Forum:Infobox: Previous and Next variables

Tybort's questions to CzechOut

 * Note from Tybort: I asked these questions in a numbered list and CzechOut responded thusly. I've edited the arrangement slightly to make them easier to read (also I don't know how to start a numbered list from 2). -- Tybort (talk page) 02:17, March 12, 2012 (UTC)

I notice a couple of stories have a previously and next produced in the navbox. How do double-banked episodes fit into that? Tybort (talk page) 00:45, March 10, 2012 (UTC)
 * Double-banked episodes aren't actually completely double-banked. In every case, one of them always enters production first.  For instance, the first shot for Blink was 7 November 2006.  It's just the main part of the shoot that happens around the latter part of the month, when Human Nature was also in production. I'm not aware of a case where two episodes started production on exactly the same date. If I don't get around to adding in all this production order myself, just trust Shannon Sullivan's site.  He's researched this stuff quite thoroughly and has things production ordered as correctly as possible, based on the evidence available.  I've independently checked him versus the Virgin Handbook series, and some DWM products.  While I have very occasionally found errors in some of his facts, I've never seen an error on any production ordering.  01:59: Sat 10 Mar 2012

Dreamland shouldn't really have anything to do with The Waters of Mars and The End of Time's "previous and next" navigation, right? Tybort (talk page) 00:45, March 10, 2012 (UTC)
 * I would say that Dreamland is not a part of the production before/next chain, but it is a part of the broadcast chain. I personally would consider the previous/next chain to go WOM, Dreamland, EOT. But I'm open to persuasion, if you've got a compelling argument.  01:59: Sat 10 Mar 2012

Tangerineduel's tech note to CzechOut
Also I'd like to say thank you for not replacing the 'Previous'/'Next' with just arrows, it is something I know I've mentioned in the past, but it's a real pet hate of mine. Navigating MemoryAlpha is a pain because of their arrows / mouse over info (and MemAlpha is practically un-navigatable on a mobile browser because of them).
 * As for the arrows, yeah I read ya loud and clear there. I'm still considering taking the literal right and left arrow symbols away and replacing them with a background image.  I'd point out that Wikia's messing around heavily with its mobile skin.  At the current time, tables doesn't displaying at all in mobile, so a literal link to the episodes definitely seems well advised.  At some point I've got to tackle customisation of our mobile skin, if it's even possible.   20:45: Sun 11 Mar 2012

Known flaw in initial bot run
A number of audio stories have their and  variables filled with deliberately italicised story names. This sounds like something I would've done a few years ago, but I don't specifically remember doing it. In any case, these pages are not currently displaying prev/next properly. They will require a second bot run to strip the single quotes. So if you see a prev/next line in audio stories that looks like:
 * 'Spare Parts (audio story)'

know that it is going to be cleaned up soon.

If you see this kind of thing in any other type of story, please add a comment below. Note that the condition to report is a previous/next line where the brackets themselves are italicised, but the story name isn't. 19:03: Mon 12 Mar 2012
 * What about stories with multiple "Previous" or "Next" items, like Survival, which came before Doctor Who (1996) and Dimensions in Time, and is usually listed that way... is there a way to include both, or should we got with one or the other? OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 23:20, March 12, 2012 (UTC)


 * If you take a look at Template:Infobox Story it looks like CzechOut's thought of that with "Made previous" and "Made next" fields.
 * But specifically with regard to Dimensions in Time we've got that one NC tagged so we don't count it in the regular line up of TV stories. So it shouldn't be in the infobox either way. The information's probably suited better for the body of the article. --Tangerineduel / talk 14:21, March 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * Actually there is a new way to do this coming. Gimme a few days.  There are going to be multiple series and prev/next nav variables.  For the moment, just put this editing point on simmer.  For the moment, I'm worried about getting the basic navigational flow working, and that requires changing a TON of variables, given that we had no standardised variable for "previous" and "next".   20:41: Wed 14 Mar 2012

