlines in the wrong places can hurt accessibility. --Timeshifter (talk) 11:22, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

By creating a new line at the point of the br tag. Graham87 (talk) 13:19, 1 February 2025 (UTC)

@Graham87: - I mean what does the screen reader say when it comes upon a br tag? --Timeshifter (talk) 00:45, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't say anything. It just ... shows that there's a new line. Graham87 (talk) 03:36, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Graham87: As the screen reader reads aloud "Three lines of text" in that cell using br tags does it pause at the line breaks? Is that annoying?

I did some reading:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+do+screen+readers+indicate+a+new+line+or+line+break

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32204760/use-of-br-and-accessibility

In the above link there seem to be various methods to eliminate that pause. Such as:

<br aria-hidden=true />

But that is too much to expect of average table editors who often use breaks in header cells.

Template:Break lines can add line breaks. Shortcut: {{brl}}

Wikitext:

{{brl|Three
lines
of text}}

Produces:

Three

lines

of text

Maybe WP:VPT

Can come up with a variation of {{brl}} that uses

<br aria-hidden=true />

Maybe {{brh}} - short for Template:Line break hidden

That would be easier to use than style=max-width:3em

Max-width requires fiddling with different widths to make it work.

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Nope, my screen reader doesn't pause between new lines during say all by default (though it can be set that way). Honestly I'd rate the importance of extra line breaks for accessibility in cases like this about 0.01 out of 10, at the very most. Graham87 (talk) 12:19, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Graham87: That's good to know. It makes things easier for table editors. So if screen readers nowadays ignore line breaks <br> by default, then table editors can just keep on adding line breaks to header and other cells. I will note that somewhere in the table help pages. Soon, I hope. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:49, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I never said they ignore line breaks (say all is a reading mode; a lot of people (including me) often read by arrowing up and down a page, or some other way). I think it's best to just leave things as they are. Graham87 (talk) 13:58, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

@Graham87: OK. Will do. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:25, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Is there any way to freeze the top row of a table, the header info for the columns? So that the top row floats down the screen as user scrolls down the table, that is, so that in a table with many rows the viewer can scroll down through the rows to the desired item and still see the column header info. UnderEducatedGeezer (talk) 20:19, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

That's way too useful a request to get any traction. They're too busy perfecting WP:Flow. EEng 23:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

The visual editor now allows whole columns/rows to be moved. That would be an easier method than hand editing.--Jessemulert (talk) 23:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

Is there a way to set one column of a table in italics without marking each entry individually. I'm looking at List of trees and shrubs by taxonomic family where almost every entry in the column "Scientific name" should be in italics. I'm not terribly literate in the intricacies of tables, but I can follow directions if I can find them. Thanks, SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: '' has to be used for each item in a column. Since there are so many, I went ahead and made them italics using find and replace. Feel free to modify any that shouldn't be italics. Jroberson108 (talk) 21:40, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Jroberson108: Well, thanks a million. You've got some find and replace skills that go beyond my own, or you did a lot of it manually. Thank you and keep up the good work. (I will go in and fix some odd cases.) SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@SchreiberBike: You're welcome. I used a regular expression to find and replace them all in one go. I manually modified one to move the parenthesis outside the italics. I just saw that I missed a table in the second section, so I went ahead and did those too. Hopefully the bulk of it is done now. Jroberson108 (talk) 03:08, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to be able to use a subclass, as in the following:

There are three cells in the table above that contain a 1. It would be good if these cells were automatically shaded (as has been manually done in the second row), without additional markup in the cells themselves. I know this to be possible using CSS, so the question is how can this be achieved in wiki?

I'm thinking I need to add

class="wikitable discog plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

or similar. And then discog can be defined elsewhere.

Am I even in the right place to suggest this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.65.103.181 (talk) 20:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Jroberson108: Any ideas? This is not my area of knowledge. Should this thread be moved to Help talk:Table or WP:VPT? --Timeshifter (talk) 00:25, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

I would recommend sticking with inline styles as you've done. What does the yellow represent? Does it convey information by visual means only? If so, then it may be an accessibility issue that screen readers can't convey. Jroberson108 (talk) 01:09, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

For screen readers asterisks could be added too. See:

Template:Sticky table start#Example with sticky row 2 and column 2

--Timeshifter (talk) 14:02, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Could the hide/show be layered so that it does not interfere with the centering of the text within the field? Currently the centered text is offset by the hide/show and is driving me batty trying to figure a way around it.

.hide_show_class { z-index:2; }

Something like that might work. - LA @ 15:39, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible tables suck.. why are we going back 10 years to tables when we have a div based solution? --ffroth 12:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

So, what is the div-based solution?

Is there a way to put pre-formatted content in a collapsible table? 63.118.244.2 (talk) 20:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Regular text is added to the table (in row) with just a pipe char on newline- pipe: |

In visual editing, the text can be formatted using the visual editing tools by double clicking the cell. Catcus DeMeowwy (talk) 11:41, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

What does that mean? Has anyone ever analysed how well screen reader software copes with them, and if people are able to follow them easily and interact with them without sight? Given how frequently these things are used now it seems very important. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 03:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I know it's almost a year since the question was posted, but for anyone wondering - some points:

• If you're using Opera/Firefox/IE8 you can disable CSS to get a rough idea of what screen-readers will "see" - basically the page should be linear, making it easy for the blind and visually impaired to envisage the layout (straight down, top to bottom). Layout tables (used in the code for all of these collapsible examples), disrupt this paradigm, as they are 2 dimensional - navigation is right-to-left as well as top-to-bottom.
• Also, accessibility is not reserved to the visually impaired. Other physically impaired users may have difficulty with keyboard/mouse usage and may interface with computers in alternate ways. For this reason, normal mouse-navigation cannot be assumed, and the above points about simplifying navigation apply equally here.

lucideer 23:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucideer (talk • contribs)

Is it possible to set individual column widths? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 21:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a page with dozens of collapsible tables. Is it possible to have a button that expands all or collapses all, in addition to the individual show/hide buttons? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.241.122.68 (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Same question. Anyone know? Calendar (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Only as a personal userscript (not for everybody else). —AlexSm 16:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - care to elaborate? (this is the original poster) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.241.122.68 (talk) 19:48, 1 October 2008

The JavaScript code that collapses table was added to this project's global JS file MediaWiki:Common.js. This code is executed for every visitor, so you can use collapsible tables on any page and they will work (except for visitors with JS disabled in their browsers).

