Talk:Main Page/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions. 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.

No books?

• Why are there no books at all on SE Wikibooks? 194.73.231.93 14:04, 25 May 2005 (UTC)
  • Because it has no clearly defined scope. I'm thinking of moving educational kids books here from en.wikibooks.org instead. Does anyone here have a problem with this? - en:User:Aya 14:05, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
    • SE Wikibooks now has a clearly defined scope: to make textbooks for adults in simple English (for those who do not know English well). These books are not created with children in mind, because that is the project of WikiJunior. These books may be used by translators, by people learning English, or in other ways, but for now we editors will leave that up to the readers. --Cromwellt|talk 21:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

What is SIMPLE about?

How do simple wikibooks differ from "regular" Wikibooks? What do you mean by "simple english"? Is it a subset of one of the dialects of the English language? Or are you talking about simple books -- like Big Dummy Guides? I am curious. I have no idea if I would like to contribute here or not. So, for the moment, I won't.

And why doesn't my WikiBooks login (let alone my Wikipedia login) carry over to here? Why no centralized Wiki Login Server? -- SV Resolution 11:54, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Better a very late reply than no reply: Simple English Wikibooks are (as I mentioned above) created for readers who do not know English well. It is a sisterproject of Simple English Wikipedia, etc. No, simple English is not a dialect, nor does it have anything to do with "English for Dummies" or some such. Simple English is a sort of selective English, where we attempt to restrict word usage to the BE850 or BE1500 (the 850 or 1500 most basic English words). Most topics require a few more words, but those we explain in simple English. The multiple login issue is a Meta issue, and has been brought up there. Plans have been proposed for a universal login to all Wikimedia sites, but it has not yet been implemented. --Cromwellt|talk 21:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

For the Developers

I get a persistant javascript error, whether I view these pages in IE or FireFox. Here is the error: it is caused by an unescaped single-quote in a quoted string.

Source File: http://simple.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=-&action-raw&gen=js Line: 8

It is given as: ta['pt-anontalk'] = new Array('n','Discussion about the IP (number) you're editing from');

But it should be: ta['pt-anontalk'] = new Array('n','Discussion about the IP (number) you\'re editing from');

I know this seems like a strange place to post this, but I cannot figure out where to post notes for the developers. I won't mind if you move this to a more appropriate place

--68.238.248.188 12:51, 17 August 2005 (UTC) But I was ALREADY LOGGED IN --SV Resolution 12:54, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm not a developer, but all those javascript errors should be fixed, now. Michael 02:30, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Apology

I would like to make a public apology to the editors here on Simple English Wikibooks for comments I made in the past about this project. I could not see its usefulness, and agreed with Angela that it should be removed, specifically talking to Michael. Upon further reflection, I realize that it can be useful for people who do not know English well, but are not children (and therefore do not want to use Wikijunior). This is a slightly different (more specific) goal from Simple English Wikipedia and Simple English Wiktionary, but it is still worthwhile. I still have not yet discovered any potential usefulness for SEWikiquote, but I'll try to keep an open mind. Happy editing! --Cromwellt 21:46, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

• First what comments did you make? Gerard Foley 22:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Oddly, I can't find my own comments. Of course, I did not have an account here when I made them (possibly I made them at simple.wikiquote.org rather than here), but... In any case, I said that this project (and SE Wikiquote) had no reason to exist and should be removed, partly because children were already covered by WikiJunior. Now I see that this project certainly has a usefulness and I can also see the usefulness of SEWikiquote for simple English explanations of quotes, etc. Hope that clears things up.

BTW, not having the buttons at the top of the edit box is frustrating. To sign here, I had to learn that alt-126 is the code for the tilde, since I'm working on a Spanish-configured keyboard that doesn't seem to have a key like that. I've asked about it at Meta, but if someone knows how we can get those buttons, we could use them both here and at SEWikiquote. Thanks! --Cromwellt|talk 21:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

You'll be glad to know I now have the buttons. It was a problem with my Firefox extensions. Took a reinstallation of Firefox to fix it, but now it works fine. --Cromwellt|talk 04:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Main Page update

I like the new look of the Main Page quite a bit. However, I'm not sure I like that red color around the books. 1) It doesn't fit with all the blues and 2) it is a primary color, but this Wikibooks is not made for children, so it is out of place. I think I would pick another color of blue instead of the red (maybe cyan), or switch the cyan to the border above and make that border dark blue. How about it, 45thuser? --Cromwellt|talk 04:08, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

consider it done. --45thuser^Hello 20:37, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Advisory

