Template talk:Software

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Proposal for deprecation/removal of this template

I propose we bite the bullet and undo this template from games pages, mods pages, and tools pages. That we just do it.

I also say there's no easier way than to cut our losses and stop using it rather than tweaking it again and again until it is fixed (if it ever can be. I think it's too far from normal page layout to be fixed).

What issues I have with it, and I'm sure not just I (feel free to chime in):

• It looks bloated on every page because of the size of elements and their not so proportional layout.
• It hides developer information into a subpage, putting up front a kind of 'promotional' side of things. (promotion shouldn't be the focus)
• Community hub linking is irrelevant.
• It mimicks Steam pages for everything, not just Steam-based games/mods/tools, which I'm not sure how to take - either it's for tricking readers or "because it looks cool".
• It has unnecessary info which contributes really nothing to development, like age rates, scores or Steam deck status (to clarify: that point of info is valid but it's not labeled and takes up space needlessly).
• Its elements are too spread across the screen instead of putting information in priority order, I'm talking about things like system requirements being a wide table somewhere below.
• It lacks normal navigation i. e. table of contents that normal pages have, is pushed downside, or sometimes is excluded.
• You have to find information in it by scanning it both X and Y, whereas in a normal page you scroll down text where you expect it to be and this mode of navigation is far more prevalent in Wikis.
• It squeezes everything into the center on desktops.
• Finally, it is of course hard to edit as everything is split into sub-templates.

There's nothing wrong in being 'old-styled' and 'like Wikipedia' (I don't know what that gets thrown around as a counter argument, that we "just want to see Wikipedia pages"). The template is much too focused on style.

Cvoxalury (talk) 02:21, 18 June 2024 (PDT)

This is the template that made confetti icons and text. Please see Template:Software page. --Mr. System Error^{(T - C)} 02:29, 18 June 2024 (PDT)

Didn't you mean "Software page"? , as the "Software" template is completely different. -Toligon (talk) 02:05, 19 June 2024 (PDT)

Parameter p

Before p=4 comes into use, I'd like to suggest to change it such that p=4 delivers the {{game name}} look with no icon and instead p=5 delivers the {{game color}}. I'm thinking of sentences that have the game icon at the beginning, like the {{base point}} templates, for example: " This is a point entity available in Team Fortress 2". --Popcorn (talk) 16:38, 4 Apr 2022

Thanks, good solution! By the way, I just realized, that this template would also have the potential to replace the {{in}} templates, for example allow p=only and add the following switch case, however, I'm unsure if all those different but similar expressions (only, since, removed, not, also) would make this template unnecessarily complicated and whether that is useful at all.
--Popcorn (talk) 3:12, 5 Apr 2022

I thought about this idea too, but there is a problem with it: translations. The standard would be "(also in <game1> and <game2>)" for example, but it would be possible to replace "also" with other text, but writing the same values ​​over and over again is not a good idea. If it were possible to add a set of translations to this template, and if a person wrote "suf=:es", then the text would be in Spanish according to the standard. There is also another problem: adding multiple icons. That is, you can try to add 2 variables, one will be responsible for the text at the beginning, the second for the text after, and in general, you can enter other icons in the text after, and the color will be taken from the main icon, but in other icons you will have to enter the "suf" parameter again and they will not be related to the main icon in any way. But the idea is good and I will try to improve it to avoid all problems. --Max34 (talk) 5:06, 5 Apr 2022

Right, I forgot about that. --Popcorn (talk) 6:44, 5 Apr 2022

I just realized that we could allow {{csgo|p=only}} by adding only, since, not, removed right above in in the #switch statement so that {{{p}}} can be passed to {{in text}} instead of {{{type}}}. Roughly speaking, I mean:

{{#switch: {{{p|}}}
|... = ...
|only
|since
|not
|removed
|in = ... {{{in text|{{{p}}}}}} ... --[[Popcorn]] ([[User talk:Popcorn|talk]]) 15:51, 18 Apr 2022

Changing that would be nice as it is much more intuitive to write {{csgo|p=since}} instead of {{csgo|p=in|type=since}} (by the way, why {{{p}}} and not {{{1}}}?), however, it would mean that all game icon templates would need another edit. Thoughts? }}

Yes, it's a great idea to get rid of "type". It just seemed to me before that if I didn't do it, I would have to write all the parameters in Template:New icon many times, but most likely I thought so before I did Template:in text. The parameter is called "p" because it stands for "parameter", but yes, it can be replaced with {{{1}}} if needed. Just write an answer if it really needs to be replaced and I will do it (nvrm I already started doing it). I did not think that all this fuss with icons would last so long.. but on the other hand, it is interesting to do it. --Max34 (talk) 17:49, 18 Apr 2022