On the other hand, you can register and then use your special personal subpage to add some JavaScript code that will be executed just for you (see WP:US for more info). It will not be executed for everybody else, so you won't be able to use this functionality in articles. —AlexSm 20:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand that, but I'm referring to my own private MediaWiki Wiki, not the main MediaWiki site. Is there code that exists so I can have all users expand all tables or collapse all tables on a page, rather than opening and closing individually? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.241.122.68 (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there still no way to do this? —Pengo 02:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Bump. Yea this would be really useful 123.3.9.239 (talk) 05:31, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Looking for same, please advise.156.68.229.129 (talk) 17:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I would also like to know this. MattEditor02 (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

@MattEditor02: You might have better luck asking at WP:VPT. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:48, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

Does anyone know if it's at all possible to get this effect using elements other than tables? Something along the lines of:

<div>
<a>Show/Hide</a>
<div style="display:none;">
Content
</div>
</div>

lucideer 23:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucideer (talk • contribs)

I tried to make a table with the show link on the left instead of the right, and this is the best I can manage. Is there a better way, and if so could an example be placed on the help page? Thank you. 84user (talk) 03:05, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

{| class="wikitable collapsible" style="width:95%;"
! style="position:absolute;text-align:left;width:3em;" |
! style="text-align:left;padding-left:4em" |details
|-
| colspan=2| Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
Is there a better way to get the same results as
from [[Template:Hidden begin]] with toggle=left?
|}

I managed to switch the show/hide side by editing Common.css (float="left" instead of float="right") but it applies everywhere.70.164.107.205 (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Where do you find MediaWiki:Common.js, for example local settings in the config folder? please help me. thanks Xxxsacheinxxx (talk) 15:18, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

> Is it a wiki page. Type it in the search box of your wiki

>> And what if that page does not exist on my wiki? can I just create it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.94.167.153 (talk) 00:50, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I only wanted collapsible tables so I only copied the part of Wikipedia's Mediawiki:Common.js relating to that. There is a dependency though in the js for the following function which you also need to copy as well,:

/* Test if an element has a certain class **************************************
 *
 * Description: Uses regular expressions and caching for better performance.
 * Maintainers: [[User:Mike Dillon]], [[User:R. Koot]], [[User:SG]]
 */
 
var hasClass = (function () {
    var reCache = {};
    return function (element, className) {
        return (reCache[className] ? reCache[className] : (reCache[className] = new RegExp("(?:\\s|^)" + className + "(?:\\s|$)"))).test(element.className);
    };
})();

So if it isn;t working for you check that you've got this function in your Mediawiki:common.js

82.35.81.250 (talk) 10:35, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. This should be documented in the help page itself. --Lance E Sloan (talk) 20:39, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Besides changes to MediaWiki:Common.js, to implement collapsible tables in your own wiki the same way they are in Wikipedia requires changes to MediaWiki:Common.css as well. It would be nice to have a document of all the changes necessary to implement collapsible tables. --Lance E Sloan (talk) 20:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe that this is the way to do it: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Collapsible_tables . Place both the CSS and JS at the bottom of the respective CSS and JS, and it should work. --Toussaint (talk) 04:18, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I found where in the Javascript to change the text of the show/hide button itself, but I'm looking for a way to invoke an image by URL for the button. How do I go about doing this? Guy.yedwab (talk) 18:08, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

This page is pretty poorly trafficked, why don't you try Wikipedia:Help desk Agradman ^talk/_contribs

• correction --- per the caption above, try Wikipedia talk:NavFrameAgradman ^talk/_contribs

Could this feature please be extended to allow the collapsing work on those columns only whose header cell has the class ‘collapsible’ set? This would be useful where tables are too wide and not too high. (I guess someone could also wish to collapse certain rows only or exclude specific rows or columns.) — Christoph Päper 15:35, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

As it turns out collapsing only specific rows is quite simple for opt-out, a bit more complex for opt-in and even more complex for columns. The opt-out class name is debatable, I have used ‘nocollapse’ for now, but something similar or ‘static’ could also be used, and ‘sortbottom’ is excluded by default, too. Find code for intermediate steps in a previous revision.

This code has not been tested yet – at all! I guarantee at least 3 bugs. Always test your code! — Christoph Päper 21:00, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

There are now several tests, the simple ones are passed, but colspan and rowspan complicate matters. — Christoph Päper 11:33, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Help:Collapsing/Test Doesn't work

I am using Firefox 3.6.6, all of the rows and columns collapse and uncollapse. Adamtheclown (talk) 16:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Did you put the code in one of your JS files, e.g. User:Adamtheclown/vector.js? — Christoph Päper 19:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to have only certain rows collapsible using media wiki syntax, can any of you assist me with this? I am trying to show the first couple rows and leave the rest UN-collasped initially. October 30th 2014 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aflemmingfish (talk • contribs) 20:52, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

How about {{collapse}}. Kasaalan (talk) 07:34, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Tracklist table: I've added the following templates and the table displays properly:

• Template:Tracklist
• Template:Track listing
• Template:Track listing/Track
• Template:Collapsible list

I've also added Wikipedia's "MediaWiki:Common.js" file to my own site

The Show/hide links works by showing the table or hiding it when the link is clicked. However it also moves the cursor to the start of the page. Can anyone please tell me how to fix this? Holygamer (talk) 18:47, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm having some difficulty creating a multiple Column Collapsible table from the examples provided. HELP PLEASE.-- Avazina, an Unreconstructed Southerner 15:53, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I dont even know if that is possible. Adamtheclown (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC).

