Template talk:LanguageBar/flag

Usage of #ifexist

As far as I know, that parser function has the unfortunate disadvantage that it creates Special:WantedPages. In this case, if I saw that correctly, using {{LanguageBar}} on a page "Page" with only an english version will create the wanted pages "Ca/Page", "Cs/Page", "De/Page", ... (as many pages as there are languages). Is this a problem and should this be addressed? I remember that someone found some workaround for {{lang}} the other day, some trick trying to get a page's security level or so, telling whether a page exists without creating wanted pages. If desired, I could try to look that up again. Or even better, create an optimal {{ifexist}} template. --popcorn (talk) 06:22, 23 July 2024 (PDT)

Don't really see the point in adressing that. Special:WantedPages has over 120k entries and they are sorted by how many such links are used so eveyrthing important is at the beginning Nescius (talk) 06:33, 23 July 2024 (PDT)

Makes sense. I forgot about the link count. Our currently most wanted page with 108 links is no match to real wiki's most wanted page with 126.000-ish links.
However, if #ifexist is avoidable for a cheap price, it should be done, to quote Loudslappingsounds. I just found w:Template:Linkless exists (which appears to be that solution I tried to mention earlier) and it is widely spread among the real wiki. Its code also looks very simple and fast, so I wouldn't bother using a port of that for the LanguageBar template instead. Only disadvantage I could find is that pages must be purged to update if the existence of some page changes. --popcorn (talk) 09:28, 23 July 2024 (PDT)

There's also this suggestion for css addition that may avoid exist checks completely in language bar MediaWiki_talk:Common.css#.hidenew_idea if addedNescius (talk) 09:54, 23 July 2024 (PDT)