Generic Doc for game icon templates

I created a generic doc at {{hl2}} and would spread it in the next days like I did with {{csgo}}. I was thinking whether that documentation should be on the page Template:new icon/doc2 or something, however the examples of the doc would be broken on it. --Max34 (talk) 6:44, 5 Apr 2022

I think it's worth renaming from "Template:Hl2/doc" to "Template:Icons_doc" or something like that. I have almost completed the structure of working with "in" templates, but there are many translations missing because I do not know all languages. Unfortunately, I didn't find a way to write multiple icons so that they are all connected, so I'll just make an additional parameter that will be written after the main icon. --Max34 (talk) 6:54, 5 April 2022

Well, I don't think Category:Game icons/doc is a good place for a /doc since it itself is a new category that we don't actually need and also we would have to write :Category as parameter in every transclusion of {{documentation}} to not have them added to that new /doc Category. I'd suggest going back to Template:Icon doc or Template:Hl2/doc. It's getting confusing with all the different page names. --Popcorn (talk) 16:11, 5 Apr 2022

Ok, there is still a problem: It is awful to make changes to icon doc that can't be previewed. That's why I had put it to Template:Hl2/doc in the first place. Idea: Move it back and redirect icon doc to it. This way, any game icon template can use the "clean" :icon doc as doc page and there is no <includeonly> madness when editing the generic doc. Problem is, we can no longer move to Template:Hl2/doc because it has a (negligible) history by now, so I'm thinking of performing an improper page movement or finding a way to ask an admin to do that. --Popcorn (talk) 17:59, 6 Apr 2022

Yes, there are similar things on the site, for example, I wanted to replace one icon with a new one and change .gif to .png, but I could not rename the file page because the new name does not match the file type. And when I tried to load a png, it couldn't load it because the file's page name had the wrong format. In other words, an endless loop. When loading a new texture, you can change the name of the page, but not when you load a new image over an existing one. I understand you, I will return everything to Template:Hl2/doc. If you have any more ideas on how to improve this idea with better icons, then it's better to write about it now, because I plan to remake all icons with a new structure. I can only add that I had one idea about auto-translation: if the page uses the Template:Lang template, then it somehow sends the article suffix to the article and already there, if icon templates are used, they put this suffix in "suf" parameter by default. This way you won't need to write the "suf" parameter all the time in other languages, but I have absolutely no idea how to do it, so it's still an idea for now. --Max34 (talk) 20:17, 6 Apr 2022

Nearly all icons shouldn't omit text!

}}

Icons should not replace text in most situations. --Lxm6 (talk) 12:06, 28 Mar 2023

Users should have more options about where icons will be

They did with these:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
HL2
Half-Life 2

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• HL2
• Half-Life 2

Examples with English lang:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
HL2
Half-Life 2

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• HL2
• Half-Life 2

Examples with Arabic lang:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
HL2
Half-Life 2

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• HL2
• Half-Life 2

Examples with Arabic lang and dir RTL:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
HL2
Half-Life 2

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• HL2
• Half-Life 2

Examples with English lang and dir RTL:
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2
HL2
Half-Life 2

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2
• HL2
• Half-Life 2 --Lxm6 (talk) 19:15, 9 Apr 2023

Why use a number for the display method?

Using only a number is quite confusing to newcomers.

Kial uzi nombron por montronto de metodo? Uzas nur nombron konfuzantus komencantojn. --Amicdict (talk) 19:40, 2 May 2023 Zahlen sind kurz und praktisch. Den Stilen Namen zuzuweisen wäre unnötig, unnötig schwer und wohl kaum intuitiv. Wenn Du nicht weißt, was Du als Parameter wählen kannst, geht das Raten einer Zahl viel schneller als das Erraten von irgendeinem Namen.}} }} }} parameter when I need to use one. --SirYodaJedi (talk) 13:49, 26 May 2023 --Popcorn (talk) 8:44, 26 May 2023 Nombroj tre ja mallonga jes; sed kiel tioj lertaj en tia ĉi kazo? ĉu vi pensis pri redaktistoj ne programistaj?}}

>Assigning names to styles would be unnecessary, unnecessarily difficult, and hardly intuitive.