Its not possible: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_61#Collapsible_rows_in_tables. Adamtheclown (talk) 11:49, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I have just made several tables in Empire Test Pilots' School collapsible and collapsed. If one clicks on a footnote to an entry in a collapsed table, nothing happens. The desirable (i.e. user-friendly) behaviour IMHO would be for the appropriate table to be expanded to show the referenced entry; otherwise the tables will have to be left expanded, which defeats the object. Is this auto-expansion possible? Thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm experiencing a problem with sortable and collapsible. Apparently, both of them cannot work together. I tried on this test page. Can anyone help me? Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 17:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC) Correction. The problem is that the collapsible doesn't work when sortable is in place. Lonelydarksky (暗無天日) _{contact me (聯絡)} 17:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Table show/hide disfunction. — AlexSm 18:31, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello!

Is there a way of creating a collapsible header that has its text not in bold? (this)

Thanks! Momergil (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't seem to be much practical difference between the two, so does anyone know why would it be better to chose one over the other? The content in question is currently in a table so it seems logical to use collapsible tables but in the Help for Collapse (top and bottom) it mentions it can also be used to collapse complex content that includes tables. Doesn't seem to be any clear indication which is recommended. Page in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_iOS_version_history (Jd2157 (talk) 15:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC))

I'm having some problems using the collapse function on this page. I've collapsed the two internal templates (which is good), but I'm not able to collapse the larger template that encompasses them.

Any suggestions? Is this a coding limitation, or am I doing something wrong? CJCurrie (talk) 04:41, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Please disregard -- I've changed the formatting on what I was doing. CJCurrie (talk) 00:30, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The labels "show" and "hide" are (meant to be) provided in the local language on non-English wikis ("afficher" and "masquer" in the French Wikipedia, for example), so where do these translations come from? Translatewiki, or somewhere else? - dcljr (talk) 20:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

(Answering my own question. I think.) They seem to be coming from MediaWiki:Common.js:

var collapseCaption = 'hide';
var expandCaption = 'show';

Hmm. This seems a bit "hacky". Wouldn't a solution using Translatewiki (somehow) actually be better? - dcljr (talk) 22:44, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I tried to use this template on wiki-site.com, but I failed. It doesn't hide the body. What can I do? NAME XXX (talk) 20:10, 6 October 2013 (UTC).

I think you also need to copy some code out of MediaWiki:Common.js, the section beginning with "Collapsible tables" inside a large JavaScript comment. If you can't see how to make it work, I suggest you ask the experts at Village pump (technical). -- John of Reading (talk) 20:17, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! But, unfortunately, there is no answer there. Maybe, you can help? I'm not the wiki-admin on site, and usual "<script></script>" tag doesn't work. NAME XXX (talk) 20:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC).

With a recent edit [1] all aspects of class "collapsible" were changed to "mw-collapsible" for no apparent reason. But this broke things quite considerably: although the class "mw-collapsible" is roughly comparable, many of the switches like "collapsed", "autocollapse", "outercollapse", "innercollapse" no longer function, as is painfully aware from the non-working examples. While there is equivalent classes such as "mw-collapsed" I am not aware of classes for all these functions. Surely the page should be changed back to class "collapsible"? --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:11, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64. I see you reverted my change. Could you please answer the above question? Most of the content of the page is broken because of the changes. Also surely some description of class collapsible is warranted, if only discuss it as being deprecated? If class collapsible is still in use (e.g. by Module:Navbox, and many other places) this needs to be described. The simple fact is mw-collapsible is far less feature rich and comprehensive, meaning its use is limited even if it is recommended. mw-collapsible also leads to sizeable lag on my system. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:51, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Your diff above shows lots of changes by Evolution and evolvability (talk · contribs), most of which I reverted. I'm pretty sure that the mw-collapsible class has come up somewhere like WP:VPT. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Redrose64 That's true, it wasn't introduced by you. But you reverted my reintroduction of class collapsible [2] so I'm asking you, shouldn't we go back to class collapsible? As I explained above most of the examples on the page no longer function because of this. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 19:32, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

There is doc at mw:Manual:Collapsible elements. At MediaWiki talk:Common.js and archives, there are comments from Edokter (talk · contribs) and TheDJ (talk · contribs) who I think are in a better position to answer this. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:36, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

The reason is that mw-collapsible is a MediaWiki core functionality and collapsible and other stuff is old style (English) Wikipedia specific code. As far as I can tell the switches all still work, but possibly not for you. Please accurately describe the examples that don't work for you, as well as the browser you use etc etc etc.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Eh wait a minute. I think I see what you mean.. We need to add something to MediaWiki:Commonj.js that I figured would already be in there...

function mwCollapsibleSetup( $collapsibleContent ) {
	var $element,
		autoCollapseThreshold = 2;
	$.each( $collapsibleContent, function (index, element) {
		$element = $( element );
		if ( index > autoCollapseThreshold && $element.hasClass( 'autocollapse' ) ) {
			$element.data( 'mw-collapsible' ).collapse();
		} else if ( $element.hasClass( 'innercollapse' ) ) {
			if ( $element.parents( '.outercollapse' ).length > 0 ) {
				$element.data( 'mw-collapsible' ).collapse();
			}
		}
	} );
}

mw.hook( 'wikipage.collapsibleContent' ).add( mwCollapsibleSetup );

—TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:34, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Edit request. I thought we had deployed that here a long while ago after finally fixing phab:T72762. It seems neither Edokter nor I got around to it however. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:41, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Right, that code is now deployed. Having said that, I agree with Mrjulesd that it is probably best to keep the documentation for the old style as well, just as we have done for WP:NAVFRAME. BTW. The core collapisble code has many more functionalities that are however rather undocumented. Some examples can be seen on testwiki:User:Krinkle/Test_suite_for_mw-collapsible. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:40, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I need some help to optionally collapse a table which is used in a template. The table is already formatted as collapsible in the template {{WRC driver results legend}}. The table is expanded by default, which is fine. What I wan't to be able to do is to have in collapsed state in a select few of the occasions were it is called upon using the {{WRC driver results legend}} syntax.Tvx1 15:59, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

This doesn't apply to the English Wikipedia, but recently, the table with the option to change languages is collapsed in most versions of Wikipedia. Even when you uncollapse, it doesn't go back to normal, but opens a small window showing some random languages, then other languages sorted into different regions. You have to scroll through it and the lists are arranged into columns, making it more difficult. This feature is a step back. Please fix it. --92.75.199.236 (talk) 11:13, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

This is not the page for requesting fixes to anything other than the help page Help:Collapsing. I suggest that you follow the advice at WP:Bugs and file a ticket at Phabricator. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:22, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

A note at Wikipedia:Userboxes#Using_collapsible_tables links here, but it's not immediately clear how to apply collapsible wikitables in that setting. This help page could use some specific examples in that setting. --Theodore Kloba (talk) 15:07, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to display the Hide/Show buttons not like an edit-link, but like a button?

Not like  [Hide]  or  [Show]  like  [Edit] , but more like Hide  or  Show  or  ⊟  or  ⊞

--79.207.126.55 (talk) 13:38, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Not from this end. It's part of the MediaWiki software, so you would need to file a feature request at phabricator:. But I think that it would be considered a major change, since the present method uses <a>...</a> tags to make a link to a JavaScript routine - a button would need to use a <button /> or perhaps <input /> tag. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

To make Text look like a button you use the style attribute of span, div, ...

To make Text look like a button you use the style attribute of span, div, ...

To make Text look like a button you use the style attribute of span, div, ...

--79.207.126.55 (talk) 19:13, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

You still need to file a req at phab. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:21, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

How difficult would it be to get infobox collapsing working for mobile? It'd be really nice if a sizable chunk of the 1 million readers per day going to 2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic didn't have to scroll through a bunch of maps before getting to the article itself. Sdkb (talk) 01:00, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Is it possible to collapse part of a wikitable, but not the whole thing. For example, this would be useful on long election results tables to hide minor parties but retain the info for anyone who wants to know the full details. Cheers, Number 57 22:10, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Only by using subtables. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:20, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:Redrose64 § Partially-collapsing tables

 – Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello Redrose. Thanks for your response at Help talk:Collapsing. I've tried making a partially-collapsing table at User:Number_57/sandbox#Table. Although it's almost right, when it looks fine on my laptop, the columns of the inlaid table are very slightly off (by a single pixel) on my mobile. When I fix it on that, they are slightly off on my laptop. Do you have any idea what's going wrong and whether it can be made to be right on both? Cheers, Number 57 19:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Is it possible to collapse an image? 103.67.158.47 (talk) 20:26, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, if you enclose it in a suitable div. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

How to move the toggle label by some indentation left or right, and to change its font? thx. maimonid (talk) 10:02, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I can't anything for it... Viu54071 (talk) 00:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Collapsible option § Readability overhaul. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SdkbBot 4. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:10, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but just a question: Why doesn't collapsable templates use the native HTML <details> element? That way we could avoid needing JavaScript. 内存溢出的猫 (talk) 17:47, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

@内存溢出的猫: Short answer: because it's not whitelisted by the MediaWiki software. Longer answer: it's quite new - it was introduced with HTML 5.1 in October 2017, and it's possible that there are still browsers in use that don't recognise it. To get the MediaWiki software changed requires a feature request at phab: to be filed and approved. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:00, 20 April 2025 (UTC)

@内存溢出的猫 and Redrose64: I hope I am reading the browser table correctly, but I think all browsers recognize it. Scroll down:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/Elements/details

--Timeshifter (talk) 03:36, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I get that; but I said it's possible that there are still browsers in use that don't recognise it - this is borne out by Can I use ... which shows that you need e.g. Firefox 49 or later; Edge 79 or later; etc. Some people may not update their browsers as soon as new versions are released. Perhaps their operating system won't support a current browser. Perhaps their hardware won't support a recent operating system.

But the killer here is the first part of my reply - Short answer: because it's not whitelisted by the MediaWiki software - unless the MediaWiki developers are willing to add the details and summary elements to the whitelist, they cannot be used. That's why I directed 内存溢出的猫 to phabricator; there is more information about making feature requests at WP:BUGS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:34, 21 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. It looks like you have to go back pretty far at Can I use ... to find browser versions that can't use it. So maybe a Phabricator request might go somewhere. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:34, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

@内存溢出的猫 and Timeshifter: I've found what I believe to be the whitelist of HTML elements, it's at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/source/mediawiki/browse/master/includes/parser/Sanitizer.php$165 for about 40 lines - specifically, the part that sets up the following arrays:

			$htmlpairsStatic = [ # Tags that must be closed
				'b', 'bdi', 'del', 'i', 'ins', 'u', 'font', 'big', 'small', 'sub', 'sup', 'h1',
				'h2', 'h3', 'h4', 'h5', 'h6', 'cite', 'code', 'em', 's',
				'strike', 'strong', 'tt', 'var', 'div', 'center',
				'blockquote', 'ol', 'ul', 'dl', 'table', 'caption', 'pre',
				'ruby', 'rb', 'rp', 'rt', 'rtc', 'p', 'span', 'abbr', 'dfn',
				'kbd', 'samp', 'data', 'time', 'mark'
			];
			# These tags can be self-closed. For tags not also on
			# $htmlsingleonly, a self-closed tag will be emitted as
			# an empty element (open-tag/close-tag pair).
			$htmlsingle = [
				'br', 'wbr', 'hr', 'li', 'dt', 'dd', 'meta', 'link'
			];