I took the advisory off the Main Page and stuck it in MediaWiki:Sitenotice so that it would appear on every page, but smaller and nicer like on SEWikt. But it doesn't show up now, and I can't figure out why, so I've rolled back my change to the main page until I can figure out why. In the past, things I had changed which didn't show have tended to show up the next day or something like that, so I'll leave it for the moment. If any of you have an idea why it doesn't show up, let me know and I'll fix it. --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 10:35, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Page Name

Could an admin please add

 /** Main Page layout fixes *********************************************************
  *
  *  Description:        Various layout fixes for the main page, including an
  *                      additional link to the complete list of languages available
  *                      and the renaming of the 'Article' to to 'Main Page'.
  */
 
 function mainPageRenameNamespaceTab() {
     try {
         var Node = document.getElementById( 'ca-nstab-main' ).firstChild;
         if ( Node.textContent ) {      // Per DOM Level 3
             Node.textContent = 'Main Page';
         } else if ( Node.innerText ) { // IE doesn't handle .textContent
             Node.innerText = 'Main Page';
         } else {                       // Fallback
             Node.replaceChild( Node.firstChild, document.createTextNode( 'Main Page' ) ); 
         }
     } catch(e) {
         // bailing out!
     }
 }
 
 function mainPageAppendCompleteListLink() {
     try {
         var node = document.getElementById( "p-lang" )
                            .getElementsByTagName('div')[0]
                            .getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];
 
         var aNode = document.createElement( 'a' );
         var liNode = document.createElement( 'li' );
 
         aNode.appendChild( document.createTextNode( 'Complete list' ) );
         aNode.setAttribute( 'href' , 'http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias' );
         liNode.appendChild( aNode );
         liNode.className = 'interwiki-completelist';
         node.appendChild( liNode );
      } catch(e) {
        // lets just ignore what's happened
        return;
     }
 }
 
 if ( wgTitle == 'Main Page' && ( wgNamespaceNumber == 0 || wgNamespaceNumber == 1 ) ) {
        addOnloadHook( mainPageRenameNamespaceTab );
 }
 
 if ( wgTitle == 'Main Page' && wgNamespaceNumber == 0 ) {
        addOnloadHook( mainPageAppendCompleteListLink );
 }
// 

to MediaWiki:Common.js. I believe this will add "Main Page" to the tab instead of "page". Thanks! ~ Wikihermit 22:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey. Some of this stuff is already on MediaWiki:Common.js, and I'm not sure where to add the rest. Also, this has some errors, including that the complete list it gives is the list of Wikipedias. Comments? --Cromwellt|talk|contribs 20:43, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

• • Main Page layout fixes *********************************************************

 *
 *  Description:        Various layout fixes for the main page, including an
 *                      additional link to the complete list of languages available
 *                      and the renaming of the 'Article' to to 'Main Page'.
 */

function mainPageRenameNamespaceTab() {
    try {
        var Node = document.getElementById( 'ca-nstab-main' ).firstChild;
        if ( Node.textContent ) {      // Per DOM Level 3
            Node.textContent = 'Main Page';
        } else if ( Node.innerText ) { // IE doesn't handle .textContent
            Node.innerText = 'Main Page';
        } else {                       // Fallback
            Node.replaceChild( Node.firstChild, document.createTextNode( 'Main Page' ) ); 
        }
    } catch(e) {
        // bailing out!
    }
}

function mainPageAppendCompleteListLink() {
    try {
        var node = document.getElementById( "p-lang" )
                           .getElementsByTagName('div')[0]
                           .getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];

        var aNode = document.createElement( 'a' );
        var liNode = document.createElement( 'li' );

        aNode.appendChild( document.createTextNode( 'Complete list' ) );
        aNode.setAttribute( 'href' , 'http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias' );
        liNode.appendChild( aNode );
        liNode.className = 'interwiki-completelist';
        node.appendChild( liNode );
     } catch(e) {
 lets just ignore what's happened
       return;
    }
}

if ( wgTitle == 'Main Page' && ( wgNamespaceNumber == 0 || wgNamespaceNumber == 1 ) ) {
       addOnloadHook( mainPageRenameNamespaceTab );
}

if ( wgTitle == 'Main Page' && wgNamespaceNumber == 0 ) {
       addOnloadHook( mainPageAppendCompleteListLink );
}

//

Sister projects in Simple English

Please add simple Wikiquote to the list on the Main page. SwirlBoy39 14:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

It is already! Microchip08 14:24, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

OLPC XO-1

I would like to see a manual on the One Laptop Per Child computer. It is a wonderful little computer but there is little documentation for it. Also, it is intended for use by a large group which may not be fluent in English.

Feel free to start it yourself. I can't do it because I don't know this computer. Sorry, Abigor 21:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)