Uh, how and why? --Amicdict (talk) 9:51, 26 May 2023 Stilnamen müssten in einer Liste verfügbar sein, um überhaupt einen davon nutzen zu können. Zahlen kenne ich auch ohne eine Liste, selbst als Nicht-Programmierer. In dieser Hinsicht sind Zahlen praktisch: Man muss bloß verstanden haben, dass die Stile Nummern haben und keine Namen, von dann an muss man nicht unbedingt erneut nachschlagen, insbesondere nicht bei unserer kleinen Stilanzahl.
Naja: Wie sollten Namen für die drei Stile, die wir haben, lauten? Egal, wie wir beide es sehen: Auf diese Frage wird bestimmt nicht jeder dieselbe Antwort geben, also: Nicht intuitiv. Alles, was wir uns an Namen ausdenken würden, müssten wir und alle anderen sich merken. Zahlen (wenn wir von 1,2,... reden) muss man sich nicht ausdenken.
Ich beziehe mich auf diese Vorlage, nicht auf die Allgemeinheit; In anderen Fällen wären Namen durchaus sinnvoller, aber ich finde, hier nicht.}} --Popcorn (talk) 12:35, 26 May 2023

> You would need the style names in a list if you want to use one at all.

Can also substitute those numbers to words like name and ico and col.

> Numbers on the other hand are known by everybody, even by non-prorgammers.

What kind of proof do you have for those above claims?

> This makes numbers convenient: You just need to know that the styles have numbers and not names, from then on you don't really need to look up again, especially with our small number of styles.

Same case for names…

> Well: What should the names for the three styles that we have be? No matter what we two say: Not everyone will give the same answer to this question, making names not intuitive in this case.

Same future occassions for numbers.

---

For each of your argument why are names still used in this template? - Amicdict (talk) 12:37, 31 May 2023 (PDT)

Povas anstataŭigi tiujn nombrojn al vortoj kvazaŭ name kaj ico kaj col.}}

For each style you have a variant with an icon and one without, one with black background and one without. Do you think three names suffice?

> Using only a number is quite confusing to newcomers.
> What kind of proof do you have for those above claims?

Why do I need proof and you don't?

> For each of your argument why are names still used in this template?

Because they are already established across many wiki pages for quite some time.
---
Are you planning a change or are you just discussing? If you suggest a more precise change in functionality and usage then I can refer to that and don't need to give any proofs that no one needs. --Popcorn (talk) 15:31, 1 Jun 2023

>> Can also substitute those numbers to words like name and ico and col.

> For each style you have a variant with an icon and one without, one with black background and one without. Do you think three names suffice?

No, but 4 names would.

1 := without-icon 2 := with-icon 3 := background 4 := no-background

> Why do I need proof and you don't?

I do need proof; and I should quite frankly be pushed to provide proof more often tbh. "I did not say that I don't need proof!"

> Because they are already established across many wiki pages for quite some time.

eo=Kiuj? Nombroj ankaŭ devus uziĝas pro kunteksto. Ekz. Uzus nombron por montras kvaliton kaj mi uzus ligliston por malsimpla priskribo aŭ koloraro malsimpla.

---
Are you planning a change or are you just discussing? If you suggest a more precise change in functionality and usage then I can refer to that and don't need to give any proofs that no one needs.

I also like proofs. But I'm not capable of prooving what the majority of the wiki editors prefers or what they will prefer in the long run.
If you feel like adding these names to the cases of the #switch statement of this template, go ahead. I personally would advise against it. Allowing multiple words for the same effect might only be more complicated and getting rid of one is unnecessary work. I won't explain it any further.
Apart from that, I don't know what you want me to answer. --Popcorn (talk) 0:27, 6 Jun 2023

Flag to change "in" to "for" or "on"

(using Template:Message)  I'd like to add a {{{except}}} parameter, which would result in {{hl2|except}} becoming (except for ). It has a slightly different (generally more positive) usecase than the {{{not}}}; I've used it a couple times already by manually typing it out.  --SirYodaJedi (talk) 9:53, 2 Jun 2023 (UTC) SirYodaJedi | time = 13:25, 2 Jun 2023 | Sure, it probably can share a color; it means basically the same thing, with only the connotation and word flow being different. }} --Popcorn (talk) 12:05, 2 Jun 2023

except}}), since I'm using it as a positive thing, not a negative thing. I do think there should be a flag can change "in" in the various thingies to "for" or "on", though. --SirYodaJedi (talk) 18:25, 22 Jun 2023

It is possible by using the {{in}} template. You can write this: {{in|{{src13mp}}|text=except in}}
and it will look like this: (except in )
Mr. System Error^{(T - C)} 15:01, 4 May 2024 (PDT)

Add external links

☐ Unresolved. http://example.com}} [PlayStation 2] [PlayStation 3] [PlayStation 4] [PlayStation 5]</nowiki>}} --Lxm6 (talk) 4:39, 20 Jul 2023

Change color and icon

It would be very cool if we could change the icon and the color. For example {{csgo|4|col=white}} would be Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and {{csgo|icon=Icon-Portal2.png}} would be Counter-Strike: Global Offensive --Mr. SystemError (talk) 11:50, 17 Apr 2024