			# Elements that cannot have close tags. This is (not coincidentally)
			# also the list of tags for which the HTML 5 parsing algorithm
			# requires you to "acknowledge the token's self-closing flag", i.e.
			# a self-closing tag like <br/> is not an HTML 5 parse error only
			# for this list.
			$htmlsingleonly = [
				'br', 'wbr', 'hr', 'meta', 'link'
			];

			$htmlnest = [ # Tags that can be nested--??
				'table', 'tr', 'td', 'th', 'div', 'blockquote', 'ol', 'ul',
				'li', 'dl', 'dt', 'dd', 'font', 'big', 'small', 'sub', 'sup', 'span',
				'var', 'kbd', 'samp', 'em', 'strong', 'q', 'ruby', 'bdo'
			];
			$tabletags = [ # Can only appear inside table, we will close them
				'td', 'th', 'tr',
			];
			$htmllist = [ # Tags used by list
				'ul', 'ol',
			];
			$listtags = [ # Tags that can appear in a list
				'li',
			];

Basically, if you can't find an element name in those seven arrays, you can't use it. Thus, 'b' appears, so <b>...</b> is permitted; but 'a' does not, so you can't use <a>...</a>. All of these tags are mentioned at mw:Help:HTML in wikitext#Allowed HTML tags, and vice versa, so I presume that it's definitive. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:33, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

@内存溢出的猫 and Timeshifter: There is already a phab ticket for this, it is phab:T31118, which has been open for fourteen years (as of a few days time). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Of note is that I tried several times rebuilding the existing collapsible javascript with the details and summary elements (i was curious if details/summary would be useful), and it's not as simple as it sounds. The current collapsible elements allow for a LOT different html and particularly rebuilding the show/hide with the summary element in a way that the community would accept proved particularly difficult. I have put about 8 hours into trying to make it work, but realized i need considerable more time than that and that the risk of breaking things was pretty high. I assume that anyone trying to rebuild the existing templates that have collapsible functionality, with whitelisted details/summary, will quickly run into similar problems. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:57, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

See the rarely used templates listed in this doc:

• Template:Scrolling table doc

There are better methods here:

• Help:Table#Overflowing tables

I am leaving a note here in hopes some others will look and see if I am correct.

If so, someone with more time than me might put the templates up for deletion here:

• Wikipedia:Templates for discussion

I suggested the same here:

• Template talk:Scrolling table doc

--Timeshifter (talk) 11:45, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

I can't tell from this what your question is, but if you want a scrolling table, it is just a matter of setting height (or max-height) and overflow. Ditto width. See WP:PNT, top right just above the ToC; it uses {{PNT table}} and maxes out at around ten rows, and then scrolls. Is that what you are asking about? Mathglot (talk) 20:04, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

I added a subsection: Help:Table#Scrolling tables. It links to Help:Table/Advanced#Scrolling tables. See it and the sections that follow for examples of scrolling, sticky headers, and combinations thereof. Feel free to add more info there.

I think the scrolling table at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English could be done with Template:Sticky table start.

That table used {{PNT table}}, and I haven't studied it to know whether it has specialized functions that would conflict with Template:Sticky table start. Maybe Jroberson108 knows.

As for Template:Scrolling table doc see the horizontal scrolling table at Women's National Cricket League#Team performance. It has a sticky left column, and looks great. But the table wikitext is majorly different from standard table wikitext. And that table can now be done with Template:Sticky table start. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:15, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Column operations, like row operations, are a fundamental part of tables. There used to be a top-level (H2) section for column operations, until it was removed in this edit. Why was this done? Mathglot (talk) 19:43, 16 August 2025 (UTC)

The old version at "Column operations":

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Table&oldid=1288271420#Column_operations

All of that info was about width so I put that info in its own overall section called "Width" on the same page.

Just now I created a new overall section about "Column operations". With a link to the large section on Width (on the same page), and a link to the section on column alignment here: Help:Table/Advanced#Column alignment. That section is part of a much larger overall section: Help:Table/Advanced#Horizontal alignment in cells. That covers alignment in individual cells too.

I remember moving a lot of stuff off the Help:Table page in order to shorten it. Also to get rid of all 2-level subsections. Now you have only one level of subsections. Much easier to navigate.

I think the Width section should not be a subsection of Column operations. Because Width covers full table width too. And it links to another width page covering yet more intricacies of table and column width: Help:Table/Width.

So Width is a large and complicated subject, and deserves to be an overall section. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:14, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

Hello, is there a tool to help move around columns of a table? It is for this one [3], it is long and many columns are combined at certain parts, so it is sort of complicated. It would be very convenient to have a tool to move around the columns because the order of the featured parties does not reflect anymore their real relevance (for example, the third bloc is completely banned now), so I was wondering if such a tool exists. With the visual editor I can uniquely delete a couple of columns (not most), but I can't move around any. Thanks, Super Ψ Dro 14:02, 20 August 2025 (UTC)

Hey. There is info here:

Help:Creating tables#Move/delete row/column

But rowspans and colspans probably mess things up.

Jroberson108. Any ideas?

By the way, Super Dromaeosaurus, that table needs Template:Sticky header.