Annuals
Thanks to Americanwhofan for pointing this out on CzechOut's talk page. I realise that the bot doesn't seem to have corrected Infobox Comic to Infobox Story, but it still needs pointing out: Doctor Who annuals feature a mix of comic AND short stories, which both fall under the Doctor Who annual range. As a result, the short stories lead to non-existent short stories when they should be comics and vice versa. (Example) -- Tybort (talk page) 18:24, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, comics are the most complicated thing. I've deliberately pushed them to the end of the rotation in the hopes that I would accrue more variables from other infoboxes that also applied to comics.  Still, I've obsoleted 15 infoboxes in 3 days, which ain't a bad rate.   18:41: Tue 13 Mar 2012
 * I suppose this is a good time to bring up what to do with Brief Encounter inside DWYs and DWM again. I've looked at your comments back in November about navigation and I'm not 100% I follow. Could you explain again more clearly? -- Tybort (talk page) 19:11, March 13, 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure from the description what range the novella Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space is. It apparently has a similar format to the old annuals, and most links use the DWAN prefix. Going by the Doctor Who Reference Guide's release dates, should that slot between The Fishmen of Kandalinga and The Cloud Exiles?

Also, should the navigation lead unbroken from the final World Distributors story to the 2006 Annual, to The Official Annuals? -- Tybort (talk page) 20:08, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Continue to ask these questions, of course, but remember, the only range in which infobox editing is open for business are the TV stories. Plenty of work to be done there for the time being.  These niggly little points will be dealt with once the heavy lifting is done.


 * That said, here are some quick answers:
 * A BE in a DWY is still a BE. There will come a time (sooner rather than later) where multiple lines of navigation are introduced, but for the time being we'll be going with BE navigation.  The navigation is relative to whatever is in the  variable. But even when multiple series navigation is introduced, the primary navigation of a BE in a DWY is BE. So it should be in previous/next story, not previous story2/next story2.  (And those won't be the names of the secondary and tertiary range variables, so don't pre-introduce them to infoboxes, please.  Remember, we're not editing those infoboxes for a week.)
 * DW/Invsion from Space isn't actually part of any line. It's commonly called an annual just because it's published by World. But it's a thing unto itself. I'll examine it in greater detail later.
 * I could swear I've answered the question about World --> Panini -- > BBC Books navigation before. What did I say before? There's an answer to that somewhere around here.   20:25: Tue 13 Mar 2012
 * Yeah, you did answer it. Oops. Guess I need to look more carefully. -- Tybort (talk page) 20:53, March 13, 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what the index order is for the DWAN stories after Health & Safety is. I've tried Googling to find an index order of Doctor Who The Official Annual 2011 and 2012, but it's difficult to find the right search term. On the DWRG, I can't seem to find a reference to Blind Fury, and they don't seem to have updated information for the 2012 annual. Seems the only way to do this is to actually buy the annuals on my budget. -- Tybort (talk page) 00:23, March 14, 2012 (UTC)

Original message by Americanwhofan
The bot made a mistake during this run, on Myth Maker (comic story), changing The Planet That Wept to The Planet That Wept (comic story), the article is at The Planet That Wept (short story). It may have done this on other annuals, which have short stories and comics in the same book.Americanwhofan talk to me 18:07, March 13, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are a number of bot mistakes with regards to annuals, because prev/next is done in category:Annuals without regard to the medium of the story. Don't worry.  There's a secondary "cleanup" run that's coming for annuals.  I deemed it easier to fix it later with a run that only applied to category:Annuals and its subcategories than to try to insulate annual stories from the initial run. But thanks for keeping your eyes peeled!   18:35: Tue 13 Mar 2012

Magazine
For Infobox Magazine and  have now been de-activated. The template will calculate the prev/next issue, as long as the issue follows the nomenclature proscribed at T:MAGS. For those magazines that cannot follow the naming convention of + — like DWMS — there are now the variables of and, which allow you to put in a more free-form response that overrides the automatic calculation.

I point this out because I know some users work from offline versions of the template and as they put in new magazines they should be using the newest version of the template. 18:41: Tue 13 Mar 2012