Forum:Wikipediainfo tag seems to be broken

Just noticed that the tag of Wikipediainfo doesn't seem to produce any result on the page anymore. Is this just me, or are other users seeing this as well? I noticed on the page Spitfire first, and confirmed it on World War II, Winston Churchill and Vincent van Gogh. Monkey with a Gun 03:49, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * Is it just not appearing or being placed oddly on the page? I had both issues a few days ago, but refreshing my cache seemed to fix it. I'm not seeing any issues on the pages you've linked to. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:23, June 15, 2011 (UTC)


 * From time to time, for reasons I don't understand, Wikia seems to disable its wikis' ability to "read" their CSS files. Usually it doesn't last very long, but there are moments where we lose various degrees of functionality.  This certainly would have a negative effect upon seeing wikipediainfo. A good tip-off that things are being affected at the Wikia Central level is to examine the "Recent Wiki Activity" box.  If it's suddenly got a totally different font, hold onto your hat; weird things are afoot.  18:30:28 Fri 17 Jun 2011

While we're on the subject of that tag, there's an issue I brought up on its talk page which I feel might be worth addressing sometime. For readers of the wiki using a 1024px screen width or smaller, or those with larger screens who are using a non-maximized browser window that size, the tag is never visible because the main content box it's outside of takes up the entire browser width. Rob T Firefly 22:41, June 19, 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't replicate what you're talking about, given the parameters you've suggested above. Could you please take a screenshot and post it here?  I can, however, replicate it if I zoom in.  You haven't mentioned it above, but are you sure you aren't seeing a horizontal scrollbar at the bottom of your browser window?  You can't stop someone from zooming in.  The best you can hope for is that when they're zoomed in, they can scroll to the left and right and see all elements of your page.  15:31:47 Mon 27 Jun 2011

Pictorial investigation of RTF's problem
You wrote at the template talk page:
 * I discovered the problem; it's not that it wasn't showing, it was that on the 1024px screen width I use the main text column fills the entire usable screen area, leaving the Wikipedia tag outside the screen's left border and unviewable. I've confirmed this on another computer as well as with this screen-width testing tool.  It seems the tag in its present form is unviewable to those with smaller screens. Rob T Firefly 03:58, May 14, 2011 (UTC)

I've now had a chance to examine this screen-width testing tool, and think there's something seriously flawed about it. Here's the Winston Churchill page taken in three different resolutions. Look carefully at the green outer border, meant, I suppose, to suggest total monitor real estate.

The software used at viewlike.us is, of course, free. And I think you're getting what you pay for. In my experience, browser windows just don't work the way they're described here. They're not automatically increasingly left-justified just because you drop the screen resolution. What happens is that the browser senses it's got less room to work with, and therefore the horizontal scroll bar comes into play. Here's what happened when I actually dropped my own screen res to 640 X 480 — a resolution so freakin' low that my computer actively warned me against doing it.

I'd point out, too, that if you are finding the site annoying to view in 1024, just change your screen resolution. It's been a long time – almost ten years — since anyone's maxiumum resolution width was a lowly 1024. Surely your adapter will let you go to at least 1280. Even if you don't have the ability to bump up your resolution, I find it hard to believe that your browser isn't allowing you to scroll left to see the borders. You must not be able to use the monobook skin at all if you can't see these tags, because they're at least 75 px to the right of the monobook left margin. But you must be able to edit in monobook, because you've been editing here since before this new wikia skin came in. And honestly, if you can edit in monobook you absolutely must be able to see these tags. 16:56:40 Mon 27 Jun 2011


 * [[file:1024 scrnshot.png|thumb|right]]Here's a shot of a page from this wiki maximized at 1024 resolution on a Windows box running Chrome, which is hardware-limited to 1024px; this is the view which caused me to first post about this issue when the template was moved from inside the content column to outside. Only the taskbar at the bottom has been cropped out.


 * It is not always possible to change screen resolutions on older flat-panel monitors or laptops, and new netbook screens still generally top out at 1024px wide. Browsing on netbooks and other smaller devices such as smartphones, ebook readers, and tablets will only continue to rise in popularity.  Additionally, though I don't know the stats for this particular site, statistics-gathering organizations still show 1024px or lower screen widths in current use ranging from roughly 15-20%   ; while it's slowly trending downward, it's not at all obsolete.  The logs on all of the websites I myself work on or contribute to, personally as well as professionally, all place the portion of users at 1024 or lower within this range.  While this may not be considered a majority segment of the potential userbase, it's still what I would call a significant portion worth including in full use of the site if at all possible.


 * I wasn't posting my issue just to express my own personal annoyance. Looking at it from a professional standpoint, I believe excluding any significant segment of the userbase from any general functionality, especially in a manner entirely invisible to them (even if they could do so, how would someone who cannot see that anything's missing know to "just change" their screen resolution?) is just not a positive step to take if it can be avoided. Rob T Firefly 04:37, July 8, 2011 (UTC)