--Timeshifter (talk) 17:09, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi, in the end I managed to alter the table with the visual editor after some experimenting. I was going to remove this thread but I forgot, so apologies. The issue is now resolved, but appreciate the help anyway. Super Ψ Dro 17:38, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

OK Super Dromaeosaurus. I added Template:Sticky table start. This version:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2025_Moldovan_parliamentary_election&oldid=1307451974#Opinion_polls

--Timeshifter (talk) 18:15, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Nice, thank you! Super Ψ Dro 20:26, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Super Dromaeosaurus. Looks like someone already broke it. See diff. They removed the left sticky column, and the row hover highlighting {{mw-datatable}}. That really helps follow a row across a wide table. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:06, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I agree it is helpful. I suggest pinging the user at the thread you started at the article's talk page and explaining this to them. Super Ψ Dro 23:09, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't usually do that since there are so many other tables I can improve without objections. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:46, 23 August 2025 (UTC)

Help:Table/Advanced changed to Help:Advanced table features.

This was because the old name caused its talk page (Help talk:Table/Advanced) to be in results for searches of Help talk:Table archives.

This is because at the top of those search results it says:

• Only searching in pages whose title starts with "Help talk:Table/"

So any table help page starting with Help:Table/ will have their talk page (Help talk:Table/...) or talk archives (Help talk:Table/.../Archive) to possibly show up in results for talk archive searches at Help talk:Table. I saw it happen once with that page's talk page showing up in the search results, and so that is why I changed its page title.

Also, Help:Table/History of pipe syntax development was changed to Help:History of table pipe syntax development. This is to prevent its talk page from showing up in Help talk:Table search results.

Help:Table/Width was changed to Help:Width of tables, columns, and cells

All of these start with "Help talk:Table/"

• Help talk:Table/Archive 1 - archives are supposed to show up in search results.
• Help talk:Table/Advanced
• Help talk:Table/History of pipe syntax development
• Help talk:Table/Width

So the problem has been fixed by removing the slash from the page titles. Those old talk pages are redirects or blank now. So there is nothing to search for. The red linked talk pages weren't yet a problem since there was nothing there. See:

• Help talk:History of table pipe syntax development
• Help talk:Width of tables, columns, and cells

The new talk pages discuss the page moves. They are not a problem since they don't have slashes in their names.

Special:Prefixindex/Help:Table/ lists subpages of Help:Table.

All of the italicized subpage names are redirects. There are 2 pages with content. There is a CSS page. The content pages do not have talk pages yet. It would be a problem if they got talk pages. If that happened, then the talk pages could be redirected to Help talk:Table to fix the problem. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:47, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Here is the CSS page:

Help:Table/styles.css

Here is its talk page:

Help talk:Table/styles.css

It should stay with the CSS page. I may move the CSS page somewhere else. Mathglot, where can we move this too? How about here?:

Template:Table help/styles.css

See previous discussion:

Help talk:Table/styles.css#Can we move this to Template:Table help/styles.css?

--Timeshifter (talk) 18:07, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Whew. The only thing I am sure of at this point, is that the styles page should not be moved to Template space, separating it from where it logically belongs. I would not have moved any of those pages away from subpages. If it were up to me, I would put everything back the way it was, move all of the old subpage conversations into the appropriate Help talk:Table/Archive_*, any active subpage conversations to Help talk:Table, and redirect all the subpage Talk pages to Help talk:Table. There is no particular reason for the subpages to have their own Talk pages. Given where things are now, I don't know if it worth undoing it all, so I don't know what to advise, other than keeping the styles page local. I guess I don't really understand even within the current scheme why you would want to move it at all; what is the issue with leaving it at Help:Table/styles.css? Also, a styles page does not need a dedicated Talk page, it can just be redirected to Help talk:Table. But what about all those no-longer-subpages? Are you planning to have dedicated Talk pages for each one? I think they should all be redirected as well; anyone looking to discuss anything about Help:Table, including any of the menagerie of articles that belong to it, whether they are organized as subpages or not, should only have to look in one place, namely, here. Mathglot (talk) 23:24, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Subpages. Subpages are not used for article names. But nothing forbids use in help pages. I just think it is a bad idea for the same reason that they stopped being used for articles in mainspace. It creates a confusing hierarchic structure where it is not needed.

Also, apparently, there are problems with the visual editor and help page names having slashes in them. See:

https://www.google.com/search?q=wikipedia+visual+editor+has+a+problem+editing+help+pages+with+slashes+in+name

And if editors of other help page topics are encouraged to use subpages, then they will have the same problem with talk pages. And what if their hierarchy is not so focused on one topic? They may not want to redirect talk pages when the topics are too divergent.

As for table help talk pages all redirecting to here, I have no objection. They all have to do with tables.

I can see where styles.css makes sense as a subpage on the main table help page. So let's leave it there. I liked having all the CSS discussion in one place since it is so technical. That is why I wanted to move the CSS page elsewhere. To avoid the search problem. But I can live with moving the CSS talk to the talk archive here.

I kind of like having separate talk pages for each table help page. It keeps things focused. On the other hand I am realizing I am probably the only person with all the table help pages on my watchlist. Most people were coming to Help talk:Table anyway with their questions. There isn't much discussion, if any, on most of the separate talk pages. So it wasn't a problem I was concerned about.

But I now see that moving all past discussion to the archives of Help talk:Table does have its advantages. One can search in one place.

So let's redirect all of the table talk pages to here after moving their old discussions to the archive here. --Timeshifter (talk) 04:36, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I do understand your point about having separate talk pages for each table help page, and that may be a plus for helpers, but it would depend on the people who need help going to the right Talk page to post their question—what are the chances of that? So, yes, there is perhaps some lack of focus or some sight inconvenience to the helpers of having it all in one place, but it simplifies everything for helpees, and imho that is a cost worth paying. It's kind of like my philosophy for template writing: it's all about making it easier for editors to use the template, even if that makes it harder for me (or other template writers) to write, but that is a worthy cost to pay, because users come first, not template writers. Same deal, imho, with Help page maintainers: we should make the design as clear and simple as possible for those readers coming here to read the pages, and ask for help, even if there is some cost or inconvenience to us as Help page maintainers. I don't know that this principle is enshrined anywhere in a guideline, but it is one I try to follow, and encourage others to follow; you may see it differently.

You have pointed out some reasons why subpages may not be advantageous, and made some good points on how it affects editors who maintain suites of pages like the Help pages. In some cases, I have a different view, but that's okay; to some extent, it's user choice or a judgment call. But I don't think that visual editor and ... page names having slashes is one of the criteria that should influence the choice at all. Yes, VE may have problems with subpages, but that is their problem to fix; Wikipedia should not be making decisions on how to do things all around the project based on broken, poorly designed, or incomplete software. VE has a history of problems and a very long list of bugs to fix, including things that are very basic and important. A lot of them even affect mainspace, like VE's very annoying use of numeric ref names, detailed at WP:VENAMEDREFS. That's just one; there are many such. The point being, we should not avoid best practices just because somebody else's software doesn't work right. (I seem to remember that VE couldn't be used on Talk pages at all; not sure if that is still the case, but the solution was not to get rid of Talk pages.) I suppose you hit a nerve, as I see occasions all over the place where editors in good faith twist themselves into a pretzel in their project, trying to do everything they can to work around VE's failings, rather than just create the best design they can for their project, and follow or comment on VE bugs in Phabricator so they will get some attention. Whatever design you come up with here, regardless whether it is my favorite or something very different, I would just hope you pick what seems like the best one for the Help table pages, and don't let VE's problems stand in your way of doing it the right way. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 19:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

So we agree on moving all the table help talk pages (via redirects and consolidating the archives here). So unless there is an objection we can start doing that. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:29, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes. One thing to think about wrt the archives, is how much do we (or anybody) care about whether all the discussions are in the "right" archive, and all in chronological order? Given that there are multiple talk pages all running concurrently, to get them absolutely in the right order would be a lot of work. But I don't think that matters too much, as long as it's very roughly in order by archive (higher numbered archives should have more recent discussions) even if the order of discussions inside an archive are not strictly in order.

One way to do this without a lot of effort on our part, is to archive the archives: that is, if we set up MiszaBot configs on pages which are already archives, and all pointing to the one Talk page here, then I am pretty sure that Cluebot will just archive discussions out of the old archives into the single one, until the old ones are empty. The trick for getting it mostly chronological, is to set the |algo= param very old, like 12 years, or whatever the oldest discussion is in any of the (ex-)subpage archives; when it is done, then set it to 10 years, then 8, and incrementally move it up, letting the bot do the oldest ones in all the pages, then slowing decreasing the algo until it gets whereever we want it; I'd say a year or two. That way, we don't actually have to move any discussions anywhere, just tell the bot how to do it. What do you think? Mathglot (talk) 03:04, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Too complicated. I am going to just move them manually. It is not that difficult.

Plus many of the talk pages do not have archives, but have very old discussions.

It would take a lot of work to keep changing the algo date on a lot of talk pages and archives.

I don't really care if the archives are in order. Search will find what is desired.

Need to pick an archive size though. 150K seems like a standard size.

150KB is around 26,000 plain-text words according to this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+plain-text+words+on+average+add+up+to+150kb

Many free online word counters via URL:

https://www.google.com/search?q=online+word+counters+via+URL

--Timeshifter (talk) 04:03, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Given that people don't read archives, they search them for something they are interested in, and then just read that, the total size of the other discussions in that archive that they are not interested in doesn't really matter. And yes, 150K seems pretty standard, but I doubt anyone would notice if you made it bigger, so pick whatever number you want.

You don't have to google word counters; there is a tool that counts them. It's probably on toolforge, but you don't even have to dig it up, as {{section sizes}} incorporates it, so you can just use that. If you look at the headers at the top of this page, and open the Section sizes banner, you will see the result. Mathglot (talk) 04:33, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

The section sizes banner is showing the help page section sizes, not the talk page. Is there a way to get the talk page section sizes? --Timeshifter (talk) 06:59, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Section sizes in Help talk:Table Section size for Help talk:Table (13 sections) Section name Byte count Prose size (words) Header Total Header Total (Top) 860 860 0 0 Notes in collapsed table for 2025 Moldovan parliamentary election opinion polls 9,936 9,936 303 303 Colors 3,337 3,337 81 81 Table of contents 540 540 43 43 Example of table with leader lines 2,317 2,317 56 56 Unwanted bold and shading 3,911 3,911 24 24 Row split in two 6,202 6,202 43 43 Exceeding double precision 6,507 6,507 248 248 Dark Mode issue: Tables with "style=background: none" are difficult to read. 4,638 4,638 156 156 Potential glitch 1,396 1,396 95 95 Help. Collapsible tables 1,508 1,508 97 97 Need numbers with ~ in front to sort correctly 1,091 1,091 67 67 Making two table the same layout? 2,475 2,475 180 180 Total 44,718 44,718 1,393 1,393

But numbers seem way off; I count 2,233 words in this section (before this comment), so off by an order of magnitude. Bak to looking online. (My text editor gives a good count.) Mathglot (talk) 07:40, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

A talk page comment of mine from Aug 10, 2025 that I just added a couple word counter links to:

Wikipedia talk:Article size#Word counting example. Notepad++ vs Toolforge vs online word counters

It seems the Wikipedia tools are not always accurate, or consistent. "Basic statistics" from my page tools menu on this page has accurate kilobytes:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help_talk:Table&action=info

And I have more luck finding free online tools for pasting in text, versus just pasting in the URL. It seems some don't think this talk page exists:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:Table

This URL word counter works with the above link:

• https://www.seoptimer.com/website-word-count - it is slow, and counts only words, not kilobytes.

Some free working paste-in instant online word counters with easy-to-remember URLs:

• https://wordcounter.net
• https://wordcounter.io

I just "select all" to get the whole page since I will be dealing with talk archives, and perfection is not needed. Speed is more important.

I will start archiving and see how things go. Feel free to consolidate more archives. Anything older than 9 months can go in the archives here. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:14, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I usually select almost-all, that is, minus the Appendixes like References, See also, Further reading; none of that is relevant to whether a page is too long and should be split or not. Also, since my text editor supports a powerful regex engine, it is very easy to eliminate all the superscript bracketed footnote numbers in the body with a very simple regex, so you don't get an inflated count just due to footnotes inline. Mathglot (talk) 20:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Since they are talk archives there are no appendixes, long reference lists, and further reading.

I have redirected a few talk pages, and moved their old threads to the archives here. It has been fast and easy so far. I check the current number of words in the archive in preview before saving. When I reach around 26,000 I will start a new archive and reset the talk archiving bot counter.

I retitled the {{talk header}} box. Also, I changed to {{section sizes|getprose=no}} at the top to eliminate the word count columns since they are way low. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:45, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Some table help talk pages have a long history, a larger number of participants, and many threads. Sometimes with archives. I see a net negative effect from redirecting their talk pages. I would not want those talk pages redirected without discussion. For example:

• Help talk:Sortable tables
• Help talk:Collapsing tables and more
• Help talk:Conditional tables

Since their page names do not start with Table/ then their archives are not pulled up in archive searches here. "So if it aint broke, don't fix it."

And people can still come to Help talk:Table if they prefer. I added this info bar to the top of those pages:

The main table help talk page is Help talk:Table, and you may get a more rapid response there.

--Timeshifter (talk) 22:25, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

As previously mentioned, I don't think this is the way to go. Long history, large number of participants, many threads—none of that matters or is even relevant. What matters, is a user being able to search for and find old threads conveniently and efficiently. Having to remember or guess which subpage (or parallel page) was the one where something is likely to have been posted, so you can go look there first, is none of those. Keeping these legacy Talk pages will just slow things down, and make it harder to find old threads, and many editors won't bother. The fact that you even need an info notice that they might be in the wrong place is a yellow flag indicating that there might be something wrong here. I have nothing against more discussion to get a consensus for moving the discussions, but I see no advantages and only disadvantages from doing it this way. Mathglot (talk) 22:36, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Someone with a question about sortable tables is going to read that help page first. I have worked on that help page and its talk page for years. I don't think people have a problem at all about asking questions there. Most people don't bother searching the archives first. They skim the talk page, and then ask their question. Problems in the sortable table archive have already been solved usually. If not, then a new thread is the way to go.

Same is true for collapsing tables and conditional tables. They are very particular types of tables, and people will read their help pages first. Since we have the {{table help}} template at the top of all table help pages people have little problem finding the specific table help page. And thus its talk page. It's really not broke. Questions get answered.

Those talk pages have more watchers. Enable the XTools gadget in the appearance section here:

Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets

It shows the number of watchers right under the page name. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:12, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I know that crew is very particular about how things are done on those pages. So I am going to leave their talk pages alone.

I noticed that all the various intro pages have talk pages that redirect to these 2 talk pages:

• Help talk:Introduction to tables with Wiki Markup/1
• Help talk:Introduction to tables with VisualEditor/1

I will try to add the info bar to those 2 talk pages. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:38, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

@Timeshifter, I feel a more appropriate place for the .css page of the template's .css page and not on Help:Table. Misleading and confusing. 8rz (talk) 20:26, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

8rz, would you like to link or explain whatever it is you are talking about, and not the Wikipedia article 'Discussion', so that other interested parties might be able to take part? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 20:32, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

@Mathglot:, this and thus. I attempted to move to Help:Table/styles.css to Template/Help table/styles.css but rollbacked immediately by Timeshifter citing it was already discussed. I want to challenge the revert by claiming it is a more appropriate lication for a template's css styles on its corresponding subpage rather than some illogically placed albeit related help page. 8rz (talk) 20:44, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I know this was your initiative Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 218#TemplateStyles not just for templates anymore, but it is so confusing and navigating to the styless css page is like going through a hedge maze. Barely found it. 8rz (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Mathglot. I believe there was a linkbox to the CSS page at one point? --Timeshifter (talk) 20:59, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

At one point. I know it was there as well. I've been following this particular template during my hiatus ever since its creation. This header was my idea, afterall. Timeshifter check my user page. I am sure you'll recognize me ; Anyway proposing to it get moved back to the template's subpage as a logical intuitive location. For example, I am on the css page, want to go back to the template I need to go from help to the template namespace. Counter-intuitive. 8rz (talk) 21:05, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

In the future please link to what you are talking about: Help:Table/styles.css and Help talk:Table/styles.css.

See Help talk:Table/styles.css#Link to styles.css on all table help pages. --Timeshifter (talk) 21:22, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Sorry. Was in a frenzy. 8rz (talk) 21:27, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

@Timeshifter, what does the above topic link have to do anything with the issue I am having? 8rz (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

See the old red-linked linkbox just below and to the right of {{table help}} in that thread. You said you "Barely found it." The template, I mean. I see the problem better now. That only links to the CSS page, and it does not currently link to the {{table help}} template.

The problem with the styles.css page is that it effects both table help pages, and the template. I think I will separate out the CSS only having to do with the template. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:48, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

The problem is one cannot link back from the css page back to the template parent page. 8rz (talk) 23:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Or start a new topic on VPT to have it moved back to the template's subpage? 8rz (talk) 23:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

I think I fixed it. I pulled out the CSS only having to do with the template, and moved it here:

• Template:Table help/styles.css

--Timeshifter (talk) 00:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)